en-US Sun, 06 Apr 2025 20:19:07 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 36739755 Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura.

Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,�� she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction―many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual―and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal�� person excellently, more or less. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action��

A brilliant depiction of a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures we all feel to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.]]> 163 Sayaka Murata 0802128254 Klenk 4 3.65 2016
author: Sayaka Murata
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 77565 517 Dan Simmons 0553288202 Klenk 3 4.23 1990
author: Dan Simmons
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 11539004
It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city has become a modern classic.]]> 402 John Berendt Klenk 3 4.11 1994
author: John Berendt
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 37004370
When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.

A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.]]> 274 Yōko Ogawa 1101870605 Klenk 0 to-read 3.72 1994
author: Yōko Ogawa
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59561150 In this third book in the Charlie Thorne series from bestselling author Stuart Gibbs, Charlie tracks down Cleopatra’s greatest treasure in Egypt.

Charlie Thorne is a genius. Charlie Thorne is a renegade. Charlie Thorne isn’t going down without a fight.

After tracking down incredible discoveries by Einstein and Darwin, Charlie is back. This time, the great ruler Cleopatra has left behind an extremely valuable and powerful treasure, its location encoded on an ancient stone tablet.

In 30 BCE, Cleopatra and her husband, Marc Antony, lost their war against Octavian for control of the Egyptian Empire. However, Cleopatra knew Octavian was really after the mysterious item that was the source of all her wealth and influence, so she hid it before committing suicide. She left a series of devious clues behind for her children to find it, but they were lost to history…until now.

In a breathless adventure that takes her across the globe, Charlie must fight for her life against ruthless enemies, match wits with Cleopatra, and solve the two-thousand-year-old mystery to prevent the most powerful treasure of the ancient world from falling into the wrong hands.]]> 397 Stuart Gibbs Klenk 0 4.83 2022
author: Stuart Gibbs
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.83
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 563798 Naked Lunch is the unnerving tale of a monumental descent into the hellish world of a narcotics addict as he travels from New York to Tangiers, then into Interzone, a nightmarish modern urban wasteland in which the forces of good and evil vie for control of the individual and all of humanity. By mixing the fantastic and the realistic with his own unmistakable vision and voice, Burroughs has created a unique masterpiece that is a classic of twentieth-century fiction.]]> 232 William S. Burroughs Klenk 3 failed-to-read
]]> 3.29 1959
author: William S. Burroughs
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.29
book published: 1959
rating: 3
read at: 2008/05/06
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: failed-to-read
review:
There were a couple of pretty cool sections. But I really couldn't find a reason to finish it, so my rating is not complete.


]]> 8686068
When Detective Kusanagi of the Tokyo Police tries to piece together the events of that day, he finds himself confronted by the most puzzling, mysterious circumstances he has ever investigated. Nothing quite makes sense, and it will take a genius to understand the genius behind this particular crime...]]> 298 Keigo Higashino 0312375069 Klenk 2 4.16 2005
author: Keigo Higashino
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 44492286
The Children of Dune are twin siblings Leto and Ghanima Atreides, whose father, the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, disappeared in the desert wastelands of Arrakis nine years ago. Like their father, the twins possess supernormal abilities--making them valuable to their manipulative aunt Alia, who rules the Empire in the name of House Atreides.

Facing treason and rebellion on two fronts, Alia's rule is not absolute. The displaced House Corrino is plotting to regain the throne while the fanatical Fremen are being provoked into open revolt by the enigmatic figure known only as The Preacher. Alia believes that by obtaining the secrets of the twins' prophetic visions, she can maintain control over her dynasty.

But Leto and Ghanima have their own plans for their visions--and their destinies....

Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert]]> 609 Frank Herbert 0593098242 Klenk 3 3.96 1976
author: Frank Herbert
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1976
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 50144 Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, is an enchantingly original and deeply affecting book about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine of Kitchen, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, she is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who was once his father), Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale that recalls early Marguerite Duras. Kitchen and its companion story, "Moonlight Shadow," are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity is the ruse of a writer whose voice echoes in the mind and the soul.]]> 160 Banana Yoshimoto 0802142443 Klenk 4 3.91 1988
author: Banana Yoshimoto
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 44492285
Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better known--and feared--as the man christened Muad'Dib. As Emperor of the Known Universe, he possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremens, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne--and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence.

And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family's dynasty...

Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert]]> 336 Frank Herbert 0593098234 Klenk 3 3.89 1969
author: Frank Herbert
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1969
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/03
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 59808603 Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future.

Rumors begin to spread of a species of hyperintelligent, dangerous octopus that may have developed its own language and culture. Marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them.

The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where the octopuses were discovered, off from the world. Dr. Nguyen joins DIANIMA’s team on the islands: a battle-scarred security agent and the world’s first android.

The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence. The stakes are high: there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of the octopuses�� advancements, and as Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered species, forces larger than DIANIMA close in to seize the octopuses for themselves.

But no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.

A near-future thriller about the nature of consciousness, Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea is a dazzling literary debut and a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind’s legacy.]]> 456 Ray Nayler 0374605955 Klenk 3 3.87 2022
author: Ray Nayler
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/25
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 58711601 228 Margaret Atwood 0802197833 Klenk 3 3.84 2005
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2010/11/19
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves:
review:
Kinda fun, kinda not. brought back lots of memories from high school English.
]]> 17450194 An impossible to put down, highly commercial espionage thriller written by a CIA insider.

In today’s Russia, dominated by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, state intelligence officer Dominika Egorova struggles to survive in the cast-iron bureaucracy of post-Soviet intelligence. Drafted against her will to become a “Sparrow,�� a trained seductress in the service, Dominika is assigned to operate against Nathaniel Nash, a first-tour CIA officer who handles the CIA’s most sensitive penetration of Russian intelligence. The two young intelligence officers, trained in their respective spy schools, collide in a charged atmosphere of tradecraft, deception, and inevitably, a forbidden spiral of carnal attraction that threatens their careers and the security of America’s valuable mole in Moscow. Seeking revenge against her soulless masters, Dominika begins a fatal double life, recruited by the CIA to ferret out a high-level traitor in Washington; hunt down a Russian illegal buried deep in the U.S. military and, against all odds, to return to Moscow as the new-generation penetration of Putin’s intelligence service. Dominika and Nathaniel’s impossible love affair and twisted spy game come to a deadly conclusion in the shocking climax of this electrifying, up-to-the minute spy thriller.]]> 448 Jason Matthews Klenk 2 4.20 2013
author: Jason Matthews
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/08/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 195474144 From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories set in New York and Los Angeles. The millions of readers of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of compromise which operate at the heart of modern marriages. In Towles’s novel, Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September, 1938, with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood�� describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in the midst of Hollywood’s golden age. Throughout the stories, two characters often find themselves sitting across a table for two where the direction of their futures may hinge upon what they say to each other next. Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting historical fiction.]]> 451 Amor Towles 0593296370 Klenk 4 4.15 2024
author: Amor Towles
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/14
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves:
review:
A wonderful travel read. Very engaging stories with enough meat on the bone to stick with you for a bit.
]]> 58210933 An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly boundless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.

Hernan Diaz's TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another—and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.

At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.]]> 402 Hernan Diaz 0593420314 Klenk 3 3.77 2022
author: Hernan Diaz
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/26
date added: 2024/07/09
shelves:
review:
DNF, read the first section and was really engaged, but just couldn’t start over with the slow burn in new characters.
]]> 56769525 Angela’s Ashes, Fintan O’Toole, one of the Anglophone world’s most consummate stylists, continues the narrative of modern Ireland into our own time. O’Toole was born in the year the revolution began. It was 1958, and the Irish government—in despair, because all the young people were leaving—opened the country to foreign investment. So began a decades-long, ongoing experiment with Irish national identity.


Weaving his own experiences into this account of Irish social, cultural, and economic change, O’Toole shows how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a Catholic “backwater�� to an almost totally open society. A sympathetic-yet-exacting observer, O’Toole shrewdly weighs more than sixty years of globalization, delving into the violence of the Troubles and depicting, in biting detail, the astonishing collapse of the once-supreme Irish Catholic Church. The result is a stunning work of memoir and national history that reveals how the two modes are inextricable for all of us.]]> 616 Fintan O'Toole 1631496530 Klenk 4 4.31 2021
author: Fintan O'Toole
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/10
date added: 2024/07/09
shelves:
review:
Did not finish, but read as much as I could in the lead up to a trip to Ireland. Very engaging and definitely made the experience richer!
]]> 62039166 From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.

Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil―can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written―is there still time to find a happy ending?]]> 645 Paul Murray 0374600309 Klenk 4 3.92 2023
author: Paul Murray
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/05
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 6265996 464 Zadie Smith Klenk 4 3.78 2000
author: Zadie Smith
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/03/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 46196110 An MI6 officer must find a traitor hiding within the highest ranks of government in a new thriller with "resonant echoes of le Carr��" (Booklist, starred review).

Senior MI6 officer Kate Henderson is in possession of the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb. She heads up the Russia Desk of the Secret Intelligence Service, and one of her undercover operations has revealed some alarming evidence that a senior UK politician is a high-level Russian informer.

Determined to find the identity of the traitor, Kate must risk everything to get to the truth. Until a young woman is brutally murdered as a consequence, which puts Kate and her team under the spotlight. With blood on her hands, her reputation to uphold, her family hanging by a thread, and an election looming, Kate is quickly running out of options--and out of time . . .

From the author of Shadow Dancer and The White Russian, who has been a finalist for multiple Crime Writers Association awards, this is a tense, timely novel of secrets, betrayals, and spycraft.]]> 368 Tom Bradby 0802148255 Klenk 2 4.14 2019
author: Tom Bradby
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2024/03/20
date added: 2024/03/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 292408
Wallace Stegner's Pultizer Prize-winning novel is a story of discovery—personal, historical, and geographical.]]> 569 Wallace Stegner 014016930X Klenk 3 4.24 1971
author: Wallace Stegner
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1971
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/19
date added: 2024/01/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 13651 387 Ursula K. Le Guin Klenk 3 4.24 1974
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1974
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/21
date added: 2023/10/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 11916113 450 Timothy Zahn 0307796183 Klenk 5 4.28 1992
author: Timothy Zahn
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/15
date added: 2023/10/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 45154547 WINNER OF THE 2022 HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
Now a USA Today bestseller!
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2021
Amazon's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2021
Bookpage's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2021
ŷ������ Choice Awards Nominee for Best Science Fiction Book of 2021

A Desolation Called Peace is the spectacular space opera sequel to Arkady Martine's genre-reinventing, Hugo Award-winning debut, A Memory Called Empire.

An alien armada lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is running out of options.

In a desperate attempt at diplomacy with the mysterious invaders, the fleet captain has sent for a diplomatic envoy. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass—still reeling from the recent upheaval in the Empire—face the impossible task of trying to communicate with a hostile entity.

Their failure will guarantee millions of deaths in an endless war. Their success might prevent Teixcalaan’s destruction—and allow the empire to continue its rapacious expansion.

Or it might create something far stranger . . .
]]> 496 Arkady Martine 125018648X Klenk 3 4.31 2021
author: Arkady Martine
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/16
date added: 2023/08/17
shelves:
review:
Not quite as engrossing as book one but still does a wonderful balance of interesting internal struggle with grand worlds.
]]> 17125 The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.]]> 182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Klenk 4 3.98 1962
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/08/01
shelves:
review:
I read this a long time ago, perhaps middle school, but I remember it and all quiet on the western front being the only books I enjoyed reading at a all growing up. Aside from Tom Clancy of course...
]]> 38474
Stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, this book depicts men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime.]]> 448 James Baldwin 0141186372 Klenk 4
It is supposed to be a book about love, gender, race, nationality, and class, but I really felt it was a book about masculinity. The female characters, Ida and Cass, both lack the depth of the male characters. I find it amazing that I can't watch self-destructive drama characters in movies or on tv, but in books I love it. I think it is because I can get in their heads a bit more as opposed to just viewing them from the outside.]]> 4.32 1962
author: James Baldwin
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at: 2013/07/11
date added: 2023/07/27
shelves:
review:
"an unnameable heat and tension flashed violently alive between them, as close to hatred as it was to love."

It is supposed to be a book about love, gender, race, nationality, and class, but I really felt it was a book about masculinity. The female characters, Ida and Cass, both lack the depth of the male characters. I find it amazing that I can't watch self-destructive drama characters in movies or on tv, but in books I love it. I think it is because I can get in their heads a bit more as opposed to just viewing them from the outside.
]]> 1232 487 Carlos Ruiz Zafón Klenk 4 4.26 2001
author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/23
date added: 2023/07/24
shelves:
review:
I read this on a vacation to Barcelona so all the places and history were all the more vivid. Very reminiscent of “corelli's mandolin�� in terms of style, themes, and era. I imagine I will read the second book in this series at some point.
]]> 55596771 The conclusion to Ken Liu's chronicle of the Dandelion Dynasty.

������-�ҴDzԻ�é.
Stalked by foes and dogged by betrayal, Princess Théra is pursued across a continent vaster than she could ever have imagined, to the hidden valleys of the World's Edge Mountains, into the barrows and subterranean halls of the City of Ghosts, across the ice floes of the far north. She breached the Wall of Storms intent on taking war to the Lyucu homelands, but how do you conquer the unconquerable?

Dara.
Empress Jia, Prince Phyro and Pékyu Tanvanaki find themselves bound to paths they never would have chosen. Amid atrocity and subterfuge, they will discover that the Courage of Brutes is no substitute for the Grace of Kings, and that little separates the Grace of Kings from the Madness of Tyrants.

On both sides of the Wall of Storms, defeat's bitter tears mix with the fruits of knowledge new and ancient as two empires bound by blood and bone, by writ and iron, by time and custom, face a whirlwind that threatens to utterly consume them.

The teeth, as they say, are on the board.]]> 1047 Ken Liu 1982148977 Klenk 2 4.54 2022
author: Ken Liu
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2023/07/11
date added: 2023/07/11
shelves:
review:
So what was fun about the first book was just repetitive by the fourth. I couldn’t read one more interpretation of an invention with alternative materials that goes on for chapters and chapters…so much skipping the just see the resolution of empress Jia.
]]> 37794149
Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.]]> 448 Arkady Martine 1529001587 Klenk 4 4.08 2019
author: Arkady Martine
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/13
date added: 2023/06/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 55196813
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly's orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it's too late?

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]> 304 Nita Prose 0593356152 Klenk 3 3.71 2022
author: Nita Prose
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/19
date added: 2023/05/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 68099 But as the investigation unfolds, a chilling picture slowly begins to take shape--a detailed portrait of revenge painted with vivid strokes of hatred and shocking depravity. And the dilemma for Guido Brunetti will not be finding a murder suspect, but rather narrowing the choices down to one. . . .

]]> 270 Donna Leon 006074068X Klenk 2 3.81 1992
author: Donna Leon
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1992
rating: 2
read at: 2023/05/01
date added: 2023/05/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 26228034 410 N.K. Jemisin Klenk 4 4.27 2016
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/01
date added: 2023/04/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 54919156 With the invasion of Dara complete, and the Wall of Storms breached, the world has opened to new possibilities for the gods and peoples of both empires as the sweeping saga of the award-winning Dandelion Dynasty continues in this third book of the “magnificent fantasy epic�� (NPR).Princess Théra, once known as Empress Üna of Dara, entrusted the throne to her younger brother in order to journey to Ukyu-Gondé to war with the Lyucu. She has crossed the fabled Wall of Storms with a fleet of advanced warships and ten thousand people. Beset by adversity, Théra and her most trusted companions attempt to overcome every challenge by doing the most interesting thing. But is not letting the past dictate the present always possible or even desirable? In Dara, the Lyucu leadership as well as the surviving Dandelion Court bristle with rivalries as currents of power surge and ebb and perspectives spin and shift. Here, parents and children, teachers and students, Empress and Pékyu, all nurture the seeds of plans that will take years to bloom. Will tradition yield to new justifications for power? Everywhere, the spirit of innovation dances like dandelion seeds on the wind, and the commoners, the forgotten, the ignored begin to engineer new solutions for a new age. Ken Liu returns to the series that draws from a tradition of the great epics of our history from the Aeneid to the Romance on the Three Kingdoms and builds a new tale unsurpassed in its scope and ambition.]]> 1004 Ken Liu 1481424351 Klenk 3 4.25 2021
author: Ken Liu
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2023/04/13
date added: 2023/04/13
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]]> 34473 56 Jun'ichirō Tanizaki Klenk 3 4.06 1933
author: Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1933
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/10
date added: 2023/02/27
shelves:
review:
Not a book I would typically read. It is interesting in talking about aesthetics and values, but I find the generalizations of Japanese versus Western grating at times. Then again, the point of the book is celebrate a particular aesthetic of Japan, and I don't know how you can do that without make such generalizations. So perhaps shame on me for being annoyed by it at times.
]]> 102868
But it's not long before Sherlock Holmes, with Watson in tow, is working with Scotland Yard investigating the murder of two Americans whose deaths have some mysterious connection to sinister groups gathering power in both Britain and America.

Here's where it all began. 'A Study in Scarlet.' Meet Sherlock Holmes, one of the world's leading consulting detectives - fictional of course!]]> 123 Arthur Conan Doyle 1420925539 Klenk 3 4.16 1887
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1887
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/27
date added: 2023/02/27
shelves:
review:
This was a pretty bonkers story. The chapters are all short which makes it easy bedtime reading. The story is two parts. Part 1, classic mystery where the reader is just shocked by all the connections Sherlock can make. Part 2, where the author goes on a tirade against mormons, which must have been quite a wild read for a Londoner in the 19th century.
]]> 60371805
The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho’s gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost.

With her unique Dickensian flair, Kate Atkinson gives us a window in a vanished world. Slyly funny, brilliantly observant, and ingeniously plotted, Shrines of Gaiety showcases the myriad talents that have made Atkinson one of the most lauded writers of our time.]]> 439 Kate Atkinson 0385547978 Klenk 3 3.78 2022
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/05
date added: 2023/02/05
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]]> 5711242
Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.

The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.]]> 447 Erik Larson Klenk 4 4.04 2003
author: Erik Larson
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/17
date added: 2022/09/17
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]]> 34017126 The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.

Essun has inherited the phenomenal power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every outcast child can grow up safe.

For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.]]> 398 N.K. Jemisin Klenk 5 4.47 2017
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/14
date added: 2022/09/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 38213103 355 N.K. Jemisin Klenk 4 4.39 2015
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/08
date added: 2022/07/09
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Wonderful world building with a pretty unique voice. The bouncing around the timeline was a bit annoying at first, but there was more than enough macro-world building and character development to keep me engaged. I'm sure I'll read some more of this series in the future.
]]> 1 652 J.K. Rowling Klenk 4 4.57 2005
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/11
date added: 2022/05/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Klenk 2 4.17 1992
author: Donna Tartt
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 2
read at: 2022/03/22
date added: 2022/03/22
shelves:
review:
Not nearly as memorable as Goldfinch. Similar themes of a poor protagonist operating in a wealthy world, substance abuse, criminal secrets that eat away at people and relationships, a strange relationship between an elderly man and young man.
]]> 18952381
But Emperor Kuni cannot go and lead his kingdom against the threat himself with his recently healed empire fraying at the seams, so he sends the only people he trusts to be Dara’s savvy and cunning hopes against the invincible invaders: his children, now grown and ready to make their mark on history.]]> 880 Ken Liu 1784973254 Klenk 3
I imagine 16 year old me would have lived this trilogy. But I’m not in a rush to read book 3. That said, I imagine I’ll read it at some point. ]]> 4.34 2016
author: Ken Liu
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2022/02/13
date added: 2022/02/13
shelves:
review:
The huge fantastical world built for a fantasy epic in book 1 gets even larger in book 2. And once again after reading I can probably remember only a handful of the players. Ken liu has some refreshing twists on this genre that really come out in this book: (1) celebration of science/engineering/scholarship as this world does not involve magic, (2) transition from a patriarchy to a celebration of female achievement, (3) a reflection on barbarian invaders/colonialism which I assume is an allegory on the mongol invaders and the great wall of china.

I imagine 16 year old me would have lived this trilogy. But I’m not in a rush to read book 3. That said, I imagine I’ll read it at some point.
]]> 77566 500 Dan Simmons 0553283685 Klenk 4 4.26 1989
author: Dan Simmons
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1989
rating: 4
read at: 2021/12/18
date added: 2021/12/26
shelves:
review:
If you want huge world building with at least some attempts at character development, this book is for you.
]]> 2
Harry has had enough. He is beginning to think he must do something, anything, to change his situation, when the summer holidays come to an end in a very dramatic fashion. What Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his world upside down...]]> 912 J.K. Rowling Klenk 3 4.50 2003
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2021/12/07
date added: 2021/12/07
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]]> 53487237 A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.

In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?�� He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.]]> 403 George Saunders 1984856049 Klenk 4 4.55 2021
author: George Saunders
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/11/01
date added: 2021/12/06
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]]> 158 Leo Tolstoy 1419305948 Klenk 0 3.64 1878
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1878
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/11/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 23251254
Fearing for his life, journalist Philip Mangan has gone into hiding from the Chinese agents who have identified him as a Western spy. His reputation and life are in tatters. But when he is caught in a terrorist attack in East Africa and a shadowy Chinese figure approaches him in the dead of night with information on the origins of the attack, Mangan is suddenly back in the eye of the storm.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away on a humid Hong Kong night, a key British Intelligence source is murdered minutes after meeting spy Trish Patterson. From Washington, D.C. to the hallowed halls of Oxford University and dusty African streets, a sinister power is stirring which will use Mangan and Patterson as its pawns -- if they survive.

Deeply steeped in tension and paranoia, Adam Brookes's follow-up to his award-nominated debut is a remarkable, groundbreaking spy thriller.]]> 448 Adam Brookes 0316399906 Klenk 3 3.81 2015
author: Adam Brookes
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2021/08/08
date added: 2021/09/08
shelves:
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]]> 56140 Cadillac Desert Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West.

Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expose and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden—an Eden that may be only a mirage.]]> 582 Marc Reisner 0140178244 Klenk 4 4.27 1986
author: Marc Reisner
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/05
date added: 2021/08/05
shelves:
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This history of the west is probably if little interest to those who don’t live there. And the author has a Malthusian pessimism about humans. But I found the book incredibly interesting tracking the last 130 years of water development in the west. The post-script and then double post script version that provide updates of the last 40 years are great and I would be more than happy to skip some of the middle to get there.
]]> 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Klenk 3 4.49 2021
author: Andy Weir
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2021/07/21
date added: 2021/08/05
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]]> 68428 What if the whole world were a dead, blasted wasteland?

Mistborn
For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the "Sliver of Infinity," reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler's most hellish prison. Kelsier "snapped" and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark.

Kelsier recruited the underworld's elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Then Kelsier reveals his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot.

But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel's plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she's a half-Skaa orphan, but she's lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets. She will have to learn trust if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.

Brandon Sanderson, fantasy's newest master tale-spinner and author of the acclaimed debut Elantris, dares to turn a genre on its head by asking a simple question: What if the prophesied hero failed to defeat the Dark Lord? The answer will be found in the Mistborn Trilogy, a saga of surprises that begins with the book in your hands. Fantasy will never be the same again.]]> 541 Brandon Sanderson Klenk 3 4.48 2006
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2021/05/10
date added: 2021/05/25
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]]> 52047882
Jai drools outside sweet shops, watches too many reality police shows, and considers himself to be smarter than his friends Pari (though she gets the best grades) and Faiz (though Faiz has an actual job). When a classmate goes missing, Jai decides to use the crime-solving skills he has picked up from TV to find him. He asks Pari and Faiz to be his assistants, and together they draw up lists of people to interview and places to visit.

But what begins as a game turns sinister as other children start disappearing from their neighborhood. Jai, Pari, and Faiz have to confront terrified parents, an indifferent police force, and rumors of soul-snatching djinns. As the disappearances edge ever closer to home, the lives of Jai and his friends will never be the same again.]]> 384 Deepa Anappara 0593129202 Klenk 3 3.94 2020
author: Deepa Anappara
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2021/03/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 2187 Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.]]> 529 Jeffrey Eugenides 0312422156 Klenk 5 4.03 2002
author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/01/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 50028338 In this riveting medical thriller--from the Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author--Dr. Henry Parsons, an unlikely but appealing hero, races to find the origins and cure of a mysterious new killer virus as it brings the world to its knees.

At an internment camp in Indonesia, forty-seven people are pronounced dead with acute hemorrhagic fever. When Henry Parsons--microbiologist, epidemiologist--travels there on behalf of the World Health Organization to investigate, what he finds will soon have staggering repercussions across the globe: an infected man is on his way to join the millions of worshippers in the annual Hajj to Mecca. Now, Henry joins forces with a Saudi prince and doctor in an attempt to quarantine the entire host of pilgrims in the holy city . . . A Russian émigré, a woman who has risen to deputy director of U.S. Homeland Security, scrambles to mount a response to what may be an act of biowarfare . . . Already-fraying global relations begin to snap, one by one, in the face of a pandemic . . . Henry's wife, Jill, and their children face diminishing odds of survival in Atlanta . . . And the disease slashes across the United States, dismantling institutions--scientific, religious, governmental--and decimating the population. As packed with suspense as it is with the fascinating history of viral diseases, Lawrence Wright has given us a full-tilt, electrifying, one-of-a-kind thriller.]]> 377 Lawrence Wright 0525658661 Klenk 3 4.00 2020
author: Lawrence Wright
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2021/01/17
date added: 2021/01/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 6 734 J.K. Rowling 0439139597 Klenk 4 4.56 2000
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2020/12/31
date added: 2021/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 5 435 J.K. Rowling 043965548X Klenk 4 4.57 1999
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2020/10/01
date added: 2021/01/02
shelves:
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]]> 15881
And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls�� bathroom. But then the real trouble begins �� someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects�� Harry Potter himself!]]> 352 J.K. Rowling Klenk 4 4.42 1998
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/02
date added: 2021/01/02
shelves:
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]]> 3 309 J.K. Rowling 0439554934 Klenk 4 4.47 1997
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/31
date added: 2021/01/02
shelves:
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]]> 9777
Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family—their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).

When their English cousin, Sophie Mol, and her mother, Margaret Kochamma, arrive on a Christmas visit, Esthappen and Rahel learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river "graygreen." With fish in it. With the sky and trees in it. And at night, the broken yellow moon in it.

The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.

The God of Small Things takes on the Big Themes—Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite Joy. Here is a writer who dares to break the rules. To dislocate received rhythms and create the language she requires, a language that is at once classical and unprecedented. Arundhati Roy has given us a book that is anchored to anguish, but fueled by wit and magic.]]> 321 Arundhati Roy 0679457313 Klenk 0 to-read 3.97 1997
author: Arundhati Roy
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/09/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 242006 336 Augusten Burroughs 031242227X Klenk 0 to-read 3.77 2002
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/09/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11989
It tells the story from the point of view of a narrator of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The narrator remains unknown until the start of the last chapter, chapter 5 of part 5. The novel presents a snapshot of life in Oran as seen through the author's distinctive absurdist point of view.

The book tells a gripping tale of human unrelieved horror, of survival and resilience, and of the ways in which humankind confronts death, The Plague is at once a masterfully crafted novel, eloquently understated and epic in scope, and a parable of ageless moral resonance, profoundly relevant to our times. In Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, the plague begins as a series of portents, unheeded by the people. It gradually becomes an omnipresent reality, obliterating all traces of the past and driving its victims to almost unearthly extremes of suffering, madness, and compassion.

The Plague is considered an existentialist classic despite Camus' objection to the label. The novel stresses the powerlessness of the individual characters to affect their destinies. The narrative tone is similar to Kafka's, especially in The Trial, whose individual sentences potentially have multiple meanings; the material often pointedly resonating as stark allegory of phenomenal consciousness and the human condition.]]> 308 Albert Camus Klenk 0 to-read 4.05 1947
author: Albert Camus
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1947
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/09/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 130440
Dr. Yury Zhivago, Pasternak's alter ego, is a poet, philosopher, and physician whose life is disrupted by the war and by his love for Lara, the wife of a revolutionary. His artistic nature makes him vulnerable to the brutality and harshness of the Bolsheviks. The poems he writes constitute some of the most beautiful writing featured in the novel.]]> 592 Boris Pasternak 0679774386 Klenk 0 to-read 4.03 1957
author: Boris Pasternak
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1957
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/09/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53427438 Исигуро переносит нас в средневековую Англию, где люди ещё помнят короля Артура, где живы легенды, а зеленые холмы объяты туманом. Немолодая пара, Аксель и Беатрис, исполненные желания отыскать сына, которого не видели уже долгие годы, отправляются в путь, прочь от родной деревни. Дороги опутаны неведомой хмарью, заставляющей забыть только что прожитый час. Время и пространство схлопывается в этом захватывающем путешествии жизни. Куда же оно направит их? С кем неожиданно сведёт?]]> 317 Kazuo Ishiguro Klenk 4 3.88 2015
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2020/09/13
date added: 2020/09/13
shelves:
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]]> 24983
But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin--barely of age herself--finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history's darkest hours.

Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of the human spirit.]]> 578 Connie Willis 0553562738 Klenk 4 4.02 1992
author: Connie Willis
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2020/08/01
date added: 2020/08/01
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]]> 36247169 A newer cover edition of ASIN B072BLVM83 can be found here.

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.]]> 336 Tara Westover Klenk 5 4.56 2018
author: Tara Westover
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2020/07/01
date added: 2020/07/01
shelves:
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]]> 45754981 From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events–a massive Ponzi scheme collapse and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea.

Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby’s glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis is running an international Ponzi scheme, moving imaginary sums of money through clients�� accounts. When the financial empire collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan’s wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.

In this captivating story of crisis and survival, Emily St. John Mandel takes readers through often hidden landscapes: campgrounds for the near-homeless, underground electronica clubs, the business of international shipping, service in luxury hotels, and life in a federal prison. Rife with unexpected beauty, The Glass Hotel is a captivating portrait of greed and guilt, love and delusion, ghosts and unintended consequences, and the infinite ways we search for meaning in our lives.]]> 307 Emily St. John Mandel 0525521143 Klenk 4 3.66 2020
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/06/13
date added: 2020/06/14
shelves:
review:
Loneliness, solitude, and corruption. The writing style creates a mood that really matches the characters and what they are going through.
]]> 34943643 New York Times bestselling The Peripheral, a gifted "app-whisperer" is hired by a mysterious San Francisco start-up and finds herself in contact with a unique and surprisingly combat-savvy AI.]]> 413 William Gibson 1101986956 Klenk 2 3.81 2020
author: William Gibson
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2020/05/25
date added: 2020/05/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 17333223
Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph - a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate.]]> 771 Donna Tartt 0316055433 Klenk 3
I would have been at 4 stars, but the ending was preachy, boring, and seemed to wrap up a story that still had a lot to be written.]]> 3.94 2013
author: Donna Tartt
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2020/04/19
date added: 2020/04/19
shelves:
review:
I really enjoyed growing up with the main character. And Boris was wonderful as well. The self destructive acts throughout the book all seem plausible and make you feel for the damaged on all sides.

I would have been at 4 stars, but the ending was preachy, boring, and seemed to wrap up a story that still had a lot to be written.
]]> 41711510 “Thrilling.”—The Wall Street Journal From the author of the internationally bestselling “supremely effective, cunningly crafted�� (The Providence Journal) thriller Traitor, a cerebral and suspenseful novel of high-stakes intrigue in Israel’s top intelligence agency. After Ya’ara Stein is forced out of her job at the Mossad—the secret intelligence service of Israel—she is called upon by the Prime Minister for a classified job. Known for her aptitude, beauty, and deadliness, Stein is asked to set up a secret unit that will act independently, answerable only to the Prime Minister. This streamlined and deadly unit, filled with bright young men and women recruited and trained by Stein, quickly faces threats both old and new. Descendants of the lethal militant Red Army Faction have returned to terrorize Europe and fears of a radical Islam splinter group force the unit to distinguish between facts and smoke screens. As Stein’s cadets struggle to crush these threats, they soon discover how easily the hunter can become the hunted. A dazzling, tension-filled novel that sheds light on the world hidden just below the surface of our everyday lives, this thriller offers a peek into the dark behind the curtain where today’s deadliest conflicts are fought. With breathless pacing and shocking twists and turns, it proves that Jonathan de Shalit “has learned well from the likes of Mr. le Carré�� (The Wall Street Journal).]]> 385 Jonathan de Shalit 1501170589 Klenk 1 3.61 2017
author: Jonathan de Shalit
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2017
rating: 1
read at: 2020/01/15
date added: 2020/01/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 34497 228 Terry Pratchett 0060855924 Klenk 3 4.04 1983
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1983
rating: 3
read at: 2019/12/28
date added: 2020/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 18114322
First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.]]> 496 John Steinbeck 067001690X Klenk 4 4.06 1939
author: John Steinbeck
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1939
rating: 4
read at: 2019/11/25
date added: 2019/11/25
shelves:
review:
Continuing my migration books for the year. Despite the heavy handed attack on capitalism, the interleaving of the Joads stories with a poetic description of the larger world was wonderful.
]]> 18952341 640 Ken Liu 1481424270 Klenk 3 3.77 2015
author: Ken Liu
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2019/09/30
date added: 2019/09/30
shelves:
review:
Good fun, but I can’t say I’m going to dive into the next book in the series. I guess I’ll remember it most for the epic world that was built, because I’m not sure I’ll remember much about the characters in a few months. Kuni , Mata, Gin, Jia...they all read like cut outs.
]]> 5864120
And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the Dark Man.]]> 1348 Stephen King Klenk 4 4.43 1978
author: Stephen King
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1978
rating: 4
read at: 2019/08/28
date added: 2019/08/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 28588169 An NYRB Classics Original

The hero of The Invisibility Cloak lives in contemporary Beijing—where everyone is doing their best to hustle up the ladder of success while shouldering an ever-growing burden of consumer goods—and he’s a loser. Well into his forties, he’s divorced (and still doting on his ex), childless, and living with his sister (her husband wants him out) in an apartment at the edge of town with a crack in the wall the wind from the north blows through while he gets by, just, by making customized old-fashioned amplifiers for the occasional rich audio-obsessive. He has contempt for his clients and contempt for himself. The only things he really likes are Beethoven and vintage speakers. Then an old friend tips him off about a special job—a little risky but just don’t ask too many questions—and can it really be that this hopeless loser wins?

This provocative and seriously funny exercise in the social fantastic by the brilliantly original Ge Fei, one of China’s finest living writers, is among the most original works of fiction to come out of China in recent years. It is sure to appeal to readers of Haruki Murakami and other fabulists of contemporary irreality.]]> 126 Ge Fei 1681370204 Klenk 4 3.81 2012
author: Ge Fei
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2019/07/13
date added: 2019/07/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 77507 In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in the first of a trilogy chronicling the colonization of Mars.

For eons, sandstorms have swept the desolate landscape. For centuries, Mars has beckoned humans to conquer its hostile climate. Now, in 2026, a group of 100 colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.

John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers and Arkady Bogdanov lead a terraforming mission. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness. For others it offers an opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. For the genetic alchemists, it presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life and death. The colonists orbit giant satellite mirrors to reflect light to the surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth. Massive tunnels, kilometers deep, will be drilled into the mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves and friendships will form and fall to pieces—for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in evolution, creating a world in its entirety. It shows a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision.]]> 572 Kim Stanley Robinson 0553560735 Klenk 4 3.86 1992
author: Kim Stanley Robinson
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2019/06/25
date added: 2019/07/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 34273236
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned �� from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren �� an enigmatic artist and single mother �� who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother–daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town �� and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at an unexpected and devastating cost . . .]]> 338 Celeste Ng 0735224293 Klenk 4 4.05 2017
author: Celeste Ng
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2019/07/09
date added: 2019/07/09
shelves:
review:
Mothers, daughters, race, family, 90s
]]> 380017 The Information. How does one writer hurt another writer? This is the question novelist Richard Tull mills over, for his friend Gwyn Barry has become a darling of book buyers, award committees, and TV interviewers, even as Tull himself sinks deeper into the sub-basement of literary failure. The only way out of this predicament, Tull believes, is to plot the demise of Barry.

"With The Information, Amis delivers a portrait of middle-age realignment with more verbal felicity and unbridled reach than [anyone] since Tom Wolfe forged Bonfire of the Vanities."��Houston Chronicle]]> 384 Martin Amis 0679735739 Klenk 4
]]> 3.63 1995
author: Martin Amis
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2019/06/07
date added: 2019/06/19
shelves:
review:
Nothing like reading a story about a self-loathing mean spirit person to improve your outlook in life. It is like a giant warning light, slow down you don't want to become like that guy!


]]> 30688435
Exit West follows these characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.]]> 231 Mohsin Hamid 0735212171 Klenk 3 3.74 2017
author: Mohsin Hamid
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2019/04/12
date added: 2019/04/12
shelves:
review:
I almost felt like this book was written to be read in a book club. This should be considered a compliment, but I'm using it pejoratively. Still this book does so many interesting things with a global refugee/migration story that are outside of what you would expect. So maybe in a few months I'll be remembering this book much more fondly than I do at the moment.
]]> 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride.��Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Klenk 5
This could have just been a great little book about twenty somethings finding their way in the world. It could have been a book about childhood trauma. It could have been a book about depression. Or about actions that cannot be taken back. Or about many different forms of love. But it is all of those things and each builds on the other.]]> 4.28 2015
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2018/02/21
date added: 2019/04/12
shelves:
review:
Sheesh, So much tragedy!

This could have just been a great little book about twenty somethings finding their way in the world. It could have been a book about childhood trauma. It could have been a book about depression. Or about actions that cannot be taken back. Or about many different forms of love. But it is all of those things and each builds on the other.
]]> 33571713 As Europe erupts, can one young spy protect his queen? Ken Follett takes us deep into the treacherous world of powerful monarchs, intrigue, murder, and treason with his magnificent epic, A Column of Fire—the chronological latest in the Kingsbridge series, following The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, and the prequel, The Evening and the Morning.

In 1558, the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn apart by religious conflict. As power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and Protestants, royalty and commoners clash, testing friendship, loyalty, and love.

Ned Willard wants nothing more than to marry Margery Fitzgerald. But when the lovers find themselves on opposing sides of the religious conflict dividing the country, Ned goes to work for Princess Elizabeth. When she becomes queen, all Europe turns against England. The shrewd, determined young monarch sets up the country’s first secret service to give her early warning of assassination plots, rebellions, and invasion plans. Over a turbulent half century, the love between Ned and Margery seems doomed as extremism sparks violence from Edinburgh to Geneva. Elizabeth clings to her throne and her principles, protected by a small, dedicated group of resourceful spies and courageous secret agents.

The real enemies, then as now, are not the rival religions. The true battle pitches those who believe in tolerance and compromise against the tyrants who would impose their ideas on everyone else—no matter what the cost.

Exciting and ambitious, and set during one of the most turbulent and revolutionary times in history, A Column of Fire will delight longtime fans of the Kingsbridge series and serve as the perfect introduction for readers new to Ken Follett.]]> 916 Ken Follett 052595497X Klenk 1 4.16 2017
author: Ken Follett
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2017
rating: 1
read at: 2019/03/26
date added: 2019/03/26
shelves:
review:
I probably kept reading this only to taunt my spouse who was too annoyed to continue. The historical nuggets of both large events and what can best be described as flavor-text are the only reasons to continue. Flat characters with over-bearing good evil narrative. 800 pages and I'm pretty sure that none of the characters change and there is minimal reflection on any of their actions.
]]> 29430012 He can't leave. You won't want to.

With his breakout novel Rules of Civility, Amor Towles established himself as a master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction, bringing late-1930s Manhattan to life with splendid atmosphere and a flawless command of style. A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov.

When, in 1922, the thirty-year-old Count is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, he is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. An indomitable man of erudition and wit, Rostov must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors.

Unexpectedly, the Count's reduced circumstances provide him entry to a much larger world of emotional discovery as he forges friendships with the hotel's other denizens, including a willful actress, a shrewd Kremlinite, a gregarious American, and a temperamental chef. But when fate suddenly puts the life of a young girl in his hands, he must draw on all his ingenuity to protect the future she so deserves.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the Count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.]]> 462 Amor Towles Klenk 4 4.33 2016
author: Amor Towles
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2018/12/24
date added: 2018/12/30
shelves:
review:
I am a sucker for all the asides that count Rostov relates about how one should comport oneself as well as the ways he found to maintain his self in his isolation.
]]> 12617758
She begins to reinvent herself as an expat, finding her way in a language she doesn’t speak, doing the housewifely things she’s never before done—play-dates and coffee mornings, daily cooking and unending laundry. Meanwhile, her husband works incessantly, doing a job Kate has never understood, for a banking client she’s not allowed to know. He’s becoming distant and evasive; she’s getting lonely and bored.

Then another American couple arrives. Kate soon becomes suspicious that these people are not who they claim to be, and terrified that her own past is catching up to her. So Kate begins to dig, to peel back the layers of deception that surround her. She discovers fake offices and shell corporations and a hidden gun; a mysterious farmhouse and numbered accounts with bewildering sums of money; a complex web of intrigue where no one is who they claim to be, and the most profound deceptions lurk beneath the most normal-looking of relationships; and a mind-boggling long-play con threatens her family, her marriage, and her life.]]> 326 Chris Pavone 0307956350 Klenk 2 3.48 2012
author: Chris Pavone
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at: 2018/12/30
date added: 2018/12/30
shelves:
review:
International crime thriller with over the top clue placement, foreshadowing, and other highlights of the genre.
]]> 36510196
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.]]> 318 John Scalzi Klenk 3 old Master of Orion computer games. The writing really works for most
of it, even if it gets a little bit campy with the hero just being
better than everything and everyone else. I imagine that I'll come
back to the series as some point.]]> 4.25 2005
author: John Scalzi
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2018/11/25
date added: 2018/11/25
shelves:
review:
A fun take on Starship Troopers. Or I guess even something like the
old Master of Orion computer games. The writing really works for most
of it, even if it gets a little bit campy with the hero just being
better than everything and everyone else. I imagine that I'll come
back to the series as some point.
]]> 20441724 Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family—and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what it undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.]]> 894 Frank Herbert Klenk 5 4.41 1965
author: Frank Herbert
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1965
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/11/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 40605251 The magical saga of the women behind King Arthur's throne.

“A monumental reimagining of the Arthurian legends . . . reading it is a deeply moving and at times uncanny experience. . . . An impressive achievement.”—The New York Times Book Review

In Marion Zimmer Bradley's masterpiece, we see the tumult and adventures of Camelot's court through the eyes of the women who bolstered the king's rise and schemed for his fall. From their childhoods through the ultimate fulfillment of their destinies, we follow these women and the diverse cast of characters that surrounds them as the great Arthurian epic unfolds stunningly before us.

As Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar struggle for control over the fate of Arthur's kingdom, as the Knights of the Round Table take on their infamous quest, as Merlin and Viviane wield their magics for the future of Old Britain, the Isle of Avalon slips further into the impenetrable mists of memory, until the fissure between old and new worlds' and old and new religions' claims its most famous victim.]]> 1009 Marion Zimmer Bradley Klenk 2 failed-to-read 4.20 1982
author: Marion Zimmer Bradley
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1982
rating: 2
read at: 2018/10/12
date added: 2018/10/16
shelves: failed-to-read
review:
Apparently, I don't know enough about Arthur lore nor am I a young adult female. Therefore, it was a bit of a struggle to make it through the first book this volume. I decided to hop on to ŷ������ to read other reviews. Needless to say the author's life story didn't exactly compel me to keep reading.
]]> 36341728 A contrarian argues that modern physicists' obsession with beauty has given us wonderful math but bad science.

Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria. Worse, these "too good to not be true" theories are actually untestable and they have left the field in a cul-de-sac. To escape, physicists must rethink their methods. Only by embracing reality as it is can science discover the truth.
]]> 291 Sabine Hossenfelder 0465094252 Klenk 5 4.03 2018
author: Sabine Hossenfelder
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2018/09/06
date added: 2018/09/06
shelves:
review:
This is an exceptionally well written book. She describes the physics in a way that makes you think you may kinda understand, but they way she talks about the culture, it is certainly worth reflecting on whatever scientific communities or meetings you have ever been a part of. The emphasis that science being practiced the way it is right now is a very new phenomena, but we have been doing it enough to reflect.
]]> 21526805 Two decades earlier, he was a spy for the British; now Peanut must disappear on Beijing's surveillance-blanketed streets. Desperate and ruthless, he reaches out to his one-time MI6 paymasters via crusading journalist Philip Mangan, offering military secrets in return for extraction.
But the secrets prove more valuable than Peanut or Mangan could ever have known... and not only to the British.]]> 400 Adam Brookes Klenk 3 4.02 2014
author: Adam Brookes
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2018/07/18
date added: 2018/07/20
shelves:
review:
Definitely works if you feel the need for an spy novel.
]]> 17336318 "Un libro importante...emocionalmente sobrecogedor. Álvarez nos hace un regalo cargado de rara generosidad y coraje."��The San Diego Union-Tribune

Ellas eran las cuatro hermanas Mirabal—símbolos de una esperanza desafiante en un país ensombrecido por la dictadura y la desesperación. Sacrificaron sus vidas, seguras, y confortables, en nombre de la libertad. Ellas eran “las Mariposas,�� y en esta novela extraordinaria, Patria, Minerva, María Teresa, y Dedé nos cuentan, a través de las décadas, sus propias historias. Desde anécdotas sobre lazos para el pelo y secretos enamoramientos al contrabando de armas y las torturas en la cárcel. Con ellas aprendemos los horrores cotidianos de la vida bajo el dictador dominicano Trujillo.

A través del arte y la magia de la aclamada e imaginativa novelista Julia Álvarez, la dramática y vibrante vida de estas martirizadas mariposas toma forma en una historia cálida, brillante y desgarradora en la que se nos muestra el incalculable coste humando derivado de la opresión política.

“Un regalo de amor sinfónico y espléndido…un magnífico tesoro para todas las culturas y todos los tiempos…una novela que celebra la corriente de vida que fluye entre las mujeres, conectándolas y dándolas coraje para luchar por la justicia y la resistencia, y corazones para amar y perdonar libremente…Julia Álvarez es una escritora asombrosa.”��St. Petersburg Times

“Maravilloso…una narración enriquecedora…entrelaza hábilmente la realidad y la ficción hasta alcanzar un sobrecogedor clímax.”—Newsweek

“Una novela con un tremendo poder�� un libro bello y valiente.”��West Coast Review of Books]]> 354 Julia Alvarez Klenk 3 4.14 1994
author: Julia Alvarez
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2018/06/27
date added: 2018/06/27
shelves:
review:

]]> 34002132 Oathbringer, the third volume of the New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive, humanity faces a new Desolation with the return of the Voidbringers, a foe with numbers as great as their thirst for vengeance.

Dalinar Kholin's Alethi armies won a fleeting victory at a terrible cost: The enemy Parshendi summoned the violent Everstorm, which now sweeps the world with destruction, and in its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified.

Nestled in the mountains high above the storms, in the tower city of Urithiru, Shallan Davar investigates the wonders of the ancient stronghold of the Knights Radiant and unearths dark secrets lurking in its depths. And Dalinar realizes that his holy mission to unite his homeland of Alethkar was too narrow in scope. Unless all the nations of Roshar can put aside Dalinar's blood-soaked past and stand together--and unless Dalinar himself can confront that past--even the restoration of the Knights Radiant will not prevent the end of civilization.]]> 1248 Brandon Sanderson Klenk 3 4.60 2017
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2018/05/10
date added: 2018/05/23
shelves:
review:
This is just a HUGE world with so many different threads. By the end, there are definitely story lines and players that you have no idea what they are doing. All the build up was great, but at this point each time he gives a glimpse of some other world (Shadesmar in this one) I just get tired thinking that at some point there will be a book set there or something. I appreciate the way Sanderson takes a book to build a character up then spends the next book telling you all the things that are bad about the character. I guess Shallan or Jasnah is next. Final negative to me is that in this book and the last one, you have hundreds of pages of interesting story and then you get a 100 page battle scene that is all magic that the nobody can explain including the author.
]]> 522152 Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, contains the complete text of both works and annotations that highlight the games, references, and parodies in the works.]]> 352 Lewis Carroll 0452010411 Klenk 3 4.40 1871
author: Lewis Carroll
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1871
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2018/04/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 6101718
Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.

He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.

At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.]]> 402 Lev Grossman 0670020559 Klenk 1 3.53 2009
author: Lev Grossman
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2009
rating: 1
read at: 2018/03/13
date added: 2018/03/13
shelves:
review:
It almost had characters in the second half. The ending/epilogue was even more nonsense. Really stunned I finished this book, I blame travel.
]]> 28923
Christopher Banks, an English boy born in early-twentieth-century Shanghai, is orphaned at age nine when his mother and father both vanish under suspicious circumstances. Sent to live in England, he grows up to become a renowned detective and, more than twenty years later, returns to Shanghai, where the Sino-Japanese War is raging, to solve the mystery of the disappearances.

The story is straightforward. Its telling is remarkable. Christopher's voice is controlled, detailed, and detached, its precision unsurprising in someone who has devoted his life to the examination of details and the rigors of objective thought. But within the layers of his narrative is slowly revealed what he can't, or won't, see: that his memory, despite what he wants to believe, is not unaffected by his childhood tragedies; that his powers of perception, the heralded clarity of his vision, can be blinding as well as enlightening; and that the simplest desires--a child's for his parents, a man's for understanding--may give rise to the most complicated truths.

A masterful combination of narrative control and soaring imagination, When We Were Orphans is Kazuo Ishiguro at his best.]]> 320 Kazuo Ishiguro 0571225403 Klenk 4 3.53 2000
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2018/01/01
date added: 2018/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 26530360 A thrilling work of sophisticated suspense set amid the Vietnamese underworld in Las Vegas.

Robert, an Oakland cop, still can't let go of Suzy, the enigmatic Vietnamese wife who left him two years ago. Now she's disappeared from her new husband, Sonny, a violent Vietnamese smuggler and gambler who's blackmailing Robert into finding her for him. As he pursues her through the sleek and seamy gambling dens of Las Vegas, shadowed by Sonny's sadistic son, "Junior," and assisted by unexpected and reluctant allies, Robert learns more about his ex-wife than he ever did during their marriage. He finds himself chasing the ghosts of her past, one that reaches back to a refugee camp in Malaysia after the fall of Saigon, as his investigation soon uncovers the existence of an elusive packet of her secret letters to someone she left behind long ago. Although Robert starts illuminating the dark corners of Suzy’s life, the legacy of her sins threatens to immolate them all.

Vu Tran has written a thrilling and cinematic work of sophisticated suspense and haunting lyricism, set in motion by characters who can neither trust each other nor trust themselves. This remarkable debut is a noir page-turner resonant with the lasting reverberations of lives lost and lives remade a generation ago.]]> 320 Vu Tran 0393352870 Klenk 3 3.22 2015
author: Vu Tran
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2017/12/16
date added: 2017/12/16
shelves:
review:
All the parts that focused on Suzy’s responses to the tragedy of her life were great, the rest...meh
]]> 466349 235 Edward St. Aubyn 1890447404 Klenk 4 3.82 2005
author: Edward St. Aubyn
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2017/10/29
date added: 2017/10/29
shelves:
review:
Definitely enjoyed it the most of the first four novels. The two and five year olds witness and response to the family dysfunction are fantastic.
]]> 25731543 New York Times bestselling author of The Expats and The Accident.

It s 3:00 am. Do you know where your husband is? Meet Will Rhodes: travel writer, recently married, barely solvent, his idealism rapidly giving way to disillusionment and the worry that he's living the wrong life. Then one night, on assignment for the award-winning Travelers magazine in the wine region of Argentina, a beautiful woman makes him an offer he can't refuse. Soon Will's bad choices and dark secrets take him across Europe, from a chateau in Bordeaux to a midnight raid on a Paris mansion, from a dive bar in Dublin to a mega-yacht in the Mediterranean and an isolated cabin perched on the rugged cliffs of Iceland.

As he's drawn further into a tangled web of international intrigue, it becomes clear that nothing about Will Rhodes was ever ordinary, that the network of deception ensnaring him is part of an immense and deadly conspiracy with terrifying global implications and that the people closest to him may pose the greatest threat of all.

It's 3:00 am. Your husband has just become a spy.]]> 433 Chris Pavone 0385348487 Klenk 2 3.55 2016
author: Chris Pavone
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2017/09/30
date added: 2017/10/02
shelves:
review:
I'm a sucker for this genre, but it is bad that by the end of the book you feel like a sucker for reading it. And now I'm watching the BBC adaptation of the night manager...
]]> 23995360 ��
In Superforecasting, Tetlock and coauthor Dan Gardner offer a masterwork on prediction, drawing on decades of research and the results of a massive, government-funded forecasting tournament. The Good Judgment Project involves tens of thousands of ordinary people—including a Brooklyn filmmaker, a retired pipe installer, and a former ballroom dancer—who set out to forecast global events. Some of the volunteers have turned out to be astonishingly good. They’ve beaten other benchmarks, competitors, and prediction markets. They’ve even beaten the collective judgment of intelligence analysts with access to classified information. They are "superforecasters."
��
In this groundbreaking and accessible book, Tetlock and Gardner show us how we can learn from this elite group. Weaving together stories of forecasting successes (the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound) and failures (the Bay of Pigs) and interviews with a range of high-level decision makers, from David Petraeus to Robert Rubin, they show that good forecasting doesn’t require powerful computers or arcane methods. It involves gathering evidence from a variety of sources, thinking probabilistically, working in teams, keeping score, and being willing to admit error and change course. Superforecasting offers the first demonstrably effective way to improve our ability to predict the future—whether in business, finance, politics, international affairs, or daily life—and is destined to become a modern classic.]]> 352 Philip E. Tetlock 0804136696 Klenk 4 4.06 2015
author: Philip E. Tetlock
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2017/08/26
date added: 2017/08/26
shelves:
review:
Super easy to read summary of 30 years of research. One of my favorite topics and one I wish I did more professional work in.
]]> 23168277
The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.]]> 371 Viet Thanh Nguyen 0802123457 Klenk 4 4.00 2015
author: Viet Thanh Nguyen
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2017/08/15
date added: 2017/08/20
shelves:
review:
A fun exploration of idealism versus action and everyone's ability to dehumanized everyone else.
]]> 458394 304 Ian C. Esslemont 0593057813 Klenk 1 3.82 2004
author: Ian C. Esslemont
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2004
rating: 1
read at: 2017/07/18
date added: 2017/07/18
shelves:
review:
This is what I get for taking recommendations from Reddit...
]]> 15795418 184 Edward St. Aubyn 146682817X Klenk 3 3.80 1994
author: Edward St. Aubyn
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2017/05/15
date added: 2017/05/16
shelves:
review:
Some hope, not much, we get to meet some of the royalty whose frivolous awfulness seems to inspire the bunch of them. The large party and indiscriminate carnage seems to make all the hurts seem shallow or light until you are reminded of the deeper lasting damage all things these people do/have done/will do
]]> 1077554
Bad News was originally published, along with Never Mind and Some Hope, as part of a three book omnibus also called Some Hope.]]> 224 Edward St. Aubyn 0749398728 Klenk 3 3.78 1992
author: Edward St. Aubyn
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2017/04/26
date added: 2017/04/26
shelves:
review:
If Book 1 was rich people behaving terribly, Book 2 is more rich person behaving badly. I think I like the ensemble version more.
]]> 17332218 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance, Book Two of the Stormlight Archive, continues the immersive fantasy epic that The Way of Kings began.

Expected by his enemies to die the miserable death of a military slave, Kaladin survived to be given command of the royal bodyguards, a controversial first for a low-status "darkeyes." Now he must protect the king and Dalinar from every common peril as well as the distinctly uncommon threat of the Assassin, all while secretly struggling to master remarkable new powers that are somehow linked to his honorspren, Syl.

The Assassin, Szeth, is active again, murdering rulers all over the world of Roshar, using his baffling powers to thwart every bodyguard and elude all pursuers. Among his prime targets is Highprince Dalinar, widely considered the power behind the Alethi throne. His leading role in the war would seem reason enough, but the Assassin's master has much deeper motives.

Brilliant but troubled Shallan strives along a parallel path. Despite being broken in ways she refuses to acknowledge, she bears a terrible burden: to somehow prevent the return of the legendary Voidbringers and the civilization-ending Desolation that will follow. The secrets she needs can be found at the Shattered Plains, but just arriving there proves more difficult than she could have imagined.

Meanwhile, at the heart of the Shattered Plains, the Parshendi are making an epochal decision. Hard pressed by years of Alethi attacks, their numbers ever shrinking, they are convinced by their war leader, Eshonai, to risk everything on a desperate gamble with the very supernatural forces they once fled. The possible consequences for Parshendi and humans alike, indeed, for Roshar itself, are as dangerous as they are incalculable.]]> 1088 Brandon Sanderson 0765326361 Klenk 4 4.76 2014
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Klenk
average rating: 4.76
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2017/04/13
date added: 2017/04/13
shelves:
review:
1100 pages of great fun, only downside is it is a bit anti-climatic. Shallan's great with a stellar backstory. Mopy Kaladin is a bit annoying, but the intrigue around him is worth it.
]]> 13514899 Never Mind, the first installment in Edward St. Aubyn's wonderful, wry, and profound Patrick Melrose Cycle, follows five-year-old Patrick through a single day, as the Melrose family awaits the arrival of guests. Bright and imaginative, young Patrick struggles daily to contend with the searing cruelty of his father and the resignation of his embattled mother. But on this day he must endure an unprecedented horror—one that splits his world in two. In Never Mind, St. Aubyn renders this vivid tragedy with profound grace and precision, and introduces us to the unforgettable, complex figure of Patrick Melrose.]]> 181 Edward St. Aubyn 0434734527 Klenk 3 3.79 1992
author: Edward St. Aubyn
name: Klenk
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2017/03/13
date added: 2017/03/13
shelves:
review:
Terrible people doing terrible things
]]>