en-US Thu, 24 Apr 2025 21:52:58 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 216351768
If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated with where you are, the problem isn't you. The problem is the power you give to other people. Two simple words�Let Them—will set you free. Free from the opinions, drama, and judgments of others. Free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and everyone around you. The Let Them Theory puts the power to create a life you love back in your hands—and this book will show you exactly how to do it.

In her latest groundbreaking book, The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins�New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's most respected experts on motivation, confidence, and mindset—teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can't control and start focusing on what truly YOU. Your happiness. Your goals. Your life.

Using the same no-nonsense, science-backed approach that's made The Mel Robbins Podcast a global sensation, Robbins explains why The Let Them Theory is already loved by millions and how you can apply it in eight key areas of your life to make the biggest impact. Within a few pages, you'll realize how much energy and time you've been wasting trying to control the wrong things—at work, in relationships, and in pursuing your goals—and how this is keeping you from the happiness and success you deserve.

Written as an easy-to-understand guide, Robbins shares relatable stories from her own life, highlights key takeaways, relevant research and introduces you to world-renowned experts in psychology, neuroscience, relationships, happiness, and ancient wisdom who champion The Let Them Theory every step of the way.

Learn how

Stop wasting energy on things you can't control Stop comparing yourself to other peopleBreak free from fear and self-doubtRelease the grip of people's expectationsBuild the best friendships of your lifeCreate the love you deservePursue what truly matters to you with confidenceBuild resilience against everyday stressors and distractionsDefine your own path to success, joy, and fulfillment. . . and so much more.

The Let Them Theory will forever change the way you think about relationships, control, and personal power. Whether you want to advance your career, motivate others to change, take creative risks, find deeper connections, build better habits, start a new chapter, or simply create more happiness in your life and relationships, this book gives you the mindset and tools to unlock your full potential.

Order your copy of The Let Them Theory now and discover how much power you truly have. It all begins with two simple words.]]> 311 Mel Robbins 1401971377 Beth 0 want-to-read-other-rec 4.18 2024
author: Mel Robbins
name: Beth
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/24
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]]> 58669528
To secure their future, each Linwood heir must now dig into the past. As their suspicion mounts—of each other and of peculiar strangers in the churchless town of Linwood Hollow—they come to suspect that the perpetrator lurks in the mysterious origins of their own birth.]]> 402 Christopher Huang 1950301060 Beth 0 currently-reading, ylto-2025 3.74 2023
author: Christopher Huang
name: Beth
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: currently-reading, ylto-2025
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]]> 18635113
Maud, an aging grandmother, is slowly losing her memory—and her grip on everyday life. Yet she refuses to forget her best friend Elizabeth, who she is convinced is missing and in terrible danger.

But no one will listen to Maud—not her frustrated daughter, Helen, not her caretakers, not the police, and especially not Elizabeth's mercurial son, Peter. Armed with handwritten notes she leaves for herself and an overwhelming feeling that Elizabeth needs her help, Maud resolves to discover the truth and save her beloved friend.

This singular obsession forms a cornerstone of Maud's rapidly dissolving present. But the clues she discovers seem only to lead her deeper into her past, to another unsolved disappearance: her sister, Sukey, who vanished shortly after World War II.

As vivid memories of a tragedy that occurred more than fifty years ago come flooding back, Maud discovers new momentum in her search for her friend. Could the mystery of Sukey's disappearance hold the key to finding Elizabeth?]]> 320 Emma Healey 0062309668 Beth 4 ylto-2025 3.69 2014
author: Emma Healey
name: Beth
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: ylto-2025
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]]> 39908555
Only a few years removed from the trenches of Flanders himself, Lieutenant Eric Peterkin has just been granted membership in the most prestigious soldiers-only club in London: The Britannia. But when a gentleman's wager ends with a member stabbed to death, the victim's last words echo in the Lieutenant’s head: that he would "soon right a great wrong from the past."

Eric is certain that one of his fellow members is the murderer: but who? Captain Mortimer Wolfe, the soldier’s soldier thrice escaped from German custody? Second Lieutenant Oliver Saxon, the brilliant codebreaker? Or Captain Edward Aldershott, the steely club president whose Savile Row suits hide a frightening collision of mustard gas scars?

Eric's investigation will draw him far from the marbled halls of the Britannia, to the shadowy remains of a dilapidated war hospital and the heroin dens of Limehouse. And as the facade of gentlemenhood cracks, Eric faces a Matryoshka doll of murder, vice, and secrets pointing not only to the officers of his own club but the very investigator assigned by Scotland Yard.]]> 352 Christopher Huang 1942645953 Beth 4 tbr, ylto-2025 3.76 2018
author: Christopher Huang
name: Beth
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025
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]]> 52476830 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family–and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for–and everything she feared.

Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had.

But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter–she doesn’t behave like most children do.

Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.

Then their son Sam is born–and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.

The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive novel that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about what we owe our children, and what it feels like when women are not believed.]]> 307 Ashley Audrain 1984881663 Beth 0 wishlist 4.03 2021
author: Ashley Audrain
name: Beth
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: wishlist
review:

]]> 107426 250 Jill Ker Conway 0679744614 Beth 0 want-to-read-pre-test, tbr 3.88
author: Jill Ker Conway
name: Beth
average rating: 3.88
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: want-to-read-pre-test, tbr
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]]> 43352954 Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.]]> 209 Amal El-Mohtar Beth 0 want-to-read-other-rec 3.86 2019
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: Beth
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/18
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]]> 34921573 From the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, a startling challenge to our thinking about depression and anxiety.

Award-winning journalist Johann Hari suffered from depression since he was a child and started taking antidepressants when he was a teenager. He was told—like his entire generation—that his problem was caused by a chemical imbalance in his brain. As an adult, trained in the social sciences, he began to investigate this question—and he learned that almost everything we have been told about depression and anxiety is wrong.

Across the world, Hari discovered social scientists who were uncovering the real causes—and they are mostly not in our brains, but in the way we live today. Hari’s journey took him from the people living in the tunnels beneath Las Vegas, to an Amish community in Indiana, to an uprising in Berlin—all showing in vivid and dramatic detail these new insights. They lead to solutions radically different from the ones we have been offered up until now.

Just as Chasing the Scream transformed the global debate about addiction, with over twenty million views for his TED talk and the animation based on it, Lost Connections will lead us to a very different debate about depression and anxiety—one that shows how, together, we can end this epidemic.]]> 322 Johann Hari 163286830X Beth 0 want-to-read-other-rec 4.26 2018
author: Johann Hari
name: Beth
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: want-to-read-other-rec
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]]> 205410771
In the Assault on the State, political scientists Stephen Hanson and Jeffrey Kopstein offer an impassioned plea to defend modern government against those who seek to destroy it. They dissect the attack on the machinery of government from its origins in post-Soviet Russia to the core powers of Western democracy. The dangers of state erosion imperil every aspect of our lives. Kopstein and Hanson outline a strategy that can reverse this destructive trend before humanity is plunged back into the pathological personalistic politics of premodern times.]]> 182 Stephen E. Hanson 1509563156 Beth 0 want-to-read-reviews 4.14
author: Stephen E. Hanson
name: Beth
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: want-to-read-reviews
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]]> 37486235 341 Sarah Pinborough 0062856790 Beth 4 ylto-2025 3.62 2018
author: Sarah Pinborough
name: Beth
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: ylto-2025
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]]> 57693470
The woman’s body was found on a bench in a New York City playground. She was clean, her hair neatly arranged, her makeup carefully applied. But other things were very wrong—like the tattoo and piercings, clearly new. The clothes, decades out of date. The fatal wound hidden beneath a ribbon around her neck. And the note: Bad Mommy, written in crayon as if by a child.

It seems clear the killer’s childhood was traumatic—a situation Eve is all too familiar with herself. Yet the clues point to a perpetrator who’d be around sixty, and there are no records of old crimes with a similar MO. What was the trigger that apparently reopened such an old wound and sent someone over the edge? When Eve learns that other young women have recently vanished, the case grows even more urgent—and to solve it she’ll need to find her way into a hidden place of dim light and concrete, into the distant past, and into the depths of a shattered mind.]]> 356 J.D. Robb 125027821X Beth 0 ylto-2025 4.17 2022
author: J.D. Robb
name: Beth
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
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]]> 58587864
Emma Averell loves her life—her high-powered legal career, her two beautiful children, and her wonderful stay-at-home husband—but it wasn’t always so perfect. When she was just five years old, Emma and her older sister went into foster care because of a horrific incident with their mother. Her sister can remember a time when their mother was loving and “normal,� but Emma can only remember her as one thing—a monster. And that monster emerged right around their mother’s fortieth birthday, the same age Emma is approaching now.

Emma desperately wants to keep her successful life separate from her past, so she has always hidden her childhood trauma. But then she’s unable to sleep, and now losing time during the day, also one of the first symptoms her mother showed. Is the madness in her blood, just as her mother predicted? Could she end up hurting her family in her foggy, frenetic state? Or is she truly beginning to lose her mind?]]> 336 Sarah Pinborough Beth 0 ylto-2025 3.65 2022
author: Sarah Pinborough
name: Beth
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/13
date added: 2025/04/13
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]]> 39720991
The Witch Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, when we no longer know who we are.]]> 528 Tana French 0735224633 Beth 4 tbr, ylto-2025 3.53 2018
author: Tana French
name: Beth
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/11
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025
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]]> 35235624
For Kate Channing, Severine was an unwelcome presence, her inscrutable beauty undermining the close-knit group's loyalties amid the already simmering tensions. And after a huge altercation on the last night of the holiday, Kate knew nothing would ever be the same. There are some things you can't forgive, and there are some people you can't forget, like Severine, who was never seen again.

Now, a decade later, the case is reopened when Severine's body is found in the well behind the farmhouse. Questioned along with her friends, Kate stands to lose everything she's worked so hard to achieve as suspicion mounts around her. Desperate to resolve her own shifting memories and fearful she will be forever bound to the woman whose presence still haunts her, Kate finds herself buried under layers of deception with no one to set her free.]]> 304 Lexie Elliott 0399586938 Beth 4 ylto-2025 3.51 2018
author: Lexie Elliott
name: Beth
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/13
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: ylto-2025
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]]> 45730132 Marriage can be murder�

SOMETHING OLD
Marcie’s affair with Jason Maddox catapulted her into the world of the elite. Old money, old ties, old secrets. Marcie may have married into this world � but she’ll never be part of it.

SOMETHING NEW
Then Jason’s boss brings back a new wife from his trip to London. Young, attractive, reckless � nobody can take their eyes off Keisha. Including Marcie’s husband.

SOMETHING YOU CAN NEVER, EVER UNDO�
Some people would kill for the life Marcie has—what will she do to keep it?

Ìý±Õ±Õ> 400 Sarah Pinborough 0062856820 Beth 4 ylto-2025 3.29 2020
author: Sarah Pinborough
name: Beth
average rating: 3.29
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: ylto-2025
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]]> 16158552 The inspiration for A&E's Longmire finds himself in the crosshairs in the ninth book of the New York Times bestselling series

The success of Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire series that began with The Cold Dish continues to grow after A&E’s hit show Longmire introduced new fans to the Wyoming sheriff. As the Crow Flies marked the series� highest debut on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, in his ninth Western mystery, Longmire stares down his most dangerous foes yet.

It’s homecoming in Absaroka County, but the football and festivities are interrupted when a homeless boy wanders intoÌý town. A Mormon “lost boy,â€� Cord Lynear is searching for his missing mother but clues are scarce. Longmire and his companions, feisty deputy Victoria Moretti and longtime friend Henry Standing Bear, embark on a high plains scavenger hunt in hopes of reuniting mother and son. The trail leads them to an interstate polygamy group that’s presiding over a stockpile of weapons and harboring a vicious vendetta.


]]> 335 Craig Johnson 067002645X Beth 0 ylto-2025 4.21 2013
author: Craig Johnson
name: Beth
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: ylto-2025
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]]> 198563729 Daphne and Amber Parrish are thrust back into each other’s lives upon the resurgence of a long-forgotten threat, forcing a vicious game of cat and mouse where everything is on the line, in this thrilling sequel to the million-copy-bestselling Reese’s Book Club pick The Last Mrs. Parrish.

Amber Patterson Parrish has come a long way from being an invisible wallflower. Her hard work and immaculate planning have paid off now that she’s a prominent socialite, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been bumps along the way. Less than a year since her husband Jackson’s tax-evasion scandal, Amber is still at the top of the Bishops Harbor community pecking order, free to do as she wishes while Jackson sits in prison. But that freedom is quickly coming to an end. With Jackson getting released from prison, Amber’s time—and money—is vanishing.

Meanwhile, Daphne Parrish left Bishops Harbor after her divorce from Jackson Parrish, swearing she would never go back. But when one of her daughters runs away from home, desperate to see her father, Daphne agrees to return for the summer to allow him supervised visits. Once out of prison, Jackson swears he’s a changed man, but Daphne knows all too well that he can’t be trusted.

When a ghost from Amber’s past emerges looking for revenge, the three of them find unlikely allies in one another, but who is playing who? When all is said and done, they’ll have to fight tooth and nail for everything they have left in this zero-sum game.

With shocking turns and entertaining characters, The Next Mrs. Parrish will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about duplicity and betrayal.]]> 336 Liv Constantine 0593599926 Beth 3 ylto-2025 3.76 2024
author: Liv Constantine
name: Beth
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/11
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: ylto-2025
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]]> 1033975 320 J.P. Donleavy 0140042822 Beth 0 want-to-read-reviews 4.01 1975
author: J.P. Donleavy
name: Beth
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1975
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: want-to-read-reviews
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]]> 28965131 Why is everyone talking about the ending of Sarah Pinborough's Behind Her Eyes?

Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. On a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar and sparks fly. Though he leaves after they kiss, she’s thrilled she finally connected with someone.

When Louise arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David. The man from the bar. The very married man from the bar…who says the kiss was a terrible mistake but who still can’t keep his eyes off Louise.

And then Louise bumps into Adele, who’s new to town and in need of a friend, but she also just happens to be married to David. David and Adele look like the picture-perfect husband and wife, but then why is David so controlling, and why is Adele so scared of him?

As Louise is drawn into David and Adele’s orbit, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers. The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong, but Louise can’t guess how wrong―and how far a person might go to protect their marriage’s secrets.]]> 307 Sarah Pinborough 125011117X Beth 0 ylto-2025 3.79 2017
author: Sarah Pinborough
name: Beth
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/07
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: ylto-2025
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]]> 32912154 Carl Louis Feldman is an old man who was once a celebrated photographer. That was before he was tried for the murder of a young woman and acquitted. before his admission to a care home for dementia. Now his daughter has come to see him, to take him on a trip. Only she's not his daughter and, if she has her way, he's not coming back . . .

Because Carl's past has finally caught up with him. The young woman driving the car is convinced her passenger is guilty, and that he's killed, other young women. Including her sister Rachel. Now they're following the trail of his photographs, his clues, his alleged crimes. To see if he remembers any of it. Confesses to any of it. To discover what really happened to Rachel. Has Carl truly forgotten what he did or is he just pretending? Perhaps he's guilty of nothing and she's the liar. Either way in driving him into the Texan wilderness she's taking a terrible risk. For if Carl really is a serial killer, she's alone in the most dangerous place of all . . .]]> 351 Julia Heaberlin 080417802X Beth 4 3.58 2018
author: Julia Heaberlin
name: Beth
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
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]]> 43984883 San Francisco Chronicle).ÌýTheÌýNew YorkerÌýhas said that Elizabeth Strout “animates the ordinary with an astonishing force,â€� and she has never done so more clearly than in these pages, where the iconic Olive struggles to understand not only herself and her own life but the lives of those around her in the town of Crosby, Maine. Whether with a teenager coming to terms with the loss of her father, a young woman about to give birth during a hilariously inopportune moment, a nurse who confesses a secret high school crush, or a lawyer who struggles with an inheritance she does not want to accept, the unforgettable Olive will continue to startle us, to move us, and to inspireÌýus—in Strout’s words—“to bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can.â€�]]> 289 Elizabeth Strout 0812996542 Beth 4 tbr, ylto-2025 4.06 2019
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Beth
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025
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]]> 41398127 Once More We Saw Stars begins with this event, leading the reader into the unimaginable.

But although it begins with the anguish Jayson and his wife Stacy confront in the wake of their daughter’s trauma and the hours leading up to her death, it quickly becomes a narrative that is as much about hope and healing as it is about grief and loss. Jayson recognizes, even in the very midst of his ordeal, that there will be a life for him beyond it—that if only he can continue moving forward, from one moment to the next, he will survive what seems un-survivable.

With raw honesty, deep emotion, and exquisite tenderness, he captures both the fragility of life and absoluteness of death, and most important of all, the unconquerable power of love. This is an unforgettable memoir of courage and transformation—and a book that will change the way you look at the world.]]> 245 Jayson Greene 1524733539 Beth 5 memoirs 4.14 2019
author: Jayson Greene
name: Beth
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: memoirs
review:

]]> 27213253
Sixty years later Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before she dies, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person to whom it might matter: her grandniece, Justine.

For Justine, the lake house offers a chance to escape her manipulative boyfriend and give her daughters the stable home she never had. But it’s not the sanctuary she hoped for. The long Minnesota winter has begun. The house is cold and dilapidated, the frozen lake is silent and forbidding, and her only neighbor is a strange old man who seems to know more than he’s telling about the summer of 1935.

Soon Justine’s troubled oldest daughter becomes obsessed with Emily’s disappearance, her mother arrives with designs on her inheritance, and the man she left behind launches a dangerous plan to get her back. In a house steeped in the sorrows of the women who came before her, Justine must overcome their tragic legacy if she hopes to save herself and her children.]]> 341 Heather Young 0062456601 Beth 4 ylto-2025 3.81 2016
author: Heather Young
name: Beth
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: ylto-2025
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]]> 59900661
With her step-parents blithely distracted by their endless party guests, Cristabel and her siblings, Flossie and Digby, scratch together an education from the plays they read in their freezing attic, drunken conversations eavesdropped through oak-panelled doors, and the esoteric lessons of Maudie their maid.

But as the children grow to adulthood and war approaches, jolting their lives on to very different tracks, it becomes clear that the roles they are expected to play are no longer those they want. As they find themselves drawn into the conflict, they must each find a way to write their own story...

This is the story of an old English manor house by the sea, with crumbling chimneys, draping ivy and a library full of dusty hardbacks. It's the story of the three children who grow up there, and the adventures they create for themselves while the grown-ups entertain endless party guests: the worlds they imagine from books they aren't supposed to read, and the lessons they learn from eavesdropping through oak-panelled doors.

This is the story of a whale that washes up on a beach, whose bones are claimed by a twelve-year-old girl with big ambitions and an even bigger imagination. An unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, chafing under the confines of her traditional upbringing and fiercely determined to do things differently.]]> 558 Joanna Quinn 0593321707 Beth 4 ylto-2025 3.98 2022
author: Joanna Quinn
name: Beth
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: ylto-2025
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]]> 30227196
It is 1939 in Vienna, and as the specter of war darkens Europe, Rose Zimmer’s parents are desperate. Unable to get out of Austria, they manage to secure passage for their young daughter on a kindertransport, and send her to live with strangers in England.

Six years later, the war finally over, a grief-stricken Rose attempts to build a life for herself. Alone in London, devastated, she cannot help but try to search out one piece of her childhood: the Chaim Soutine painting her mother had cherished.

Many years later, the painting finds its way to America. In modern-day Los Angeles, Lizzie Goldstein has returned home for her father’s funeral. Newly single and unsure of her path, she also carries a burden of guilt that cannot be displaced. Years ago, as a teenager, Lizzie threw a party at her father’s house with unexpected but far-reaching consequences. The Soutine painting that she loved and had provided lasting comfort to her after her own mother had died was stolen, and has never been recovered.

This painting will bring Lizzie and Rose together and ignite an unexpected friendship, eventually revealing long-held secrets that hold painful truths. Spanning decades and unfolding in crystalline, atmospheric prose, The Fortunate Ones is a haunting story of longing, devastation, and forgiveness, and a deep examination of the bonds and desires that map our private histories.]]> 324 Ellen Umansky 0062382489 Beth 4 ylto-2025 3.45 2017
author: Ellen Umansky
name: Beth
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: ylto-2025
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]]> 221502414 A breathtaking and ineffable new novel from the author of the international bestsellers Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault--a novel of love and loyalty across generations, at once sweeping and intimate

1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls--a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night.

1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near a different river. He is alive but still not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts with messages he cannot understand.

So begins a narrative that spans four generations of connections and consequences that ignite and reignite as the century unfolds. In radiant moments of desire, comprehension, longing, and transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.

Held is affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom, and compassion, a novel by a writer at the height of her powers.]]> 240 Anne Michaels 0593470842 Beth 0 unread-on-shelves 2.83 2023
author: Anne Michaels
name: Beth
average rating: 2.83
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: unread-on-shelves
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]]> 36373463
Soon a new team starts to take shape around Amat, the fastest player you’ll ever see; Benji, the intense lone wolf; and Vidar, a born-to-be-bad troublemaker. But bringing this team together proves to be a challenge as old bonds are broken, new ones are formed, and the enmity with Hed grows more and more acute.

As the big match approaches, the not-so-innocent pranks and incidents between the communities pile up and their mutual contempt grows deeper. By the time the last game is finally played, a resident of Beartown will be dead, and the people of both towns will be forced to wonder if, after all they’ve been through, the game they love can ever return to something simple and innocent.
]]> 448 Fredrik Backman 1501160796 Beth 0 wishlist 4.34 2017
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Beth
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: wishlist
review:

]]> 40877706 A lush tapestry of magic, romance, and revolución, drawing inspiration from Bolivian politics and history.

Ximena is the decoy Condesa, a stand-in for the last remaining Illustrian royal. Her people lost everything when the usurper, Atoc, used an ancient relic to summon ghosts and drive the Illustrians from La Ciudad. Now Ximena’s motivated by her insatiable thirst for revenge, and her rare ability to spin thread from moonlight.

When Atoc demands the real Condesa’s hand in marriage, it’s Ximena’s duty to go in her stead. She relishes the chance, as Illustrian spies have reported that Atoc’s no longer carrying his deadly relic. If Ximena can find it, she can return the true aristócrata to their rightful place.

She hunts for the relic, using her weaving ability to hide messages in tapestries for the resistance. But when a masked vigilante, a warm-hearted princess, and a thoughtful healer challenge Ximena, her mission becomes more complicated. There could be a way to overthrow the usurper without starting another war, but only if Ximena turns her back on revenge—and her Condesa.]]> 384 Isabel Ibañez 1624148026 Beth 0 ylto-2025 3.84 2020
author: Isabel Ibañez
name: Beth
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 58468990 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List comes a new locked room mystery, set in a Paris apartment building in which every resident has something to hide�

Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up � to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? � he’s not there.

The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.

The socialite � The nice guy � The alcoholic � The girl on the verge � The concierge

Everyone’s a neighbor. Everyone’s a suspect. And everyone knows something they’re not telling.]]> 360 Lucy Foley 0063003058 Beth 0 ylto-2025 3.63 2022
author: Lucy Foley
name: Beth
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 221798676
With relatable anecdotes and short, easy-to-follow exercises in every chapter, Reclaim Your Mind provides seven key strategies to help you use technology wisely. You’ll learn to develop awareness of your tech use, design your digital and physical environments to focus your attention, reject false urgency, and opt in to better tech that fosters authenticity and fun. Backed by scientific research and the author’s own experiences as a lifelong meditator and an influential designer of technologies for well-being, Reclaim Your Mind helps you rekindle a positive relationship with TV, social media, games, news, email, and even AI. With Jay Vidyarthi’s tools and insights, you’ll learn to stand up for your freedom of attention and relish the convenience, connection, and—yes—joy that technology can offer without getting stuck on apps designed to exploit you. You’ll improve your relationship with technology and ultimately, with yourself.]]> 200 Jay Vidyarthi 1069099503 Beth 0 unread-on-shelves 4.71
author: Jay Vidyarthi
name: Beth
average rating: 4.71
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: unread-on-shelves
review:

]]> 134899244
Paul Auster’s brilliant eighteenth novel opens with a scorched pot of water, which Sy Baumgartner � phenomenologist, noted author, and soon-to-be retired philosophy professor � has just forgotten on the stove.

Baumgartner’s life had been defined by his deep, abiding love for his wife, Anna, who was killed in a swimming accident nine years earlier. Now 71, Baumgartner continues to struggle to live in her absence as the novel sinuously unfolds into spirals of memory and reminiscence, delineated in episodes spanning from 1968, when Sy and Anna meet as broke students working and writing in New York, through their passionate relationship over the next forty years, and back to Baumgartner’s youth in Newark and his Polish-born father’s life as a dress-shop owner and failed revolutionary.

Rich with compassion, wit, and Auster’s keen eye for beauty in the smallest, most transient moments of ordinary life, Baumgartner asks: Why do we remember certain moments, and forget others? In one of his most luminous works and his first novel since the Booker-shortlisted tour-de-force 4 3 2 1, Paul Auster captures several lifetimes.]]> 208 Paul Auster 0802161448 Beth 0 unread-on-shelves 3.71 2023
author: Paul Auster
name: Beth
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: unread-on-shelves
review:

]]> 58007238 A renowned grief expert and neuroscientist shares groundbreaking discoveries about what happens in our brain when we grieve, providing a new paradigm for understanding love, loss, and learning.

For as long as humans have existed, we have struggled when a loved one dies. Poets and playwrights have written about the dark cloak of grief, the deep yearning, how devastating heartache feels. But until now, we have had little scientific perspective on this universal experience.

In The Grieving Brain, neuroscientist and psychologist Mary-Frances O'Connor, PhD, gives us a fascinating new window into one of the hallmark experiences of being human. O'Connor has devoted decades to researching the effects of grief on the brain, and in this book, she makes cutting-edge neuroscience accessible through her contagious enthusiasm, and guides us through how we encode love and grief. With love, our neurons help us form attachments to others; but, with loss, our brain must come to terms with where our loved ones went, or how to imagine a future that encompasses their absence.

Based on O'Connor's own trailblazing neuroimaging work, research in the field, and her real-life stories, The Grieving Brain does what the best popular science books do, combining storytelling, accessible science, and practical knowledge that will help us better understand what happens when we grieve and how to navigate loss with more ease and grace.]]> 236 Mary-Frances O'Connor 0062946234 Beth 4 4.13 2022
author: Mary-Frances O'Connor
name: Beth
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: psychology, non-fiction, ylto-2024, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 56269213 In the latest novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, homicide detective Eve Dallas sifts through the wreckage of the past to find a killer.

The body was left in a dumpster like so much trash, the victim a woman of no fixed address, known for offering paper flowers in return for spare change―and for keeping the cops informed of any infractions she witnessed on the street. But the notebook where she scribbled her intel on litterers and other such offenders is nowhere to be found.

Then Eve is summoned away to a nearby building site to view more remains―in this case decades old, adorned with gold jewelry and fine clothing―unearthed by recent construction work. She isn’t happy when she realizes that the scene of the crime belongs to her husband, Roarke―not that it should surprise her, since the Irish billionaire owns a good chunk of New York. Now Eve must enter a complex world of real estate development, family history, shady deals, and shocking secrets to find justice for two women whose lives were thrown away…]]> 384 J.D. Robb 1250272815 Beth 0 ylto-2025 4.23 2021
author: J.D. Robb
name: Beth
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 32294107 Bring your home out of the mess it s in and learn how to keep it under control. The dirty little secret about most organizing advice is that it s written by organized people, says blogger, speaker, and decluttering expert Dana K. White. But that s not how my brain works. I m lost on page three. Dana blogs atA Slob Comes Clean, chronicling her successes and failures with her self-described deslobification process. In the beginning she used the name Nony (short for aNONYmous), because she was sharing her deep, dark, slob secret. Now she has truly come clean with not only her real name but the strategies she has developed, tested, and proved in her own home. She has learned what it takes to bring a home out of Disaster Status, which habits make the biggest and most lasting impact, and how to keep clutter under control. InHow to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind, Dana explains that cleaning your house is not a onetime project but a series of ongoing premade decisions. Her reality-based cleaning and organizing techniques debunk the biggest housekeeping fantasies and help readers learn what really works. Chapter titles include
My First Giving Up on the Fantasy The Worst Thing About the Best Way Just Tell Me What to Do Conquering Laundry Get Dinner on the Table Putting an End to the Never-Ending Weekly Cleaning Tasks Don t Get Organized How to Declutter Without Making a Bigger Mess Fighting the Perceived Value Battle But Will It Last? With a huge helping of empathy and humor, Dana provides a step-by-step process with strategies for getting rid of enormous amounts of stuff in as little time (and with as little emotional drama) as possible."]]> 216 Dana K. White 0718083237 Beth 5 4.31 2016
author: Dana K. White
name: Beth
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 10127008
The relentless pursuit of high self-esteem has become a virtual religion—and a tyrannical one at that. Our ultracompetitive culture tells us we need to be constantly above average to feel good about ourselves, but there is always someone more attractive, successful, or intelligent than we are. And even when we do manage to grab hold of high self-esteem for a brief moment, we can't seem to keep it. Our sense of self-worth goes up and down like a ping-pong ball, rising and falling in lockstep with our latest success or failure.

Fortunately, there is an alternative to self-esteem that many experts believe is a better and more effective path to happiness: self-compassion. The research of Dr. Kristin Neff and other leading psychologists indicates that people who are compassionate toward their failings and imperfections experience greater well-being than those who repeatedly judge themselves. The feelings of security and self-worth provided by self-compassion are also highly stable, kicking in precisely when self-esteem falls down. This book powerfully demonstrates why it's so important to be self-compassionate and give yourself the same caring support you'd give to a good friend.

This groundbreaking work will show you how to let go of debilitating self-criticism and finally learn to be kind to yourself. Using solid empirical research, personal stories, practical exercises, and humor, Dr. Neff—the world's foremost expert on self-compassion—explains how to heal destructive emotional patterns so that you can be healthier, happier, and more effective. Engaging, highly readable, and eminently accessible, this book has the power to change your life.]]> 320 Kristin Neff 0061733512 Beth 4 tbr, ylto-2025 4.11 2011
author: Kristin Neff
name: Beth
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 58733665 Mesmerizing historical novel about three women in 1920s New York City and the secrets they hold.

Brooklyn, 1924. As New York City enters the jazz age, the lives of three very different women are about to converge in unexpected ways. Recently arrived from New Orleans, Beatrice is working to establish a chic new dress shop with help from Alice, the orphaned teenage ward she brought north with her. Down the block, newlywed Catherine is restless in her elegant brownstone, longing for a baby she cannot conceive.

When Bea befriends Catherine and the two start to become close, Alice feels abandoned and envious, and runs away to Manhattan. Her departure sets into motion a series of events that will force each woman to confront the painful secrets of her past in order to move into the happier future she seeks.

Moving from the bustling streets of early twentieth century New York City to late nineteenth-century Russia and the lively quarters of New Orleans in the 1910s, The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights is a story of the families we are born into and the families we choose, and of the unbreakable bonds between women.]]> 352 Kitty Zeldis 0063026341 Beth 4 tbr, ylto-2025, jewish 3.82 2022
author: Kitty Zeldis
name: Beth
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025, jewish
review:

]]> 1056364 213 Mary MacCracken 0451165527 Beth 0 unread-on-shelves 4.30 1974
author: Mary MacCracken
name: Beth
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: unread-on-shelves
review:

]]> 19037534
Nine-year-old Cassandra, kidnapped by her father and found starving, dirty, and picking through garbage cans—is a child prone to long silences and erratic, violent behavior.

Charming, charismatic four-year-old Drake will speak only in private to his mother—while his tough, unbending grandfather's demands for an immediate cure threatens to cause irreparable harm.

And though she had never worked with adults, Hayden agrees to help fearful and silent eighty-two-year-old massive stroke victim Gerda—discovering in the process that a treatment's successes could prove nearly as heartbreaking as its limitations.

Ìý

Ìý±Õ±Õ> 348 Torey L. Hayden Beth 0 unread-on-shelves 4.57 2005
author: Torey L. Hayden
name: Beth
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: unread-on-shelves
review:

]]> 212806640 The extraordinary story of Jessie Redmon Fauset whose exhilarating world of friends, rivals, and passions all combined to create the magic that was the Harlem Renaissance, written by Victoria Christopher Murray, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian.
Ìý
In 1919, as civil and social unrest grips the country, there is a little corner of America, a place called Harlem where something special is stirring. Here, the New Negro is rising and Black pride is evident everywhere…in music, theatre, fashion and the arts. And there on stage in the center of this renaissance is Jessie Redmon Fauset, the new literary editor ofÌýthe preeminent Negro magazine The Crisis.
Ìý
W.E.B. Du Bois, the founder and editor of The Crisis, has charged her with discovering young writers whose words will change the world. Jessie attacks the challenge with fervor, quickly finding sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen, seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends.ÌýUnder Jessie’s leadership, The Crisis thrives, the writers become notable and magazine subscriptions soar. Every Negro writer in the country wants their work published in the magazine now known for its groundbreaking poetry and short stories.Ìý
Ìý
Jessie’s rising star is shining bright�.but her relationship with W.E.B. could jeopardize all that she’s built. The man, considered by most to be the leader of Black America, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover. And neither his wife, nor their fourteen-year-age difference can keep the two apart. Their torrid and tumultuous affair is complicated by a secret desire that Jessie harbors � to someday, herself, become the editor of the magazine, a position that only W.E.B. Du Bois has held.
Ìý
In the face of overwhelming sexism and racism, Jessie must balance her drive with her desires. However, as she strives to preserve her legacy, she’ll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.]]> 400 Victoria Christopher Murray 0593638484 Beth 0 want-to-read-mom 4.10 2025
author: Victoria Christopher Murray
name: Beth
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: want-to-read-mom
review:

]]> 1197158 The Grapes of Wrath met with wide acclaim. In the belief that Steinbeck already adequately explored the subject matter, Babb's lyrical novel about a farm family's relentless struggle to survive in both Depression-era Oklahoma and in the California migrant labor camps gathered dust for decades.

Rescued from obscurity by the University of Oklahoma Press, the members of the poor but proud Dunne family and their circle of equally determined friends provide another legitimate glimpse into life on the dust-plagued prairies of the Southwest and in the fertile, but bitterly disappointing, orchards and vineyards of the so-called promised land. Babb, a native of Oklahoma's arid panhandle and a volunteer with the Farm Security Administration in Depression-era California, brings an insider's knowledge and immediacy to this authentically compelling narrative. A slightly less political, more female-oriented, companion piece to The Grapes of Wrath.]]> 222 Sanora Babb 0806137126 Beth 5 ylto-2025 4.11 2004
author: Sanora Babb
name: Beth
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 60311671


When Charlie Blair left Chicago behind—and her old life as Lauren Claybourne—for a gig in the Santa Cruz DA’s office, things were supposed to be easier. Or at least nothing that a couple of Xanax and a tumbler of vodka couldn’t handle. The plan had been working, until the murder of a local bail bondsman Shelly Hansen.



Enter: hot-shot prosecutor Erika Lorman, she of the stellar record and unfailing touch with juries, a veritable legend in her own right. Fresh off the prosecution of celebrity chef Blake Steers, the newest resident of California’s penitentiary system and perhaps its most high profile, she’s thrust back into action alongside her new co-chair from the windy city and ready to do anything to put criminals behind bars.



But as the fevered search for answers intensifies and the hunt for a killer continues, secrets from the past threaten to undo not just the case—but Erika and Charlie, too. Expertly plotted and relentlessly paced, The Fall Girl will keep readers guessing until the very end.]]> 302 Marcia Clark 1644282658 Beth 3 ylto-2025 3.58 2022
author: Marcia Clark
name: Beth
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 351287 Love in Excess is a well-crafted novel in which the claims of love and ambition are pursued through multiple storylines until the heroine engineers a melodramatic conclusion. Love in Excess and its reception provide a lively and valuable record of the challenge that female desire posed to social decorum.]]> 286 Eliza Fowler Haywood 1551113678 Beth 0 3.34 1719
author: Eliza Fowler Haywood
name: Beth
average rating: 3.34
book published: 1719
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: 1001-books, tbr, unread-kindle
review:

]]> 28194710
Pigeon is the tragic, occasionally hilarious and ultimately intense story of a childhood friendship and how it's torn apart, a story of guilt, silence and the loss of innocence, and a story about the kind of love which may survive it all.]]> 256 Alys Conran 1910901237 Beth 4 ylto-2025 3.92
author: Alys Conran
name: Beth
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 54539 262 George Eliot Beth 4 3.67 1861
author: George Eliot
name: Beth
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1861
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: 1001-books, 1001-2025, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 55132472
New Hampshire, 1865. Marion Abbott is summoned to Brawders House asylum to collect the body of her sister, Alice. She’d been found dead after falling four stories from a steep-pitched roof. Officially: an accident. Confidentially: suicide. But Marion believes a third option: murder.

Returning to her family home to stay with her brother and his second wife, the recently widowed Marion is expected to quiet her feelings of guilt and grief—to let go of the dead and embrace the living. But that’s not easy in this house full of haunting memories.

Just when the search for the truth seems hopeless, a stranger approaches Marion with chilling words: I saw her fall.

Now Marion is more determined than ever to find out what happened that night at Brawders, and why. With no one she can trust, Marion may risk her own life to uncover the secrets buried with Alice in the family plot.]]> 287 Kim Taylor Blakemore 154202269X Beth 3 ylto-2025 3.59 2021
author: Kim Taylor Blakemore
name: Beth
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 156872901
When stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong, you have three choices: Avoid a crucial conversation and suffer the consequences; handle the conversation badly and suffer the consequences; or read Crucial Conversations and discover how to communicate best when it matters most. Crucial Conversations gives you the tools you need to step up to life's most difficult and important conversations, say what's on your mind, and achieve the positive resolutions you want. You'll learn how to:

Prepare for high-impact situations with a six-minute mastery technique
Make it safe to talk about almost anything
Be persuasive, not abrasive
Keep listening when others blow up or clam up
Turn crucial conversations into the action and results you want]]> 304 Joseph Grenny 9355323352 Beth 0 unread-audible, tbr 4.24 2002
author: Joseph Grenny
name: Beth
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: unread-audible, tbr
review:

]]> 60353768 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

The author of award-winning Hamnet brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de� Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court.

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.

Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?

As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court’s eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess’s future hangs entirely in the balance.

Full of the beauty and emotion with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell turns her talents to Renaissance Italy in an extraordinary portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival.]]> 355 Maggie O'Farrell Beth 4 ylto-2025 3.97 2022
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Beth
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 18839 Orlando 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature', playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Constantinople, awakes to find that he is now a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.]]> 336 Virginia Woolf 0141184272 Beth 0 unread-audible, 1001-books 3.88 1928
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Beth
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: unread-audible, 1001-books
review:

]]> 517061 175 Edna O'Brien 0452283434 Beth 0 unread-audible, 1001-books 3.75 1960
author: Edna O'Brien
name: Beth
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: unread-audible, 1001-books
review:

]]> 213618132 The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick

When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well.

The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby's high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that's exactly what they get.

So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family's history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future.

In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present.]]> 368 Charmaine Wilkerson 0593358368 Beth 0 want-to-read-reviews 4.05 2025
author: Charmaine Wilkerson
name: Beth
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: want-to-read-reviews
review:

]]> 212806636 A young woman and her lover are marooned on an island in this epic saga of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam.

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends her guardian’s servant and the two develop an intense attraction. But when their relationship is discovered, they are brutally punished and abandoned on a small island with no hope for rescue.

Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never before needed.

Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.]]> 368 Allegra Goodman 0593730089 Beth 0 want-to-read-reviews 4.00 2025
author: Allegra Goodman
name: Beth
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: want-to-read-reviews
review:

]]> 46114 The Waves introduces six characters—three men and three women—who are grappling with the death of a beloved friend, Percival. Instead of describing their outward expressions of grief, Virginia Woolf draws her characters from the inside, revealing them through their thoughts and interior soliloquies. As their understanding of nature’s trials grows, the chorus of narrative voices blends together in miraculous harmony, remarking not only on the inevitable death of individuals but on the eternal connection of everyone. The novel that most epitomizes Virginia Woolf’s theories of fiction in the working form, The Waves is an amazing book very much ahead of its time. It is a poetic dreamscape, visual, experimental, and thrilling.]]> 297 Virginia Woolf 0156949601 Beth 5 4.17 1931
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Beth
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1931
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: 1001-2025, 1001-books, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 213344068
One week into the COVID-19 shutdown, tenants of a Lower East Side apartment building in Manhattan have begun to gather on the rooftop and tell stories. With each passing night, more and more neighbours gather, bringing chairs and milk crates and overturned pails. Gradually the tenants - some of whom have barely spoken to each other - become real neighbours. In this Decameron-like serial novel, general editor Margaret Atwood, Authors Guild president Douglas Preston, and a star-studded list of contributors create a beautiful ode to the people who couldn't get away from the city when the pandemic hit. A dazzling, heartwarming and ultimately surprising narrative, Fourteen Days reveals how beneath the horrible loss and suffering, some communities managed to become stronger.

Includes writing from:
Margaret Atwood, Douglas Preston, Celeste Ng, Emma Donoghue, Dave Eggers, John Grisham, Diana Gabaldon, Ishmael Reed, Meg Wolitzer, Luis Alberto Urrea, James Shapiro, Sylvia Day, Mary Pope Osborne, Monique Truong, Hampton Sides, R. L. Stine, Scott Turow, Tommy Orange, and more!]]> 384 Margaret Atwood 0063280183 Beth 0 to-read 3.62 2024
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Beth
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1057796 Book by Collins, Wilkie Wilkie Collins 0750910461 Beth 4 3.58 1876
author: Wilkie Collins
name: Beth
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1876
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 7042 1182 Murasaki Shikibu 014243714X Beth 4 tbr, 1001-2025, ylto-2025 3.72 1000
author: Murasaki Shikibu
name: Beth
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1000
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: tbr, 1001-2025, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 3828902 Thinking in Systems, is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life.

Some of the biggest problems facing the world—war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation—are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking.

While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner.

In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions.]]> 218 Donella H. Meadows 1603580557 Beth 0 ylto-2025 4.17 2008
author: Donella H. Meadows
name: Beth
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 35540769 You don't have to live overwhelmed by stuff--you can get rid of clutter for good!

While the world seems to be in love with the idea of tiny houses and minimalism, many of us simply can't purge it all and start from nothing. Yet a home with too much stuff is a home that is difficult to maintain, so where do we begin? Add in paralyzing emotional attachments and constant life challenges, and it can feel almost impossible to make real decluttering progress.

In Decluttering at the Speed of Life, decluttering expert and author Dana White identifies the mind-sets and emotional challenges that make it difficult to declutter. Then, in her signature humorous approach, she provides workable solutions to break through these struggles and get clutter out--for good!

But more than simply offering strategies, Dana dives deep into how to implement them, no matter the reader's clutter level or emotional resistance to decluttering. She helps identify procrasticlutter--the stuff that will get done eventually so it doesn't seem urgent--as well as how to make progress when there's no time to declutter.

Sections of the book include


Why You Need This Book (You Know Why)
Your Unique Home
Decluttering in the Midst of Real Life
Change Your Mind, Change Your Home
Breaking Through Your Decluttering Delusions
Working It Out Room by Room
Helping Others Declutter
Real Life Goes On (and On)
As long as we're living and breathing, new clutter will appear. The good news is that decluttering can get easier, become more natural, and require significantly fewer hours, less emotional bandwidth, and little to no sweat to keep going.]]> 240 Dana K. White 071808358X Beth 4 ylto-2025 4.06 2018
author: Dana K. White
name: Beth
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 31196 314 W. Somerset Maugham 1400034205 Beth 0 4.20 1944
author: W. Somerset Maugham
name: Beth
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1944
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: library-book-sale-2024, 1001-books, tbr, unread-audible
review:

]]> 50482979 From the author of the National Book Award-winning short story collection Redeployment comes an astonishing novel of Conradian suspense, set in Colombia among other fronts of America's wars, as four lives become fatally entangled thanks to our country's gift for projecting its power into situations it half understands.

Neither Mason, a U.S. Army Special Forces medic, nor Lisette, a foreign correspondent, has emerged from America's long post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan unscathed. Yet war also exerts a terrible draw that neither can shake--the noble calling, the camaraderie, the life-and-death stakes. Where else in the world can such a person go? All roads lead to Colombia, where the US, with its patented fusion of intelligence dominance and quick-striking special operators, has partnered with local government to stamp out a vicious civil war and keep the predatory narco gangs at bay. Mason, now a liaison to the Colombian military, is ready for the good war, and Lisette is more than ready to cover it.

For Juan Pablo, Mason's counterpart in the Colombian officer corps, translating reality into a language the Americans can understand requires a cartoonist's gift for caricature, but it's child's play next to the challenge of navigating the viper's nest of factions bidding for power, in the capital and far out in the field. And if Juan Pablo's view is dark, the outlook of Abel, a lieutenant in the militia Los Mil Jesuses, which controls territory in rural Norte de Santander, a region on the Venezuelan border where the writ of law scarcely runs, is positively Stygian. Abel has lost everything he loves in the carnage that for his entire life has flowed unceasingly in this region, where the lines between drug cartels, militias, and the state are semi-permeable. It is Abel's cruel fate to find safety only by serving a man he has come to fear and loathe.

Missionaries is an astonishment, a novel of extraordinary suspense whose central, unsparing drama is infused by a geopolitical sophistication and a wisdom about the human heart that would be rare even in isolation. As Los Mil Jesuses make their move to fill a power vacuum in Norte de Santander, aided and abetted by the Colombian military for its own reasons, the Americans are made pawns of a game they don't even begin to understand. The result is an unfolding calamity that will leave no character unscathed, and will echo across the planet. A work whose accomplishment calls forth comparisons to Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, and Robert Stone, Missionaries ultimately stands apart as its own electrifying new form of artistic reckoning with the forces we have unleashed in our world.]]> 416 Phil Klay 1984880659 Beth 0 tbr, unread-audible 3.81 2020
author: Phil Klay
name: Beth
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: tbr, unread-audible
review:

]]> 49878129
Julie is missing, and the missing don't often return. But Elise knows Julie better than anyone, and she feels in her bones that her best friend is out there, and that one day she'll come back. She's right. Two years to the day that Julie went missing, she reappears with no memory of where she's been or what happened to her.]]> 296 Rachel Harrison 0593098668 Beth 0 unread-audible 3.36 2020
author: Rachel Harrison
name: Beth
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: unread-audible
review:

]]> 52777855 In 1935 three women are forever changed when one of the most powerful hurricanes in history barrels toward the Florida Keys.

For the tourists traveling on Henry Flagler's legendary Overseas Railroad, Labor Day weekend is an opportunity to forget the economic depression gripping the nation. But one person's paradise can be another's prison, and Key West-native Helen Berner yearns to escape.

After the Cuban Revolution of 1933 leaves Mirta Perez's family in a precarious position, she agrees to an arranged marriage with a notorious American. Following her wedding in Havana, Mirta arrives in the Keys on her honeymoon. While she can't deny the growing attraction to her new husband, his illicit business interests may threaten not only her relationship, but her life.

Elizabeth Preston's trip to Key West is a chance to save her once-wealthy family from their troubles after the Wall Street crash. Her quest takes her to the camps occupied by veterans of the Great War and pairs her with an unlikely ally on a treacherous hunt of his own.

Over the course of the holiday weekend, the women's paths cross unexpectedly, and the danger swirling around them is matched only by the terrifying force of the deadly storm threatening the Keys.]]> 314 Chanel Cleeton 0451490894 Beth 0 unread-audible 4.10 2020
author: Chanel Cleeton
name: Beth
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: unread-audible
review:

]]> 74897931
Robbie grows into an accomplished portraitist in the vivid London art world with the help of Anton's enchanting former wife, while Anton turns from his inherited wealth and connections to improve the conditions of the poor.

But it is the Edwardian Era, and the law sentences homosexual men to prison with hard labor, following the tragic experience of Oscar Wilde. As Robbie and Anton's commitment to each other grows, the world about them turns to a more dangerous place.

"The Boy in the Rain transports us to another time and place in this powerful, sensual, and lyrical novel that literally took my breath away—the love is so visceral, the pain so deep, the beauty so real, and the danger so palpable!"
—NYT bestseller, M.J. Rose, author of The Last Tiara]]> 326 Stephanie Cowell 1646033507 Beth 0 unread-audible 4.04 2023
author: Stephanie Cowell
name: Beth
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: unread-audible
review:

]]> 6398460
Drawing on landmark work in the field and her own body of colorful and highly original experiments–including the first detailed discussion of her “counterclockwise� study, in which elderly men lived for a week as though it was 1959 and showed dramatic improvements in their hearing, memory, dexterity, appetite, and general well-being–Langer shows that the magic of rejuvenation and ongoing good health lies in being aware of the ways we mindlessly react to social and cultural cues. Examining the hidden decisions and vocabulary that shape the medical world (“chronic� versus “acute,� “cure� versus “remission�), the powerful physical effects of placebos, and the intricate but often defeatist ways we define our physical health, Langer challenges the idea that the limits we assume and impose on ourselves are real. With only subtle shifts in our thinking, in our language, and in our expectations, she tells us, we can begin to change the ingrained behaviors that sap health, optimism, and vitality from our lives. Improved vision, younger appearance, weight loss, and increased longevity are just four of the results that Langer has demonstrated.

Immensely readable and riveting, Counterclockwise offers a transformative and bold new paradigm: the psychology of possibility. A hopeful and groundbreaking book by an author who has changed how people all over the world think and feel, Counterclockwise is sure to join Mindfulness as a standard source on new-century science and healing.]]> 240 Ellen J. Langer 0345502043 Beth 3 3.80 2009
author: Ellen J. Langer
name: Beth
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: ylto-2025, non-fiction, psychology
review:

]]> 387749 620 Lew Wallace 1934648205 Beth 4 1001-2025, ylto-2025 4.03 1880
author: Lew Wallace
name: Beth
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1880
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: 1001-2025, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 60929
The Oankali survive by genetically merging with primitive civilizations—whether their new hosts like it or not. For the first time since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow, animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet’s untamed wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not exactly.]]> 248 Octavia E. Butler 0446603775 Beth 4 tbr, ylto-2025 4.15 1987
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Beth
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1987
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 61431922 Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders...

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile� humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die]]> 665 Rebecca Yarros 1649374046 Beth 0 want-to-read-other-rec 4.56 2023
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Beth
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: want-to-read-other-rec
review:

]]> 56449476 An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.

“Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes…�

Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.

It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow. Inspired by true events, the tale weaves real-life figures with fictional ones, including the world’s first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted reprobates as spotty as the giraffes.

Part adventure, part historical saga, and part coming-of-age love story, West with Giraffes explores what it means to be changed by the grace of animals, the kindness of strangers, the passing of time, and a story told before it’s too late.]]> 346 Lynda Rutledge 1542023351 Beth 0 want-to-read-mom 4.34 2021
author: Lynda Rutledge
name: Beth
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: want-to-read-mom
review:

]]> 60145000
NPR Science Friday Book Club Selection An intimate and revelatory dive into the world of the beaver—the wonderfully weird rodent that has surprisingly shaped American history and may save its ecological future.

From award-winning writer Leila Philip, BEAVERLAND is a masterful work of narrative science writing, a book that highlights, though history and contemporary storytelling, how this weird rodent plays an oversized role in American history and its future. She follows fur trappers who lead her through waist high water, fur traders and fur auctioneers, as well as wildlife managers, PETA activists, Native American environmental vigilantes, scientists, engineers, and the colorful group of activists known as beaver believers .
Ìý
Beginning with the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America, Leila Philip traces the beaver’s profound influence on our nation’s early economy and feverish western expansion, its first corporations and multi-millionaires. In her pursuit of this weird and wonderful animal, she introduces us to people whose lives are devoted to the beaver, including a Harvard scientist from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, who uses drones to create 3-dimensional images of beaver dams; and an environmental restoration consultant in the Chesapeake whose nickname is the “beaver whisperer�.
Ìý
What emerges is a poignant personal narrative, a startling portrait of the secretive world of the contemporary fur trade, and an engrossing ecological and historical investigation of these heroic animals who, once trapped to the point of extinction, have returned to the landscape as one of the greatest conservation stories of the 20th century. Beautifully written and impeccably researched, BEAVERLAND reveals the profound ways in which one oddÌýcreature and the trade surrounding it has shaped history, culture, and our environment.]]> 336 Leila Philip 153875519X Beth 4 ylto-2025 3.69 2022
author: Leila Philip
name: Beth
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 55077695
It's a case with no client and no crime and yet great danger, with the duo facing a powerful politician who has a lot to lose. Their only hope lies with a ferret named Griffie who adores Bernie. Is there room for a ferret in the Chet and Bernie relationship? That's the challenge Chet faces, the biggest of his career. Hanging in the balance are the lives of two mistreated young women and the future of the whole state.]]> 272 Spencer Quinn 1250770246 Beth 3 ylto-2025 4.02 2021
author: Spencer Quinn
name: Beth
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 52783845 The New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Map and How We Got to Now returns with the story of a pirate who changed the world

Most confrontations, viewed from the wide angle of history, are minor disputes, sparks that quickly die out. But every now and then, someone strikes a match that lights up the whole planet.

Henry Every was the seventeenth century's most notorious pirate. The press published wildly popular--and wildly inaccurate--reports of his nefarious adventures. The British government offered enormous bounties for his capture, alive or (preferably) dead. But Steven Johnson argues that Every's most lasting legacy was his inadvertent triggering of a major shift in the global economy. Enemy of All Mankind focuses on one key event--the attack on an Indian treasure ship by Every and his crew--and its surprising repercussions across time and space. It's the gripping tale one of the most lucrative crimes in history, the first international manhunt, and the trial of the seventeenth century.

Johnson uses the extraordinary story of Henry Every and his crimes to explore the emergence of the East India Company, the British Empire, and the modern global marketplace: a densely interconnected planet ruled by nations and corporations. How did this unlikely pirate and his notorious crime end up playing a key role in the birth of multinational capitalism? In the same mode as Johnson's classic non-fiction historical thriller The Ghost Map, Enemy of All Mankind deftly traces the path from a single struck match to a global conflagration.]]> 286 Steven Johnson 0735211604 Beth 3 3.84 2020
author: Steven Johnson
name: Beth
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: ylto-2025, history-political-science, non-fiction
review:

]]> 25167837 'They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it.' A windless, warm day greets the Sheridan family on the day of their garden party. As daughter Laura takes the reins on party preparations the news of a neighbour's demise casts a cloud over the host and threatens the entire celebration.]]> Katherine Mansfield Beth 5 1001-books 3.70 1921
author: Katherine Mansfield
name: Beth
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1921
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/21
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: 1001-books
review:

]]> 35074096
This stunning book features classical artwork inspired by the myths, as well as learned notes from the author. Each adventure is infused with Fry's distinctive wit, voice, and writing style. Connoisseurs of the Greek myths will appreciate this fresh-yet-reverential interpretation, while newcomers will feel welcome. Retellings brim with humor and emotion and offer rich cultural context

Celebrating the thrills, grandeur, and unabashed fun of the Greek myths, Mythos breathes life into ancient tales—from Pandora's box to Prometheus's fire.

This gorgeous volume invites you to explore a captivating world with the brilliant storyteller Stephen Fry as your guide.]]> 416 Stephen Fry 0718188721 Beth 4 ylto-2025 4.27 2017
author: Stephen Fry
name: Beth
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: ylto-2025
review:

]]> 10374 Lord Jim.

Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following. Tracking one man's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy.]]> 400 Haruki Murakami Beth 0 want-to-read-favorite-authors 4.14 1985
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Beth
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: want-to-read-favorite-authors
review:

]]> 17803 In After Dark—a gripping novel of late night encounters—Murakami’s trademark humor and psychological insight are distilled with an extraordinary, harmonious mastery.

Nineteen-year-old Mari is waiting out the night in an anonymous Denny’s when she meets a young man who insists he knows her older sister, thus setting her on an odyssey through the sleeping city. In the space of a single night, the lives of a diverse cast of Tokyo residents—models, prostitutes, mobsters, and musicians—collide in a world suspended between fantasy and reality. Utterly enchanting and infused with surrealism, After Dark is a thrilling account of the magical hours separating midnight from dawn.]]> 191 Haruki Murakami 0307265838 Beth 0 want-to-read-favorite-authors 3.75 2004
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Beth
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: want-to-read-favorite-authors
review:

]]> 209192695 From the bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.

We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life.

Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world—a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.]]> 449 Haruki Murakami 0593801970 Beth 0 want-to-read-favorite-authors 3.72 2023
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Beth
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: want-to-read-favorite-authors
review:

]]> 56759 Librarian note: The same ISBN is now being used here with a new cover.

In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled ‘A Story of a Man of Character�, Hardy’s powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.]]> 393 Thomas Hardy Beth 0 3.85 1886
author: Thomas Hardy
name: Beth
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1886
rating: 0
read at: 2020/12/11
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: ylto-2020, 1001-books, audiobooks
review:

]]> 57155861 216 Howard Mansfield 0872333507 Beth 0 unread-audible 4.20
author: Howard Mansfield
name: Beth
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: unread-audible
review:

]]> 40611069 Keep your eyes peeled for a small black iron door.

Down the road from a working-class British pub, along the brick wall of a narrow alley, if the conditions are exactly right, you’ll find the entrance to Slade House. A stranger will greet you by name and invite you inside. At first, you won’t want to leave. Later, you’ll find that you can’t. Every nine years, the house’s residents � an odd brother and sister � extend a unique invitation to someone who’s different or lonely: a precocious teenager, a recently divorced policeman, a shy college student. But what really goes on inside Slade House? For those who find out, it’s already too late...

Spanning five decades, from the last days of the 1970s to the present, leaping genres, and barreling toward an astonishing conclusion, this intricately woven novel will pull you into a reality-warping new vision of the haunted house story—as only David Mitchell could imagine it.]]> 241 David Mitchell 0812998693 Beth 4 ylto-2021, ylto-2025 3.79 2015
author: David Mitchell
name: Beth
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: ylto-2021, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 43289181 The Gods of Tango, a revolutionary new novel about five wildly different women who, in the midst of the Uruguayan dictatorship, find one another as lovers, friends, and ultimately, family.

In 1977 Uruguay, a military government crushed political dissent with ruthless force. In this environment, where the everyday rights of people are under attack, homosexuality is a dangerous transgression to be punished. And yet Romina, Flaca, Anita "La Venus," Paz, and Malena--five cantoras, women who "sing"--somehow, miraculously, find one another. Together, they discover an isolated, nearly uninhabited cape, Cabo Polonio, which they claim as their secret sanctuary. Over the next thirty-five years, their lives move back and forth between Cabo Polonio and Montevideo, the city they call home, as they return, sometimes together, sometimes in pairs, with lovers in tow, or alone. And throughout, again and again, the women will be tested--by their families, lovers, society, and one another--as they fight to live authentic lives.

A genre-defining novel and De Robertis's masterpiece, Cantoras is a breathtaking portrait of queer love, community, forgotten history, and the strength of the human spirit. At once timeless and groundbreaking, Cantoras is a tale about the fire in all our souls and those who make it burn.]]> 312 Carolina De Robertis 0525521690 Beth 4 lgbtq, ylto-2025 4.38 2019
author: Carolina De Robertis
name: Beth
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: lgbtq, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 38501 288 Charles Bukowski 006117758X Beth 0 tbr, ylto-2025 4.17 1982
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Beth
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 62919367 Inspired by a historical figure, an exhilarating debut novel about the first native of the Indian subcontinent to arrive in Colonial America—for readers of Esi Edugyan and Yaa Gyasi.

Meet Tony: insatiably curious, deeply compassionate, with a unique perspective on every scene he encounters. Kidnapped and transported to the New World after traveling from the British East India Company’s outpost on the Coromandel Coast to the teeming streets of London, young Tony finds himself in Jamestown, Virginia, where he and his fellow indentured servants—boys like himself, men from Africa, a mad woman from London—must work the tobacco plantations. Orphaned and afraid, Tony initially longs for home. But as he adjusts to his new environment, finding companionship and even love, he can envision a life for himself after servitude. His dream: to become a medicine man, or a physician’s assistant, an expert on roots and herbs, a dispenser of healing compounds.

Like the play that captivates him—Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream—Tony’s life is rich with oddities and hijinks, humor and tragedy. Set during the early days of English colonization in Jamestown, before servitude calcified into racialized slavery, The East Indian gives authentic voice to an otherwise unknown historic figure and brings the world he would have encountered to vivid life. In this coming-of-age tale, narrated by a most memorable literary rascal, Charry conjures a young character sure to be beloved by readers for years to come.]]> 272 Brinda Charry 1668004526 Beth 0 unread-on-shelves 3.76 2023
author: Brinda Charry
name: Beth
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: unread-on-shelves
review:

]]> 50106421 An eye-opening story of America on the edge of revolution, revealing the life of young John Adams and his key role in the trial of the Boston Massacre.

History remembers John Adams as a Founding Father and our country’s second president. But in the tense years before the American Revolution, he was still just a lawyer, fighting for justice in one of the most explosive murder trials of the era.

On the night of March 5, 1770, shots were fired by British soldiers on the streets of Boston, killing five civilians. The Boston Massacre has often been called the first shots of the American Revolution. As John Adams would later remember, “On that night the formation of American independence was born.� Yet when the British soldiers faced trial, the young lawyer Adams was determined that they receive a fair one. He volunteered to represent them, keeping the peace in a powder keg of a colony, and in the process created some of the foundations of what would become United States law.

In this book, New York Times bestselling authors Dan Abrams and David Fisher draw on the trial transcript, using Adams’s own words to transport readers to colonial Boston, a city roiling with rebellion, where British military forces and American colonists lived side by side, waiting for the spark that would start a war.]]> 320 Dan Abrams 1488057222 Beth 3 tbr, ylto-2025, non-fiction 3.78 2020
author: Dan Abrams
name: Beth
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025, non-fiction
review:

]]> 44167792 A violent ex-con forces his son to commit crimes in this unforgettable memoir about family and survival.

Growing up on the Navajo Indian Reservation, David Crow and his three siblings idolized their dad, a self-taught Cherokee who loved to tell his children about his World War II feats. But as time passed, David discovered the other side of Thurston Crow, the ex-con with a code of ethics that justified cruelty, violence, lies—even murder. Intimidating David with beatings, Thurston coerced his son into doing his criminal bidding. David’s mom, too mentally ill to care for her children, couldn’t protect him.

Through sheer determination, David managed to get into college and achieve professional success. When he finally found the courage to refuse his father’s criminal demands, he unwittingly triggered a plot of revenge that would force him into a deadly showdown with Thurston Crow.

David would have only twenty-four hours to outsmart his father—the brilliant, psychotic man who bragged that the three years he spent in the notorious San Quentin State Prison had been the easiest time of his life.

Raw and palpable, The Pale-Faced Lie is an inspirational story about the power of forgiveness and the strength of the human spirit.]]> 352 David Crow 0997487178 Beth 4 tbr, ylto-2025, memoirs 4.09 2019
author: David Crow
name: Beth
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025, memoirs
review:

]]> 56986571
In this thrilling finale to the Mirror Visitor saga, Christelle Dabos takes us on a journey to the heart of a great game to which the all-too-human affairs of her book’s protagonists are ominously connected.

The distrust between them has been overcome and now Ophelia and Thorn love each other passionately. However, they must keep their love hidden. Only in this way can they continue their journeys toward an understanding of the indecipherable code of God and the truth behind the mysterious figure of the Other, whose devastating power continues to bring down entire pieces of arks, plunging thousands of innocents into the void.

Ophelia and Thorn arrive at the observatory of the Deviations, an institute shrouded in absolute secrecy and overseen by a sect of mystical scientists who secretly conduct terrifying experiments. There, Ophelia and Thorn hope to discover truths that will halt the destruction and death and bring the world back into balance.]]> 540 Christelle Dabos 1609456971 Beth 4 tbr, ylto-2025 3.60 2019
author: Christelle Dabos
name: Beth
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 38463 197 James Baldwin 0307275930 Beth 0 tbr, ylto-2025 4.28 1974
author: James Baldwin
name: Beth
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 11371 Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith, It Can't Happen Here is a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression when America was largely oblivious to Hitler's aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a President who becomes a dictator to "save the nation." Now finally back in print, It Can't Happen Here remains uniquely important, a shockingly prescient novel that's as fresh and contemporary as today's news.]]> 400 Sinclair Lewis 045121658X Beth 4 tbr, ylto-2025 3.77 1935
author: Sinclair Lewis
name: Beth
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1935
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025
review:

]]> 99664 The Painted Veil is the story of the beautiful, but love-starved Kitty Fane.

When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to the heart of a cholera epidemic. Stripped of the British society of her youth and the small but effective society she fought so hard to attain in Hong Kong, she is compelled by her awakening conscience to reassess her life and learn how to love.

The Painted Veil is a beautifully written affirmation of the human capacity to grow, to change, and to forgive.]]> 246 W. Somerset Maugham 0307277771 Beth 4 3.95 1925
author: W. Somerset Maugham
name: Beth
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at: 2017/05/05
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 2025462 208 Ian MacPherson 086241234X Beth 4 1001-books 3.39 1936
author: Ian MacPherson
name: Beth
average rating: 3.39
book published: 1936
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: 1001-books
review:

]]> 185796
When the main suspect is released without charge thanks to the dubious testimony of self-styled pillars of the community � including Julia Goodwin, the doctor who treated his father on his deathbed � Richard suspects that there is more to his father’s death than meets the eye, a more sinister element lurking behind the pristine facades of the labyrinthine mall.

Determined to unravel the mystery, Richard soon realises that the Metro-Centre, with its round-the-clock cable channel and sports clubs, lies at the very heart of his father’s death. Consumerism rules the lives of everyone in the motorway towns and feeds the cravings of this bored community with its desperate need for something new, whatever the cost. Riots frequently terrorise the streets, immigrant communities are set upon by roving bands of hooligans and sports events mushroom into jingoistic political rallies. Gradually, Richard finds himself drawn into this world, caught up in the workings of the mall, exposed to the insides of the consumer dream, and starts upon dismantling this wayward vision his advertising career helped to found�

In this gripping, dystopian tour de force, J.G. Ballard holds up a mirror to middle England, reflecting an unsettling image of suburbia and revealing the darker forces at work beneath the gloss of consumerism and flag-waving patriotism.]]> 304 J.G. Ballard 0007232462 Beth 0 3.30 2006
author: J.G. Ballard
name: Beth
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: alphabonkers, tbr, unread-on-shelves
review:

]]> 133539
He claims that people are defined by the objects that surround them and must piece together their identities bit by bit each time they wake up. The young Marcel is so nervous about sleeping alone that he looks forward to his mother's goodnight kisses, but also dreads them as a sign of an impending sleepless night. One night, when Charles Swann, a friend of his grandparents, is visiting, his mother cannot come kiss him goodnight. He stays up until Swann leaves and looks so sad and pitiful that even his disciplinarian father encourages "Mamma" to spend the night in Marcel's room.]]> 615 Marcel Proust 0375751548 Beth 0 4.28 1913
author: Marcel Proust
name: Beth
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1913
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: 1001-books, unread-on-shelves, tbr, library-book-sale-2024
review:

]]> 33363 The Tempest. On the island of Willow Springs, off the Georgia coast, the powers of healer Mama Day are tested by her great niece, Cocoa, a stubbornly emancipated woman endangered by the island's darker forces.]]> 312 Gloria Naylor 0679721819 Beth 4 library-book-sale-2024, tbr 4.19 1988
author: Gloria Naylor
name: Beth
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: library-book-sale-2024, tbr
review:

]]> 136096 331 Primo Levi 014118390X Beth 4 1001-books, jewish 4.25 1982
author: Primo Levi
name: Beth
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: 1001-books, jewish
review:

]]> 22747912
What do we mean when we say that someone is a writer? Is he or she an entertainer? A high priest of the god of Art? An improver of readers' minds and morals? Looking back on her own childhood and the development of her writing career, Margaret Atwood addresses the riddle of her own art.

Her wide-ranging reference to other writers, living and dead, is accompanied by personal anecdotes from her own experiences as a writer. The lightness of her touch is offset by a seriousness about the purpose and the pleasures of writing. Wise, candid, informative, and engaging, On Writers and Writing provides an insider's view of the writer's universe, written by one of the most celebrated writers of our time.]]> 256 Margaret Atwood 0771007728 Beth 0 3.83 2002
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Beth
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: tbr, ylto-2025, memoirs, non-fiction
review:

]]> 6759
Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.

Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human—and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.]]> 1088 David Foster Wallace Beth 0 wishlist, 1001-books 4.26 1996
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Beth
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: wishlist, 1001-books
review:

]]> 269528
With its frank treatment of a woman's sexual awakening, Summer created a sensation upon its 1917 publication. Edith Wharton � the author of Ethan Frome and a peerless observer and chronicler of society � completely shattered the standards of conventional love stories with this novel's candor and realism. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author declared Summer a personal favorite among her works, and liked to refer to it as "the Hot Ethan." Over a century later, it remains fresh and relevant.]]> 127 Edith Wharton Beth 4 1001-books 3.68 1917
author: Edith Wharton
name: Beth
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1917
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: 1001-books
review:

]]> 28578295 Quigley is shocked to find the amendment rapidly ratified. The entire country holds its breath: who will become the first randomly selected president? As his luck would have it, the unwitting, unwilling, and not-at-all interested Joe Smith is chosen but refuses to be inaugurated. A beer-drinking Average Joe whose work, finances, and family life are falling apart following the failure of his cherished microbrewery, Joe's major skill is consistently achieving bowling scores in the 200s.
Quigley, who maneuvered himself to become vice president, explains to Joe that if he does a terrible job and gets himself impeached, he will receive enough severance pay to save his microbrewery, and, by the way, allow Quigley to become president. Joe relents and takes the oath of office, knowing that if there is one thing at which he can succeed, it’s failure. Yet Joe’s unorthodox, apolitical ways surprise everyone—especially Joe, his family, and the ruthless, scheming Quigley—as he turns the Washington establishment upside down.
As Joe, the ultimate outsider, continues to confuse, confound, and alarm Washington, one question remains: When an average guy becomes the most powerful man in the world, is there still time for bowling?
]]> 566 Greg Blair Beth 0 want-to-read-favorite-authors 4.75
author: Greg Blair
name: Beth
average rating: 4.75
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: want-to-read-favorite-authors
review:

]]> 62805 The Sound of Waves is a timeless story of first love. It tells of Shinji, a young fisherman and Hatsue, the beautiful daughter of the wealthiest man in the village. Shinji is entranced at the sight of Hatsue in the twilight on the beach and they fall in love. When the villagers' gossip threatens to divide them, Shinji must risk his life to prove his worth.]]> 183 Yukio Mishima 0099289989 Beth 4 1001-books 3.78 1954
author: Yukio Mishima
name: Beth
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1954
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: 1001-books
review:

]]> 325128
Kidnapped has become a classic of historical romance the world over and is justly famous as a novel of travel and adventure in the Scottish landscape. Stevenson’s vivid descriptive powers were never better than in his account of remote places and dangerous action in the Highlands in the years after Culloden.]]> 288 Robert Louis Stevenson 0439295785 Beth 4 1001-books, tbr 3.79 1886
author: Robert Louis Stevenson
name: Beth
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1886
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: 1001-books, tbr
review:

]]> 265102 377 Max Frisch 1564784509 Beth 4 1001-books 4.05 1954
author: Max Frisch
name: Beth
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1954
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: 1001-books
review:

]]> 55333765 The incredible true story of a woman who rode her horse across America in the 1950s, fulfilling her dying wish to see the Pacific Ocean, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Horse and The Eighty-Dollar Champion .

In 1954, Annie Wilkins, a sixty-three-year-old farmer from Maine, embarked on an impossible journey. She had no relatives left, she'd lost her family farm to back taxes, and her doctor had just given her two years to live--but only if she lived restfully. He offered her a spot in the county's charity home. Instead, she decided she wanted to see the Pacific Ocean just once before she died. She bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men's dungarees, loaded up her horse, and headed out from Maine in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. She had no map, no GPS, no phone. But she had her ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness.

Between 1954 and 1956, Annie, Tarzan, and her dog, Depeche Toi, journeyed more than 4,000 miles, through America's big cities and small towns, meeting ordinary people and celebrities--from Andrew Wyeth (who sketched Tarzan) to Art Linkletter and Groucho Marx. She received many offers--a permanent home at a riding stable in New Jersey, a job at a gas station in rural Kentucky, even a marriage proposal from a Wyoming rancher who loved animals as much as she did. As Annie trudged through blizzards, forded rivers, climbed mountains, and clung to the narrow shoulder as cars whipped by her at terrifying speeds, she captured the imagination of an apprehensive Cold War America. At a time when small towns were being bypassed by Eisenhower's brand-new interstate highway system, and the reach and impact of television was just beginning to be understood, Annie and her four-footed companions inspired an outpouring of neighborliness in a rapidly changing world.]]> 336 Elizabeth Letts 0525619321 Beth 0 want-to-read-mom 4.08 2021
author: Elizabeth Letts
name: Beth
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: want-to-read-mom
review:

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