Leah's bookshelf: all

Leah's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 20 Jan 2025 09:17:46 -0800 60 Leah's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Women 127305853 From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women—at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie�� McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Leah 4 4.59 2024

author: Kristin Hannah
name: Leah
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
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]]> Pachinko 34051011
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters—strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis—survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.]]> 496 Min Jin Lee Leah 4 4.35 2017 Pachinko

author: Min Jin Lee
name: Leah
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/12/25
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]]> Mina's Matchbox 202102049 From the award-winning, psychologically astute author of The Memory Police, here is a hypnotic, introspective novel about an affluent Japanese family navigating buried secrets, and their young house guest who uncovers them.

In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt’s family. Tomoko’s aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home—and handsome, foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company—are symbols of that status. The seventeen rooms are filled with German-made furnishings; there are sprawling gardens, and even an old zoo where the family’s pygmy hippopotamus resides. The family is just as beguiling as their mansion—Tomoko’s dignified and devoted aunt, her German grandmother, and her dashing, charming uncle who confidently sits as the family’s patriarch. At the center of the family is Tomoko’s cousin Mina, a precocious, asthmatic girl of thirteen who draws Tomoko into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling.

In this elegant jewel box of a book, Yoko Ogawa invites us to witness a powerful and formative interlude in Tomoko’s life, which she looks back on briefly from adulthood at the novel’s end. Behind the family’s sophistication are complications that Tomoko struggles to understand—her uncle’s mysterious absences, her German grandmother’s experience of the second world war, her aunt’s misery. Rich with the magic and mystery of youthful experience, Mina’s Matchbox is an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time—and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse.]]> 288 Yōko Ogawa 0593316088 Leah 2 3.75 2006 Mina's Matchbox

author: Yōko Ogawa
name: Leah
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2006
rating: 2
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]]> <![CDATA[What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding]]> 18373272 Kristin introduces readers to the Israeli bartenders, Finnish poker players, sexy Bedouins, and Argentinean priests who helped her transform into "Kristin-Adjacent" on the road–a slower, softer, and, yes, sluttier version of herself at home.]]> 291 Kristin Newman 0804137609 Leah 1 3.84 2014 What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding

What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding

author: Kristin Newman
name: Leah
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2014
rating: 1
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]]> <![CDATA[At the Foot of the Cherry Tree]]> 95585293

Gordon Parker is just an eager eighteen-year-old Australian boy desperate to fight for his country, and Nobuko 'Cherry' Sakuramoto is a sixteen-year-old girl struggling to survive in Japan in the aftermath of World War II. But when they fall in love, they change the course of history.

When Gordon arrived in Japan, he expected ruthless samurai, angry Japanese men ready to kill Australians at every corner. Instead, he found Cherry, terrified of ex-enemy soldiers, a 16-year-old survivor of the atomic bomb. Against all the rules and against all odds, they fall in love. But when Gordon discovers the White Australia Policy prevents Cherry coming home with him as his war bride, Gordon does what any 20-year-old soldier would do. He vows to fight. Leaving Cherry alone and pregnant in post-war Japan, Gordon somehow has to convinces his family to accept his marriage and wage a desperate campaign against a xenophobic and war-scarred government to allow his wife and his family to come home.

A story spanning seven years and two countries reeling from the aftermath of war, At the Foot of the Cherry Tree is a sweeping and moving novel about faith, trust, and the power of a love that alters history - written by Gordon and Cherry's granddaughter, accomplished scriptwriter, Alli Parker.]]> 336 Alli Parker 1460715926 Leah 0 to-read 4.27 2023 At the Foot of the Cherry Tree

author: Alli Parker
name: Leah
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> Crying in H Mart 54814676
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band �� and meeting the man who would become her husband �� her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.]]> 243 Michelle Zauner 0525657746 Leah 0 to-read 4.25 2021

author: Michelle Zauner
name: Leah
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)]]> 44421460 What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?]]> 213 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529029589 Leah 0 to-read 3.67 2015 Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)

Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)

author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Leah
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)]]> 204811915 People) of a novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world.

With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?��

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known—“unrecorded lives,�� Olive calls them—reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”]]> 326 Elizabeth Strout 0593446097 Leah 0 to-read 4.00 2024 Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)

author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Leah
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Evening and the Morning (Kingsbridge, #0)]]> 49239093
It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns.

In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined. A young boatbuilder's life is turned upside down when his home is raided by Vikings, forcing him and his family to move and start their lives anew in a small hamlet where he does not fit in. . . . A Norman noblewoman marries for love, following her husband across the sea to a new land, but the customs of her husband's homeland are shockingly different, and it soon becomes clear to her that a single misstep could be catastrophic. . . . A monk dreams of transforming his humble abbey into a center of learning that will be admired throughout Europe. And each in turn comes into dangerous conflict with a clever and ruthless bishop who will do anything to increase his wealth and power.

Thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, The Pillars of the Earth. Now, Follett's masterful new prequel The Evening and the Morning takes us on an epic journey into a historical past rich with ambition and rivalry, death and birth, love and hate, that will end where The Pillars of the Earth begins.]]> 913 Ken Follett 0525954988 Leah 4 4.32 2020 The Evening and the Morning (Kingsbridge, #0)

The Evening and the Morning (Kingsbridge, #0)

author: Ken Follett
name: Leah
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[World Without End (Kingsbridge, #2)]]> 5064 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

World Without End takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroads of new ideas—about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race—the Black Death.]]> 1237 Ken Follett Leah 4 4.30 2007 World Without End (Kingsbridge, #2)

author: Ken Follett
name: Leah
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2007
rating: 4
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]]> Memoirs of a Geisha 929
In "Memoirs of a Geisha," we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction - at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful - and completely unforgettable.]]> 503 Arthur Golden 1400096898 Leah 4 4.31 1997 Memoirs of a Geisha

author: Arthur Golden
name: Leah
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1997
rating: 4
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]]> Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Leah 1 4.23 2022

author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Leah
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at: 2024/01/21
date added: 2024/11/16
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]]> The Overstory 40180098 The Overstory is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of - and paean to - the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

A New York Times Bestseller.]]> 502 Richard Powers 039335668X Leah 3 4.10 2018 The Overstory

author: Richard Powers
name: Leah
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 3
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]]> Calypso 38348476
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong.

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

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

This is beach reading for people who detest beaches, required reading for those who loathe small talk and love a good tumor joke. Calypso is simultaneously Sedaris's darkest and warmest book yet--and it just might be his very best.]]> 272 David Sedaris 0316392359 Leah 5 4.11 2018 Calypso

author: David Sedaris
name: Leah
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2018
rating: 5
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]]> Cutting for Stone 3591262
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

An unforgettable journey into one man’s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.
(front flap)]]> 560 Abraham Verghese 0375414495 Leah 5 4.32 2009 Cutting for Stone

author: Abraham Verghese
name: Leah
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2009
rating: 5
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]]> Tom Lake 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Leah 3 3.92 2023 Tom Lake

author: Ann Patchett
name: Leah
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness]]> 43306206
The Courage to Be Disliked shows you how to unlock the power within yourself to become your best and truest self, change your future and find lasting happiness. Using the theories of Alfred Adler, one of the three giants of 19th-century psychology alongside Freud and Jung, the authors explain how we are all free to determine our own future free of the shackles of past experiences, doubts and the expectations of others. It’s a philosophy that’s profoundly liberating, allowing us to develop the courage to change, and to ignore the limitations that we and those around us can place on ourselves.

The result is a book that is both highly accessible and profound in its importance. Millions have already read and benefited from its wisdom. Now that The Courage to Be Disliked has been published for the first time in English, so can you.]]> 288 Ichiro Kishimi Leah 4 3.90 2013 The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

author: Ichiro Kishimi
name: Leah
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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]]> Wellness 65650229 A witty and poignant novel about marriage, middle age, tech-obsessed health culture and the bonds that keep people together

When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the '90s, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in Chicago's thriving underground art scene with an appreciative kindred spirit.��Fast-forward twenty years to married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter cults disguised as mindfulness support groups, polyamorous would-be suitors, Facebook wars, and something called Love Potion Number Nine. For the first time Jack and Elizabeth struggle to recognize one another, and the no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons, from unfulfilled career ambitions to painful childhood memories of their own dysfunctional families. In the process Jack and Elizabeth must undertake separate, personal excavations, or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other.��]]> 611 Nathan Hill 0593536118 Leah 5 3.97 2023 Wellness

author: Nathan Hill
name: Leah
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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]]> The Picture of Dorian Gray 5297
In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.]]> 272 Oscar Wilde Leah 0 to-read 4.13 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray

author: Oscar Wilde
name: Leah
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1890
rating: 0
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]]> The Portrait of a Lady 264
]]> 797 Henry James 0141439637 Leah 0 to-read 3.79 1881

author: Henry James
name: Leah
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1881
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Form and Emptiness]]> 57004637 A brilliantly inventive new novel about loss, growing up, and our relationship with things, by the Booker Prize-finalist author of A Tale for the Time Being

After the tragic death of his beloved musician father, fourteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house--a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.

At first, Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak in whispers. There, Benny discovers a strange new world, where "things happen." He falls in love with a mesmerizing street artist with a smug pet ferret, who uses the library as her performance space. He meets a homeless philosopher-poet, who encourages him to ask important questions and find his own voice amongst the many.

And he meets his very own Book--a talking thing--who narrates Benny's life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.

With its blend of sympathetic characters, riveting plot, and vibrant engagement with everything from jazz, to climate change, to our attachment to material possessions, The Book of Form and Emptiness is classic Ruth Ozeki--bold, wise, poignant, playful, humane and heartbreaking.]]> 548 Ruth Ozeki 0399563644 Leah 0 to-read 4.01 2021

author: Ruth Ozeki
name: Leah
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> A Kestrel for a Knave 328766 208 Barry Hines 0141184981 Leah 0 to-read 4.05 1968

author: Barry Hines
name: Leah
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1968
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals]]> 54785515 The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.

Nobody needs to be told there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and ceaseless battle against distraction; we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient and life hacks to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern obsession with “getting everything done,�� Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing that many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.]]> 271 Oliver Burkeman 0374159122 Leah 0 to-read 4.20 2021 Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

author: Oliver Burkeman
name: Leah
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> A Gentleman in Moscow 34066798 The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers—Now a Paramount+ with Showtime series starring Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.]]> 462 Amor Towles Leah 0 to-read 4.28 2016 A Gentleman in Moscow

author: Amor Towles
name: Leah
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life]]> 40725379 New York Times bestseller, which describes her family's adventure as they move to a farm in southern Appalachia and realign their lives with the local food chain.

Since its publication in 2007, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle has captivated readers with its blend of memoir and journalistic investigation. Newly updated with original pieces from the entire Kingsolver clan, this commemorative volume explores how the family's original project has been carried forward through the years.

When Barbara Kingsolver and her family moved from suburban Arizona to rural Appalachia, they took on a new to spend a year on a locally-produced diet, paying close attention to the provenance of all they consume. Concerned about the environmental, social, and physical costs of American food culture, they hoped to recover what Barbara considers our nation's lost appreciation for farms and the natural processes of food production. Since 2007, their scheme has evolved enormously. In this new edition, featuring an afterword composed by the entire Kingsolver family, Barbara's husband, Steven, discusses how the project grew into a farm-to-table restaurant and community development project training young farmers in their area to move into sustainable food production. Camille writes about her decision to move back to a rural area after college, and how she and her husband incorporate their food values in their lives as they begin their new family. Lily, Barbara's youngest daughter, writes about how growing up on a farm, in touch with natural processes and food chains, has shaped her life as a future environmental scientist. And Barbara writes about their sheep, and how they grew into her second vocation as a fiber artist, and reports on the enormous response they've received from other home-growers and local-food devotees.

With Americans' ever-growing concern over an agricultural establishment that negatively affects our health and environment, the Kingsolver family's experiences and observations remain just as relevant today as they were ten years ago. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is a modern classic that will endure for years to come.]]> 383 Barbara Kingsolver 0062653075 Leah 0 to-read 4.17 2007 Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Leah
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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]]> Bossypants 9418327
She has seen both these dreams come true.

At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon—from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.

Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy.]]> 283 Tina Fey Leah 4 3.97 2011 Bossypants

author: Tina Fey
name: Leah
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/03/10
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen]]> 112974860 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER �� A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives—from the author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain

As David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.��

And yet we humans don’t do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to?

Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity and his determination to grow as a person, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. How to Know a Person helps readers become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.

The act of seeing another person, Brooks argues, is profoundly creative: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, and yearning to be understood.]]> 304 David Brooks 059323006X Leah 0 to-read 4.09 2023 How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

author: David Brooks
name: Leah
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/06
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]]> Dune (Dune, #1) 44767458
When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.]]> 658 Frank Herbert 059309932X Leah 4 4.33 1965 Dune (Dune, #1)

author: Frank Herbert
name: Leah
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1965
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/03/06
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]]> Happy-Go-Lucky 58989873 ��
But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.
��
As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.
��
In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.]]> 272 David Sedaris 0316392456 Leah 4 4.15 2022 Happy-Go-Lucky

author: David Sedaris
name: Leah
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/03/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim]]> 10176 --davidsedarisbooks.com]]> 257 David Sedaris 0965904830 Leah 4 4.12 2004

author: David Sedaris
name: Leah
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/03/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA]]> 81360005 A thrilling and monumental new history of the CIA that reveals how women have always played crucial, often unacknowledged roles in American spycraft, a hidden “sisterhood�� of spies, analysts, operatives, and manhunters who, over a half-century, kept the free world safe and, more than once, saved it—from the New York Times bestselling author of Code Girls

Upon its creation in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency instantly became one of the most important spy services in the world. Like every male-dominated workplace in Eisenhower America, the growing intelligence agency needed women to type memos, send messages, manipulate expense accounts, and keep secrets. Despite discrimination—even because of it—these clerks and secretaries rose to become some of the shrewdest, toughest operatives the agency employed. Because women were seen as unimportant, they moved unnoticed on the streets of Bonn, Geneva, and Moscow, stealing secrets under the noses of the KGB. Back at headquarters, they built the CIA’s critical archives—first by hand, then by computer.

These women also battled institutional stereotyping and beat it. Men argued they alone could run spy rings. But the women proved they could be spymasters, too. During the Cold War, women made critical contributions to U.S. intelligence, sometimes as officers, sometimes as unpaid spouses, working together as their numbers grew. The women also made unique sacrifices, giving up marriage, children, even their own lives.

They noticed things that the men at the top didn’t see. In the final years of the twentieth century, it was a close-knit network of female CIA analysts who warned about the rising threat of Al Qaeda. After the 9/11 attacks, women rushed to join the fight as a new job, “targeter,�� came to prominence. They showed that painstaking data analysis would be crucial to the post-9/11 national security landscape—an effort that culminated spectacularly in the CIA’s successful efforts to track down and kill Osama Bin Laden and, later, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

With the same meticulous reporting and storytelling verve that she brought to her New York Times bestseller Code Girls, Liza Mundy has written an indispensable and sweeping history that reveals how women at the CIA ushered in the modern intelligence age.]]> 400 Liza Mundy Leah 0 to-read 4.21 2023 The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA

The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA

author: Liza Mundy
name: Leah
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/20
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]]> The Japanese Lover 25152052
Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco's charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.]]> 322 Isabel Allende 1501116975 Leah 1 3.79 2015 The Japanese Lover

author: Isabel Allende
name: Leah
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2015
rating: 1
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date added: 2024/02/11
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]]> The Dutch House 44318414
The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.]]> 337 Ann Patchett 0062963678 Leah 4 4.08 2019 The Dutch House

author: Ann Patchett
name: Leah
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 4
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]]> I'm Glad My Mom Died 59364173
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,�� eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?�� She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly , she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!��), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.]]> 320 Jennette McCurdy Leah 3 4.45 2022 I'm Glad My Mom Died

author: Jennette McCurdy
name: Leah
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 3
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]]> The Midnight Library 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Leah 4 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library

author: Matt Haig
name: Leah
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 4
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]]> Winter Journal 13516651 240 Paul Auster 0805095535 Leah 3 3.93 2012

author: Paul Auster
name: Leah
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/08
date added: 2024/02/08
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]]> <![CDATA[A Woman Alone: Travel Tales from Around the Globe]]> 232859 256 Faith Conlon 158005059X Leah 4 3.88 2001

A Woman Alone: Travel Tales from Around the Globe

author: Faith Conlon
name: Leah
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2001
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear]]> 24453082 Big Magic cracks open a world of wonder and joy.]]> 276 Elizabeth Gilbert 1594634718 Leah 2 3.95 2015

author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Leah
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2015
rating: 2
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]]> The One 40670312 How far would you go to find The One?

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner the one you are genetically made for.

That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.

Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.�� They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after�� isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others��

A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.]]> 418 John Marrs Leah 0 to-read 4.09 2016 The One

author: John Marrs
name: Leah
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/07
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]]> Swimming Back to Trout River 55711600 How many times in life can we start over without losing ourselves?

In the summer of 1986, in a small Chinese village, ten-year-old Junie receives a momentous letter from her parents, who had left for America years ago: her father promises to return home and collect her by her twelfth birthday. But Junie’s growing determination to stay put in the idyllic countryside with her beloved grandparents threatens to derail her family’s shared future.

What Junie doesn’t know is that her parents, Momo and Cassia, are newly estranged from one another in their adopted country, each holding close private tragedies and histories from the tumultuous years of their youth during China’s Cultural Revolution. While Momo grapples anew with his deferred musical ambitions and dreams for Junie’s future in America, Cassia finally begins to wrestle with a shocking act of brutality from years ago. In order for Momo to fulfill his promise, he must make one last desperate attempt to reunite all three members of the family before Junie’s birthday—even if it means bringing painful family secrets to light.

Swimming Back to Trout River weaves together the stories of Junie, Momo, Cassia, and Dawn—a talented violinist from Momo’s past—while depicting their heartbreak and resilience, tenderly revealing the hope, compromises, and abiding ingenuity that make up the lives of immigrants. Feng’s debut is “filled with tragedy yet touched with life-affirming passion�� (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), and “Feng weaves a plot both surprising and inevitable, with not a word to spare�� (Booklist, starred review).]]> 272 Linda Rui Feng 1982129395 Leah 0 to-read 3.85 2021 Swimming Back to Trout River

author: Linda Rui Feng
name: Leah
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/25
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]]> The Road 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,�� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Leah 3 3.99 2006 The Road

author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Leah
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/11/02
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]]> The Covenant of Water 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 715 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Leah 5 4.34 2023 The Covenant of Water

author: Abraham Verghese
name: Leah
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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]]> Man’s Search for Meaning 4069 Man's Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.]]> 165 Viktor E. Frankl 080701429X Leah 0 to-read 4.39 1946 Man’s Search for Meaning

author: Viktor E. Frankl
name: Leah
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1946
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/30
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]]> Ishmael (Ishmael, #1) 40611328
The narrator of this extraordinary tale is a man in search for truth. He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined?]]> 338 Daniel Quinn Leah 0 to-read 4.07 1992 Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

author: Daniel Quinn
name: Leah
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1)]]> 5043 Ken Follett is known worldwide as the master of split-second suspense, but his most beloved and bestselling book tells the magnificent tale of a twelfth-century monk driven to do the seemingly impossible: build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known.

Everything readers expect from Follett is here: intrigue, fast-paced action, and passionate romance. But what makes The Pillars of the Earth extraordinary is the time the twelfth century; the place feudal England; and the subject the building of a glorious cathedral. Follett has re-created the crude, flamboyant England of the Middle Ages in every detail. The vast forests, the walled towns, the castles, and the monasteries become a familiar landscape.

Against this richly imagined and intricately interwoven backdrop, filled with the ravages of war and the rhythms of daily life, the master storyteller draws the reader irresistibly into the intertwined lives of his characters into their dreams, their labors, and their loves: Tom, the master builder; Aliena, the ravishingly beautiful noblewoman; Philip, the prior of Kingsbridge; Jack, the artist in stone; and Ellen, the woman of the forest who casts a terrifying curse. From humble stonemason to imperious monarch, each character is brought vividly to life.

The building of the cathedral, with the almost eerie artistry of the unschooled stonemasons, is the center of the drama. Around the site of the construction, Follett weaves a story of betrayal, revenge, and love, which begins with the public hanging of an innocent man and ends with the humiliation of a king.

For the TV tie-in edition with the same ISBN go to this Alternate Cover Edition
]]> 976 Ken Follett 045122213X Leah 5 4.34 1989 The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1)

The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1)

author: Ken Follett
name: Leah
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1989
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen]]> 6289283 Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.

Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence. With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the author was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a fifty-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder.

With a sharp wit and wild exuberance, McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons. Born to Run is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet, and that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.]]> 287 Christopher McDougall Leah 4 4.29 2009 Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

author: Christopher McDougall
name: Leah
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2009
rating: 4
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date added: 2023/02/27
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]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 Leah 5 4.46 2022

author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Leah
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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]]> Finding Me 58687126
This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.]]> 304 Viola Davis 0063037327 Leah 4 4.54 2022 Finding Me

author: Viola Davis
name: Leah
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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date added: 2022/12/10
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]]> <![CDATA[What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing]]> 53238858 Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand.

“Through this lens we can build a renewed sense of personal self-worth and ultimately recalibrate our responses to circumstances, situations, and relationships. It is, in other words, the key to reshaping our very lives.��—Oprah Winfrey

This book is going to change the way you see your life.

Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question.

Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?�� to “What happened to you?��

Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. In conversation throughout the book, she and Dr. Perry focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It’s a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it’s one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future—opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.]]> 304 Bruce D. Perry 1250223180 Leah 5 4.43 2021 What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

author: Bruce D. Perry
name: Leah
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2021
rating: 5
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date added: 2022/09/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Pancakes in Paris: Living the American Dream in France (Culinary Memoir for Francophiles and Foodies)]]> 27969098 Now a New York Times Bestseller

Paris was practically perfect...

Craig Carlson was the last person anyone would expect to open an American diner in Paris. He came from humble beginnings in a working-class town in Connecticut, had never worked in a restaurant, and didn't know anything about starting a brand-new business. But from his first visit to Paris, Craig knew he had found the city of his dreams, although one thing was still missing-the good ol' American breakfast he loved so much.

Pancakes in Paris is the story of Craig tackling the impossible-from raising the money to fund his dream to tracking down international suppliers for "exotic" American ingredients... and even finding love along the way. His diner, Breakfast In America, is now a renowned tourist destination, and the story of how it came to be is just as delicious and satisfying as the classic breakfast that tops its menu.]]> 320 Craig Carlson 1492632120 Leah 4 3.78 2016 Pancakes in Paris: Living the American Dream in France (Culinary Memoir for Francophiles and Foodies)

Pancakes in Paris: Living the American Dream in France (Culinary Memoir for Francophiles and Foodies)

author: Craig Carlson
name: Leah
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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date added: 2022/09/03
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]]> The Four Winds 53138081 Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance.

In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes an epic novel of love and heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America’s most defining eras—the Great Depression.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250178602]]> 464 Kristin Hannah 1250178606 Leah 4 4.27 2021 The Four Winds

author: Kristin Hannah
name: Leah
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 4
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]]> Heart of Darkness 4900
A reflection on corruptive European colonialism and a journey into the nightmare psyche of one of the corrupted, Heart of Darkness is considered one of the most influential works ever written.]]> 188 Joseph Conrad 1892295490 Leah 5 3.43 1899

author: Joseph Conrad
name: Leah
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1899
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)]]> 1 652 J.K. Rowling Leah 5 4.57 2005

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)

author: J.K. Rowling
name: Leah
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)]]> 2
Harry has had enough. He is beginning to think he must do something, anything, to change his situation, when the summer holidays come to an end in a very dramatic fashion. What Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his world upside down...]]> 912 J.K. Rowling Leah 5 4.50 2003 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)

author: J.K. Rowling
name: Leah
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)]]> 15881
And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls�� bathroom. But then the real trouble begins �� someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects�� Harry Potter himself!]]> 352 J.K. Rowling Leah 5 4.42 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)

author: J.K. Rowling
name: Leah
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1998
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)]]> 5 435 J.K. Rowling 043965548X Leah 5 4.57 1999

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)

author: J.K. Rowling
name: Leah
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1999
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)]]> 136251
In this final, seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited.]]> 759 J.K. Rowling Leah 5 4.61 2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)

author: J.K. Rowling
name: Leah
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)]]> 6 734 J.K. Rowling 0439139597 Leah 5 4.56 2000

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)

author: J.K. Rowling
name: Leah
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)]]> 968 The da Vinci Code, The da Vinci Code, The da Vinci Code, and The da Vinci Code

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.

The Da Vinci Code heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightning-paced, intelligent thriller utterly unpredictable right up to its stunning conclusion.]]> 489 Dan Brown Leah 3 3.92 2003 The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)

author: Dan Brown
name: Leah
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2003
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052
Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . .

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]> 374 Suzanne Collins 0439023483 Leah 4 4.34 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)

author: Suzanne Collins
name: Leah
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans—except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]> 390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Leah 4 4.10 2010 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)

author: Suzanne Collins
name: Leah
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)]]> 6148028 Sparks are igniting.
Flames are spreading.
And the Capitol wants revenge.

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol—a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest that she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.]]> 391 Suzanne Collins 0439023491 Leah 4 4.34 2009 Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)

author: Suzanne Collins
name: Leah
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2009
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)]]> 3 309 J.K. Rowling 0439554934 Leah 5 4.47 1997

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)

author: J.K. Rowling
name: Leah
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table]]> 53645 282 Ruth Reichl 0767903382 Leah 4 4.08 1998

Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table

author: Ruth Reichl
name: Leah
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1998
rating: 4
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date added: 2022/06/07
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]]> The Song of Achilles 13623848 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062060624.

Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.]]> 408 Madeline Miller Leah 0 to-read 4.30 2011 The Song of Achilles

author: Madeline Miller
name: Leah
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]]> 332613 9780451163967

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

author: Ken Kesey
name: Leah
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2021/10/29
date added: 2021/10/29
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]]> The Bell Jar 6514 294 Sylvia Plath 0571268862 Leah 4 4.05 1963

author: Sylvia Plath
name: Leah
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1963
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals]]> 3109 What should we have for dinner? For omnivore like ourselves, this simple question has always posed a dilemma. When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods on offer might shorten your life. Today, buffered by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. The omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.
The Omnivore's Dilemma is groundbreaking book, in which one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species. Should we eat a fast-food hamburger? Something organic? Or perhaps something we hunt, gather, or grow ourselves?
To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.
The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us. Ultimately, this is a book as much about visionary solutions as it is about problems, and Pollan contends that, when it comes to food, doing the right thing often turns out to be the tastiest thing an eater can do. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore’s Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same.]]> 450 Michael Pollan 1594200823 Leah 5 4.18 2006 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

author: Michael Pollan
name: Leah
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment]]> 6366371
Based on a retreat that Thich Nhat Hanh led for Westerners, this book offers a range of simple, effective practices for cultivating mindfulness, including awareness of�� breathing and walking, deep listening, and skillful speech. You Are Here also offers guidance on healing emotional pain and manifesting real love and compassion in our relationships with others.

Simple, warm, direct, and startlingly potent, this book reveals the heart of the Buddhist path and helps us to reconnect with the joy and wonder of being alive, regardless of life’s changing circumstances.

Praise for Thich Nhat Hanh

“Among Buddhist leaders influential in the West, Thich Nhat Hanh ranks second only to the Dalai Lama.”�� New York Times

“Thich Nhat Hanh writes with the voice of the Buddha.”—Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying]]> 143 Thich Nhat Hanh 1590306759 Leah 5 4.25 2004 You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment

You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment

author: Thich Nhat Hanh
name: Leah
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2020/12/08
date added: 2020/12/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants]]> 17465709 Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.]]> 408 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1571313354 Leah 5 4.52 2013 Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Leah
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2013
rating: 5
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]]> A Tale for the Time Being 15811545
Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao's drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.��

Full of Ozeki's signature humour and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.]]> 432 Ruth Ozeki 0670026638 Leah 4 4.06 2013

author: Ruth Ozeki
name: Leah
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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]]> The Great Gatsby 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

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

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Leah 2 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby

author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Leah
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 2
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]]> On the Road 70401 307 Jack Kerouac 0140042598 Leah 3 3.63 1957

author: Jack Kerouac
name: Leah
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1957
rating: 3
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]]> Cold Mountain 10920 Cold Mountain is a novel about a soldier’s perilous journey back to his beloved near the Civil War's end. At once a love story & a harrowing account of one man’s long walk home, Cold Mountain introduces a new talent in American literature.

Based on local history & family stories passed down by Frazier’s great-great-grandfather, Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded Confederate soldier, Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war & back home to his prewar sweetheart, Ada. His odyssey thru the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada’s struggle to revive her father’s farm, with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby. As their long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, Inman & Ada confront the vastly transformed world they’ve been delivered.

Frazier reveals insight into human relations with the land & the dangers of solitude. He also shares with the great 19th century novelists a keen observation of a society undergoing change. Cold Mountain recreates a world gone by that speaks to our time.]]> 449 Charles Frazier 0802142842 Leah 2 3.89 1997

author: Charles Frazier
name: Leah
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1997
rating: 2
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]]> <![CDATA[A Room with a View and Howards End]]> 3088 A Room with a View, and to unexpected scandal in the richer, deeply moving novel Howards End.

Howards End, which rivals A Passage to India as Forster's greatest work, makes a country house in Hertfordshire the center and the symbol for what Lionel Trilling called a class war about who would inherit England. Commerce clashes with culture, greed with gentility.

A Room with a View brings home the stuffiness of upper-middle-class Edwardian society in a tremendously funny comedy that pairs a well-bred young lady with a lusty railway clerk and satirizes both the clergy and the English notion of respectability.

Quintessentially British, these two novels have become twentieth-century classics. With an introduction and bibliography by Benjamin DeMott.]]> 449 E.M. Forster 0451521412 Leah 4 4.11 1908 A Room with a View and Howards End

author: E.M. Forster
name: Leah
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1908
rating: 4
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]]> Anna Karenina 15823480 Anna Karenina provides a vast panorama of contemporary life in Russia and of humanity in general. In it Tolstoy uses his intense imaginative insight to create some of the most memorable characters in all of literature. Anna is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as the wife of Karenin and turns to Count Vronsky to fulfil her passionate nature - with tragic consequences. Levin is a reflection of Tolstoy himself, often expressing the author's own views and convictions.

Throughout, Tolstoy points no moral, merely inviting us not to judge but to watch. As Rosemary Edmonds comments, 'He leaves the shifting patterns of the kaleidoscope to bring home the meaning of the brooding words following the title, 'Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.]]> 964 Leo Tolstoy 0345803922 Leah 4 4.11 1878 Anna Karenina

author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Leah
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1878
rating: 4
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]]> East of Eden 4406
Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.

First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.]]> 601 John Steinbeck 0142000655 Leah 4 4.41 1952

author: John Steinbeck
name: Leah
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1952
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine]]> 153664 336 Steven Rinella 1401360173 Leah 4 4.38 2006

author: Steven Rinella
name: Leah
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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date added: 2020/06/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis]]> 27161156 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062300546.

Hillbilly Elegy recounts J.D. Vance's powerful origin story...

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio and the Republican Vice Presidential candidate for the 2024 election, an incisive account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class.

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.]]> 264 J.D. Vance Leah 4 3.81 2016 Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

author: J.D. Vance
name: Leah
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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]]> The Snow Leopard 764165 338 Peter Matthiessen 0140255087 Leah 0 to-read 4.08 1978

author: Peter Matthiessen
name: Leah
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/12/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America]]> 17262141 The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief, and Mark Kurlansky’s Cod—a renowned culinary adventurer goes into the woods with the iconoclasts and outlaws who seek the world’s most coveted ingredient . . . and one of nature’s last truly wild foods: the uncultivated, uncontrollable mushroom.

Within the dark corners of America’s forests grow culinary treasures. Chefs pay top dollar to showcase these elusive and beguiling ingredients on their menus. Whether dressing up a filet mignon with smoky morels or shaving luxurious white truffles over pasta, the most elegant restaurants across the country now feature an abundance of wild mushrooms.

The mushroom hunters, by contrast, are a rough lot. They live in the wilderness and move with the seasons. Motivated by Gold Rush desires, they haul improbable quantities of fungi from the woods for cash. Langdon Cook embeds himself in this shadowy subculture, reporting from both rural fringes and big-city eateries with the flair of a novelist, uncovering along the way what might be the last gasp of frontier-style capitalism.

Meet Doug, an ex-logger and crabber—now an itinerant mushroom picker trying to pay his bills and stay out of trouble; and Jeremy, a former cook turned wild food entrepreneur, crisscrossing the continent to build a business amid cutthroat competition; their friend Matt, an up-and-coming chef whose kitchen alchemy is turning heads; and the woman who inspires them all.

Rich with the science and lore of edible fungi—from seductive chanterelles to exotic porcini��The Mushroom Hunters is equal parts gonzo travelogue and culinary history lesson, a rollicking, character-driven tour through a world that is by turns secretive, dangerous, and tragically American.]]> 320 Langdon Cook 0345536258 Leah 0 to-read 3.88 2013 The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America

The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America

author: Langdon Cook
name: Leah
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/12/03
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]]> H is for Hawk 18803640
When her father dies and she is knocked sideways by grief, she becomes obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk. She buys Mabel for £800 on a Scottish quayside and takes her home to Cambridge. Then she fills the freezer with hawk food and unplugs the phone, ready to embark on the long, strange business of trying to train this wildest of animals.

Destined to be a classic of nature writing, "H is for Hawk" is a record of a spiritual journey - an unflinchingly honest account of Macdonald's struggle with grief during the difficult process of the hawk's taming and her own untaming. At the same time, it's a kaleidoscopic biography of the brilliant and troubled novelist T. H. White, best known for "The Once and Future King." It's a book about memory, nature and nation, and how it might be possible to try to reconcile death with life and love.]]> 300 Helen Macdonald 0224097008 Leah 0 to-read 3.73 2014 H is for Hawk

author: Helen Macdonald
name: Leah
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/12/03
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]]> Harry's Trees 36540759
Thirty-four-year-old Harry Crane, lifelong lover of trees, works as an analyst in a treeless US Forest Service office. When his wife dies in a freak accident, devastated, he makes his way to the remote woods of northeastern Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains, intent on losing himself. But fate intervenes in the form of a fiercely determined young girl named Oriana. She, too, has lost someone—her father. And in the magical, willful world of her reckoning, Oriana believes that Harry is the key to finding her way back to him.

As Harry agrees to help the young girl, the unlikeliest of elements—a tree house, a Wolf, a small-town librarian and a book called The Grum’s Ledger—come together to create the biggest sensation ever to descend upon the Endless Mountains…a golden adventure that will fulfill Oriana’s wildest dreams and open the door to a new life for Harry.

Harry’s Trees is an uplifting tale about love, loss, friendship, and redemption. Fans of Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove and Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry will find in its relentless good humor a much-needed remedy for these fraught times]]> 432 Jon Cohen 0778364151 Leah 0 to-read 4.13 2018 Harry's Trees

author: Jon Cohen
name: Leah
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> A Man Called Ove 18774964
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.]]> 337 Fredrik Backman 1476738017 Leah 0 to-read 4.35 2012 A Man Called Ove

author: Fredrik Backman
name: Leah
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> A Clockwork Orange 41817486 A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess’s introduction, “A Clockwork Orange Resucked.”]]> 240 Anthony Burgess 0393341763 Leah 3 4.04 1962

author: Anthony Burgess
name: Leah
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1962
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents]]> 9808172
Wanderlust, however, is more than a chronological conquest of men and at its core, it's a journey of self-discovery. In the course of her travels, Eaves finds herself and the sense of home she's been lacking since childhood -- and she sheds light on a growing culture of young women who have the freedom and inclination to define their own, increasingly global, lifestyles, unfettered by traditional roles and conventions of past generations of women.]]> 304 Elisabeth Eaves 1580053114 Leah 2 3.51 2011 Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents

Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents

author: Elisabeth Eaves
name: Leah
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2011
rating: 2
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date added: 2019/07/14
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]]> The Poisonwood Bible 7244 The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.]]> 546 Barbara Kingsolver 0060786507 Leah 5 4.10 1998 The Poisonwood Bible

author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Leah
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1998
rating: 5
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]]> The House of the Spirits 9328
The House of the Spirits is an enthralling saga that spans decades and lives, twining the personal and the political into an epic novel of love, magic, and fate.]]> 448 Isabel Allende 0553383809 Leah 4 4.26 1982

author: Isabel Allende
name: Leah
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1982
rating: 4
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]]> Desert Solitaire 214614 Desert Solitaire is one of Edward Abbey’s most critically acclaimed works and marks his first foray into the world of nonfiction writing. Written while Abbey was working as a ranger at Arches National Park outside of Moab, Utah, Desert Solitaire is a rare view of one man’s quest to experience nature in its purest form.

Through prose that is by turns passionate and poetic, Abbey reflects on the condition of our remaining wilderness and the future of a civilization that cannot reconcile itself to living in the natural world as well as his own internal struggle with morality. As the world continues its rapid development, Abbey’s cry to maintain the natural beauty of the West remains just as relevant today as when this book was written.]]> 337 Edward Abbey 0345326490 Leah 5 4.18 1968 Desert Solitaire

author: Edward Abbey
name: Leah
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1968
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World]]> 28256439 The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben shares his deep love of woods and forests and explains the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in the woodland and the amazing scientific processes behind the wonders of which we are blissfully unaware. Much like human families, tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, and support them as they grow, sharing nutrients with those who are sick or struggling and creating an ecosystem that mitigates the impact of extremes of heat and cold for the whole group. As a result of such interactions, trees in a family or community are protected and can live to be very old. In contrast, solitary trees, like street kids, have a tough time of it and in most cases die much earlier than those in a group.

Drawing on groundbreaking new discoveries, Wohlleben presents the science behind the secret and previously unknown life of trees and their communication abilities; he describes how these discoveries have informed his own practices in the forest around him. As he says, a happy forest is a healthy forest, and he believes that eco-friendly practices not only are economically sustainable but also benefit the health of our planet and the mental and physical health of all who live on Earth.]]> 272 Peter Wohlleben 1771642483 Leah 4 4.06 2015 The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World

author: Peter Wohlleben
name: Leah
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2015
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses]]> 87040 Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses. Robin Wall Kimmerer's book is not an identification guide, nor is it a scientific treatise. Rather, it is a series of linked personal essays that will lead general readers and scientists alike to an understanding of how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives of countless other beings, from salmon and hummingbirds to redwoods and rednecks. Kimmerer clearly and artfully explains the biology of mosses, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us.

Drawing on her diverse experiences as a scientist, mother, teacher, and writer of Native American heritage, Kimmerer explains the stories of mosses in scientific terms as well as in the framework of indigenous ways of knowing. In her book, the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world.

Gathering Moss will appeal to a wide range of readers, from bryologists to those interested in natural history and the environment, Native Americans, and contemporary nature and science writing.

]]> 168 Robin Wall Kimmerer 0870714996 Leah 0 currently-reading 4.39 2003 Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses

author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Leah
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World]]> 41021145 304 Michael Pollan Leah 4 4.07 2001

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World

author: Michael Pollan
name: Leah
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2001
rating: 4
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]]> Educated 35133922
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

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

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.]]> 352 Tara Westover 0399590501 Leah 4 4.46 2018 Educated

author: Tara Westover
name: Leah
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life]]> 14096 304 Jon Kabat-Zinn 1401307787 Leah 0 currently-reading 4.13 1994

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

author: Jon Kabat-Zinn
name: Leah
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/12/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)]]> 11
Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!]]> 216 Douglas Adams Leah 3 4.21 1979 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)

author: Douglas Adams
name: Leah
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1979
rating: 3
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]]> The Tao of Pooh 21848049
Is there such thing as a Western Taoist? Benjamin Hoff says there is, and this Taoist's favorite food is honey. Through brilliant and witty dialogue with the beloved Pooh-bear and his companions, the author of this smash bestseller explains with ease and aplomb that rather than being a distant and mysterious concept, Taoism is as near and practical to us as our morning breakfast bowl.

Romp through the enchanting world of Winnie-the-Pooh while soaking up invaluable lessons on simplicity and natural living.]]> 158 Benjamin Hoff Leah 0 to-read 3.88 1982 The Tao of Pooh

author: Benjamin Hoff
name: Leah
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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]]> Love in the Time of Cholera 9712 348 Gabriel García Márquez 140003468X Leah 5 3.92 1985

author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Leah
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at: 2017/09/25
date added: 2017/09/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life...]]> 4894
Two are mice named Sniff and Scurry. And two are "Littlepeople" �� beings the size of mice who look and act a lot like people. Their names are Hem and Haw.

"Cheese" is a metaphor for what you want to have in life �� whether it's a good job, a loving relationship, money, a possession, health, or spiritual peace of mind.

And the "Maze" is where you look for what you want �� the organisation you work in or the family or community you live in.

In the story, the characters are faced with unexpected change. Eventually, one of them deals with it successfully, and writes what he has learned from his experience on the Maze walls.

When you come to see "The Handwriting on the Wall," you can discover for yourself how to deal with change, so that you can enjoy less stress and more success (however you define it) in your work and in your life.

Written for all ages, the story takes less than an hour to read, but its unique insights can last for a lifetime.]]> 98 Spencer Johnson 0091883768 Leah 5 3.88 1999 Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life...

Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life...

author: Spencer Johnson
name: Leah
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1999
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/09/07
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]]> The Martian 18007564
Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

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

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

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

]]> 384 Andy Weir 0804139024 Leah 2 4.41 2011 The Martian

author: Andy Weir
name: Leah
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2011
rating: 2
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]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World]]> 29496453 Two great spiritual masters share their own hard-won wisdom about living with joy even in the face of adversity.
��
The occasion was a big birthday. And it inspired two close friends to get together in Dharamsala for a talk about something very important to them. The friends were His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The subject was joy. Both winners of the Nobel Prize, both great spiritual masters and moral leaders of our time, they are also known for being among the most infectiously happy people on the planet.

From the beginning the book was envisioned as a three-layer birthday cake: their own stories and teachings about joy, the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness, and the daily practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. Both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu have been tested by great personal and national adversity, and here they share their personal stories of struggle and renewal. Now that they are both in their eighties, they especially want to spread the core message that to have joy yourself, you must bring joy to others.

Most of all, during that landmark week in Dharamsala, they demonstrated by their own exuberance, compassion, and humor how joy can be transformed from a fleeting emotion into an enduring way of life.]]> 354 Dalai Lama XIV 0399185046 Leah 0 currently-reading 4.37 2016 The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

author: Dalai Lama XIV
name: Leah
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/09/07
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]]>