en-US Wed, 09 Apr 2025 19:44:04 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 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 Kali 0 to-read 4.43 2021
author: Bruce D. Perry
name: Kali
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> 216247526 'It's time we name our kingdom!' he shouted over the wind. 'I say we call this place Happy Land. If this ain't the land of happy people, then where is it? Why not create our heaven right here on earth?'

In the hills of Appalachia, there once existed a land ruled by a king and queen. Inspired by memories of African kingdoms, a community of formerly enslaved men and women grasped freedom on mountain land they owned. But freedom doesn't always last forever . . .

Today, after years of silence, Nikki has been summoned to North Carolina by her estranged grandmother. But instead of revealing answers about their recent past, Mother Rita tells Nikki a shocking story about her great-great-great grandmother, Queen Luella, and the very land they stand on. Land Mother Rita insists must be protected at all costs.

As Nikki learns about the Kingdom of the Happy Land, she comes to realise how much of her identity is rooted in this family land, and how much they stand to lose if it, like so much else, is taken from them. It's time to reclaim what's theirs.]]> 368 Dolen Perkins-Valdez 0593337727 Kali 0 to-read 4.47 2025
author: Dolen Perkins-Valdez
name: Kali
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> 125035180
With my life going down in literal flames I ran from everything. From my father, from a forced marriage, from my mates .

Now, charged with a crime I didn’t commit, they’re all hunting me . And they’re all furious.

The dangerous deputy headmaster of Animus Academy manages to catch me and along with three of my five mates we’re taken back to the prison-school they use to teach feral beasts how to be civilised. Now I’m locked up with the very men I’ve been trying to avoid all my life.

No one can know who my mates are. No one can know who I really am. Because if they do, it’s lights out for me. I’ll be chained up and bred until I die. And I refuse to allow that to happen.]]> 570 E.P. Bali 0645690996 Kali 0 to-read 4.10 2023
author: E.P. Bali
name: Kali
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> 221196260 Vanessa Taylor is doing everything right: creative, passionate, and determined to make her mark. She’s spent years rebuilding her life on her terms, casting aside the wounds that once held her back. But when her first love, Xavier, unexpectedly reappears, those carefully placed defenses begin to unravel. Years ago, she let him go, burying parts of herself along with him. Now, he’s back—older, wiser, and unwilling to lose her a second time.

Xavier Morris has built his life from the ground up, carving out a thriving career and creating opportunities that once felt like impossible dreams. But something is missing—the woman who understood him in ways no one else could, even when he didn’t yet understand himself. Coming face-to-face with Vanessa again is like feeling sunlight after a long winter. Their chemistry is undeniable, but so is the pain of the past they’ve never fully faced.

Together, they’ll confront buried heartbreak, long-hidden secrets, and a love that refuses to fade. Vanessa’s journey toward self-acceptance and healing collides with Xavier’s drive to build a future that includes her. But can they trust each other—and themselves—enough to make it work this time?

For readers who crave an authentic, slow-burning, soul-stirring romance, this is a story of resilience, family bonds, and second chances. Discover the journey of two people whose love endures time and trials, pulling them together in a way neither can resist.

CONTENT
Just a heads-up before you dive into this story—this book is a slow burn, emotional rollercoaster. There are some parts that touch on sensitive topics, like miscarriage, grief, and family struggles. Plus, there are moments that explore anxiety and panic attacks, mixed in with several moments of laughter and lightness. You'll also find a fair share of adult language and some steamy, explicit scenes. Take care of yourself, and feel free to step away if it gets too heavy.]]> 417 Alexandrea LeChelle Kali 0 to-read 4.21 2024
author: Alexandrea LeChelle
name: Kali
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> 210409891 From New York Times bestselling author Shanora Williams comes an emotional page-turner about two people still reeling from tragedy who look to each other for the strength to move forward.

It’s been months since her dreams of forever were brutally shattered. Seven long months since her husband and soulmate, Lew, died in her arms, leaving her to carry on. Alone. And Davina Klein-Roberts still isn’t sure how to move forward.

To escape her anguish, Davina throws everything into work, pushing Golden Oil Co., her self-built skincare line, to become a viral success. Now she’s poised to clinch a major endorsement deal too. But it’s bittersweet without Lew by her side.

A meeting with Deke Bishop, the hot NBA star she’s courting for her brand, leaves Davina flustered. With his dimpled smile and warm handshake, Deke’s a natural pitchman. And he’s clearly interested—not only in her lotions.

Davina soon discovers that Deke’s more than just another player and carries his own pain. But as her feelings for him grow, so does her guilt. Will the pain of a future already lost keep her from embracing hope for a new one?]]> 383 Shanora Williams 1662518870 Kali 0 to-read 4.29 2024
author: Shanora Williams
name: Kali
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> 154986013
Aaliyah is determined to celebrate her thirtieth birthday with a boyfriend. And after a failed blind date, the local bartender, Ahmad, suggests she joins a dating app.

Filled with lies, catfish, and fetishizing, the wild world of online dating makes Aaliyah think she’s in over her head.

And she is. But with her two best friends and a protective bartender by her side, what could go wrong?

Everything.

Everything could go wrong.

And that’s the problem.

Because as Aaliyah is set on finding exactly what she’s looking for, she ends up finding something she never expects.]]> 368 Danielle Allen 1250331048 Kali 0 to-read 4.17 2024
author: Danielle Allen
name: Kali
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> 709715
Set against the explosively changing times of the civil rights movement, this poignant memoir recalls how she struggled with the discrepancy between the father she knew–one who was financially generous, supportive of her education, even affectionate–and the Old Southern politician, railing against greater racial equality, who refused to acknowledge her publicly. From her richly told narrative, as well as the letters she and Thurmond wrote to each other over the years, emerges a nuanced, fascinating portrait of a father who counseled his daughter about her dreams and goals, and supported her in reaching them–but who was unwilling to break with the values of his Dixiecrat constituents.

With elegance, dignity, and candor, Washington–Williams gives us a chapter of American history as it has never been written before–told in a voice that will be heard and cherished by future generations.]]> 240 Essie Mae Washington-Williams 0060761423 Kali 0 to-read 3.88 2005
author: Essie Mae Washington-Williams
name: Kali
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> 218568760 THE BRAND NEW NOVEL FROM THE AUTHOR OF TIKTOK SENSATION MAGNOLIA PARKS

London-based Georgia Carter, professional lie-detector and body-language savant, has long been estranged from her infuriating, close-minded, wealthy South Carolina family. After a falling-out years ago, the chasm runs deep between the black sheep - Georgia and her gay, alcoholic brother - and their parents and elder siblings. But when their father dies suddenly, Georgia returns to the States for the funeral ... where she comes face-to-face with Sam Penny, her brother's AA sponsor.

Amid the tensions, dramas and revelations of the family reunion, Georgia and Sam are instantly drawn to each other.

However, Georgia's brother also harbours feelings for Sam, and the last thing Georgia wants to do is hurt the only family she's ever really had.

When their father's will reveals a surprising bequest to a mysterious stranger, Georgia's ability to read people becomes crucial in unravelling her father's hidden past. The delicate balance within the family teeters, and secrets - both old and new - threaten to push them beyond the breaking point.

There are only so many cracks a damaged family can take before it shatters.]]> 464 Jessa Hastings 1464245339 Kali 0 to-read 4.51
author: Jessa Hastings
name: Kali
average rating: 4.51
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> 201017011 “I don’t need another kink.�

That thought pops into my head whenever I pull up my favorite social media app, but alas, every time I scroll, I learn something new about myself, and another one is born. And yes, I know I’m responsible for what the algorithm shows me, but I’m trying to ignore that fact.

Lately, my feed has been dominated by masked men. I’ve favorited videos with them dressed in full cosplay, decked out in futuristic military apparel, and wrapped up like ghouls.

But more than anything else, my FYP is filled with shirtless men wearing ghost masks. Bonus points if they’re heavily tattooed, wielding a knife, or covered in fake blood. At night, I dream about being chased by them, of them catching me and doing deliciously dark things to my more than willing body.

I never could have guessed that by sending one drunken text, those dreams would become my new reality.

Lights Out is a fast-paced dark romance with a morally grey male lead. Some themes and scenes may be disturbing to readers. Please check the TWs at the beginning of the book. ]]> 338 Navessa Allen Kali 0 to-read 4.17 2024
author: Navessa Allen
name: Kali
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> 203793491
However, a partner is necessary to complete her more adventurous goals, so she joins a popular dating app. After what may be the worst date ever, she meets Greyson in the elevator of her building.Ěý

The pressure to complete the list is on and she seeks an arrangement with anyone tolerable—though a certain neighbor comes to mind.

Greyson exceeds all her expectations and has the potential to be the perfect hero for her story. Except falling in love is against the rules and she should leave the house to find it.Ěý


GreysonĚýPark is a business-oriented divorcè, who prefers long walks with his dog and to keep things casual in his love life.

As the creator of a successful dating app, he’s become quite the modern-day matchmaker. Despite his appreciation for others� love lives, he can’t forgive himself for the past and believes romance isn’t in the cards for a second time.

To silence the rumors about him not moving on, he agrees to an arrangement with his neighbor, finding himself a plus one for his ex's wedding.

Selah unknowingly challenges his views on casual dating and opens his eyes to a life beyond the office. Except falling in love is against the rules, and he should use his app to find it.]]> 440 Evelyn Leigh Kali 0 to-read 4.14 2024
author: Evelyn Leigh
name: Kali
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> 218695937 A novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.]]> 336 Laila Lalami 0593317602 Kali 0 to-read 3.69 2025
author: Laila Lalami
name: Kali
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/06
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]]> 48930261
The Nasr family is spread across the globe—Beirut, Brooklyn, Austin, the California desert. A Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and three American children: all have lived a life of migration. Still, they’ve always had their ancestral home in Beirut—a constant touchstone—and the complicated, messy family love that binds them. But following his father's recent death, Idris, the family's new patriarch, has decided to sell.

The decision brings the family to Beirut, where everyone unites against Idris in a fight to save the house. They all have secrets—lost loves, bitter jealousies, abandoned passions, deep-set shame—that distance has helped smother. But in a city smoldering with the legacy of war, an ongoing flow of refugees, religious tension, and political protest, those secrets ignite, imperiling the fragile ties that hold this family together.
Ěý
In a novel teeming with wisdom, warmth, and characters born of remarkable human insight, award-winning author Hala Alyan shows us again that “fiction is often the best filter for the real world around us� (NPR).]]> 464 Hala Alyan 035812655X Kali 0 to-read 4.31 2021
author: Hala Alyan
name: Kali
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/06
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]]> 62361024
� Reroots Mary Magdalene and Jesus in the lush ecology and complex spiritual culture of Second Temple Period Judea and Galilee under Roman rule

� Rewilds the Gospels with the forgotten voices of defiant and oppressed women, the nature-based storytelling of oral communities, and the embodied eroticism of a lovable rabbi with appetites and desires, doubts and shame, and a playful sense of humor

� Retells a familiar narrative informed by extensive research in botany and ecology, scriptural analysis, feminist studies, and the mythic traditions of the Mediterranean

When Leukas, a Christian convert, ventures into the wilds of Gaul to receive the hidden teachings from Mary Magdalene before she dies, he discovers that hidden within the Gospels he thinks he knows is an epic love story—between an educated Jewish woman overwhelmed by her mysterious spiritual powers and a sensual magician devoted to the wisdom of the earth. The secrets she will reveal are both more shocking and more tragic than anything readers have encountered before.

Beginning with Miriam’s childhood as a member of a wealthy Jewish family living outside of Bethany, we see her struggles as a young woman with spiritual curiosity and intellectual aspirations that drive her to combat the violence of Empire and the sexism of her own culture. Propelled by mystic visions, Miriam is finally drawn into the wilds of Galilee, where her destiny collides with a mischievous rabbi who will change her and the world forever. Trapped in a mythic story unfolding in events around them, the lovers strive not to repeat a tragedy older than the pyramids.

In The Madonna Secret , Sophie Strand resurrects a richly textured world where complex characters reveal the lived reality of scripture and open familiar sayings to radical new meanings and possibilities.]]> 608 Sophie Strand 159143467X Kali 0 to-read 4.49
author: Sophie Strand
name: Kali
average rating: 4.49
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]]> 203579107 It's never too late for new beginnings.

On the cusp of turning eighty, newly retired pharmacist Augusta Stern is adrift. When she relocates to Rallentando Springs—an active senior community in southern Florida—she unexpectedly crosses paths with Irving Rivkin, the delivery boy from her father’s old pharmacy—and the man who broke her heart sixty years earlier.

As a teenager growing up in 1920’s Brooklyn, Augusta’s role model was her father, Solomon Stern, the trusted owner of the local pharmacy and the neighborhood expert on every ailment. But when Augusta’s mother dies and Great Aunt Esther moves in, Augusta can’t help but be drawn to Esther’s curious methods. As a healer herself, Esther offers Solomon’s customers her own advice—unconventional remedies ranging from homemade chicken soup to a mysterious array of powders and potions.

As Augusta prepares for pharmacy college, she is torn between loyalty to her father and fascination with her great aunt, all while navigating a budding but complicated relationship with Irving. Desperate for clarity, she impulsively uses Esther’s most potent elixir with disastrous consequences. Disillusioned and alone, Augusta vows to reject Esther’s enchantments forever.

Sixty years later, confronted with Irving, Augusta is still haunted by the mistakes of her past. What happened all those years ago and how did her plan go so spectacularly wrong? Did Irving ever truly love her or was he simply playing a part? And can Augusta reclaim the magic of her youth before it’s too late?]]> 320 Lynda Cohen Loigman 1250278104 Kali 0 to-read 4.07 2024
author: Lynda Cohen Loigman
name: Kali
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> 216371549
In 1480 John Collan’s greatest anxiety is how to circumvent the village’s devil goat on the way to collect water. But the arrival of a well-dressed stranger from London upends his life forever: John is not John Collan, not the son of Will Collan, but the son of the long-deceased Duke of Clarence, hidden in the countryside after a brotherly rift over the crown, and because Richard III has a habit of disappearing his nephews. Removed from his humble origins, sent to Oxford to be educated in a manner befitting the throne’s rightful heir, John is put into play by his masters, learning the rules of etiquette in Burgundy and the machinations of the court in Ireland, where he encounters the intractable Joan, the delightfully strong-willed and manipulative daughter of his Irish patrons, a girl imbued with both extraordinary political savvy and occasional murderous tendencies. Joan has two paths available her—marry, or become a nun. Lambert’s choices are similarly stark: he will either become King, or die in battle. Together they form an alliance that will change the fate of the English monarchy.

Inspired by a footnote to history—the true story of the little known Simnel, who was a figurehead of the 1487 Yorkist rebellion and ended up working as a spy in the court of King Henry VII� The Pretender is historical fiction at its finest, a gripping, exuberant, rollicking portrait of British monarchy and life within the court, with a cast of unforgettable heroes and villains drawn from 15th century England. A masterful new work from a major new author.]]> 496 Jo Harkin 0593803302 Kali 0 to-read 4.23 2025
author: Jo Harkin
name: Kali
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> 211004074
It is one thing to study the fall of democracy, another to have it hit your homeland -- and yet another to raise children as it happens. The Last American Road Trip is one family’s journey to the most beautiful, fascinating, and bizarre places in the US during one of its most tumultuous eras. As Kendzior works as a journalist chronicling political turmoil, she becomes determined that her young children see America before it’s too late. So Kendzior, her husband, and the kids hit the road -- again and again.

Starting from Missouri, the family drives across America in every direction as cataclysmic events � the rise of autocracy, political and technological chaos, and the pandemic � reshape American life. They explore Route 66, national parks, historical sites, and Americana icons as Kendzior contemplates love for country in a broken heartland. Together, the family watches the landscape of the United States - physical, environmental, social, political -transform through the car window.

Part memoir, part political history, The Last American Road Trip is one mother’s promise to her children that their country will be there for them in the future � even though at times she struggles to believe it herself.]]> 320 Sarah Kendzior 1250879884 Kali 0 to-read 4.22 2025
author: Sarah Kendzior
name: Kali
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/04
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]]> 56791389 Alternate cover edition of ASIN B08BKGYQXW


The apocalypse will be televised!

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.]]> 446 Matt Dinniman Kali 1 4.49 2020
author: Matt Dinniman
name: Kali
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2020
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
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Once again, the internet lied.
]]> 156462 A renowned expert in nonverbal communication, Paul Ekman led a revolution in our scientific understanding of emotions. In Emotions Revealed, he assembles his research and theories to provide a comprehensive look at the evolutionary roots of human emotions, including anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and happiness.

Drawing on decades of fieldwork, Ekman shows that emotions are deeply embedded in the human species. In the process, he answers such questions as: What triggers emotions and can we stop them? How does our body signal to others whether we are slightly sad or anguished, peeved or enraged? Can we learn to distinguish between a polite smile and the genuine thing? Can we ever truly control our emotions? Unique exercises and photographs help readers identify emotions in themselves and others.

Emotions Revealed is a practical, mind-opening, and potentially life-changing exploration of science and self.
c
]]> 304 Paul Ekman 080507516X Kali 0 to-read 4.06 2003
author: Paul Ekman
name: Kali
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 53179287 The small town he couldn’t wait to leave is calling him home�

Dax Ellis returns to Colton, Mississippi, a changed man. He traveled the world, earned a fortune, and made a lifetime of memories, but now he longs to put down roots. Time hasn’t been kind to his hometown, and Dax wants to help—if only he can convince everyone he’s not the same petulant boy he used to be. Especially the one woman who has every reason not to trust him.

Librarian Callie Colton cherished summers with her grandparents, in the town her ancestors helped build, in spite of the boy who called her names. Now that Colton is her home, life is quiet until Dax returns…and, along with him, threatening letters on her doorstep. He may still have the power to hurt her, but she’s not the same scared little girl she used to be.

But as the danger escalates, Dax will have to face his past to find a way forward for the relationship they were cheated of once before.]]> 332 Eliana West 1951786920 Kali 2
Also - the antagonists are cartoonish.
Also - the ending is super dramatic.
Also - no spice. Hmph.]]> 4.09
author: Eliana West
name: Kali
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
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I thought this would be more like “boy who lightly verbally teased girl comes back to hometown and love shenanigans ensue� but Dax was a straight up bully. He threw this girl into the lake and she hurt her arm when it hit a rock (maybe broke it based on how the injury is described). And he pushed her to the dirt, threw rocks at her and hit her in the back and more. WTF?!?! I don’t care how many years passed - what in the Stockholm Syndrome is going on here?! There’s a big difference in growing up and dating the guy who used to say you have cooties versus the guy who gave you injuries that (in theory) sent you to urgent care. Sheesh!

Also - the antagonists are cartoonish.
Also - the ending is super dramatic.
Also - no spice. Hmph.
]]> 98056 China: Alive in the Bitter Sea comes the poignant story of how the tradition of white Southern violence and racism has long affected and still haunts one black family. Butterfield follows the Bosket family of Edgefield County, South Carolina, from the days of slavery to the present. Photos.]]> 389 Fox Butterfield 0380728621 Kali 0 to-read 4.37 1995
author: Fox Butterfield
name: Kali
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> 56469793 At the World of Wonders, Europe's most magnificent travelling circus, every moment is full of magic, and nothing is as it seems--especially for the people who put on the show

Lena Papadopoulos has never quite found her place within the circus, even as the daughter of the extraordinary headlining illusionist, Theo. Brilliant and curious, Lena yearns for the real-world magic of science and medicine, despite her father's overprotection and the limits her world places on her because she is disabled. Her unconventional life takes an exciting turn when she rescues Alexandre, an orphan with his own secrets and a mysterious past. Over several years, as their friendship flourishes and Alexandre trains as the illusionist's apprentice, World War II escalates around them. When Theo and Alexandre are contracted to work and perform in a model town for Jews set up by the Nazis, Lena becomes separated from everything she knows. Forced to make her own way, Lena must confront her doubts and dare to believe in the impossible--herself.

A must-read for fans of The Night Circus and Water for Elephants, The Circus Train will take readers on a heart-wrenching and spectacular two-decade journey across Europe. When all is lost, how do you find the courage to keep moving forward?

]]> 352 Amita Parikh Kali 0 to-read 4.02 2022
author: Amita Parikh
name: Kali
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> 214152244 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781668076217.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets First Lie Wins in this electric, voice-driven debut novel about an elusive bestselling author who decides to finally confess her true identity after years of hiding from her past.

Cate Kay knows how to craft a story. As the creator of a bestselling book trilogy that struck box office gold as a film series, she’s one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Cate Kay doesn’t really exist. She’s never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity had been a closely guarded secret, until now.

As a young adult, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. But the day before their grand adventure, a tragedy shattered their dreams and Cate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Cate understands that returning home is the only way she’ll be a whole person again.]]> 304 Kate Fagan Kali 0 to-read 3.76 2025
author: Kate Fagan
name: Kali
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> 203019740 From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that spans decades.

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Mohammed Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.

When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy with one eye, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.

Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession, and the blinding light of hope.]]> 608 Chris Whitaker 0593798872 Kali 5 4.24 2024
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Kali
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
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What is there really left to say? I’m devastated and I loved it.
]]> 182095333
"A truly unique, inspiring perspective on the time we have, what we do with it, and how we let go of this world.... There is no one I'd trust more to guide me through an understanding of death, and how it informs life." � Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Mad Honey and The Book of Two Ways

"Briefly Perfectly Human is a beautiful, raw, light-bringing experience. Alua's voice is shimmering, singular, and pulses with humor, vulnerability, insight, and refreshing candor.... Be prepared for it to grab you, hold you tight, and raise the roof on the power of human connection." � Tembi Locke, author of From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home

For her clients and everyone who has been inspired by her humanity, Alua Arthur is a friend at the end of the world. As our country’s leading death doula, she’s spreading a transformative message: thinking about your death—whether imminent or not—will breathe wild, new potential into your life.

Warm, generous, and funny AF, Alua supports and helps manage end-of-life care on many levels. The business matters, medical directives, memorial planning; but also honoring the quiet moments, when monitors are beeping and loved ones have stepped out to get some air—or maybe not shown up at all—and her clients become deeply contemplative and want to talk. Aching, unfinished business often emerges. Alua has been present for thousands of these sacred moments—when regrets, fears, secret joys, hidden affairs, and dim realities are finally said aloud. When this happens, Alua focuses her attention at the pulsing center of her clients� anguish and creates space for them, and sometimes their loved ones, to find peace.

This has had a profound effect on Alua, who was already no stranger to death’s periphery. Her family fled a murderous coup d’état in Ghana in the 1980s. She has suffered major, debilitating depressions. And her dear friend and brother-in-law died of lymphoma. Advocating for him in his final months is what led Alua to her life’s calling. She knows firsthand the power of bearing witness and telling the truth about life’s painful complexities, because they do not disappear when you look the other way. They wait for you.

Briefly Perfectly Human is a life-changing, soul-gathering debut, by a writer whose empathy, tenderness, and wisdom shimmers on the page. Alua Arthur combines intimate storytelling with a passionate appeal for loving, courageous end-of-life care—what she calls “death embrace.� Hers is a powerful testament to getting in touch with something deeper in our lives, by embracing the fact of our own mortality. “Hold that truth in your mind,� Alua says, “and wondrous things will begin to grow around it.”]]> 272 Alua Arthur 0063240033 Kali 0 to-read 4.19 2024
author: Alua Arthur
name: Kali
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 215362634 Through the unforgettable stories of five Atlanta families, this landmark work of journalism exposes a new and troubling trend—the dramatic rise of the “working homeless� in cities across America

The working homeless. In a country where hard work and determination are supposed to lead to success, there is something scandalous about this phrase. But skyrocketing rents, low wages, and a lack of tenant rights have produced a startling People with full-time jobs cannot keep a roof over their head, especially in America’s booming cities, where rapid growth is leading to catastrophic displacement. These families are being forced into homelessness not by a failing economy but a thriving one.

In this gripping and deeply reported book, Brian Goldstone plunges readers into the lives of five Atlanta families struggling to remain housed in a gentrifying, increasingly unequal city. Maurice and Natalia make a fresh start in the country’s “Black Mecca� after being priced out of DC. Kara dreams of starting her own cleaning business while mopping floors at a public hospital. Britt scores a coveted housing voucher. Michelle is in school to become a social worker. Celeste toils at her warehouse job while undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer. Each of them aspires to provide a decent life for their children—and each of them, one by one, joins the ranks of the nation’s working homeless.

Through intimate, novelistic portraits, Goldstone reveals the human cost of this crisis, following parents and their kids as they go to sleep in cars, or in squalid extended-stay hotel rooms, and head out to their jobs and schools the next morning. These are the nation’s hidden homeless—omitted from official statistics, and proof that overflowing shelters and street encampments are only the most visible manifestation of a far more pervasive problem.

By turns heartbreaking and urgent, There Is No Place for Us illuminates the true magnitude, causes, and consequences of the new American homelessness—and shows that it won’t be solved until housing is treated as a fundamental human right.]]> 448 Brian Goldstone 0593237145 Kali 0 to-read 4.62 2025
author: Brian Goldstone
name: Kali
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 214151418 A whip-smart family dramedy about estranged siblings competing to inherit their father’s Vietnamese sandwich franchise and unravel family mysteries.

Duc Tran, the eccentric founder of the national Vietnamese sandwich chain Duc’s Sandwiches, has decided to retire. With the help of the shady family lawyer, he informs his five estranged adult children that to get their inheritance, they must revitalize run-down shops in undesirable, old-school Little Saigon locations across Houston, San Jose, New Orleans, and Philadelphia—within a year. The only one without a shop is the bachelor son, but if he gets married before the year’s up, the inheritance goes to him.

Each daughter is stuck in a new city they don’t want to be in, battling gentrification, declining ethnic enclaves, messy love lives, and struggling to modernize their father’s American dream. The son wonders if he wants to marry for love or for money. As Duc’s children continue to work, family mysteries begin to unravel along the way as they learn the real intention behind the inheritance scheme.

The Family Recipe is about rediscovering one’s roots, different types of fatherly love, familial legacy, and finding one’s place in a divided country where the only commonality among your neighbors is the universal love of sandwiches.]]> 320 Carolyn Huynh 1668033046 Kali 0 to-read 3.97 2025
author: Carolyn Huynh
name: Kali
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 63221156 Navigate corporate America fearlessly. Explore the data and hear the accounts of Black women in business who face, work through, and rise above workplace discrimination. This book offers a blueprint for Black women in business to tackle a toxic work environment and assert their rightful place. Facing obstacles such as imposter syndrome and structural racism, I'm Not Yelling arms you with the knowledge and strategy needed to succeed in the face of adversity.
Become a strong Black leader and instill positive change in the workplace culture. I'm Not Yelling is your guide to understanding and implementing changes in human resource management that promote diversity and inclusion. Celebrate the significance of Black History Month, define racism in its subtle and overt forms, and emerge as a beacon of strength and resilience.
Inside
If you have read books likeĚý Black Women Will Save the World , We Should All Be Millionaires ,Ěý The Light We Carry ,Ěý White Women , orĚý Your Next Level Life , then you’ll loveĚý I'm Not A Black Woman’s Guide to Navigating the Workplace .]]> 216 Elizabeth Leiba 1684810736 Kali 0 to-read 4.28
author: Elizabeth Leiba
name: Kali
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> 207252770
Once home to Vanessa: A famous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared twenty years ago.

Now home to Grace: A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation.

But when a shocking discovery is made in an art gallery far away in London, a visitor comes calling.

And the secrets of Eris threaten to emerge . . .

A masterful novel that is as page-turning as it is unsettling, The Blue Hour recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith, and cements Hawkins’s place among the very best of our most nuanced and stylish storytellers.]]> 320 Paula Hawkins 0063396521 Kali 2
A solid 2.5 since it started off strong.]]> 3.26 2024
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Kali
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves:
review:
Page 148 is when I realized I was into the story, but didn’t like a single character. It starts off strong and has a bit of Talented Mr Ripley going for it (love that!). However then it starts to drag and you realize all these people are cracked in the head for various reasons. Once you realize which one is the most cracked, you’ve solved the mystery. I powered through to prove my point.

A solid 2.5 since it started off strong.
]]> 38466
A woman of enormous talent and remarkable drive, Zora Neale Hurston published seven books, many short stories, and several articles and plays over a career that spanned more than thirty years. Today, nearly every black woman writer of significance—including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker—acknowledges Hurston as a literary foremother, and her 1937 masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God has become a crucial part of the modern literary canon.

Wrapped in Rainbows , the first biography of Zora Neale Hurston in more than twenty-five years, illuminates the adventures, complexities, and sorrows of an extraordinary life. Acclaimed journalist Valerie Boyd delves into Hurston’s history—her youth in the country’s first incorporated all-black town, her friendships with luminaries such as Langston Hughes, her sexuality and short-lived marriages, and her mysterious relationship with vodou. With the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression, and World War II as historical backdrops, Wrapped in Rainbows not only positions Hurston’s work in her time but also offers riveting implications for our own.]]> 528 Valerie Boyd 0743253299 Kali 0 to-read 4.34 2002
author: Valerie Boyd
name: Kali
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> 55841546 Where racism and sexism meet--an understanding of anti-Black misogyny

When Moya Bailey first coined the term misogynoir, she defined it as the ways anti-Black and misogynistic representation shape broader ideas about Black women, particularly in visual culture and digital spaces. She had no idea that the term would go viral, touching a cultural nerve and quickly entering into the lexicon. Misogynoir now has its own Wikipedia page and hashtag, and has been featured on Comedy Central's The Daily Show and CNN's Cuomo Prime Time. In Misogynoir Transformed, Bailey delves into her groundbreaking concept, highlighting Black women's digital resistance to anti-Black misogyny on YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, and other platforms.

At a time when Black women are depicted as more ugly, deficient, hypersexual, and unhealthy than their non-Black counterparts, Bailey explores how Black women have bravely used social-media platforms to confront misogynoir in a number of courageous-and, most importantly, effective-ways. Focusing on queer and trans Black women, she shows us the importance of carving out digital spaces, where communities are built around queer Black webshows and hashtags like #GirlsLikeUs.

Bailey shows how Black women actively reimagine the world by engaging in powerful forms of digital resistance at a time when anti-Black misogyny is thriving on social media. A groundbreaking work, Misogynoir Transformed highlights Black women's remarkable efforts to disrupt mainstream narratives, subvert negative stereotypes, and reclaim their lives.]]> 248 Moya Bailey 1479865109 Kali 0 to-read 4.24 2021
author: Moya Bailey
name: Kali
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 135065588 Lifelong best friends spend a fateful summer discovering what might happen if they were to be something more in this radiant, heart-clenching adult debut.

Laniah Thompson is a homebody who craves privacy. Issac Jordan is internet famous and spends his days followed by paparazzi. She runs a small business with her mom in her hometown. He runs an international brand.

And they’ve been best friends since childhood.

When Issac comes home to Providence for the first time in months and discovers Laniah’s dream is slipping out of reach as she and her mom struggle to pay the bills at Wildly Green, their natural hair store, she refuses to take a dime from him. And so, he does what any self-respecting best friend would do: tells the world they’re dating.

Suddenly business is booming, and Laniah agrees to his ridiculous plan to pretend to be lovers for the course of the summer. Just long enough to catch the eye of an investor and get her dream back on track, like she helped him do so many years ago, he reminds her.

Too soon, though, Laniah knows she’s playing with fire, because for as long as they’ve been friends there’s an undeniable pull they’ve never given in to. And as the lines between art and life—real and pretend—blur, it becomes harder and harder to see where friendship ends and something else begins....

Told over the course of three sizzling summer months, A Love Like the Sun is about shared history, those who make us our bravest selves, and love in its many forms.]]> 368 Riss M. Neilson 0593640497 Kali 2 3.84 2024
author: Riss M. Neilson
name: Kali
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves:
review:
I powered through. This is the type of book I would have probably loved back in my early college days many years ago.
]]> 122204048
Ken Smith has spent the past four decades in the Scottish Highlands. He lives alone, with no electricity or running water. His home is a log cabin nestled near Loch Treig, known as 'the lonely loch', where he lives off the he fishes for his supper, chops his own wood, and even brews his own tipple. He is, in the truest sense of the word, a hermit.

For the first time, Ken shares the story of his life. From his working-class origins in Derbyshire, to the formative years he spent travelling in the Yukon and finally how he came to be the Hermit of Loch Treig. Looking back through decades of diary entries, Ken reflects upon the reasons he turned his back on society, the vulnerability of old age and the awe and wonder of a life lived in nature. The Way of the Hermit is a humorous, transcendent and life-affirming memoir.]]> 298 Ken Smith 1035009846 Kali 4 4.22
author: Ken Smith
name: Kali
average rating: 4.22
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves:
review:
(Audiobook) 3.75 - Ken has lots of detailed descriptions about animals and fishing and bouts of illness. The fishing parts wasn’t super interesting to me, but his little insights were good. I was also interested in his interactions with nature (the snow, the rain, the slugs, the birds, etc�).
]]> 199793431
Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed Goth who can't read her future but seems to resolve his.

Hugo, a gentle red-haired, home-schooled giant, is also in love with Kismet. He’s determined to steal her and is eager to be a home wrecker.

Kismet's mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary's family, and on her nightly runs, tunes into the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels, and worries for the future, her daughter’s and her own.

Human time, deep time, Red River time, the half-life of herbicides and pesticides, and the elegance of time represented in fracking core samples from unimaginable depths, is set against the speed of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, and the sudden economic meltdown of 2008-2009. How much does a dress cost? A used car? A package of cinnamon rolls? Can you see the shape of your soul in the everchanging clouds? Your personal salvation in the giant expanse of sky? These are the questions the people of the Red River Valley of the North wrestle with every day.

The Mighty Red is a novel of tender humor, disturbance, and hallucinatory mourning. It is about on-the-job pains and immeasurable satisfactions, a turbulent landscape, and eating the native weeds growing in your backyard. It is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets; men and women both complicated and contradictory, flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. It is about a starkly beautiful prairie community whose members must cope with devastating consequences as powerful forces upend them. As with every book this great modern master writes, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendor.

A new novel by Louise Erdrich is a major literary event; gorgeous and heartrending, The Mighty Red is a triumph.]]> 384 Louise Erdrich 0063277050 Kali 2 3.79 2024
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Kali
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/30
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves:
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]]> 16703873
London's East End in the 1950s was characterised by tight-knit family communities, larger-than-life characters, and a lively social scene. It was into this world that Jennifer Worth entered as a trainee midwife. But life was tough, and babies were often born in slum conditions.

In Call The Midwife, Shadows Of The Workhouse and Farewell To The East End, Jennifer recounts her time among nuns, prostitutes, abortionists, bigamists, gangsters and expectant mothers, eloquently portraying the East Enders' amazing resilience, their warmth and humour in the face of hardship, and the traditions and tales of a bygone era.]]> 800 Jennifer Worth 1780224842 Kali 0 to-read 4.44 2009
author: Jennifer Worth
name: Kali
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25813942
After committing a terrible crime, Odie and Albert are forced to flee for their lives along with their best friend, Mose, a mute young man of Sioux heritage. Out of pity, they also take with them a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy. Together, they steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi in search for a place to call home.

Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphan vagabonds journey into the unknown, crossing paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an en­thralling, bighearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.]]> 450 William Kent Krueger 1476749299 Kali 3
Odie was the personification of why kids can be annoying. They think they know everything, but know nothing. Then when people tell them they know nothing, they just double down on being loud and wrong.

Odie’s full first name is Odysseus and this is quite the melodramatic odyssey. It was fine. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either.]]> 4.35 2019
author: William Kent Krueger
name: Kali
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves:
review:
I was under the impression that the protagonist was going to be indigenous, but he wasn’t - so really there was no point in setting the first part at an “Indian School�. Those kids could have just been at any random farm if the author wasn’t going to give the indigenous kids a voice.

Odie was the personification of why kids can be annoying. They think they know everything, but know nothing. Then when people tell them they know nothing, they just double down on being loud and wrong.

Odie’s full first name is Odysseus and this is quite the melodramatic odyssey. It was fine. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either.
]]> 212806640 The extraordinary story of Jessie Redmon Fauset whose exhilarating world of friends, rivals, and passions all combined to create the magic that was the Harlem Renaissance, written by Victoria Christopher Murray, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian.
Ěý
In 1919, as civil and social unrest grips the country, there is a little corner of America, a place called Harlem where something special is stirring. Here, the New Negro is rising and Black pride is evident everywhere…in music, theatre, fashion and the arts. And there on stage in the center of this renaissance is Jessie Redmon Fauset, the new literary editor ofĚýthe preeminent Negro magazine The Crisis.
Ěý
W.E.B. Du Bois, the founder and editor of The Crisis, has charged her with discovering young writers whose words will change the world. Jessie attacks the challenge with fervor, quickly finding sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen, seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends.ĚýUnder Jessie’s leadership, The Crisis thrives, the writers become notable and magazine subscriptions soar. Every Negro writer in the country wants their work published in the magazine now known for its groundbreaking poetry and short stories.Ěý
Ěý
Jessie’s rising star is shining bright�.but her relationship with W.E.B. could jeopardize all that she’s built. The man, considered by most to be the leader of Black America, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover. And neither his wife, nor their fourteen-year-age difference can keep the two apart. Their torrid and tumultuous affair is complicated by a secret desire that Jessie harbors � to someday, herself, become the editor of the magazine, a position that only W.E.B. Du Bois has held.
Ěý
In the face of overwhelming sexism and racism, Jessie must balance her drive with her desires. However, as she strives to preserve her legacy, she’ll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.]]> 400 Victoria Christopher Murray 0593638484 Kali 3 4.11 2025
author: Victoria Christopher Murray
name: Kali
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves:
review:
It’s dialogue-driven and it has all the back and forth of most love affairs. I don’t do well with dialogue-driven stories because they read like plays or scripts to me (but that’s just my brain-wiring). I did get some of the “feel� of Harlem during that time, but I think I wanted more of that and less of the push-pull of Jessie and DuBois.
]]> 17803178 From interviews conducted over six years, Abbie Reese tells the stories of the Poor Clare Colettine Order, a cloistered contemplative order at the Corpus Christi Monastery in Rockford, Illinois. Seldom leaving their 25,000-square-foot gated enclosure, members of this community embrace an extreme version of poverty and anonymity - a separation that enables them to withdraw from the world to devote their lives to prayer. This removal, they contend, allows them to have a greater impact on humanity than if they maintained direct contact with loved ones and strangers.
Dedicated to God explores individual and cultural identity through oral history interviews with several generations of nuns, focusing on the origins and life stories of the women who have chosen to become members of one of the strictest religious orders. But the narrative is also one of a collective memory and struggle against extinction and modernity, a determination to create community within the framework of ancient rules.
The author's stunning photographs of their dual worlds, religious and quotidian, add texture to the narrative.
This artistic and ethnographic work highlights the countercultural values and dedication of individuals who, at incredible personal cost, live for love of God and humanity, out of faith in what cannot be seen, and with the belief that they will be rewarded in the afterlife.]]> 272 Abbie Reese 0199947937 Kali 0 to-read 3.89 2013
author: Abbie Reese
name: Kali
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 159604 108 Nawal El Saadawi Kali 0 to-read 4.21 1975
author: Nawal El Saadawi
name: Kali
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211025435 A stirring journey into the soul of a fractured America that confronts the enduring specter of white supremacy in our art, monuments, and public spaces, from a captivating new literary voiceAmid the ongoing reckoning over America’s history of anti-Black racism, scores of monuments to slaveowners and Confederate soldiers still proudly dot the country’s landscape, while schools and street signs continue to bear the names of segregationists. With poignant, lyrical prose, cultural commentator Irvin Weathersby confronts the inescapable specter of white supremacy in our open spaces andĚýcontemplates what it means to bear witness to sites of lasting racial trauma.Weathersby takes us from the streets of his childhood in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward to the Whitney Plantation; from the graffitied pedestals of Confederate statues lining Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, to the location of a racist terror attack in Charlottesville; from the site of the Wounded Knee massacre in South Dakota to a Kara Walker art installation at a former sugar factory in Brooklyn, New York. Along the way, he challenges the creation myths embedded in America’s landmarks and meets artists, curators, and city planners doing the same. Urgent and unflinchingly intimate, In Open Contempt offers a hopeful reimagining of the spaces in which we can pay tribute to our nation’s true history.]]> 256 Irvin Weathersby Jr. 0593299159 Kali 0 to-read 4.16 2025
author: Irvin Weathersby Jr.
name: Kali
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 25733990
Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved - the object's origins, architects, and purpose unknown.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top-secret team to crack the hand's code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the relic they seek. What's clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unravelling history's most perplexing discovery-and finally figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?]]> 320 Sylvain Neuvel 1101886692 Kali 0 to-read 3.82 2016
author: Sylvain Neuvel
name: Kali
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> 125076660 Ěý
From one of our generation’s most powerful artists and incisive storytellers comes a brilliantly crafted work about the art—and war—of becoming who we are.

upcycle verb
up·cy·cle �əp-ˌsī-kəl
: to recycle (something) in such a way that the resulting product is of a higher value than the original item
: to create an object of greater value from (a discarded object of lesser value)

Today Tariq Trotter—better known as Black Thought—is the platinum-selling, Grammy-winning co-founder of The Roots and one of the most exhilaratingly skillful and profound rappers our culture has ever produced. But his story begins with a as a child, Trotter burned down his family’s home. The years that follow are the story of a life snatched from the flames, forged in fire.

In The Upcycled Self, Trotter doesn’t only narrate a riveting and moving portrait of the artist as a young man, he gives readers a courageous model of what it means to live an examined life. In vivid vignettes, he tells the dramatic stories of the four powerful relationships that shaped him—with community, friends, art, and family—each a complex weave of love, discovery, trauma, and loss.

And beyond offering the compellingly poetic account of one artist’s creative and emotional origins, Trotter explores the vital questions we all have to confront about our formative How can we see the story of our own young lives clearly? How do we use that story to understand who we’ve become? How do we forgive the people who loved and hurt us? How do we rediscover and honor our first dreams? And, finally, what do we take forward, what do we pass on, what do we leave behind? This is the beautifully bluesy story of a boy genius’s coming-of-age that illuminates the redemptive power of the upcycle.]]> 163 Tariq Trotter 0593446933 Kali 0 to-read 4.20 2023
author: Tariq Trotter
name: Kali
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> 101016900 The first in a crime series set in the Louisiana bayou, introducing the uncensored amateur sleuth Glory Broussard.

It’s a hot and sticky Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Glory has settled into her usual after-church routine, meeting gamblers at the local coffee shop, where she works as a small-time bookie. Sitting at her corner table, Glory hears that her best friend—a nun beloved by the community—has been found dead in her apartment. When police declare the mysterious death a suicide, Glory is convinced that there must be more to the story and, with her reluctant daughter, with troubles of her own, in tow, launches a shadow investigation in a town of oil tycoons, church gossips, and a rumored voodoo priestess. As a Black woman of a certain age who grew up in a segregated Louisiana, Glory is used to being minimized and overlooked. But she’s determined to make her presence known as the case leads her deep into a web of intrigue she never realized Lafayette could harbor.]]> 271 Danielle Arceneaux 1639364846 Kali 4 3.74 2023
author: Danielle Arceneaux
name: Kali
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
3.5 - I had fun listening to this
]]> 18731195 Best of Ohio Short Stories presents a collection of remarkable short stories by eighteen Ohio authors.

A unique collection of literary and popular fiction, this fantastic anthology will please readers of all types.

Columbus Creative Cooperative solicited short stories from Ohio's most prestigious institutions, and also welcomed work from writers of all skill and experience levels in an open, egalitarian submission process. From hundreds of qualified candidates, the best stories were selected for publication.

This first-of-its-kind anthology features stories from notable Ohio authors, as well as stories from authors making their fiction debut.

Best of Ohio Short Stories features the work of eighteen Ohio authors: David Armstrong, Mark D. Baumgartner, Joseph Downing, Kevin Duffy, Ann Brimacombe Elliot, Scott Geisel, Justin Hanson, Maria Hummer, Brenda Layman, Kelsey Lynne, Alice G. Otto, Brad Pauquette, Brooks Rexroat, Lin Rice, Anna Scotti, Heather Sinclair Shaw, S.E. White and Sara Ross Witt.

From contemplative literary fiction to other-worldly science fiction, and everything in between, every reader will find something to love in this phenomenal book. This anthology truly represents the Best of Ohio Short Stories.]]> 258 Brad Pauquette 0989064522 Kali 0 to-read 4.38 2013
author: Brad Pauquette
name: Kali
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2013
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]]> 213618132 The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick

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

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

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

In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present.]]> 368 Charmaine Wilkerson 0593358368 Kali 3 4.06 2025
author: Charmaine Wilkerson
name: Kali
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
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I think it would have been 5-star for me if it was told chronologically. Books with multiple time jumps and multiple character POVs tend to leave me feeling like I am only on the periphery of a story and not immersed in it.
]]> 53260224 This explosive book of history and cultural criticism argues that white feminism has been a weapon of white supremacy and patriarchy deployed against Black and Indigenous women and all colonized women. It offers a long-overdue validation of the experiences of women of color. Taking us from the slave era—when white women fought in court to keep "ownership" of their slaves—through the centuries of colonialism—when they offered a soft face for brutal tactics—to the modern workplace, White Tears/Brown Scars

Examining subjects as varied as The Hunger Games, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the viral BBQ Becky video, and nineteenth-century lynchings of Mexicans in the American Southwest, Ruby Hamad builds a powerful argument about the entrenched systems of white supremacy that we are socialized within, a reality that we must apprehend in order to fight.]]> 284 Ruby Hamad 194822674X Kali 0 to-read 4.56 2020
author: Ruby Hamad
name: Kali
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> 59030015
After Nessa James’s husband dies and her twin daughters leave for college, she’s left all alone in a trim white house not far from the ocean. In the quiet of her late forties, the former nurse begins to hear voices. It doesn’t take long for Nessa to realize that the voices calling out to her belong to the dead—a gift she’s inherited from her grandmother, which comes with special responsibilities.

On the cusp of 50, suave advertising director Harriett Osborne has just witnessed the implosion of her lucrative career and her marriage. She hasn’t left her house in months, and from the outside, it appears as if she and her garden have both gone to seed. But Harriett’s life is far from over—in fact, she’s undergone a stunning and very welcome metamorphosis.

Ambitious former executive Jo Levison has spent thirty long years at war with her body. The free-floating rage and hot flashes that arrive with the beginning of menopause feel like the very last straw—until she realizes she has the ability to channel them, and finally comes into her power.

Guided by voices only Nessa can hear, the trio of women discover a teenage girl whose body was abandoned beside a remote beach. The police have written the victim off as a drug-addicted sex worker, but the women refuse to buy into the official narrative. Their investigation into the girl’s murder leads to more bodies, and to the town’s most exclusive and isolated enclave, a world of stupendous wealth where the rules don’t apply. With their newfound powers, Jo, Nessa, and Harriett will take matters into their own hands…]]> 470 Kirsten Miller 0063144042 Kali 0 to-read 4.06 2022
author: Kirsten Miller
name: Kali
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/28
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]]> 127488823
The trick time plays is to lull us into the belief that everything lasts forever, and although nothing does, we continue, inside our dream.

One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat. Obsessed by the power of those words—and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa—Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh.

There, thrust into an open society that is light years away from the world he knew in Libya, Khaled begins to change. He attends a protest against the Qaddafi regime in London, only to watch it explode in tragedy. In a flash, Khaled finds himself injured, clinging to life, an exile, unable to leave England, much lessĚýreturn toĚýthe country of his birth. To even tell his mother and father back home what he has done, on tapped phone lines, would jeopardize their safety.

When a chance encounter in a hotel brings Khaled face to face with Hosam Zowa, the author of the fateful short story, he is subsumed into the deepest friendship of his life. It is a friendship that not only sustains him, but eventually forces him, as the Arab Spring erupts, to confront agonizing tensions between revolution and safety, family and exile, and how to define his own sense of self against those closest to him.

A devastating meditation on friendship and family, and the ways in which time tests—and frays—those bonds, My Friends is an achingly beautifulĚýworkĚýof literature by an authorĚýat the peak of his powers.]]> 399 Hisham Matar 081299485X Kali 0 to-read 4.31 2024
author: Hisham Matar
name: Kali
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> 61214136
From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of Peter Rabbit , Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living. After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process.

Clover spends so much time with the dying that she has no life of her own, until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send Clover on a road trip to uncover a forgotten love story—and perhaps, her own happy ending. As she finds herself struggling to navigate the uncharted roads of romance and friendship, Clover is forced to examine what she really wants, and whether she’ll have the courage to go after it.

Probing, clever, and hopeful, The Collected Regrets of Clover is perfect for readers of The Midnight Library and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine as it turns the normally taboo subject of death into a reason to celebrate life.]]> 320 Mikki Brammer 1250284392 Kali 3 4.14 2023
author: Mikki Brammer
name: Kali
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 3
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]]> 215514839 From award-winning author and creative writing teacher at Tulane University comes an intimate and powerful memoir exploring inherited trauma, family secrets, and the enduring bonds of love between mothers and daughters.

On her second birthday in 1967, Bernice McFadden died in a car crash near Detroit, only to be resuscitated after her mother pulled her from the flaming wreckage. Firstborn Girls traces her remarkable life from that moment up to the publication of her first novel, Sugar.

Growing up in 1980s Brooklyn, Bernice finds solace in books, summer trips to Barbados, and boarding school to escape her alcoholic father. Discovering the works of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, she finally sees herself and her loved ones reflected in their stories of “messy, beautiful, joyful Black people.�

Interwoven with Bernice's personal journey is her family's history, beginning with her four-times enslaved great-grandmother Louisa Vicey Wilson in 1822 Hancock County, Georgia. Her descendants survived Reconstruction and Jim Crow, joined the Great Migration, and mourned Dr. King’s assassination during the Civil Rights Movement. These women's wisdom, secrets, and fierce love are passed down like Louisa's handmade quilt.

A memoir of many threads, Firstborn Girls is an extraordinarily moving portrait of a life shaped by family, history, and the drive to be something more.]]> 400 Bernice L. McFadden 0593184971 Kali 0 to-read 4.54 2025
author: Bernice L. McFadden
name: Kali
average rating: 4.54
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]]> 214565614 A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice.

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.]]> 448 Stephen Graham Jones 1668075083 Kali 0 to-read 4.29 2025
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Kali
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2025
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]]> 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]> 303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 Kali 0 to-read 4.32 2025
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Kali
average rating: 4.32
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]]> 64631561 New York Times bestselling author Lara Love Hardin recounts her slide from soccer mom to opioid addict to jailhouse shot-caller and her unlikely comeback as a highly successful ghostwriter in this harrowing, hilarious, no-holds-barred memoir.

No one expects the police to knock on the million-dollar, two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors� credit cards.

Lara is convicted of thirty-two felonies and becomes inmate S32179. She learns that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the Flies. Furniture is made from tampon boxes and Snickers bars are currency. But Lara quickly finds the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates as she climbs the social ladder to become the “shot caller,� showing that jailhouse politics aren’t that different from the PTA meetings she used to attend.

When she’s released, she reinvents herself as a ghostwriter. Now, she’s legally co-opting other people’s identities and getting to meet Oprah, meditate with The Dalai Lama, and have dinner with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But the shadow of her past follows her. Shame is a poison worse than heroin—there is no way to detox. Lara must learn how to forgive herself and others, navigate life as a felon on probation, prove to herself that she is more good than bad, and much more.

The Many Lives of Mama Love is a heartbreaking and tender journey from shame to redemption, despite a system that makes it almost impossible for us to move beyond the worst thing we have ever done.]]> 319 Lara Love Hardin 1982197668 Kali 0 4.46 2023
author: Lara Love Hardin
name: Kali
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2023
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]]> 220160335 This compelling and complex romance about love across cultures follows a Black girl and Brown boy who find themselves—and each other—while pursuing their passions the summer before college.

Deja’s got a plan. The first in her large family to go to college, she wants to study chemistry and sell natural skin care products, like the ones she already creates from plants grown on her family’s North Carolina farm. It all starts with the Onward Bound summer program at the University of Maryland, the summer before school officially starts.

Raja’s got a dream. His traditional Nepali parents want him to study engineering and settle down in an arranged marriage, but his passion is art, and he wants to open his own tattoo parlor one day. In the meantime, he’s apprenticing at a tattoo shop in College Park, Maryland.

When Deja walks into the shop where Raja’s working, they both start crushing hard—over the course of the summer, they fall more and more deeply for one another. But the closer they get and the more their lives entwine, the more they find that dating someone who doesn’t match your parents� expectations is harder than they ever imagined.

Can they bridge the divide between the vision their families have for their futures and the lives—and love—that are starting to feel like destiny?]]> 384 Ebony LaDelle 1665948671 Kali 0 to-read 4.31
author: Ebony LaDelle
name: Kali
average rating: 4.31
book published:
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]]> 215361966 In this beautifully written memoir, an accomplished journalist leaves New York City to work as an amateur farmhand at Princeton Seminary, while harvesting spiritual lessons that change his life

JeffĚýChu had a seemingly successful life. As a writer at a fast-paced magazine company, he penned glossy profiles of business leaders while living with his husband in a New York City brownstone. YetĚýhe struggled, as many of us do, with feelings of loneliness and disillusionment, all while trying to reconcile his identity as a first-generation Chinese American. Seeking a remedy,ĚýheĚýleft his job and enrolled at Princeton Seminary’s “Farminary,â€� a 21-acre farm where students learn to work the soil while asking the big questions of life.

As the seasons turn, Chu introduces us to a cast of characters, human and not, each with their own lesson to teach. From the cranes that visit the pond, to the worms that turn waste into fertile soil, to the Chinese long beans that get passed over in the farm’s CSA, Chu gently interrogates his relationship with the food on his plate and his own heritage, discovering what the earth is trying to teach us--if we’ll stop and listen.

In gorgeous, moving prose, Good Soil helps readers connect to the land and to each other at a time when we are drawn most to the phones in our hands. For nature lovers, foodies, and anyone who has daydreamed about a more meaningful life, this book is a tribute to friendship, acceptance, spirituality, and how love can grow from the unlikeliest of places.]]> 336 Jeff Chu 0593727363 Kali 0 to-read 4.40 2025
author: Jeff Chu
name: Kali
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2025
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]]> 214986248 A powerful, incisive reckoning with the impacts of school desegregation that traces four generations of the author’s family to show how integration decimated Black school systems and was a disservice to much of the Black community

On May 17, 1954 the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education deemed racial segregation in schools unconstitutional. Heralded as a massive victory for civil rights, the decision's goal was to give Black students equal access to educational opportunities and clear a path to a better future. Yet in the years following the ruling, schools in predominantly Black neighborhoods were shuttered or saw their funding dwindle; Black educators were firedĚýenĚýmasse; and Black students faced discrimination and violence from their white peers as they joined resource-rich schools that were ill-prepared for the influx of additional students.

Award-winning interdisciplinary scholar of education and Black history Noliwe Rooks weaves together sociological data and cultural history to challenge the idea that integration was a boon for Black people. She shows how present-day discrimination lawsuits directly stem from the mistakes made during integration. She tells the story of her grandparents, who were among the thousands of Black teachers fired following the Brown decision; of her father, who was traumatized by his experiences at a predominantly white school; of her own experiences moving from a flourishing, racially diverse school to an underserved inner-city one; and finally, of her son and his Black peers, who struggle with hostility and prejudice from white teachers and white students alike.

At once assiduously researched and deeply engaging, Integrated proves how education has remained both a tool for community progress and a seemingly inscrutable cultural puzzle. Rooks's deft hand turns the story of integration's past and future on its head, and shows how to better understand and support generations of students to come.]]> 240 Noliwe Rooks 0553387391 Kali 0 to-read 4.45 2025
author: Noliwe Rooks
name: Kali
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
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]]> 200275 256 Myles Horton 0807737003 Kali 0 to-read 4.34 1990
author: Myles Horton
name: Kali
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/25
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]]> 177192239
Menopause and perimenopause are still a black box to most doctors, leaving patients exasperated as they grapple with symptoms ranging from hot flashes to insomnia to brain fog. As a leading neuroscientist and women’s brain health specialist, Dr. Mosconi unravels these mysteries by revealing how menopause doesn’t just impact the ovaries—it’s a hormonal show in which the brain takes center stage.
The decline of the hormone estrogen during menopause influences everything from body temperature to mood to memory, potentially paving the way for cognitive decline later in life. To conquer these challenges successfully, Dr. Mosconi brings us the latest approaches—explaining the role of cutting-edge hormone replacement therapies like “designer estrogens,� hormonal contraception, and key lifestyle changes encompassing diet, exercise, self-care, and self-talk.
Best of all, Dr. Mosconi dispels the myth that menopause signifies an end, demonstrating that it’s actually a transition. Contrary to popular belief, if we know how to take care of ourselves during menopause, we can emerge with a renewed, enhanced brain—ushering in a meaningful and vibrant new chapter of life.]]> 320 Lisa Mosconi 0593541243 Kali 2
The list of potential supplements was nice, but the biggest takeaway is fix your diet and get regular exercise. This is consistent across the board for most health concerns.]]> 3.99 2024
author: Lisa Mosconi
name: Kali
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
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2.5 �- I wanted some major 'aha' moments, but didn't get them. In the first half of the book, there were some really good basic explanations of brain function and appearance during various phases of a woman's reproductive life. The second half seemed to be common sense "good living" advice that any health book has: eat more fruits and veggies, exercise, get good sleep, etc...

The list of potential supplements was nice, but the biggest takeaway is fix your diet and get regular exercise. This is consistent across the board for most health concerns.
]]> 59109077 A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.

New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.

Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse--one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.]]> 401 Geraldine Brooks 0399562966 Kali 0 to-read 4.17 2022
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Kali
average rating: 4.17
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]]> 25944711 The Coming, a novel that National Book Award-winning author Charles
Johnson (Middle Passage) calls "powerful and beautiful" and "a work to be proud of."

Lyrical, poetic, and hypnotizing, The Coming tells the story of a people's capture and sojourn from their homeland across the Middle Passage--a traumatic trip that exposed the strength and
resolve of the African spirit. Extreme conditions produce extraordinary insight, and only after being stripped of everything do they discover the unspeakable
beauty they once took for granted. This powerful, haunting novel will shake readers to their very souls.]]> 240 Daniel Black 1466890673 Kali 0 to-read 4.40 2015
author: Daniel Black
name: Kali
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2015
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]]> 61102615 A fresh take on the story of Medusa, the original monstered woman.

They will fear you and flee you and call you a monster.

The only mortal in a family of gods, Medusa is the youngest of the Gorgon sisters. Unlike her siblings, Medusa grows older, experiences change, feels weakness. Her mortal lifespan gives her an urgency that her family will never know.

When the sea god Poseidon assaults Medusa in Athene's temple, the goddess is enraged. Furious by the violation of her sacred space, Athene takes revenge--on the young woman. Punished for Poseidon's actions, Medusa is forever transformed. Writhing snakes replace her hair and her gaze will turn any living creature to stone. Cursed with the power to destroy all she loves with one look, Medusa condemns herself to a life of solitude.

Until Perseus embarks upon a fateful quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon...

In Stone Blind, classicist and comedian Natalie Haynes turns our understanding of this legendary myth on its head, bringing empathy and nuance to one of the earliest stories in which a woman--injured by a powerful man--is blamed, punished, and monstered for the assault. Delving into the origins of this mythic tale, Haynes revitalizes and reconstructs Medusa's story with her passion and fierce wit, offering a timely retelling of this classic myth that speaks to us today.]]> 373 Natalie Haynes 0063258390 Kali 4 3.79 2022
author: Natalie Haynes
name: Kali
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/21
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]]> 214175232 Starring an unforgettably fierce 99-year-old Jamaican heroine, A House for Miss PaulineĚýis a transporting and tender story with a mystery at its heart that asks profound and urgent questions about who owns the land on which our identities are forged. For readers of Nicole Dennis-Benn, James McBride, and other stories about colonialism and personal history.

When the stones of her house begin to rattle and shift and call out mysterious messages to her in the middle of the night, Pauline Sinclair, age ninety-nine, knows she will not make it to her 100th birthday. She has lived a modest life in Mason Hall, a rural Jamaican village, educating herself with stolen books, raising her two children, surviving by becoming one of the most successful ganja farmers in the area, and experiencing both deep passion and true loss with her beloved “baby father� Clive.
Ěý
Behind this seemingly benign façade, however, Miss Pauline has buried many secrets. To avenge her enslaved ancestors, she has built her house, stone by stone, from the ruins of a plantation on her land. And she knows more than she has told about the disappearance of Turner Buchanan—a white American man who came to Mason Hall decades ago to claim her land as his and his children’s. The whispering stones, Miss Pauline realizes, are telling her that she must make peace with the past before she dies. Ěý

With help from her American granddaughter, Justine, and Lamont, a teenager she enlists to drive her around the island, she sets off to find the people she has wronged. But as the people and stories of her past come to invade her present, she discovers that there are shocking secrets even she could not have anticipated.
Ěý
Lyrical, funny, eerie, and profound, infused with the patois and natural beauty of Jamaica,ĚýA House for Miss Pauline tells a timely and nuanced story about identity, colonialism, and land—and introduces an unforgettable heroine who is a model for living life on her own terms.]]> 320 Diana McCaulay 1643757229 Kali 0 to-read 4.04 2025
author: Diana McCaulay
name: Kali
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
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]]> 213870084 From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in the heart of an Empire which doesn’t consider you fully human.

On Oct 25th, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.â€� This tweet was viewed over 10 million times.Ěý

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This chronicles the deep fracture which has occurred for Black, brown, indigenous Americans, as well as the upcoming generation, many of whom had clung to a thread of faith in western ideals, in the idea that their countries, or the countries of their adoption, actually attempted to live up to the values they espouse.Ěý

This book is a reckoning with what it means to live in the west, and what it means to live in a world run by a small group of countries—America, the UK, France and Germany.â€� It will be The Fire Next Time for a generation that understands we’re undergoing a shift in the so-called â€�rules-based order,â€� a generation that understands the west can no longer be trusted to police and guide the world, or its own cities and campuses. It draws on intimate details of Omar’s own story as an emigrant who grew up believing in the western project, who was catapulted into journalism by the rupture of 9/11.Ěý

This book is his heartsick breakup letter with the west. It is a breakup we are watching all over the U.S., on college campuses, on city streets, and the consequences of this rupture will be felt by all of us. His book is for all the people who want something better than what the west has served up. This is the book for our time.]]> 208 Omar El Akkad 0593804147 Kali 0 to-read 4.68 2025
author: Omar El Akkad
name: Kali
average rating: 4.68
book published: 2025
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]]> 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Kali 4 4.14 2021
author: Claire Keegan
name: Kali
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
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]]> 150779002
A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. Work that doesn’t strangle the life out of people? Naive. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly. Ruha Benjamin, Princeton University professor, insists that imagination isn’t a luxury. It is a vital resource and powerful tool for collective liberation.

Imagination: A Manifesto is her proclamation that we have the power to use our imaginations to challenge systems of oppression and to create a world in which everyone can thrive. But obstacles abound. We have inherited destructive ideas that trap us inside a dominant imagination. Consider how racism, sexism, and classism make hierarchies, exploitation, and violence seem natural and inevitable—but all emerged from the human imagination.

The most effective way to disrupt these deadly systems is to do so collectively. Benjamin highlights the educators, artists, activists, and many others who are refuting powerful narratives that justify the status quo, crafting new stories that reflect our interconnection, and offering creative approaches to seemingly intractable problems.

Imagination: A Manifesto offers visionary examples and tactics to push beyond the constraints of what we think, and are told, is possible. This book is for anyone who is ready to take to heart Toni Morrison’s instruction: “Dream a little before you think.”]]> 192 Ruha Benjamin 1324020970 Kali 0 to-read 4.17
author: Ruha Benjamin
name: Kali
average rating: 4.17
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> 211003759 In the tradition of Station Eleven, a literary thriller set partly on the roof of New York’s Museum of Natural History in a flooded future.

All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they've saved.

Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story—with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most � love and work, community and knowledge � will survive.]]> 304 Eiren Caffall 1250353521 Kali 0 to-read 3.58 2025
author: Eiren Caffall
name: Kali
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11300085
Through the insightful essays in An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler issues a rallying cry to home cooks.

In chapters about boiling water, cooking eggs and beans, and summoning respectable meals from empty cupboards, Tamar weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on instinctive cooking. Tamar shows how to make the most of everything you buy, demonstrating what the world’s great chefs that great meals rely on the bones and peels and ends of meals before them.

She explains how to smarten up simple food and gives advice for fixing dishes gone awry. She recommends turning to neglected onions, celery, and potatoes for inexpensive meals that taste full of fresh vegetables, and cooking meat and fish resourcefully.

By wresting cooking from doctrine and doldrums, Tamar encourages readers to begin from wherever they are, with whatever they have. An Everlasting Meal is elegant testimony to the value of cooking and an empowering, indispensable tool for eaters today.]]> 272 Tamar Adler 143918187X Kali 0 to-read 4.18 2011
author: Tamar Adler
name: Kali
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 13158378
The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by the ruthless pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot. He will be spared, she tells him, as long as he puts exquisite food in front of her every Sunday without fail.

To appease the red-haired captain, Wedgwood gets cracking with the meager supplies on board. His first triumph at sea is actual bread, made from a sourdough starter thatĚýhe leavens in a tin under his shirt throughout a roaring battle, as men are cutlassed all around him. Soon he’s making tea-smoked eel and brewing pineapple-banana cider.

But Mabbot—who exerts a curious draw on the chef—is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer and plagued by a saboteur hidden onĚýherĚýship, she pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious Brass Fox. As Wedgwood begins to sense a method to Mabbot’s madness, he must rely on the bizarre crewmembers he once feared: Mr. Apples, the fearsome giant who loves to knit; Feng and Bai, martial arts masters sworn to defend their captain; and Joshua, the deaf cabin boy who becomes the son Wedgwood never had.

Cinnamon and Gunpowder is a swashbuckling epicure’s adventure simmered over a surprisingly touching love story—with a dash of the strangest, most delightful cookbook never written. Eli Brown has crafted a uniquely entertaining novel full of adventure: the Scheherazade story turned on its head, at sea, with food.]]> 318 Eli Brown 0374123667 Kali 0 to-read 3.89 2013
author: Eli Brown
name: Kali
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 60811826 Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.


As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.


Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]> 184 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492600 Kali 4 I like the philosophical approach of this book. Definitely makes you think. There are lots of esoteric questions without answers, but isn’t that life?

What makes us human?
What is community?
What is a life well-lived?
What do we value?
What is time? Is it real?
Do you exist after you die if nobody is left to mourn you?
Do you have to leave something behind when you die for your life to matter?
What is a good death?

You will never know anything about any actual event leading up to the women being in the bunker. But you will find out there are bunkers all over. Some with dead men, some with dead women. You will never know why the siren sounded or where the guards went in a presumed 11 minutes. If you understand going in that you will get zero answers, you can focus on the musings.

The quote that gave me pause:
“I have spent my whole life doing I don’t know what, but it hasn’t made me happy.�

Well damn……memento mori, my friend.

Memento Mori.]]> 4.12 1995
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Kali
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves:
review:
3.5 -
I like the philosophical approach of this book. Definitely makes you think. There are lots of esoteric questions without answers, but isn’t that life?

What makes us human?
What is community?
What is a life well-lived?
What do we value?
What is time? Is it real?
Do you exist after you die if nobody is left to mourn you?
Do you have to leave something behind when you die for your life to matter?
What is a good death?

You will never know anything about any actual event leading up to the women being in the bunker. But you will find out there are bunkers all over. Some with dead men, some with dead women. You will never know why the siren sounded or where the guards went in a presumed 11 minutes. If you understand going in that you will get zero answers, you can focus on the musings.

The quote that gave me pause:
“I have spent my whole life doing I don’t know what, but it hasn’t made me happy.�

Well damn……memento mori, my friend.

Memento Mori.
]]> 214025340 In the summer of 2022, podcaster and author Carlos Whittaker spent seven weeks entirely screen free, splitting his time between a monastery, an Amish farm, and home with his family. Blending the inspiring story of this experiment with practical guidance, Whittaker reveals how you can reset your relationship with screens and step into a life of real connection.

Not many people have the opportunity to spend weeks entirely devoid of phone and computer screens, but Whittaker's radical, screen-free experiment yields hope and wisdom to everyone who has felt the loneliness, low-key despair, and paradoxical disconnectedness that accompanies the always-on, always-plugged-in nature of modern life.

Readers who take this journey with Whittaker will

learn how to cut through the divisive, polarizing effects of social media and build real community, even with people who are very different from them;rediscover the joy of noticing and savoring the beauty of the world beyond their phone screens;remember how experiencing boredom, solitude, and even getting lost (all but eradicated by smartphones) can bring opportunities for new discoveries about themselves and the world around them; andreset their relationship with screens and social media forever.Ěý

Blending wisdom from the past, practices of intentionality and community, and Whittaker's engaging communication style that has led to the explosive growth of his social media presence over the past few years, this book is a compelling story, a guide for resetting your life in a tech-saturated world, and an invitation into the connection and community that feels so elusive today.]]> 240 Carlos Whittaker 1400246466 Kali 4 4.40
author: Carlos Whittaker
name: Kali
average rating: 4.40
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/11
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3.5 - lots of good points for small changes we can make to live a life less dependent on screens.
]]> 210594656 From breathwork practitioner and the founder of black girls breathing®, a practical path for Black women to heal trauma, combat chronic stress, and find freedom in their own bodies and minds—think What Happened to You? meets Breath for readers of Rest is Resistance.Ěý It's no secret that Black women have been oppressed for centuries and, as a Black woman herself, Jasmine Marie knows the impact that intergenerational trauma and systemic racism have had—and continue to have—on her community. Those experiences are why she founded a breathwork company dedicated to helping Black women access somatic practices and understand the power of the mind‑body connection to undo the trauma the carry. In Black Girls Breathing, Jasmine Marie shares the science-backed tools and wisdom of her program to help Connect more fully to their bodies. Give themselves permission to rest. Heal the chronic stress they carry in their bodies and nervous systems. Address their emotional pain. Rebuild themselves and their communities. Ultimately, this book is a long-overdue resource for every Strong Black The woman ready to break cycles of trauma, heal the internalized beliefs of perfectionism and conditional self‑worth, and listen to the wisdom of her inner voice.]]> 240 Jasmine Marie 1538756625 Kali 3 4.20
author: Jasmine Marie
name: Kali
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
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]]> 61273146 One of Us is Lying meets A Deadly Education in this fantasy thriller that follows six teenage wizards as they fight to make it home alive after a malfunctioning spell leaves them stranded in the wilderness.

Ren Monroe has spent four years proving she’s one of the best wizards in her generation. But top marks at Balmerick University will mean nothing if she fails to get recruited into one of the major houses. Enter Theo Brood. If being rich were a sin, he’d already be halfway to hell. After a failed and disastrous party trick, fate has the two of them crossing paths at the public waxway portal the day before holidays—Theo’s punishment is to travel home with the scholarship kids. Which doesn’t sit well with any of them.

A fight breaks out. In the chaos, the portal spell malfunctions. All six students are snatched from the safety of the school’s campus and set down in the middle of nowhere. And one of them is dead on arrival.

If anyone can get them through the punishing wilderness with limited magical reserves it’s Ren. She’s been in survival mode her entire life. But no magic could prepare her for the tangled secrets the rest of the group is harboring, or for what’s following them through the dark woods…]]> 368 Scott Reintgen 1665918683 Kali 0 to-read 3.83 2023
author: Scott Reintgen
name: Kali
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 215003781
In 1943, when a frail old white woman shows up in Red Clay, Alabama, at the home of a Black former slave—on the morning following his funeral—his family hardly knows what to expect after she utters the words “� a lifetime ago, my family owned yours.� Adelaide Parker has a story to tell—one of ambition, betrayal, violence, and redemption—that shaped both the fate of her family and that of the late Felix H. Parker.

But there are gaps in her knowledge, and she’s come to Red Clay seeking answers from a family with whom she shares a name and a history that neither knows in full. In an epic saga that takes us from Red Clay to Paris, to the Côte d’Azur and New Orleans, human frailties are pushed to their limits as secrets are exposed and the line between good and evil becomes ever more difficult to discern. Red Clay is a tale that deftly lays bare the ugliness of slavery, the uncertainty of the final months of the Civil War, the optimism of Reconstruction, and the pain and frustration of Jim Crow.

With a vivid sense of place and a cast of memorable characters, Charles B. Fancher draws upon his own family history to weave a riveting tale of triumph over adversity, set against a backdrop of societal change and racial animus that reverberates in contemporary America. Through seasons of joy and unspeakable pain, Fancher delivers rich moments as allies become enemies, and enemies—to their great surprise—find new respect for each other.]]> 336 Charles B. Fancher Kali 0 to-read 4.43
author: Charles B. Fancher
name: Kali
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 60260672 30 years. 36 priests butchered. His bloodiest masterpiece is yet to come.

Every ten years, for the past 30 years, a dozen clergymen are killed, brutally murdered in twisted scenes emulating the deaths of Jesus and his disciples. Now, "The Martyr Maker" has set his mark on New York City. The Laws of Depravity follows two NYPD detectives and an FBI agent as they race to catch a serial killer before he completes his last cycle of kills and disappears forever.

Note: This edition includes Laws of Innocence: The Prequel, the prequel to the Martyr Maker series.]]> 400 Eriq La Salle 1728261007 Kali 2
It’s gory and bloody and the murders are, in fact, depraved. I wasn’t bothered by that at all - I was more bothered by some of the authors word choices to describe characters and how poorly the women are written/characterized. I actually had to double check that this book wasn’t written in the 1970s or 80s. It’s so cringe, as the kids say. I listened to the audiobook and steadily increased the speed to get to the twist at the end. I didn’t care anymore by then.

]]> 3.83 2012
author: Eriq La Salle
name: Kali
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves:
review:
I wanted less and more at the same time. Less back story and more crime procedural.

It’s gory and bloody and the murders are, in fact, depraved. I wasn’t bothered by that at all - I was more bothered by some of the authors word choices to describe characters and how poorly the women are written/characterized. I actually had to double check that this book wasn’t written in the 1970s or 80s. It’s so cringe, as the kids say. I listened to the audiobook and steadily increased the speed to get to the twist at the end. I didn’t care anymore by then.


]]> 41712479
After a nasty divorce and a thousand mile move, Dr. Sloan Copeland and her twin daughters are finally getting the hang of their new life in Los Angeles. When their live-in nanny bails with no warning, Sloan is left scrambling to find a competent caretaker to wrangle her smart, sensitive girls. Nothing less will do.

Enter Rafe Whitcomb. He's all of those things, not to mention good-natured and one heck of a whiz in the kitchen. He's also tall, and handsome, and bearded, and ripped, and tatted, wrist to neck.

It doesn't take long for the Copelands to invite Rafe into their home. Just as quickly, both Sloan and Rafe find themselves succumbing to a heady mutual attraction, neither of them wants to deny. With every minute they spend under the same roof, this working mom can't help but wonder if Rafe can handle all her needs...]]> 239 Rebekah Weatherspoon 1386119881 Kali 4 3.63 2018
author: Rebekah Weatherspoon
name: Kali
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves:
review:
This book made me realize I need a man to make me a quiche with bacon in it. This is my new love language and I will accept nothing less. I won’t be fielding any questions because we are in end times and I must move on to the next emotionally available faux suitor so I can continue to evade reality. Thank you.
]]> 50623864
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.]]> 448 Victoria E. Schwab 0765387565 Kali 5
2025: I listened to the audiobook version and read the paperback at the same time for an immersive reading experience. On the second read, I thought Henry was boring and honestly I had forgotten about him since the first read. He wasn’t really worth saving IMHO. The only interesting dynamic was Luc and Addie. And Addie thinks she’s outsmarting Luc, but I have a feeling she will still lose. He knows the deal he made, and he pays attention to words. He will keep her by his side out of spite and I realize now that I want Luc to win. Addie doesn’t know any other gods and I’m sure Luc does - so all he has to do is get another god to get rid of her when/if he’s done with her. Then he can still reap her soul. Addie is a chihuahua playing with a pit bull.

I still loved it :)]]> 4.16 2020
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Kali
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:
2020: Audiobook version only - and I loved it

2025: I listened to the audiobook version and read the paperback at the same time for an immersive reading experience. On the second read, I thought Henry was boring and honestly I had forgotten about him since the first read. He wasn’t really worth saving IMHO. The only interesting dynamic was Luc and Addie. And Addie thinks she’s outsmarting Luc, but I have a feeling she will still lose. He knows the deal he made, and he pays attention to words. He will keep her by his side out of spite and I realize now that I want Luc to win. Addie doesn’t know any other gods and I’m sure Luc does - so all he has to do is get another god to get rid of her when/if he’s done with her. Then he can still reap her soul. Addie is a chihuahua playing with a pit bull.

I still loved it :)
]]> 211003817 A groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction that investigates Munchausen by Proxy from the host and creator of the award-winning true crime podcast Nobody Should Believe Me.

No bond is more sacred than that between a mother and child. And no one is more sympathetic than a mother whose child faces a life-threatening illness. But what if the mother is the cause of the illness? What if the sympathy is the point?

Munchausen by proxy (MBP) has fascinated and horrified both professionals and the general public since this disturbing form of child abuse was first identified. But even as the public has been captivated by these tales of abuse and deception, there remains widespread misinformation and confusion about MBP. Are these mothers unfeeling psychopaths, or sick women who need help? And more important, how can we protect the children whose lives are at stake?

The Mother Next Door offers a groundbreaking look at MBP from an unlikely duo: a Seattle novelist whose own family was torn apart by it, and the Texas detective who has worked on more medical child abuse cases than anyone in the nation. Listeners ride along on three high-stakes MPB investigations; through riveting reporting and shocking stories from the family members, friends, and doctors caught in the blast zone of these unthinkable acts, a twisted portrait of motherhood and deceit is revealed.

With help from some of the top MBP experts in the world, Dunlop and Weber uncover the complex maze of psychological, systemic, and cultural issues that compound MBP and offer solutions for how we might find our way out.]]> 304 Andrea Dunlop 1250284279 Kali 0 to-read 4.14 2025
author: Andrea Dunlop
name: Kali
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 212806636 A young woman and her lover are marooned on an island in this epic saga of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam.

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

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

Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.]]> 368 Allegra Goodman 0593730089 Kali 0 to-read 4.01 2025
author: Allegra Goodman
name: Kali
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 8143909
Winner of the Davy Byrnes Memorial Prize, Foster is now published in a revised and expanded version. Beautiful, sad and eerie, it is a story of astonishing emotional depth, showcasing Claire Keegan's great accomplishment and talent.]]> 89 Claire Keegan 0571255655 Kali 3 4.32 2010
author: Claire Keegan
name: Kali
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves:
review:
3.5 - short and simple, but packed with emotion.
]]> 52656911
The bride � The plus one � The best man � The wedding planner � The bridesmaid � The body

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?]]> 319 Lucy Foley Kali 3 3.82 2020
author: Lucy Foley
name: Kali
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 58284121 The #1 Indie Next Pick, in the vein of the classic 84, Charing Cross Road and Meet Me at the Museum, this witty and tender novel follows two women in 1960s America as they discover that food really does connect us all, and that friendship and laughter are the best medicine.

When twenty-seven-year-old Joan Bergstrom sends a fan letter--as well as a gift of saffron--to fifty-nine-year-old Imogen Fortier, a life-changing friendship begins. Joan lives in Los Angeles and is just starting out as a writer for the newspaper food pages. Imogen lives on Camano Island outside Seattle, writing a monthly column for a Pacific Northwest magazine, and while she can hunt elk and dig for clams, she's never tasted fresh garlic--exotic fare in the Northwest of the sixties. As the two women commune through their letters, they build a closeness that sustains them through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the unexpected in their own lives.

Food and a good life--they can't be separated. It is a discovery the women share, not only with each other, but with the men in their lives. Because of her correspondence with Joan, Imogen's decades-long marriage blossoms into something new and exciting, and in turn, Joan learns that true love does not always come in the form we expect it to. Into this beautiful, intimate world comes the ultimate test of Joan and Imogen's friendship--a test that summons their unconditional trust in each other.

A brief respite from our chaotic world, Love & Saffron is a gem of a novel, a reminder that food and friendship are the antidote to most any heartache, and that human connection will always be worth creating.]]> 208 Kim Fay 0593419332 Kali 2 4.10 2022
author: Kim Fay
name: Kali
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/30
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves:
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]]> 63329951 An entertaining, enlightening, and utterly original investigation into one of the most quietly influential forces in modern American life—the humble parking spot

Parking, quite literally, has a death grip on America: each year a handful of Americans are tragically killed by their fellow citizens over parking spots. But even when we don’t resort to violence, we routinely do ridiculous things for parking, contorting our professional, social, and financial lives to get a spot. Indeed, in the century since the advent of the car, we have deformed—and in some cases demolished—our homes and our cities in a Sisyphean quest for cheap and convenient car storage. As a result, much of the nation’s most valuable real estate is now devoted exclusively to empty and idle vehicles, even as so many Americans struggle to find affordable housing. Parking determines the design of new buildings and the fate of old ones, patterns of traffic and the viability of transit, neighborhood politics and municipal finance, the quality of public space, and even the course of floodwaters. Can this really be the best use of our finite resources and space? Why have we done this to the places we love? Is parking really more important than anything else?

These are the questions Slate staff writer Henry Grabar sets out to answer, telling a mesmerizing story about the strange and wonderful superorganism that is the modern American city. In a beguiling and often absurdly hilarious mix of history, politics, and reportage, Grabar brilliantly surveys the pain points of the nation’s parking crisis, from Los Angeles to Disney World to New York, stopping at every major American city in between. He reveals how the pathological compulsion for car storage has exacerbated some of our most acute problems—from housing affordability to the accelerating global climate disaster—ultimately, lighting the way for us to free our cities from parking’s cruel yoke.]]> 368 Henry Grabar 1984881140 Kali 0 to-read 4.20 2023
author: Henry Grabar
name: Kali
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 199798217 A heartfelt novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.�

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls� high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.]]> 327 Marjan Kamali 1668036584 Kali 0 to-read 4.47 2024
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Kali
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 450534
When the Body Says No is an impressive contribution to research on the physiological connection between life's stresses and emotions and the body systems governing nerves, immune apparatus and hormones. With great compassion and erudition, Gabor Maté demystifies medical science and, as he did in Scattered Minds , invites us all to be our own health advocates.]]> 320 Gabor Maté 0676973124 Kali 0 to-read 4.21 2003
author: Gabor Maté
name: Kali
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 28348 564 Fyodor Dostoevsky Kali 1 4.32 1866
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Kali
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1866
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves:
review:
Usually I don’t rate a book if I DNF it - but I have tried multiple times to get through it. Once in high school (obligatory read - but the only classic I didn’t finish back then because I hated it). I tried the paperback, I tried the audio, and it’s simply not interesting to me in any format. Raskolnikov is a bum out here doing everything BUT getting a job. He’s just a weak man fainting all over the place and delirious. He couldn’t even rob that lady correctly after he killed her. Hard pass.
]]> 197491143
A whistleblower pulls Tully into a murder investigation at the centre of an election battle for a global dictator, with a mandate to prevent a climate apocalypse. A former US President campaigns against the first AI politician for the position, but someone is trying to sway the outcome.

Tully must convince the world to face the truth and make hard choices about the future of the species. But will humanity ultimately choose salvation over freedom, whatever the cost?

An enthralling murder mystery with a vividly realised future world, forcing readers to grapple with hard hitting questions about the climate crisis, our relationship with Artificial Intelligence and the price we'd be willing to pay, as a species, to be saved. Perfect for fans of Blake Crouch, Harlan Coben, Neal Stephenson, Philip K. Dick, Kim Stanley Robinson and RR Haywood.]]> 433 Thomas R. Weaver 1739434307 Kali 0 to-read 3.97 2023
author: Thomas R. Weaver
name: Kali
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 34219841 279 Peter Brown 0316382043 Kali 3 4.36 2018
author: Peter Brown
name: Kali
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves:
review:
I do enjoy Roz's big adventures and all the friends she makes.
]]> 26030734
When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is all alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is—but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a violent storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island's unwelcoming animal inhabitants.

As Roz slowly befriends the animals, the island starts to feel like home—until, one day, the robot's mysterious past comes back to haunt her.

From bestselling and award-winning author and illustrator Peter Brown comes a heartwarming and action-packed novel about what happens when nature and technology collide.]]> 282 Peter Brown 0316381993 Kali 3
It did start off slow and there is gun violence towards the end of the book. I have to take the slow start with a grain of salt because what’s slow to an adult is prob just right for a kid, so I can’t really knock it. I think the gun violence is foreshadowing for Book 2 when Roz is going to be among humans. So maybe she’s going to learn what most of us already know - humans are the problem. And you’re never too young to learn that. Oh no, my inner curmudgeon is rising back up.]]> 4.19 2016
author: Peter Brown
name: Kali
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves:
review:
3.25 - My co-worker is reading this series with her kids and said she loved it. She told me I probably wouldn't read it because it's a middle-school book, but she raved about it. I told her I read just about anything if someone seems excited about it - so here I am now with Books 2 and 3 at the ready! I almost teared up a couple of times! Dang - these 21st century kiddie books hit hard! I'm happy to know there's enough empathy left in my battered and cynical soul for me to be invested in this island's safety. I'm rooting for Roz and the animals all the way!

It did start off slow and there is gun violence towards the end of the book. I have to take the slow start with a grain of salt because what’s slow to an adult is prob just right for a kid, so I can’t really knock it. I think the gun violence is foreshadowing for Book 2 when Roz is going to be among humans. So maybe she’s going to learn what most of us already know - humans are the problem. And you’re never too young to learn that. Oh no, my inner curmudgeon is rising back up.
]]> 61111301
Then, a new family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can't help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a disturbing, violent argument between Henry's beautiful mother and his arrogant father, one that threatens Gretel's hard-won, self-contained existence.

All The Broken Places moves back and forth in time between Gretel's girlhood in Germany to present-day London as a woman whose life has been haunted by the past. Now, Gretel faces a similar crossroads to one she encountered long ago. Back then, she denied her own complicity, but now, faced with a chance to interrogate her guilt, grief and remorse, she can choose to save a young boy. If she does, she will be forced to reveal the secrets she has spent a lifetime protecting. This time, she can make a different choice than before -- whatever the cost to herself....

From the New York Times bestselling author John Boyne, a devastating, beautiful story about a woman who must confront the sins of her own terrible past, and a present in which it is never too late for bravery. ]]> 400 John Boyne 0593653068 Kali 2 4.43 2022
author: John Boyne
name: Kali
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves:
review:
It reads fast, but I wasn’t wholly invested
]]> 31250 860 Charles Dickens Kali 0 to-read 3.99 1857
author: Charles Dickens
name: Kali
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1857
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> 215819829 �The Capital of Dreams is not so much a novel to read but one to live (and dream) in. A dark, wistfully comic fable that's as imaginative as it is poignant. An entire world that only Heather O'Neill could create.”—Iain Reid, bestselling author of We Spread and Foe

From the hugely acclaimed author beloved by literary lights, including Emily St. John Mandel, Kelly Link, and Mona Awad, a dark dystopian fairytale about an idyllic country ravaged by war—and a girl torn between safety and loyalty.Ěý

Sofia Bottom lives in Elysia, a small country forgotten by Europe. But inside its borders, the old myths of trees that come alive and faeries who live among their roots have given way to an explosion of the arts and the consolations of philosophy. From the clarinetists to the cabaret singers, no artist is as revered as Sofia’s brilliant mother, the writer Clara Bottom. How can fourteen-year-old Sofia, with her tin ear and enduring love of ancient myths, ever hope to win her mother’s love?

When the country’s greatest enemy invades, and the Capital is under threat, Clara turns to her daughter to smuggle her new manuscript to safety on the last train evacuating children from the city. But when the train draws to a suspicious halt in the middle of a forest, Sofia is forced to run for her life and loses her mother’s most prized possession. Frightened and alone in a country at war, Sofia must find a way to reclaim what she has lost. On an epic journey through woods and razed towns, colliding with soldiers, survivors, and other lost children, Sofia must make the choice between kindness and her own survival.

In this stunning novel set in an imaginative world yet reflective of our own times, Heather O’Neill delivers a vivid, breathtaking dark fairytale of life, death, and betrayal.]]> 368 Heather O'Neill 0063425998 Kali 0 to-read 3.65 2024
author: Heather O'Neill
name: Kali
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> 60784741 The shocking, deeply reported story of a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of six children—and a searing indictment of the American foster care system.

On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and several children at the bottom of a cliff beside the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was more to the story: Jennifer and Sarah Hart, it turned out, were a white married couple who had adopted the six Black children from two different Texas families in 2006 and 2008. Behind the family's loving facade, however, was a pattern of abuse and neglect that went ignored as the couple withdrew the children from school and moved across the country. It soon became apparent that the State of Texas knew very little about the two individuals to whom it had given custody of six children—with fateful consequences.

In the manner of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family and other classic works of investigative journalism, Roxanna Asgarian’s We Were Once a Family is a revelation of vulnerable lives; it is also a shattering exposé of the foster care and adoption systems that produced this tragedy. As a journalist in Houston, Asgarian became the first reporter to put the children’s birth families at the center of the story. We follow the author as she runs up against the intransigence of a state agency that removes tens of thousands of kids from homes each year in the name of child welfare, while often failing to consider alternatives. Her reporting uncovers persistent racial biases and corruption as children of color are separated from birth parents without proper cause. The result is a riveting narrative and a deeply reported indictment of a system that continues to fail America’s most vulnerable children while upending the lives of their families.]]> 320 Roxanna Asgarian 0374602298 Kali 5 4.30 2023
author: Roxanna Asgarian
name: Kali
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves:
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]]> 75305069 A Woman of the Sword is an epic fantasy seen through the eyes of an ordinary woman. Lidae is a daughter, a wife, a mother - and a great warrior born to fight. Her sword is hungry for killing, her right hand is red with blood.

War is very much a woman's business. But war is not kind to women. And war is not kind to mothers and their sons.]]> 431 Anna Smith Spark 1915556058 Kali 0 to-read 3.83 2023
author: Anna Smith Spark
name: Kali
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 208433106
Conservative think tanks like the Manhattan Institute disseminate anti-homeless myths in the media, legislatures, and the larger culture, claiming that our homeless neighbors cause their own predicament and that the best we can do is manage the problem.

Drawing on her deep legal knowledge, policy expertise, and decades of frontline service, Mary Brosnahan cuts through the misinformation to deliver two important messages: that homelessness ultimately stems from a lack of investment in affordable housing; and that the greatest myth of all is that we should have no hope. In fact, the proven solutions are well documented, and the ability to enact them depends on us all.

Brosnahan takes a nationwide look from New York to Detroit, Philly to L.A., and from rural areas such as Cumberland County, Pennsylvania to debunk 15 widespread misconceptions, including:

that the problem is inevitable (in fact, Housing First approaches have shown great success)
that “handouts� cause homelessness (in fact, the primary causes are flat wages and high rent)
that homeless people need to prove that they’re “ready� to receive aid (in fact, enforcing hurdles is far more expensive and less effective than Housing First).

With brilliant insight, Brosnahan showcases how by dispelling these pervasive myths rooted in fear, we can embrace the affordable, housing-based solutions that will bring our impoverished neighbors home.]]> 232 Mary Brosnahan 0807006971 Kali 4 4.18
author: Mary Brosnahan
name: Kali
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves:
review:
I learned so much about homelessness and the root causes and the solutions that have been successfully implemented in other countries. Hopefully some of these solutions can be implemented here in the States, if the government ever learns how to function correctly. In the meantime, I appreciated the tips for things that the individual can do, because while we wait for the 'powers that be' to get it right, there are people who can be helped today in our own neighborhoods.
]]> 59042752 Hitch meets The Sun Is Also a Star in this novel about a self-professed teen love doctor with a popular radio segment who believes he can get a girl who hates all things romance to fall in love with him in only three dates.

Prince Jones is the guy with all the answers—or so it seems. After all, at seventeen, he has his own segment on Detroit’s popular hip-hop show, Love Radio, where he dishes out advice to the brokenhearted.

Prince has always dreamed of becoming a DJ and falling in love. But being the main caretaker for his mother, who has multiple sclerosis, and his little brother means his dreams will stay just that and the only romances in his life are the ones he hears about from his listeners. Until he meets Dani Ford.

Dani isn’t checking for anybody. She’s focused on her plan: ace senior year, score a scholarship, and move to New York City to become a famous author. But her college essay keeps tripping her up and acknowledging what’s blocking her means dealing with what happened at that party a few months ago. And that’s one thing Dani can’t do.

When the romantic DJ meets the ambitious writer, sparks fly. Prince is smitten, but Dani’s not looking to get derailed. She gives Prince just three dates to convince her that he’s worth falling for. Three dates for the love expert to take his own advice, and just maybe change two lives forever.]]> 320 Ebony LaDelle 1665908157 Kali 4 4.20 2022
author: Ebony LaDelle
name: Kali
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves:
review:
Read this book as part of a 2025 Book Challenge and it was a really cute. I appreciated how the book dealt with heavier topics, but balanced it well with upbeat moments. It’s definitely a YA book I would recommend to the teens in my family.
]]> 197108968 From the acclaimed author of The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and brilliant speculative thriller about families: real and virtual.

Some families are virtually perfect�

The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, the breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families, let alone raise them.

But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality TV show called The Substitute. It will follow ten couples as they raise a Virtual Child from birth to the age of eighteen but in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child, or risk it all for the chance of a real baby�

Set in the same universe as John Marrs's bestselling novel The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and twisted thriller about the ultimate Tamagotchi—a virtual baby.]]> 384 John Marrs 1335000364 Kali 3 4.01 2024
author: John Marrs
name: Kali
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves:
review:
3.5 - I was definitely into the Black Mirror-esque parts of the book exploring the lengths to which these companies will shove A.I. in your face, because it's actively happening in current times. The end dragged a little bit when everything was explained, but I did appreciate the explanations.
]]> 59969300
Mercy never has a moment to herself. She’s been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest.Ěý

After yet another exasperating run-in with Mercy, Hart finds himself penning a letter addressed simply to “A Friendâ€�. Much to his surprise, an anonymous letter comes back in return, and a tentative friendship is born. Ěý

If only Hart knew he’s been baring his soul to the person who infuriates him most—Mercy. As the dangers from Tanria grow closer, so do the unlikely correspondents. But can their blossoming romance survive the fated discovery that their pen pals are their worst nightmares—each other?

Set in a world full of magic and demigods, donuts and small-town drama, this enchantingly quirky, utterly unique fantasy is perfect for readers of The House in the Cerulean Sea and The Invisible Library.]]> 449 Megan Bannen 0316394319 Kali 5 4.19 2022
author: Megan Bannen
name: Kali
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 29069374 My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is the fictional graphic diary of 10-year-old Karen Reyes, filled with B-movie horror and pulp monster magazines iconography. Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, while the interconnected stories of those around her unfold. When Karen’s investigation takes us back to Anka’s life in Nazi Germany, the reader discovers how the personal, the political, the past, and the present converge. Full-color illustrations throughout.]]> 416 Emil Ferris 1606999591 Kali 3 4.21 2017
author: Emil Ferris
name: Kali
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
review:
I can’t imagine the massive amount of energy and dedication that went into this impressive project. Kudos for that! The art is what kept me going, but I was not as invested in the story. There were a several subplots and I was only interested in about 2 of them.
]]> 149187311 From the author of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy comes a heartwarming fantasy with a best friends-to-lovers rom com twist--When Harry Met Sally, but with dragons!—set in the delightful demigod and donut-filled world of Tanria.

The entire town of Eternity was shocked when widowed, middle-aged Twyla Banneker partnered up with her neighbor and best friend, Frank Ellis, to join the Tanrian Marshals. Eight years later, Twyla and Frank are still patrolling the dangerous land of Tanria, the former prison of the Old Gods.

Twyla might look like a small town mom who brings cheesy potatoes to funerals and whips up a batch of cookies for the school bake sale, but her rewarding career in law enforcement has been a welcome change from the domestic grind of mom life, despite the misgivings of her grown children.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) a recent decrease in on-the-job peril has made Twyla and Frank's job a lot safer ... and a lot less exciting. So when they discover the body of one of their fellow marshals covered in liquid glitter--and Frank finds himself the inadvertent foster dad to a baby dragon--they are more than happy to be back on the beat.

Soon, the friends wind up ensnared in a nefarious plot that goes far deeper than any lucrative Tanrian mineshaft. But as the danger closes in and Twyla and Frank's investigation becomes more complicated, so does their easy friendship. And Twyla starts to realize that her true soul mate might just be the person who has lived next door all along...]]> 464 Megan Bannen 0356521923 Kali 0 to-read 4.04 2024
author: Megan Bannen
name: Kali
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215547926 From the author of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy comes a new heartwarming fantasy rom-com with an opposites-attract twist set in the delightful world of Tanria.

Immortal demigod Rosie Fox has been patrolling Tanria for decades, but lately, the job has been losing its luster. After one hundred and fifty-seven years of being alive, everything is beginning to lose its luster. When Rosie dies (again) by electrocution (again) after poking around inside a portal choked with shadowy thorns only she can see, she feels stuck in the rut that is her unending life.

Thanks to Rosie’s meddling, the portal’s inventor, Dr. Adam Lee, must come in person to repair the damage. When all the portals begin to break down, he declares an emergency evacuation of Tanria. In the mad rush to get out, Rosie and Adam end up trapped inside the Mist. Together.

And uptight Adam Lee in his bespoke menswear seems to know a lot more about what’s happening than he lets on�.

Rosie is determined to crack the shell of his cool exterior. But the more she learns about Adam, the more she realizes that they both have personal histories as tangled and thorny as the plant that has them trapped inside the Mist. Maybe two people who have found themselves stuck in this life can find a way to unstick each other � just when their time on this earth seems to be running out.]]> 432 Megan Bannen 0316568279 Kali 0 to-read 4.32 2025
author: Megan Bannen
name: Kali
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 207689829 The memoir by the doctor who became a beacon of hope for millions through the COVID pandemic, and whose six-decade career in high-level public service put him in the room with seven presidents

Anthony Fauci is arguably the most famous � and most revered � doctor in the world today. His role guiding America sanely and calmly through Covid (and through the torrents of Trump) earned him the trust of millions during one of the most terrifying periods in modern American history, but this was only the most recent of the global epidemics in which Dr. Fauci played a major role. His crucial role in identifying HIV and bringing AIDS into sympathetic public view and his leadership in navigating the Ebola, SARS, West Nile, and anthrax crises make him truly an American hero.

His memoir reaches back to his boyhood in Brooklyn, New York, and carries through decades of caring for critically ill patients, navigating the whirlpools of Washington politics, and behind-the-scenes advising and negotiating with seven presidents on key issues from global AIDS relief to infectious diseaseĚýpreparedness at home. On Call will be an inspiration for readers who admire and are grateful to him and for those who want to emulate him in public service. He is the embodiment of “speaking truth to power,â€� with dignity and results.]]> 464 Anthony Fauci 0593657470 Kali 0 to-read 4.47 2024
author: Anthony Fauci
name: Kali
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>