en-US Fri, 07 Mar 2025 12:48:21 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 54379471
The paintings between these covers were worked in the between times, an unwinding of the soul, when the pressures of work were too much. Dreams and wishes are the inspiration at times like this. Threaded through the curious world of The Unwinding are words, slight and lyrical. Their aim is to set the reader s mind adrift from the troubles of our times, into peaceful harbours where imagination can stretch, where quiet reflection can bring peace.

The Unwinding is designed to be a companion, a talisman to be turned to again and again and a place of respite from an increasingly frantic and complex world.]]> 192 Jackie Morris 1783529350 Tora 0 to-read 4.49 2021
author: Jackie Morris
name: Tora
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/07
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]]> 45419891 A guide for the next generation of writers—self-care rituals, creativity-generating rhythms, and personalized strategies for embracing your craft no matter what life throws at you.

Part memoir and part spirit guide, Wild Words is a book about the intersection of our creative soul with everything else, and how to make peace, make priorities, and ultimately, make progress by slowing down and embracing whatever season we're in, right now. This isn't a how-to guide filled with systems and formulas that promise a first draft in 90 days. Instead, Wild Words is an invitation to explore the emotional aspects of living a creative life, and the myriad ways to establish routines and rhythms that support a sustainable writing practice. It shares lessons the author has learned the hard way, like how powerful it can be to embrace your creative history (and how to access your own), why self-care is an essential aspect of any writer's path (with suggestions for how to make these practices accessible), and small but essential mindset shifts, like how to see your career as a partner (rather than an obstacle) in your writing life. Above all, Wild Words offers a new way to approach our creative lives. It helps untangle the messy process of embracing our circumstances, trusting our own voice, and making time to put pen to paper, year after year.]]> 176 Nicole Gulotta 1611806658 Tora 0 to-read 4.03
author: Nicole Gulotta
name: Tora
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/23
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]]> 195790847 A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic

Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.

After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.

Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.]]> 327 T. Kingfisher 1250244072 Tora 0 to-read 4.07 2024
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Tora
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/17
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]]> 60147395
There has always been a darkness to Ilmar, but never more so than now. The city chafes under the heavy hand of the Palleseen occupation, the choke-hold of its criminal underworld, the boot of its factory owners, the weight of its wretched poor and the burden of its ancient curse.
What will be the spark that lights the conflagration?
Despite the city's refugees, wanderers, murderers, madmen, fanatics and thieves, the catalyst, as always, will be the Anchorwood � that dark grove of trees, that primeval remnant, that portal, when the moon is full, to strange and distant shores.

Ilmar, some say, is the worst place in the world and the gateway to a thousand worse places.

Ilmar,
City of Long Shadows.
City of Bad Decisions.
City of Last Chances.]]> 500 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1801108420 Tora 0 to-read 3.84 2022
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Tora
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> 194036469
For Penny, an enthusiastic new hire, working at the store is the opportunity of a lifetime. As she uncovers the workings of this whimsical world, she bonds with a cast of unforgettable characters, including DallerGut, the flamboyant and wise owner, Babynap Rockabye, a famous dream designer, Maxim, a nightmare producer, and the many customers who dream to heal, dream to grow, and dream to flourish.

A captivating story that will leave a lingering magical feeling in readers' minds, this is the first book in a bestselling duology for anyone exhausted from the reality of their daily life.]]> 243 Lee Mi-ye 1035412748 Tora 0 to-read 3.66 2020
author: Lee Mi-ye
name: Tora
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 59808603 Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future.

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

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

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

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

A near-future thriller about the nature of consciousness, Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea is a dazzling literary debut and a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind’s legacy.]]> 456 Ray Nayler 0374605955 Tora 0 to-read 3.87 2022
author: Ray Nayler
name: Tora
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> 123133352
“But sooner or later your mother will find us,� Walter said, looking back at the house. “She always does.�

The boy’s eyes lit up again. He had an idea.

“Then this time we need to go where we’ve never gone before,� he said. “Into the uncut grass!�

In the tradition of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse comes a gorgeously illustrated fable about a young child’s journey into the world beyond the shadow of home, a magical landscape where he discovers the secrets of sharing, connection, and finding peace with the people we love. Infused with the author’s signature wit and imagination, in collaboration with visionary artist Sabina Hahn, it’s a tale for readers of all ages—to be read aloud or read alone.]]> 128 Trevor Noah 059372996X Tora 0 to-read 4.02 2024
author: Trevor Noah
name: Tora
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> 202104245 Live, laugh, shed blood. Dexter meets Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy Town in this twisted debut graphic novel.

Don’t murder the locals—this is small-town serial killer, upstanding citizen, and adorable brown bear Samantha Strong’s cardinal rule. A sea of potential victims is in the city just beyond the forest, but when you’ve worked as hard as Sam to build a cozy life and a thriving business in a community surrounded by friendly fellow animal folk, warm decor, and the aroma of cedar trees and freshly baked apple pie, the last thing you want is to disturb the peace. So imagine Sam's indignation when one of Woodbrook’s own meets a grisly, mysterious demise. You wouldn’t blame her for doing anything it takes to hunt down her rival before the town self-destructs and Sheriff Patterson starts barking up the wrong tree.]]> 152 Patrick Horvath Tora 0 to-read 4.19 2024
author: Patrick Horvath
name: Tora
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/19
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]]> 62698816 Witness what the gods do after dark in the fourth volume of a stylish and contemporary reimagining of one of the best-known stories in Greek mythology, featuring exclusive behind-the-scenes content from creator Rachel Smythe.

"I don't always get to do as I please."

The rumor mill of Olympus is constantly churning, but Persephone and Hades are all anyone can talk about. With the constant gossip creating intense pressure on the pair, they decide to slow down their budding romance and focus on sorting out their own issues first.

But that's easier said than done.

Hades struggles to find support in his personal life, with Zeus trivializing his feelings and Minthe resorting to abusive patterns in their relationship. And while Hades tries to create healthier boundaries where he can--like finally putting a stop to his sporadic, revenge-fueled hookups with Hera--he still feels lonely and adrift.

Persephone feels equally ostracized as her classmates shun her for her connection to Hades, and she can find no refuge at home, with Apollo constantly dropping by unannounced and pushing his unwelcome advances. And on top of it all, the wrathful god of war, Ares, has returned to Olympus to dredge up his sordid history with the goddess of spring, threatening to surface Persephone's dark and mysterious past and ruin her tenuous position in the land of the gods.

Despite agreeing to take it slow, Persephone and Hades find themselves inextricably drawn toward each other once more amid the chaos. The pull of fate cannot be denied.

This edition of Rachel Smythe's original Eisner-nominated webcomic Lore Olympus features exclusive behind-the-scenes content and brings the Greek pantheon into the modern age in a sharply perceptive and romantic graphic novel.

This volume collects episodes 76-102 of the #1 WEBTOON comic Lore Olympus. ]]> 416 Rachel Smythe 059360007X Tora 0 to-read 4.49 2023
author: Rachel Smythe
name: Tora
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/19
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]]> 54911057 A love story between a vampire and a werewolf by the creator of the enormously popular Sarah's Scribbles comics.

Elsie the vampire is three hundred years old, but in all that time, she has never met her match. This all changes one night in a bar when she meets Jimmy, a charming werewolf with a wry sense of humor and a fondness for running wild during the full moon. Together they enjoy horror films and scary novels, shady strolls, fine dining (though never with garlic), and a genuine fondness for each other’s unusual habits, macabre lifestyles, and monstrous appetites.

First featured as a webcomic series on Tapas, Fangs chronicles the humor, sweetness, and awkwardness of meeting someone perfectly suited to you but also vastly different. Filled with Sarah Andersen’s beautiful gothic illustrations and relatable relationship humor, Fangs has all the makings of a cult classic.]]> 115 Sarah Andersen Tora 0 to-read 4.21 2020
author: Sarah Andersen
name: Tora
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/19
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]]> 28264701 Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy.

Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred...until the Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, and shatters their worlds when Robin’s parents are left dead and Beauty’s daughter goes missing.

After Robin is sent to live with her loving but irresponsible aunt, Beauty is hired to care for Robin while continuing the search for her daughter. In Beauty, Robin finds the security and family that she craves, and the two forge an inextricable bond through their deep personal losses. But Robin knows that if Beauty finds her daughter, Robin could lose her new caretaker forever, so she makes a desperate decision with devastating consequences. Her quest to make amends and find redemption is a journey of self-discovery in which she learns the harsh truths of the society that once promised her protection.

Told through Beauty and Robin's alternating perspectives, the interwoven narratives create a rich and complex tapestry of the emotions and tensions at the heart of Apartheid-era South Africa. Hum If You Don’t Know the Words is a beautifully rendered look at loss, racism, and the creation of family.]]> 432 Bianca Marais 0399575073 Tora 0 interesting 4.24 2017
author: Bianca Marais
name: Tora
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/27
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]]> 32946432
Eleven year-old Tilly has lived above her grandparents' bookshop ever since her mother disappeared shortly after she was born. Like the rest of her family, Tilly loves nothing more than to escape into the pages of her favourite stories.

One day Tilly realises that classic children's characters are appearing in the shop through the magic of `book wandering' - crossing over from the page into real life.

With the help of Anne of Green Gables and Alice in Wonderland. Tilly is determined to solve the mystery of what happened to her mother all those years ago, so she bravely steps into the unknown, unsure of what adventure lies ahead and what dangers she may face.]]> 400 Anna James 0008229864 Tora 0 to-read 4.15 2018
author: Anna James
name: Tora
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/21
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]]> 807968
Molly Moon is no ordinary orphan. When she finds a mysterious old book on hypnotism, she discovers she can make people do whatever she wants. But a sinister stranger is watching her every move and he'll do anything to steal her hypnotic secret...]]> 371 Georgia Byng 0060514094 Tora 0 interesting 3.92 2002
author: Georgia Byng
name: Tora
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: interesting
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]]> 19351043
Nemeses! Dragons! Science! Symbolism! All these and more await in this brilliantly subversive, sharply irreverent epic from N.D. Stevenson. Featuring an exclusive epilogue not seen in the web comic, along with bonus conceptual sketches and revised pages throughout, this gorgeous full-color graphic novel is perfect for the legions of fans of the web comic and is sure to win Noelle many new ones.

Nimona is an impulsive young shapeshifter with a knack for villainy. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta. As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc. Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren't the heroes everyone thinks they are.

But as small acts of mischief escalate into a vicious battle, Lord Blackheart realizes that Nimona's powers are as murky and mysterious as her past. And her unpredictable wild side might be more dangerous than he is willing to admit.]]> 272 N.D. Stevenson Tora 0 to-read 4.16 2015
author: N.D. Stevenson
name: Tora
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/06
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]]> 58203866 336 Madame Pamita 0738767891 Tora 0 to-read 4.39
author: Madame Pamita
name: Tora
average rating: 4.39
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> 59013109 0 Vidhie Mukerjea 9390679796 Tora 0 to-read 3.32
author: Vidhie Mukerjea
name: Tora
average rating: 3.32
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> 18490560
Without telling her family, Elyria takes a one-way flight to New Zealand, abruptly leaving her stable but unfulfilling life in Manhattan. As her husband scrambles to figure out what happened to her, Elyria hurtles into the unknown, testing fate by hitchhiking, tacitly being swept into the lives of strangers, and sleeping in fields, forests, and public parks.

Her risky and often surreal encounters with the people and wildlife of New Zealand propel Elyria deeper into her deteriorating mind. Haunted by her sister's death and consumed by an inner violence, her growing rage remains so expertly concealed that those who meet her sense nothing unwell. This discord between her inner and outer reality leads her to another If her truest self is invisible and unknowable to others, is she even alive?

The risks Elyria takes on her journey are paralleled by the risks Catherine Lacey takes on the page. In urgent, spiraling prose she whittles away at the rage within Elyria and exposes the very real, very knowable anxiety of the human condition. And yet somehow Lacey manages to poke fun at her unrelenting self-consciousness, her high-stakes search for the dark heart of the self.]]> 244 Catherine Lacey 0374534497 Tora 0 to-read 3.31 2014
author: Catherine Lacey
name: Tora
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/16
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]]> 60784729 From one of our fiercest stylists, a roaring epic chronicling the life, times, and secrets of a notorious artist.

When X—an iconoclastic artist, writer, and polarizing shape-shifter—falls dead in her office, her widow, wild with grief and refusing everyone’s good advice, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. Though X was recognized as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. Not even CM, her wife, knew where X had been born, and in her quest to find out, she opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, betrayals, and destruction. All the while, she immerses herself in the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the country after World War II, as it is finally, in the present day, forced into an uneasy reunification.

A masterfully constructed literary adventure complete with original images assembled by X’s widow, Biography of X follows a grieving wife seeking to understand the woman who enthralled her. CM traces X’s peripatetic trajectory over decades, from Europe to the ruins of America's divided territories, and through her collaborations and feuds with everyone from Bowie and Waits to Sontag and Acker. And when she finally understands the scope of X’s defining artistic project, CM realizes her wife’s deceptions were far crueler than she imagined.

Pulsing with suspense and intellect while blending nonfiction and fiction, Biography of X is a roaring epic that plumbs the depths of grief, art, and love. In her most ambitious novel yet, Catherine Lacey, one of our most acclaimed literary innovators, pushes her craft to its highest level, introducing us to an unforgettable character who, in her tantalizing mystery, shows us the fallibility of the stories we craft for ourselves.]]> 416 Catherine Lacey Tora 0 to-read 3.83 2023
author: Catherine Lacey
name: Tora
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/16
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]]> 43982455 "Who am I becoming?"

That was the question nagging pastor and author John Mark Comer. Outwardly, he appeared successful. But inwardly, things weren't pretty. So he turned to a trusted mentor for guidance and heard these words:

"Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life."

It wasn't the response he expected, but it was--and continues to be--the answer he needs. Too often we treat the symptoms of toxicity in our modern world instead of trying to pinpoint the cause. A growing number of voices are pointing at hurry, or busyness, as a root of much evil.

Within the pages of this book, you'll find a fascinating roadmap to staying emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world.]]> 286 John Mark Comer 0525653090 Tora 0 to-read 4.51 2019
author: John Mark Comer
name: Tora
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/16
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]]> 182761496
The discipline of rhetoric was the keystone of Western education for over two thousand years. Only recently has its perceived importance faded.Ěý

In this book, renowned rhetorical scholar Robin Reames argues that, in today’s polarized political climate, we should all care deeply about learning rhetoric. Drawing on examples ranging from the destructive ancient Greek demagogue Alcibiades to modern-day conspiracists like Alex Jones, Reames breaks down the major techniques of rhetoric, pulling back the curtain on how politicians, journalists, and “journalists� convince us to believe what we believe—and to talk, vote, and act accordingly. Understanding these techniques helps us avoid being manipulated by authority figures who don’t have our best interests at heart. It also grants us rare insight into the values that shape our own beliefs. Learning rhetoric, Reames argues, doesn’t teach us what to think but how to think—allowing us to understand our own and others� ideological commitments in a completely new way.  �
 �
Thoughtful, nuanced, and leavened with dry humor, The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself offers an antidote to our polarized, post-truth world. Ěý]]> 304 Robin Reames 1541603974 Tora 0 to-read 3.93 2024
author: Robin Reames
name: Tora
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/16
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]]> 158649729 The fascinating history of women’s health as it’s never been told before.

For as long as medicine has been a practice, women's bodies have been treated like objects to be practiced on: examined and ignored, idealized and sexualized, shamed, subjugated, mutilated, and dismissed. The history of women’s healthcare is a story in which women themselves have too often been voiceless—a narrative instead written from the perspective of men who styled themselves as authorities on the female of the species, yet uninformed by women’s own voices, thoughts, fears, pain and experiences. The result is a cultural and societal legacy that continues to shape the (mis)treatment and care of women.

While the modern age has seen significant advancements in the medical field, the notion that female bodies are flawed inversions of the male ideal lingers on—as do the pervasive societal stigmas and lingering ignorance that shape women’s health and relationships with their own bodies.

Memorial Sloan Kettering oncologist and medical historian Dr. Elizabeth Comen peels back the curtain on the collective medical history of women to reintroduce us to our whole bodies—how they work, the actual doctors and patients whose perspectives and experiences laid the foundation for today’s medical thought, and the many oversights that still remain unaddressed. With a physician’s knowledge and empathy, Dr. Comen follows the road map of the eleven organ systems to share unique and untold stories, drawing upon medical texts and journals, interviews with expert physicians, as well as her own experience treating thousands of women.

Empowering women to better understand ourselves and advocate for care that prioritizes healthy and joyful lives—for us and generations to come�All in Her Head is written with humor, wisdom, and deep scientific and cultural insight. Eye-opening, sometimes enraging, yet always captivating, this shared memoir of women’s medical history is an essential contribution to a holistic understanding and much-needed reclaiming of women’s history and bodies.]]> 368 Elizabeth Comen 0063293013 Tora 0 to-read 4.37 2024
author: Elizabeth Comen
name: Tora
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/16
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]]> 176443901 A compelling global exploration of nature and survival as seen via a dozen species of trees that represent the challenges facing our planet, and the ways that scientists are working urgently to save our forests and our future.

The world today is undergoing the most rapid environmental transformation in human history—from climate change to deforestation. Scientists, ethnobotanists, indigenous peoples, and collectives of all kinds are closely studying trees and their biology to understand how and why trees function individually and collectively in the ways they do. In Twelve Trees, Daniel Lewis, curator and historian at one of the world's most renowned research libraries, travels the world to learn about these trees in their habitats.

Lewis takes us on a sweeping journey to plant breeding labs, botanical gardens, research facilities, deep inside museum collections, to the tops of tall trees, underwater, and around the Earth, journeying into the deserts of the American west and the deep jungles of Peru, to offer a globe-spanning perspective on the crucial impact trees have on our entire planet. When a once-common tree goes extinct in the wild but survives in a botanical garden, what happens next? How can scientists reconstruct lost genomes and habitats? How does a tree store thousands of gallons of water, or offer up perfectly preserved insects from millions of years ago, or root itself in muddy swamps and remain standing? How does a 5,000-year-old tree manage to live, and what can we learn from it? And how can science account for the survival of one species at the expense of others? To study the science of trees is to study not just the present, but the story of the world, its past, and its future.

Note—species include: * The Lost Tree of Easter Island (Sophora toromiro) * The coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) * Hymenaea protera [a fossil tree] * The Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) * East Indian sandalwood (Santanum album) * The Bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) * West African ebony (Diospyros crassiflora) * The Tasmanian blue gum eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) * Olive tree (Olea europaea) * Baobab (Adansonia digitata) * The kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) * The bald cypress (Taxodium distichum)]]> 304 Daniel Lewis 1982164050 Tora 0 to-read 3.96 2024
author: Daniel Lewis
name: Tora
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 127282778 Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction
Named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly.

A riveting story of what it means to be human in a world changed by artificial intelligence, revealing the perils and inequities of our growing reliance on automated decision-making

On the surface, a British poet, an UberEats courier in Pittsburgh, an Indian doctor, and a Chinese activist in exile have nothing in common. But they are in fact linked by a profound common experience—unexpected encounters with artificial intelligence. In Code Dependent, Murgia shows how automated systems are reshaping our lives all over the world, from technology that marks children as future criminals, to an app that is helping to give diagnoses to a remote tribal community.

AI has already infiltrated our day-to-day, through language-generating chatbots like ChatGPT and social media. But it’s also affecting us in more insidious ways. It touches everything from our interpersonal relationships, to our kids� education, work, finances, public services, and even our human rights.

By highlighting the voices of ordinary people in places far removed from the cozy enclave of Silicon Valley, Code Dependent explores the impact of a set of powerful, flawed, and often-exploitative technologies on individuals, communities, and our wider society. Murgia exposes how AI can strip away our collective and individual sense of agency, and shatter our illusion of free will.

The ways in which algorithms and their effects are governed over the coming years will profoundly impact us all. Yet we can’t agree on a common path forward. We cannot decide what preferences and morals we want to encode in these entities—or what controls we may want to impose on them. And thus, we are collectively relinquishing our moral authority to machines.

In Code Dependent, Murgia not only sheds light on this chilling phenomenon, but also charts a path of resistance. AI is already changing what it means to be human, in ways large and small, and Murgia reveals what could happen if we fail to reclaim our humanity.]]> 320 Madhumita Murgia 1250867398 Tora 0 to-read 4.07 2024
author: Madhumita Murgia
name: Tora
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 171681821
A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

“With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.� —Shannon Carlin, ,i>TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood� began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood� in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood� has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems� that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.]]> 400 Jonathan Haidt 0593655036 Tora 0 to-read 4.36 2024
author: Jonathan Haidt
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average rating: 4.36
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]]> 50272339 421 Alejandro Zambra 8433998935 Tora 0 to-read 4.44 2020
author: Alejandro Zambra
name: Tora
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2020
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]]> 200539015 My heart has made its mind up
And I'm afraid it's you.

The Orange and Other Poems provides the perfect introduction to Wendy Cope, one of Britain's wittiest, best-selling, and best-loved poets.

In poems that go from laugh-out-loud funny to deeply moving, Cope offers reflections on love and life. From the joy of falling—and being—in love to how to manage a painful break-up to cherishing the memories of people loved and lost, this is a collection to savour and share.]]> 53 Wendy Cope 057138952X Tora 0 to-read 4.13 2023
author: Wendy Cope
name: Tora
average rating: 4.13
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]]> 125376269
NASA has assured everyone the passage of rogue planet Malachite will be safe, but Crosby's been getting other messages―from a fortune teller and Malachite truther message boards. And now she believes that Malachite will kill everyone who doesn’t ascend to the fourth dimension―a higher plane that transcends physicality.

She tries to prepare her friends and family to leave their bodies behind and raise their frequency by changing their diets, wearing the right crystals, and moving into her friend’s bunker before it’s too late. But no one is listening.

The more time she spends trying to talk her roommate and her quirky friends into her apocalypse plans, the more Crosby is forced to face the cracks in everything she believes to be true.

This novel in verse explores the danger and humanity of conspiracy in a post-truth world through empathy, friendship, and forgiveness.]]> 320 Rita Feinstein 1645678385 Tora 0 to-read 4.12 2024
author: Rita Feinstein
name: Tora
average rating: 4.12
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]]> 181346408
After having her heart broken, seventeen-year-old Nora Nichols decides to escape her hometown and take a summer job as an arts and crafts counsellor at an all-girls' camp in the mountains of West Virginia. There, she meets girls and women from all walks of life with their own heartaches and triumphs. Immersed in this new camp experience, trying to form bonds with her fellow counselors while learning to be a trusted adviser for her campers, Nora distracts herself from her feelings, even during the intimate conversations around the nightly campfires. But when a letter from home comes bearing unexpected news, Nora finds inner strength in her devastation with the healing power of female friendship. Presented as Nora's camp journal, including Nora's sketches of camp life, scraps of letters, and spare poems, The Lightning Circle is an intimate coming-of-age portrait.]]> 224 Vikki VanSickle 1774882493 Tora 0 to-read 4.04 2024
author: Vikki VanSickle
name: Tora
average rating: 4.04
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]]> 177721395
But another voice inside me says,
We need help.
We’re going to die.

Jake volunteers at a nursing home because he likes helping people. He likes skating and singing, playing Bingo and Name That Tune, and reading mysteries and comics aloud to his teachers. He also likes avoiding people his own age . . . and the cruelty of mirrors . . . and food. Jake has read about kids like him in books—the weird one, the outsider—and would do anything not to be that kid, including shrink himself down to nothing. But the less he eats, the bigger he feels. How long can Jake punish himself before he truly disappears? A fictionalized account of the author’s experiences and emotions living in residential treatment facilities as a young teen with an eating disorder, Louder than Hunger is a triumph of raw honesty. With a deeply personal afterword for context, this much-anticipated verse novel is a powerful model for muffling the destructive voices inside, managing and articulating pain, and embracing self-acceptance, support, and love.]]> 528 John Schu 1536229091 Tora 0 to-read 4.46 2024
author: John Schu
name: Tora
average rating: 4.46
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]]> 173956046 Combining the soul-baring confessional of Brain on Fire and the addictive storytelling of The Queen’s Gambit, a renowned puzzle creator’s compulsively readable memoir and history of the crossword puzzle as an unexpected site of women’s work and feminist protest.

The indisputable “queen of crosswords,� Anna Shechtman published her first New York Times puzzle at age nineteen, and later, spearheaded the The New Yorker’s popular crossword section. Working with a medium often criticized as exclusionary, elitist, and out-of-touch, Anna is one of very few women in the field of puzzle making, where she strives to make the everyday diversion more diverse.

In this fascinating work—part memoir, part cultural analysis—she excavates the hidden history of the crossword and the overlooked women who have been central to its creation and evolution, from the “Crossword Craze� of the 1920s to the role of digital technology today. As she tells the story of her own experience in the CrossWorld, she analyzes the roles assigned to women in American culture, the boxes they’ve been allowed to fill, and the ways that they’ve used puzzles to negotiate the constraints and play of desire under patriarchy.

The result is an unforgettable and engrossing work of art, a loving and revealing homage to one of our most treasured, entertaining, and ultimately political pastimes.]]> 275 Anna Shechtman 0063275473 Tora 0 to-read 3.39 2024
author: Anna Shechtman
name: Tora
average rating: 3.39
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]]> 181346411
Our use of language naturally evolves and is a living, breathing thing that reflects who we are. Says Who? offers clear, nuanced guidance that goes beyond “right� and “wrong� to empower us to make informed language choices. Never snooty or scoldy (yes, that’s a “real� word!), this book explains where the grammar rules we learned in school actually come from and reveals the forces that drive dictionary editors to label certain words as slang or unacceptable.

Linguist and veteran English professor Anne Curzan equips readers with the tools they need to adeptly manage (a split infinitive?! You betcha!) formal and informal writing and speaking. After all, we don’t want to be caught wearing our linguistic pajamas to a job interview any more than we want to show up for a backyard barbecue in a verbal tux, asking, “To whom shall I pass the ketchup?� Curzan helps us use our new knowledge about the developing nature of language and grammar rules to become caretakers of language rather than gatekeepers of it. Applying entertaining examples from literature, newspapers, television, and more, Curzan welcomes usage novices and encourages the language police to lower their pens, showing us how we can care about language precision, clarity, and inclusion all at the same time.

With lively humor and humanity, Says Who? is a pragmatic and accessible key that reveals how our choices about language usage can be a powerful force for equity and personal expression. For proud grammar sticklers and self-conscious writers alike, Curzan makes nerding out about language fun.]]> 336 Anne Curzan 0593444094 Tora 0 to-read 4.08 2024
author: Anne Curzan
name: Tora
average rating: 4.08
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]]> 52397
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.

When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.]]> 345 Octavia E. Butler 0446675504 Tora 0 to-read 4.21 1993
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Tora
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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]]> 61219118
Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors.

When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon—or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister.

As Faron’s desperation to find another solution takes her down a dark path, and Elara discovers the shocking secrets at the heart of the Langley Empire, both must make difficult choices that will shape each other’s lives, as well as the fate of their world.

"By turns hopeful and devastating, So Let Them Burn is a masterful debut with a blazing heart. I was captivated from beginning to end by Cole’s sharp, clever prose and by her protagonists—two remarkable sisters with an unforgettable bond." � Chelsea Abdullah, author of The Stardust Thief]]> 400 Kamilah Cole Tora 0 to-read 3.83 2024
author: Kamilah Cole
name: Tora
average rating: 3.83
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]]> 157981739
When a fatal mistake leads to Yeeran’s exile from the Elven lands, they are both forced into the terrifying wilderness beyond their borders. There they encounter the the fae court.

The fae haven’t been seen for a millennium. But now Yeeran and Lettle are thrust into their seductive world � torn between their loyalty to each other, their elven homeland, and their hearts. . .]]> 386 Saara El-Arifi 0593723007 Tora 0 to-read 3.53 2024
author: Saara El-Arifi
name: Tora
average rating: 3.53
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]]> 61937038
The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon.

Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have different opinions. They have a very specific idea of how a dragon should be raised, and who should be doing the raising—and Anequs does not meet any of their requirements. Only with great reluctance do they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school on the mainland. If she cannot succeed there, her dragon will be killed.

For a girl with no formal schooling, a non-Anglish upbringing, and a very different understanding of the history of her land, challenges abound—both socially and academically. But Anequs is smart, determined, and resolved to learn what she needs to help her dragon, even if it means teaching herself. The one thing she refuses to do, however, is become the meek Anglish miss that everyone expects.

Anequs and her dragon may be coming of age, but they’re also coming to power, and that brings an important realization: the world needs changing—and they might just be the ones to do it.]]> 511 Moniquill Blackgoose 0593498283 Tora 0 to-read 4.11 2023
author: Moniquill Blackgoose
name: Tora
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2023
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]]> 176440282 AN NPR "BOOK WE LOVE" FOR SUMMER 2024

A gorgeously illustrated guide to memorable Latin phrases, including famous quotations on love, death, nature, politics, and more.

Latin may be a “dead� language, but it’s all around us—in science, philosophy, religion, and literature. From “carpe diem� to the more obscure “alea iacta est,� classicist Maia Lee-Chin examines the deeper meanings of many Latin phrases still in use—as well as those lost to the ages.

Illustrated in artist Marta Bertello's haunting style, this unique compendium illuminates ancient Roman history and culture like never before.]]> 144 Maia Lee-Chin 1524886343 Tora 0 to-read 4.13 2024
author: Maia Lee-Chin
name: Tora
average rating: 4.13
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]]> 157981711 A manifesto on the gender politics of marriage (bad) and divorce (actually pretty good!) in America today, and an argument that the former needs a reboot

Studies show that nearly 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women—women who are tired, fed up, exhausted, and unhappy. Journalist Lyz Lenz is one such woman whose life fell apart after she reached a breaking point in her twelve-year marriage. In this exuberant and unapologetic book, Lenz flips the script on that narrative and preaches the good gospel of the power of divorce.

The end of a marriage is often seen as the failure of the individual—most often the woman. We've all seen how media portray divorced women: sad, lonely, drowning their sorrows in a bottle of wine, desperate for a new man. It’s as though they did something wrong, so they’ve been cast out from society. Lenz sees divorce as a practical and powerful solution for women to take back the power they are owed, while examining why we call divorce a failure when it's heterosexual marriage that has been flawed all along. How can women succeed in marriage when most relationships are based on inequality?

This book weaves reportage with sociological research, literature with popular culture, and personal stories of coming together and breaking up to create a kaleidoscopic and poignant portrait of American marriage today. Lenz argues that the mechanisms of American power, justice, love, and gender equality remain deeply flawed, and that marriage, like any other cultural institution, is due for a reckoning. Unlike any other book about divorce, this raucous manifesto for acceptance, solidarity, and collective female refusal takes readers on a riveting ride—all while pointing us toward something a little freer.]]> 288 Lyz Lenz 0593241126 Tora 0 to-read 3.93 2024
author: Lyz Lenz
name: Tora
average rating: 3.93
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]]> 127280315 A sapphic opposites-attract romance with Mazey Edding's signature sparkling voice!

Winning the lottery has ruined Opal Devlin's’s life. After quitting her dead-end job where she’d earned minimum wage and even less respect, she’s bombarded by people knocking at her door for a handout the second they found out her bank account was overflowing with cash. And Opal can’t seem to stop saying yes.

With her tender heart thoroughly abused, Opal decides to protect herself by any means necessary, which to her translates to putting almost all her new money to buying a failing flower farm in Asheville, North Carolina to let the flowers live out their plant destiny while she uses the cabin on the property to start her painting business.

But her plans for isolation and self-preservation go hopelessly awry when an angry (albeit gorgeous) Pepper Smith is waiting for her at her new farm. Pepper states she’s the rightful owner of Thistle and Bloom Farms, and isn’t moving out. The unlikely pair strike up an agreement of co-habitation, and butt-heads at every turn. Can these opposites both live out their dreams and plant roots? Or will their combustible arguing (and growing attraction) burn the whole place down?]]> 400 Mazey Eddings 1250847087 Tora 0 to-read 3.69 2024
author: Mazey Eddings
name: Tora
average rating: 3.69
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]]> 192724951 A man lunges in front of a car. An elderly woman silently drowns herself. A corpse sits up in its coffin and speaks. On this reservation, not all is what it seems, in this new spine-chilling mythological horror from the author of Sisters of the Lost Nation.

All Noemi Broussard wanted was a fresh start. With a new boyfriend who actually treats her right and a plan to move from the reservation she grew up on—just like her beloved Uncle Louie before her—things are finally looking up for Noemi. Until the news of her boyfriend’s apparent suicide brings her world crumbling down.

But the facts about Roddy’s death just don’t add up, and Noemi isn’t the only one who suspects that something menacing might be lurking within their tribal lands.

After over a decade away, Uncle Louie has returned to the reservation, bringing with him a past full of secrets, horror, and what might be the key to determining Roddy’s true cause of death. Together, Noemi and Louie set out to find answers…but as they get closer to the truth, Noemi begins to wonder whether it might be best for some secrets to remain buried.]]> 370 Nick Medina 0593546881 Tora 0 to-read 3.58 2024
author: Nick Medina
name: Tora
average rating: 3.58
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]]> 61686006 A young Native girl's hunt for answers about the women mysteriously disappearing from her tribe's reservation lead her to delve into the myths and stories of her people, all while being haunted herself, in this atmospheric and stunningly poignant debut.

Anna Horn is always looking over her shoulder. For the bullies who torment her, for the entitled visitors at the reservation's casino...and for the nameless, disembodied entity that stalks her every step--an ancient tribal myth come-to-life, one that's intent on devouring her whole.

With strange and sinister happenings occurring around the casino, Anna starts to suspect that not all the horrors on the reservation are old. As girls begin to go missing and the tribe scrambles to find answers, Anna struggles with her place on the rez, desperately searching for the key she's sure lies in the legends of her tribe's past.

When Anna's own little sister also disappears, she'll do anything to bring Grace home. But the demons plaguing the reservation--both ancient and new--are strong, and sometimes, it's the stories that never get told that are the most important.

Part gripping thriller and part mythological horror, author Nick Medina spins an incisive and timely novel of life as an outcast, the cost of forgetting tradition, and the courage it takes to become who you were always meant to be.]]> 338 Nick Medina 0593546857 Tora 0 to-read 3.85 2023
author: Nick Medina
name: Tora
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
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]]> 75293507
Norris Black, Amber Blaeser-Wardzala, Phoenix Boudreau, Cherie Dimaline, Carson Faust, Kelli Jo Ford, Kate Hart, Shane Hawk, Brandon Hobson, Darcie Little Badger, Conley Lyons, Nick Medina, Tiffany Morris, Tommy Orange, Mona Susan Power, Marcie R. Rendon, Waubgeshig Rice, Rebecca Roanhorse, Andrea L. Rogers, Morgan Talty, D.H. Trujillo, Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., Richard Van Camp, David Heska, Wanbli Weiden, Royce Young, Wolf Mathilda Zeller.

Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home.

These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce listeners to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples� survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.]]> 400 Shane Hawk 0593468465 Tora 0 to-read 3.90 2023
author: Shane Hawk
name: Tora
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
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]]> 199344846
On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black—black clothes, black mask—rushed down the aisle toward him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are.

What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey toward physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide.

Knife is Rushdie at the peak of his powers, writing with urgency, with gravity, with unflinching honesty. It is also a deeply moving reminder of literature’s capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.]]> 209 Salman Rushdie 0593730240 Tora 0 to-read 4.00 2024
author: Salman Rushdie
name: Tora
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
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]]> 50921578 94 Rachid Benzine 2757876988 Tora 0 to-read 4.27
author: Rachid Benzine
name: Tora
average rating: 4.27
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date added: 2024/04/15
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]]> 204305353 Explore the creation of Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptations of Dune through this evocative fusion of actor Josh Brolin’s sublime writing and cinematographer Greig Fraser’s intimate set photography.During the shooting of Part One and Part Two, Greig Fraser went beyond standard unit photography and documented the filming process using still photography on a variety of cameras. This led the cinematographer on an unexpected creative journey that yielded an electrifying gallery of photographs. Meanwhile, Brolin, who plays Warmaster Gurney Halleck in the two films, shares his on-set experience through his vivid, poignant writing. Brolin and Fraser developed a unique bond during production, solidifying a connection that led to this remarkable collaboration that seamlessly juxtaposes the actor’s enthralling writing with the cinematographer’s striking images. An exceptional new way to experience life on the set of the Dune film adaptations, this thrilling ode to the art of filmmaking from two of the most revered artists in the industry is an unmissable publishing event. STUNNING Curated from photos shot throughout the filming of Dune and Part Two by cinematographer Greig Fraser, this remarkable volume features his intimate images coupled with Josh Brolin’s poignant writing. EXCLUSIVE Witness candid moments between director Denis Villeneuve and key cast members, including Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Zendaya, and Javier Bardem. UNPARALLELED COLLECTOR’S Singular and unprecedented, Exposures is a powerful tribute to the films that offers fans a rare and unique look into the experience of creating the movies. COMPLETE YOUR DUNE FILM Exposures is the perfect companion volume to the acclaimed Insight Editions book The Art and Soul of Dune and its sequel The Art and Soul of Part Two]]> 172 Josh Brolin 164722926X Tora 0 to-read 4.37 2024
author: Josh Brolin
name: Tora
average rating: 4.37
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]]> 58446227 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 259 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321448 Tora 0 to-read 4.04 2022
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Tora
average rating: 4.04
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]]> 179517914
Murdered.

And they immediately become the prime suspects.

Their motives seem obvious. Ver, who left her home moon to study the life-threatening disease wracking her body, had a hopeless attachment to Cal that could’ve become twisted by jealousy. Aryl, on the other hand, clashed with workaholic Cal because she valued more in her life besides research.

To clear their names, Ver and Aryl put aside their mutual suspicion and team up to investigate Cal’s death. As they search for the real murderer, they uncover secrets that have shaped all of Pangu’s moons� and must decide what kind of future they really want.]]> 288 Karen Bao 1728477514 Tora 0 to-read 4.06 2024
author: Karen Bao
name: Tora
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
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date added: 2024/03/25
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]]> 165053903
Keira is an extraordinary dog. She held the key to Noel's heart from the moment he first met her.

That's because Keira doesn't judge. When Noel struggles, Keira is there to remind him he need only do his best. When he sees only darkness, Keira is ready to lift him back into the light.

Keira & Me is the real-life story of Supervet Noel Fitzpatrick, his companion Keira and their life together. It captures the incredible bond of unconditional love between us and our canine friends. Inspiring and healing in equal measure, this beautifully illustrated and deeply heartfelt story of Noel and Keira's journey together teaches us all how to embrace the ups with the downs, the joy and the sorrow, the darkness and the light, that make up a life.

For animal lovers everywhere, or anyone who needs a little comfort this Christmas, Keira & Me promises to break your heart and put it back together again - even better than it was before.]]> 120 Noel Fitzpatrick 1399610317 Tora 0 to-read 4.42
author: Noel Fitzpatrick
name: Tora
average rating: 4.42
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]]> 63907046 'Coralie Bickford-Smith depicts nature at its most majestic' Financial Times

An enchanting clothbound fable about growth, new life and finding hope in unexpected places, from the award-winning designer and creator of The Fox and the Star.

One autumn evening, a young squirrel spots an acorn glinting on the forest floor.

Eager to protect her treasure from watchful eyes and hungry mouths, she buries it deep in the heart of the forest.

But when she returns after the icy winter, her acorn is nowhere to be found. Where could it be?

'Exquisite . . . illustrations are so vivid and patterned that each page feels alive' Observer ]]> 64 Coralie Bickford-Smith 0241541972 Tora 0 to-read 4.56
author: Coralie Bickford-Smith
name: Tora
average rating: 4.56
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date added: 2024/03/20
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]]> 54805025 The Two Fridas is a celebration of Frida Kahlo, her culture, and the magical, joyful, secret-filled friendship she shared and later captured in her painting. Children will be encouraged to explore their own imaginary worlds, open up conversations, and build on their own creativity.]]> 32 Frida Kahlo 0764361163 Tora 0 to-read 3.98
author: Frida Kahlo
name: Tora
average rating: 3.98
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> 181350367 For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club, an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate.... Now it's up to her great-niece to catch the killer.

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.

In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?

As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.]]> 358 Kristen Perrin 0593474015 Tora 0 to-read 3.76 2024
author: Kristen Perrin
name: Tora
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 198281740
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…�

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.]]> 324 Matt Haig 0593489276 Tora 0 to-read 3.45 2024
author: Matt Haig
name: Tora
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 181110028
It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. But for Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection.

Ada Bunting is a bold sixteen-year-old from Barbados who arrives in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other West Indians seeking work. Alone and with no resources, she is determined to find a job that will earn enough money for her ailing sister’s surgery. When she sees a young man—Omar—who has collapsed after a grueling shift, she is the only one who rushes to his aid.

John Oswald has dedicated his life to scientific research and has journeyed to Panama in single-minded pursuit of one goal: eliminating malaria. But now, his wife, Marian, has fallen ill herself, and when he witnesses Ada’s bravery and compassion, he hires her on the spot as a caregiver. This fateful decision sets in motion a sweeping tale of ambition, loyalty, and sacrifice.

Searing and empathetic, The Great Divide explores the intersecting lives of activists, fishmongers, laborers, journalists, neighbors, doctors, and soothsayers—those rarely acknowledged by history even as they carved out its course.]]> 321 Cristina Henríquez 0063291320 Tora 0 to-read 3.62 2024
author: Cristina HenrĂ­quez
name: Tora
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 25810666
In her groundbreaking first book, Gender Born, Gender Made , Dr. Diane Ehrensaft coined the term gender creative to describe children whose unique gender expression or sense of identity is not defined by a checkbox on their birth certificate. Now, with The Gender Creative Child , she returns to guide parents and professionals through the rapidly changing cultural, medical, and legal landscape of gender and identity.
Ěý
In this up-to-date, comprehensive resource, Dr. Ehrensaft explains the interconnected effects of biology, nurture, and culture to explore why gender can be fluid , rather than binary. As an advocate for the gender affirmative model and with the expertise she has gained over three decades of pioneering work with children and families, she encourages caregivers to listen to each child, learn their particular needs, and support their quest for a true gender self.

The Gender Creative Child unlocks the door to a gender-expansive world, revealing pathways for positive change in our schools, our communities, and the world.]]> 304 Diane Ehrensaft 1615193065 Tora 0 to-read 4.20 2016
author: Diane Ehrensaft
name: Tora
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> 123204565
Written like a crooked MĂ©tis jig, A Grandmother Begins the Story Ěýfollows five generations of women and bison as they reach for the stories that could remake their worlds and rebuild their futures.

Carter is a young mother, recently separated. She is curious, angry, and on a quest to find out what the heritage she only learned of in her teens truly means.
Allie, Carter's mother, is trying to make up for the lost years with her first born, and to protect Carter from the hurt she herself suffered from her own mother. Lucie wants the granddaughter she's never met to help her join her ancestors in the Afterlife. And Geneviève is determined to conquer her demons before the fire inside burns her up, with the help of the sister she lost but has never been without. Meanwhile, Mamé, in the Afterlife, knows that all their stories began with her; she must find a way to cut herself from the last threads that keep her tethered to the living, just as they must find their own paths forward.

This extraordinary novel, told by a chorus of vividly realized, funny, wise, confused, struggling characters—including descendants of the bison that once freely roamed the land—heralds the arrival of a stunning new voice in literary fiction.]]> 336 Michelle Porter 1643755188 Tora 0 to-read 3.85 2023
author: Michelle Porter
name: Tora
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 53642699 250 Brianna Wiest Tora 0 to-read 4.08 2020
author: Brianna Wiest
name: Tora
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 37804539
¿Quién no ha deseado alguna vez ser invisible?

¿Quién no ha deseado alguna vez dejar de serlo?

El problema es que nunca he llegado a controlar bien ese poder:

A veces, cuando más ganas tenía de ser invisible, era cuando más gente me veía, y en cambio, cuando deseaba que todos me vieran, era cuando a mi cuerpo le daba por desaparecer.]]> 296 Eloy Moreno 8416588430 Tora 0 to-read 4.31 2020
author: Eloy Moreno
name: Tora
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 158649504 32 Neil Gaiman 0063358085 Tora 0 to-read 4.17 2023
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Tora
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 60415700
Sixteen-year-old Frankie Budge—aspiring writer, indifferent student, offbeat loner—is determined to make it through yet another sad summer in Coalfield, Tennessee, when she meets Zeke, a talented artist who has just moved into his grandmother’s unhappy house and who is as lonely and awkward as Frankie is. Romantic and creative sparks begin to fly, and when the two jointly make an unsigned poster, shot through with an enigmatic phrase, it becomes unforgettable to anyone who sees it. The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.

The posters begin appearing everywhere, and people wonder who is behind them. Satanists, kidnappers—the rumors won’t stop, and soon the mystery has dangerous repercussions that spread far beyond the town. The art that brought Frankie and Zeke together now threatens to tear them apart.

Twenty years later, Frances Eleanor Budge—famous author, mom to a wonderful daughter, wife to a loving husband—gets a call that threatens to upend everything: a journalist named Mazzy Brower is writing a story about the Coalfield Panic of 1996. Might Frances know something about that? And will what she knows destroy the life she’s so carefully built?

A bold coming-of-age story, written with Kevin Wilson’s trademark wit and blazing prose, Now Is Not The Time to Panic is a nuanced exploration of young love, identity, and the power of art. It’s also about the secrets that haunt us—and, ultimately, what the truth will set free.]]> 246 Kevin Wilson 0062913506 Tora 0 to-read 3.68 2022
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Tora
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 28251002
To save her, Samuel will have to embark on his own journey, uncovering long-buried secrets about the woman he thought he knew, secrets that stretch across generations and have their origin all the way back in Norway, home of the mysterious Nix. As he does so, Samuel will confront not only Faye’s losses but also his own lost love, and will relearn everything he thought he knew about his mother, and himself.]]> 625 Nathan Hill 110194661X Tora 0 to-read 4.08 2016
author: Nathan Hill
name: Tora
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 65650229 A witty and poignant novel about marriage, middle age, tech-obsessed health culture and the bonds that keep people together

When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the '90s, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in Chicago's thriving underground art scene with an appreciative kindred spirit.ĚýFast-forward twenty years to married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter cults disguised as mindfulness support groups, polyamorous would-be suitors, Facebook wars, and something called Love Potion Number Nine. For the first time Jack and Elizabeth struggle to recognize one another, and the no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons, from unfulfilled career ambitions to painful childhood memories of their own dysfunctional families. In the process Jack and Elizabeth must undertake separate, personal excavations, or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other.Ěý]]> 611 Nathan Hill 0593536118 Tora 0 to-read 3.97 2023
author: Nathan Hill
name: Tora
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 61237017 Ěý
When Susannah Breslin is a toddler, her parents enroll her in an exclusive laboratory preschool at the University of California, Berkeley, where she becomes one of 128 children who are research subjects in an unprecedented 30-year psychological experiment that predicts who she and her cohort will grow up to be. Decades later, trapped in an abusive marriage to a man with a violent history and battling breast cancer, she starts to wonder how growing up under a microscope shaped the person she became and her life choices. Is she the narrator of the story of her life—or is something else? Already a successful journalist, whose published work has appeared in Forbes, The Atlantic, and Harper’s Bazaar, she decides to make her own curious history the subject of her next investigation and embarks on a life-changing journey that will expose the dark secrets hidden behind the renowned longitudinal study of personality development that she grew up believing knew her better than she knew herself.
Ěý
Fearlessly vulnerable, unflinchingly raw, and lyrically written, this groundbreaking book is a remarkable account of a woman’s quest to reclaim her voice and an unblinking expose of why we turn out as we do. Data Baby’s story is unlike any other, but its message is universal. Sometimes you have to give up everything you have to become the person you were truly meant to be.]]> 224 Susannah Breslin 0306926008 Tora 0 to-read 2.74 2023
author: Susannah Breslin
name: Tora
average rating: 2.74
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 125084292
Can you make babies in space? Should corporations govern space settlements? What about space war? Are we headed for a housing crisis on the Moon’s Peaks of Eternal Light—and what happens if you’re left in the Craters of Eternal Darkness? Why do astronauts love taco sauce? Speaking of meals, what’s the legal status of space cannibalism?

With deep expertise, a winning sense of humor, and art from the beloved creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, the Weinersmiths investigate perhaps the biggest questions humanity will ever ask itself—whether and how to become multiplanetary.

Get in, we’re going to Mars.]]> 448 Kelly Weinersmith 1984881736 Tora 0 to-read 4.04 2023
author: Kelly Weinersmith
name: Tora
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 50366280
This funny, moving collection of eight stories - written by a crew of scientists, literary writers, and comics, and informed by animal behavioral science - explores what animal perspectives can show humans about the world we all share. It includes stories by Daniel Mallory Ortberg ("Something That May Shock and Discredit You"), R. Eric Thomas ("Here for It"), Ken Liu ("The Paper Menagerie"), Lulu Miller ("Why Fish Don’t Exist"), Kelly Weinersmith ("Soonish"), Shruti Swamy (O’Henry Award winner), Max McClure ("Grist"), and Kaeli Swift ("Biosphere").

Cover art by Noah Grigni.]]> 4 Rachel Hamburg Tora 0 to-read 3.42 2019
author: Rachel Hamburg
name: Tora
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 51166519 A startling debut about class and race, Lakewood evokes a terrifying world of medical experimentation—part The Handmaid’s Tale, part The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

When Lena Johnson’s beloved grandmother dies, and the full extent of the family debt is revealed, the black millennial drops out of college to support her family and takes a job in the mysterious and remote town of Lakewood, Michigan.

On paper, her new job is too good to be true. High paying. No out of pocket medical expenses. A free place to live. All Lena has to do is participate in a secret program—and lie to her friends and family about the research being done in Lakewood. An eye drop that makes brown eyes blue, a medication that could be a cure for dementia, golden pills promised to make all bad thoughts go away.

The discoveries made in Lakewood, Lena is told, will change the world—but the consequences for the subjects involved could be devastating. As the truths of the program reveal themselves, Lena learns how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the sake of her family.

Provocative and thrilling, Lakewood is a breathtaking novel that takes an unflinching look at the moral dilemmas many working-class families face, and the horror that has been forced on black bodies in the name of science.]]> 288 Megan Giddings 0062913190 Tora 0 to-read 3.46 2020
author: Megan Giddings
name: Tora
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 58966216 From highly acclaimed, bestselling author Ava Reid comes a gothic horror retelling of The Juniper Tree, set in another time and place within the world of The Wolf and the Woodsman, where a young witch seeks to discover her identity and escape the domination of her abusive wizard father, perfect for fans of Shirley Jackson and Catherynne M. Valente.

A gruesome curse. A city in upheaval. A monster with unquenchable appetites.

Marlinchen and her two sisters live with their wizard father in a city shifting from magic to industry. As Oblya’s last true witches, she and her sisters are little more than a tourist trap as they treat their clients with archaic remedies and beguile them with nostalgic charm. Marlinchen spends her days divining secrets in exchange for rubles and trying to placate her tyrannical, xenophobic father, who keeps his daughters sequestered from the outside world. But at night, Marlinchen and her sisters sneak out to enjoy the city’s amenities and revel in its thrills, particularly the recently established ballet theater, where Marlinchen meets a dancer who quickly captures her heart.

As Marlinchen’s late-night trysts grow more fervent and frequent, so does the threat of her father’s rage and magic. And while Oblya flourishes with culture and bustles with enterprise, a monster lurks in its midst, borne of intolerance and resentment and suffused with old-world power. Caught between history and progress and blood and desire, Marlinchen must draw upon her own magic to keep her city safe and find her place within it.]]> 368 Ava Reid 0062973169 Tora 0 to-read 3.64 2022
author: Ava Reid
name: Tora
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 61884779 USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw comes The Salt Grows Heavy, a razor-sharp and bewitching fairytale of discovering the darkness in the world, and the darkness within oneself.

You may think you know how the fairytale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes.

On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and the three 'saints' who control them.

The mermaid and her doctor must embrace the cruelest parts of their true nature if they hope to survive.

Includes the bonus short story, "And In Our Daughters, We Find a Voice", set in the same universe.]]> 106 Cassandra Khaw 1250830915 Tora 0 to-read 3.55 2023
author: Cassandra Khaw
name: Tora
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 65214189 After the Forest is a dark and enchanting fantasy debut from Kell Woods that explores the repercussions of a childhood filled with magic and a young woman contending with the truth of “happily ever after.�

Ginger. Honey. Cinnamon. Flour.

Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their mother and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war.

Greta has a secret, the witch's grimoire, secreted away and whispering in Greta's ear for the past two decades, and the recipe inside that makes the best gingerbread you've ever tasted. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat.

But in a village full of superstition, Greta and her mysteriously addictive gingerbread, not to mention the rumors about her childhood misadventures, is a source of gossip and suspicion.

And now, dark magic is returning to the woods and Greta's magic—magic she is still trying to understand—may be the only thing that can save her. If it doesn't kill her first.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 375 Kell Woods 1250852501 Tora 0 to-read 3.80 2023
author: Kell Woods
name: Tora
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 78296956 “Suspenseful, atmospheric and full of twists and turns, I loved the brutal, backstabbing world that Isabelle Schuler conjures up where only the most ruthless can survive. A thoroughly enjoyable read!”—Jennifer Saint, bestselling author of Ariadne and Elektra

An instant international bestseller: a suspenseful, sweeping historical epic for readers of Natalie Haynes and Madeline Miller, which boldly reimagines the origin story of the woman who inspired one of Shakespeare’s most iconic characters, Lady Macbeth.

She will be Queen. Whatever it takes . . .

Daughter of an ousted king, descendant of ancient druids, Gruoch (GREW-ock), has grown up believing that she will be crowned queen of Alba and reclaim the lands of her Pictish kin, a prophecy seemingly fulfilled by her betrothal to Duncan, the heir-elect.

Determined never to be powerless again, she leaves behind her home, her family, and her close friend MacBethad, and travels to the royal seat at Scone to embrace her new position. But Duncan’s court is rife with sly words and unfriendly faces, women desperate to usurp her position, and others whose motives are shrouded in mystery.

As her coronation approaches, a deadly turn of events forces Gruoch to flee Duncan and the capital. Alone and at the mercy of an old enemy, her hope of becoming Queen all but lost, Gruoch must make a fateful choice: live a long, quiet life in the shadows, or seize vengeance and a path back to the throne.

A stunning literary reclamation of an iconic character, Queen Hereafter is a gripping story of female ambition, power, history, desire, hate, and vengeance set against the backdrop of early medieval Scotland.]]> 352 Isabelle Schuler 0063317273 Tora 0 to-read 3.95 2023
author: Isabelle Schuler
name: Tora
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 83814853
The students in Corbin College’s elite academic society, Magni Viri, have it all—free tuition, inspirational professors, and dream jobs once they graduate. When first-gen college student Tara is offered a chance to enroll, she doesn’t hesitate.?Ěý Except once she’s settled into the gorgeous Victorian dormitory, something strange starts to happen. She’s finally writing, but her stories are dark and twisted. Her dreams feel as if they could bury her alive. An unseen presence seems to stalk her through the halls.ĚýĚýAnd a chilling secret awaits Tara at the heart of Magni Viri—one that just might turn her nightmares into reality; one that might destroy her before she has a chance to escape.Ěý

All That Consumes Us will pull readers into a hypnotizing, dark reverie that blurs the lines of reality and shows that the addictive nature of ambition—and its inevitable price—always claims its due. Ěý]]> 416 Erica Waters 0063115964 Tora 0 to-read 3.70 2023
author: Erica Waters
name: Tora
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 65214080 Bestselling authors Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey have teamed up to deliver a dark new story with magic, monsters, and mayhem, perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman and Joe Hill.

Julie Crews is a coked-up, burnt-out thirty-something who packs a lot of magic into her small body. She’s been trying to establish herself in the NYC magic scene, and she’ll work the most gruesome gigs to claw her way to the top.

Julie is desperate for a quick career boost to break the dead-end grind, but her pleas draw the attention of an eldritch god who is hungry for revenge. Her power grab sets off a deadly chain of events that puts her closest friends � and the entire world � directly in the path of annihilation.

The first explosive adventure in the Carrion City Duology, The Dead Take the A Train fuses Khaw’s cosmic horror and Kadrey’s gritty fantasy into a full-throttle thrill ride straight into New York’s magical underbelly.]]> 391 Cassandra Khaw 1250867029 Tora 0 to-read 3.59 2023
author: Cassandra Khaw
name: Tora
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 62120709 From award-winning author Gary D. Schmidt, a warm and witty novel in the tradition of The Wednesday Wars, in which a seventh grader has to figure out how to fulfill an assignment to perform the Twelve Labors of Hercules in real life--and makes discoveries about friendship, community, and himself along the way.

Herc Beal knows who he's named after--a mythical hero--but he's no superhero. He's the smallest kid in his class. So when his homeroom teacher at his new middle school gives him the assignment of duplicating the mythical Hercules's amazing feats in real life, he's skeptical. After all, there are no Nemean Lions on Cape Cod--and not a single Hydra in sight.

Missing his parents terribly and wishing his older brother wasn't working all the time, Herc figures out how to take his first steps along the road that the great Hercules himself once walked. Soon, new friends, human and animal, are helping him. And though his mythical role model performed his twelve labors by himself, Herc begins to see that he may not have to go it alone.]]> 352 Gary D. Schmidt 0358659639 Tora 0 to-read 4.50 2023
author: Gary D. Schmidt
name: Tora
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 61030596 Simon O’Keeffe’s biggest claim to fame should be the time his dad accidentally gave a squirrel a holy sacrament. Or maybe the alpaca disaster that went viral on YouTube. But the story the whole world wants to tell about Simon is the one he’d do anything to forget: the story in which he’s the only kid in his class who survived a school shooting.

Two years after the infamous event, twelve-year-old Simon and his family move to the National Quiet Zone—the only place in America where the internet is banned. Instead of talking about Simon, the astronomers who flock to the area are busy listening for signs of life in space. And when Simon makes a friend who’s determined to give the scientists what they’re looking for, he’ll finally have the chance to spin a new story for the world to tell.

From award-winning author Erin Bow, Simon Sort of Says is a breathtaking testament to the lasting echoes of trauma, the redemptive power of humor, and the courage it takes to move forward without forgetting the past.]]> 320 Erin Bow 1368082858 Tora 0 to-read 4.28 2023
author: Erin Bow
name: Tora
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 63005180 .

In the future, a Black girl known only as Inmate Eleven is kept confined -- to be used as a biological match for the president's son, should he fall ill. She is called a Blue -- the color of sadness. She lives in a small-small room with her dog, who is going wolf more often � he’s pacing and imagining he’s free. Inmate Eleven wants to go wolf too―she wants to know why she feels so Blue and what is beyond her small-small room.

In the present, Imogen lives outside of Washington DC. The pandemic has distanced her from everyone but her mother and her therapist. Imogen has intense phobias and nightmares of confinement. Her two older brothers used to help her, but now she’s on her own, until a college student helps her see the difference between being Blue and sad, and Black and empowered.

In this symphony of a novel, award-winning author Amber McBride lays bare the fears of being young and Black in America, and empowers readers to remember their voices and stories are important, especially when they feel the need to go wolf.]]> 352 Amber McBride 1250850495 Tora 0 to-read 4.06 2023
author: Amber McBride
name: Tora
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 83823784 A sparkling, witchy reimagining of Pride and Prejudice, told from the perspective of the troublesome and—according to her—much-maligned youngest Bennet sister, Lydia.

In this exuberant reimagining of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Lydia Bennet puts pen to paper to relate the real events and aftermath of the classic story from her own perspective. Some facts are well known: Mrs. Bennet suffers from her nerves; Mr. Bennet suffers from Mrs. Bennet, and all five daughters suffer from an estate that is entailed only to male heirs.

But Lydia also suffers from entirely different concerns: her best-loved sister Kitty is really a barn cat, and Wickham is every bit as wicked as the world believes him to be, but what else would you expect from a demon? And if you think Mr. Darcy was uptight about dancing etiquette, wait till you see how he reacts to witchcraft. Most of all, Lydia has yet to learn that when you’re a witch, promises have power . . .

Full of enchantment, intrigue, danger, and boundless magic, The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch, has all the irreverent wit, strength, and romance of Pride and Prejudice—while offering a highly unexpected redemption for the wildest Bennet sister.]]> 400 Melinda Taub 1538739208 Tora 0 to-read 3.74 2023
author: Melinda Taub
name: Tora
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 60747336 Ěý
“[A] smart, bracing book of reflection, analysis, memoir and history.”—Willard Spiegelman, Wall Street Journal
Ěý
“A veritable master class.”—Anne Doventry, Booklist
Ěý
Mindy Aloff, a journalist, an essayist, and a dance critic, analyzes dance as the ultimate expression of human energy and feeling. From her personal anecdotes, her engaging collection of stories about dance from around the world, or her description of the captivating photograph by Helen Levitt of two children dancing, which she sees as one embodiment of the mystery and joy that dancing can evoke, Aloff’s exploration of the aesthetic, social, and spiritual impacts of dance will prove spellbinding.
Ěý
Aloff takes us on a journey through various forms of dance—rituals, religious observances, storytelling, musical interpretations—to show why dance matters to human beings. Interlaced with personal experiences, this book builds on analysis to reveal the intimate relationship we have with dance—personal, spiritual, soul-searching, medicinal, and entertaining. The ideas speak to both specialist and general readers.]]> 280 Mindy Aloff 0300204523 Tora 0 to-read 3.56
author: Mindy Aloff
name: Tora
average rating: 3.56
book published:
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]]> 56980243 A teenage ballet dancer struggles to find her next step, and her place in the world, in this exquisite graphic memoir—a follow-up to the Sibert Honor–winning To Dance.

All her life Siena has dreamed of being a ballerina. Her love of movement and dedication to the craft earned her a spot at the School of American Ballet, with hopes of becoming a member of George Balanchine’s world-famous New York City Ballet company. Siena has worked hard for many years to be a professional ballet dancer, but injury and doubt are starting to take their toll.

Maybe it’s time to look beyond the world of dance—but ballet has shaped Siena’s whole identity. When you have spent your entire life working toward something, how do you figure out what comes next? And how do you figure out who you are without the thing that defined you? This is a moving and beautifully drawn memoir of a dancer struggling to find her next step—and of a young woman finding her true footing in the world.]]> 257 Siena Cherson Siegel 1481486667 Tora 0 to-read 3.62 2021
author: Siena Cherson Siegel
name: Tora
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
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]]> 10757749
But when she meets a handsome musician named Jacob, Hannah's universe begins to change, and she must decide if she wants to compete against the other "bunheads" in the company for a star soloist spot or strike out on her own in the real world. Does she dare give up the gilded confines of the ballet for the freedoms of everyday life?]]> 294 Sophie Flack 0316126535 Tora 0 to-read 3.72 2011
author: Sophie Flack
name: Tora
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/27
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]]> 32572166 A gorgeous, darkly humorous memoir about a woman overcoming dramatic loss and finding reinvention—for readers of Cheryl Strayed and Joan Didion

When thirty-eight-year-old New Yorker writer Ariel Levy left for a reporting trip to Mongolia in 2012, she was pregnant, married, financially secure, and successful on her own terms. A month later, none of that was true.

Levy picks you up and hurls you through the story of how she built an unconventional life and then watched it fall apart with astonishing speed. Like much of her generation, she was raised to resist traditional rules—about work, about love, and about womanhood.

“I wanted what we all want: everything. We want a mate who feels like family and a lover who is exotic, surprising. We want to be youthful adventurers and middle-aged mothers. We want intimacy and autonomy, safety and stimulation, reassurance and novelty, coziness and thrills. But we can’t have it all.�

In this profound and beautiful memoir, Levy chronicles the adventure and heartbreak of being “a woman who is free to do whatever she chooses.� Her own story of resilience becomes an unforgettable portrait of the shifting forces in our culture, of what has changed—and of what is eternal.

]]> 207 Ariel Levy 0812996933 Tora 0 to-read 3.68 2017
author: Ariel Levy
name: Tora
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/16
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]]> 15716710 186 Robert Carter Tora 0 to-read 4.21 2012
author: Robert Carter
name: Tora
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/23
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]]> 43317482 251 Carmen Maria Machado 1644450038 Tora 0 to-read 4.41 2019
author: Carmen Maria Machado
name: Tora
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> 54756850
Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Falls—nothing is there for her but memories of a lonely childhood where she was little more than a burden to her cold and distant stepfamily. Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, it’s a different woman every night, but that’s just fine with her.
Ěý
When Delilah’s estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid’s stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe there’s some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all.
Ěý
Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise…at first. Though they’ve known each other for years, they don’t really know each other—so Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When they’re forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations—including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé—Claire isn’t sure she has the strength to resist Delilah’s charms. Even worse, she’s starting to think she doesn’t want to...]]> 375 Ashley Herring Blake 0593336402 Tora 0 to-read 4.06 2022
author: Ashley Herring Blake
name: Tora
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/22
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]]> 57693262 For readers of Modern Lovers and Conversations with Friends, an addictive, humorous, and poignant debut novel about the shock waves caused by one couple's impulsive marriage.

Twenty-four-year-old British painter Cleo has escaped from England to New York and is still finding her place in the sleepless city when, a few months before her student visa ends, she meets Frank. Twenty years older and a self-made success, Frank's life is full of all the excesses Cleo's lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a Green Card. But their impulsive marriage irreversibly changes both their lives, and the lives of those close to them, in ways they never could've predicted.

Each compulsively readable chapter explores the lives of Cleo, Frank, and an unforgettable cast of their closest friends and family as they grow up and grow older. Whether it's Cleo's best friend struggling to embrace his gender queerness in the wake of Cleo's marriage, or Frank's financially dependent sister arranging sugar daddy dates to support herself after being cut off, or Cleo and Frank themselves as they discover the trials of marriage and mental illness, each character is as absorbing, and painfully relatable, as the last.

As hilarious as it is heartbreaking, entertaining as it is deeply moving, Cleopatra and Frankenstein marks the entry of a brilliant and bold new talent.]]> 384 Coco Mellors 1635576814 Tora 0 to-read 3.71 2022
author: Coco Mellors
name: Tora
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/22
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]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Tora 0 to-read 4.12 2022
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Tora
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/22
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]]> 55196813
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

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

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]> 304 Nita Prose 0593356152 Tora 0 to-read 3.71 2022
author: Nita Prose
name: Tora
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> 58844849 Five harrowing novellas of horror and speculative fiction from the singular mind of the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box

Josh Malerman is a master weaver of stories--and in this spine-chilling collection he spins five twisted tales from the shadows of the human soul:

A sister insists to her little brother that "Half the House Is Haunted" by a strange presence. But is it the house that's haunted--or their childhoods?

In "Argyle," a dying man confesses to homicides he never committed, and he reveals long-kept secrets far more sinister than murder.

A tourist takes the ultimate trip to outer space in "The Jupiter Drop," but the real journey is into his own dark past.

In "Doug and Judy Buy the House Washer(TM)," a trendy married couple buys the latest home gadget only to find themselves trapped by their possessions, their history . . . and each other.

And in "Egorov," a wealthy old cretin murders a young man, not knowing the victim was a triplet. The two surviving brothers stage a savage faux-haunting--playing the ghost of their slain brother--with the aim of driving the old murderer mad.]]> 387 Josh Malerman 0593237862 Tora 0 to-read 3.35 2023
author: Josh Malerman
name: Tora
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/21
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]]> 40611510
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave, 'Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams', wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humour, inspiration, and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.]]> 217 Randy Pausch Tora 0 to-read 4.30 2008
author: Randy Pausch
name: Tora
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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]]> 60316974
Valerie Chu is quiet, studious, and above all, thin. No one, not even her best friend Jordan, knows that she has been binging and purging for years. But when tragedy strikes, Val finds herself taking a good, hard look at her priorities, her choices, and her own body. The path to happiness may lead her away from her hometown and her mother's toxic projections―but first she will have to find the strength to seek help.]]> 208 Victoria Ying 1250766990 Tora 0 to-read 3.98 2023
author: Victoria Ying
name: Tora
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> 55405296
Tulip and his brother Rowan have left the simple comforts of their remote Scottish island with a to grow succulent, organic vegetables in an idyllic market garden, and to open a restaurant serving these wholesome culinary delights to the busy sprawl of London.

The world of fine dining seems impossibly competitive... until they discover a deliriously scrumptious new species of mushroom. The dish brings diners in droves, catapulting their small restaurant to success beyond their wildest dreams.

Now, pressured by the demands of a hungry city, Tulip is desperate to crack the secret of their new ingredient's growth. But just how much will he sacrifice to feed his own insatiable ambition?]]> 320 James Albon 160309492X Tora 0 to-read 3.88 2021
author: James Albon
name: Tora
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/21
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]]> 33917107
On November 9th, millions of Americans woke up to the impossible: the election of Donald Trump as president. Against all predictions, one of the most-disliked presidential candidates in history had swept the electoral college, elevating a man with open contempt for democratic norms and institutions to the height of power.

Timothy Snyder is one of the most celebrated historians of the Holocaust. In his books Bloodlands and Black Earth, he has carefully dissected the events and values that enabled the rise of Hitler and Stalin and the execution of their catastrophic policies. With Twenty Lessons, Snyder draws from the darkest hours of the twentieth century to provide hope for the twenty-first. As he writes, “Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism and communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.�

Twenty Lessons is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.]]> 127 Timothy Snyder 0804190119 Tora 0 to-read 4.24 2017
author: Timothy Snyder
name: Tora
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/21
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]]> 57282218
Persephone, young goddess of spring, is new to Olympus. Her mother, Demeter, has raised her in the mortal realm, but after Persephone promises to train as a sacred virgin, she’s allowed to live in the fast-moving, glamorous world of the gods. When her roommate, Artemis, takes her to a party, her entire life changes: she ends up meeting Hades and feels an immediate spark with the charming yet misunderstood ruler of the Underworld. Now Persephone must navigate the confusing politics and relationships that rule Olympus, while also figuring out her own place—and her own power.

This edition of Smythe’s original Eisner-winning webcomic Lore Olympus features a brand-new, exclusive short story, and brings the Greek Pantheon into the modern age in a sharply perceptive and romantic graphic novel.

This volume collects episodes 1-25 of the #1 WEBTOON comic, Lore Olympus.]]> 384 Rachel Smythe 0593160290 Tora 0 to-read 4.23 2021
author: Rachel Smythe
name: Tora
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/21
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]]> 36569910
A visit to his house increases the friends' worry; Art is farming marijuana. In Southern Italy doing that kind of thing can be very dangerous. They can't go to the Carabinieri so must make enquiries of their own. This is how they come across the rumours about Art; bizarre and unbelievable rumours that he miraculously cured the local mafia boss's daughter of terminal leukaemia. And among the chaos of his house, they find a document written by Art, The Book of Hidden Things, that promises to reveal dark secrets and wonders beyond anything previously known.]]> 385 Francesco Dimitri 1785657070 Tora 0 to-read 3.38 2018
author: Francesco Dimitri
name: Tora
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/21
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]]> 56075256
Now eight bestselling, award-winning authors - master storytellers of the sinister and the macabre - bring this time-honoured tradition to vivid life in a spellbinding collection of new and original haunted tales.

From a bustling Covent Garden Christmas market to the frosty moors of Yorkshire, from a country estate with a dreadful secret, to a London mansion where a beautiful girl lies frozen in death, these are stories to make your hair stand on end, send shivers down your spine and to serve as your indispensable companion to the long nights of winter.

So curl up, light a candle, and fall under the spell of The Haunting Season . . .

Featuring new and original tales from:

Bridget Collins
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Binding

Imogen Hermes Gowar
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock

Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mercies

Andrew Michael Hurley
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Loney

Jess Kidd
International award-winning author of Things in Jars

Elizabeth Macneal
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Doll Factory

Natasha Pulley
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

Laura Purcell
Award-winning author of The Silent Companions]]> 304 Bridget Collins 0751581976 Tora 0 to-read 3.61 2021
author: Bridget Collins
name: Tora
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> 49183695 Powerful and universal retellings of seventy-eight divine stories, legends, and myths from around the world, each accompanied by a gorgeous illustration from acclaimed artist Yoshi Yoshitani.

Many of the lessons we learn are shared stories passed among cultures and generations. In this riveting collection of fables and folktales from cultures across the globe, characters from beloved fairytales, cultural fables, ancient mythologies, and inspirational deities are brought to life, including Sleeping Beauty (Italy), Rapunzel (Germany), Jack and the Beanstalk (England), Our Lady of Guadalupe (Mexico), Sun God Ra (Egypt), the Crane Wife (Japan), and dozens more.

Lesser-known stories introduce characters such as the volcano goddess Pele from Hawaii; Mwindo, the wise and powerful king of the Nyanga people; and the strong and resilient Yennenga, mother of the Mossi people in Burkina Faso. The recurring themes of conquering evil, overcoming adversity, and finding love and companionship are woven throughout this collection.

Yoshi Yoshitani's art style is fresh and unique, featuring diverse and multicultural characters. Each story will be featured opposite a correlating illustration, both lush and vibrant.]]> 176 Yoshi Yoshitani 1984857223 Tora 0 to-read 4.17 2020
author: Yoshi Yoshitani
name: Tora
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> 55277536
A beautiful book to connect us after such a challenging time.

'Dark clouds were looming in the distance. We watched them gather, and we wondered... When will it come? How long will it last?'

A monumental storm brings huge and sudden change. We follow a man and his dog through the uncertainty that it brings to their lives. Through their eyes, we see the difficulties of being apart, the rollercoaster of emotions that we can all relate to, and the realisation that by pulling together we can move through difficult times with new perspective, hope and an appreciation of what matters most in life.


THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER]]> 64 Luke Adam Hawker 0857839446 Tora 0 to-read 4.28 2021
author: Luke Adam Hawker
name: Tora
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/21
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]]> 63099282
From theĚý Sunday Times Ěýbestselling author ofĚý Together.

Imagine a world without trees. A world that is in many ways like our world, but where magnificent canopies, tree climbing and leaves rustling in the breeze are now only distant memories.

Until a young girl comes along, a girl who is brave and spirited and willing to follow where her imagination takes her. Through Olive's adventures in the world of trees we are reminded of nature's extraordinary power and beauty, and her actions ultimately sow the seeds of new life in her own world.

From the mind and pen of bestselling author Luke Adam Hawker,Ěý The Last TreeĚý is a powerful evocation of the fragility of our natural world and a magnificent celebration of its beauty.

Praise forĚý
"An accurate and thoughtful account of one of the most challenging years in modern history."Ěý -The Guardian

"Hawker's images always seem to have just the right mixture of gravitas and sly, understated humour."Ěý -The Scotsman]]> 64 Luke Adam Hawker 1781578702 Tora 0 to-read 4.50 2023
author: Luke Adam Hawker
name: Tora
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/21
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]]> 57778366 Volume 1 of the Kinship series revolves around the question of planetary relations What are the sources of our deepest evolutionary and planetary connections, and of our profound longing for kinship?

We live in an astounding world of relations. We share these ties that bind with our fellow humans--and we share these relations with nonhuman beings as well. From the bacterium swimming in your belly to the trees exhaling the breath you breathe, this community of life is our kin--and, for many cultures around the world, being human is based upon this extended sense of kinship.

Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations is a lively series that explores our deep interconnections with the living world. The five Kinship volumes--Planet, Place, Partners, Persons, Practice--offer essays, interviews, poetry, and stories of solidarity, highlighting the interdependence that exists between humans and nonhuman beings. More than 70 contributors--including Robin Wall Kimmerer, Richard Powers, David Abram, J. Drew Lanham, and Sharon Blackie--invite readers into cosmologies, narratives, and everyday interactions that embrace a more-than-human world as worthy of our response and responsibility.

With every breath, every sip of water, every meal, we are reminded that our lives are inseparable from the life of the world--and the cosmos--in ways both material and spiritual. "Planet," Volume 1 of the Kinship series, focuses on our Earthen home and the cosmos within which our "pale blue dot" of a planet nestles. National poet laureate Joy Harjo opens up the volume asking us to "Remember the sky you were born under." The essayists and poets that follow--such as geologist Marcia Bjornerud who takes readers on a Deep Time journey, geophilosopher David Abram who imagines the Earth's breathing through animal migrations, and theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser who contemplates the relations between mystery and science--offer perspectives from around the world and from various cultures about what it means to be an Earthling, and all that we share in common with our planetary kin. "Remember," Harjo implores, "all is in motion, is growing, is you."]]> 180 Gavin van Horn 1736862502 Tora 0 to-read 4.43
author: Gavin van Horn
name: Tora
average rating: 4.43
book published:
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]]> 18528240 Safari Honeymoon is a tale of jungle love and jungle madness.]]> 80 Jesse Jacobs 1927668042 Tora 0 to-read 3.98 2014
author: Jesse Jacobs
name: Tora
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/21
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]]> 18659623 'It came from the woods. Most strange things do.'

Five mysterious, spine-tingling stories follow journeys into (and out of?) the eerie abyss.

These chilling tales spring from the macabre imagination of acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll.

Come take a walk in the woods and see what awaits you there...]]> 208 Emily Carroll 1442465956 Tora 0 to-read 3.94 2014
author: Emily Carroll
name: Tora
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/21
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]]> 17287069 Beautiful Darkness is a harrowing look behind the routine politeness and meaningless kindness of civilized society.]]> 94 Fabien Vehlmann 1770461299 Tora 0 to-read 3.88 2009
author: Fabien Vehlmann
name: Tora
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/21
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]]> 1099262 558 Laura Gallego GarcĂ­a 846750269X Tora 0 to-read 4.15 2004
author: Laura Gallego GarcĂ­a
name: Tora
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>