Kamilla's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 29 Apr 2025 19:40:47 -0700 60 Kamilla's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Fifteen Dogs (Quincunx, #2) 25264107 Winner of the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize
Finalist for the 2015 Toronto Book Awards
Winner of the 2015 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize

� I wonder, said Hermes, what it would be like if animals had human intelligence.
� I'll wager a year's servitude, answered Apollo, that animals � any animal you like � would be even more unhappy than humans are, if they were given human intelligence.

And so it begins: a bet between the gods Hermes and Apollo leads them to grant human consciousness and language to a group of dogs overnighting at a Toronto vet­erinary clinic. Suddenly capable of more complex thought, the pack is torn between those who resist the new ways of thinking, preferring the old 'dog' ways, and those who embrace the change. The gods watch from above as the dogs venture into their newly unfamiliar world, as they become divided among themselves, as each struggles with new thoughts and feelings. Wily Benjy moves from home to home, Prince becomes a poet, and Majnoun forges a relationship with a kind couple that stops even the Fates in their tracks.

André Alexis's contemporary take on the apologue offers an utterly compelling and affecting look at the beauty and perils of human consciousness. By turns meditative and devastating, charming and strange, Fifteen Dogs shows you can teach an old genre new tricks.

André Alexis was born in Trinidad and grew up in Canada. His debut novel, Childhood, won the Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Trillium Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His other previous books include Asylum, Beauty and Sadness, Ingrid & the Wolf and, most recently, Pastoral, which was also nominated for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and was named a Globe and Mail Top 100 book of 2014.

"[Alexis] devises an inventive romp through the nature of humanity in this beautiful, entertaining read � A clever exploration of our essence, communication, and how our societies are organized." � Kirkus Reviews

"This might be the best set-up of the spring." � The Globe & Mail

"André Alexis has established himself as one of our preeminent voices." � Toronto Star ]]> 162 André Alexis 1770564039 Kamilla 0 3.89 2015 Fifteen Dogs (Quincunx, #2)
author: André Alexis
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/29
date added: 2025/04/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Down and Out in Paris and London (Revised)]]> 33190714 Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities.]]> 196 George Orwell Kamilla 0 currently-reading 4.28 1933 Down and Out in Paris and London (Revised)
author: George Orwell
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1933
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Dog Tulip (New York Review Books Classics)]]> 13146899 208 J.R. Ackerley 1590175271 Kamilla 3 3.46 1956 My Dog Tulip (New York Review Books Classics)
author: J.R. Ackerley
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1956
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/04/25
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]]> Playground 205478762 The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.

They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.

Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.]]> 381 Richard Powers 1324086033 Kamilla 5 4.16 2024 Playground
author: Richard Powers
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
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]]> The Animators 30090925
Now, after a decade of striving, the two are finally celebrating the release of their first full-length feature, which transforms Mel’s difficult childhood into a provocative and visually daring work of art. The toast of the indie film scene, they stand at the cusp of making it big. But with their success come doubt and destruction, cracks in their relationship threatening the delicate balance of their partnership. Sharon begins to feel expendable, suspecting that the ever-more raucous Mel is the real artist. During a trip to Sharon’s home state of Kentucky, the only other partner she has ever truly known—her troubled, charismatic childhood best friend, Teddy—reenters her life, and long-buried resentments rise to the surface, hastening a reckoning no one sees coming.]]> 369 Kayla Rae Whitaker Kamilla 3 3.94 2017 The Animators
author: Kayla Rae Whitaker
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
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]]> Nobody's Empire 199531954 One of the great lyricists of our time, the lead singer and songwriter for the iconic Glasgow-based band Belle and Sebastian, pens a sensitive and intimate account—his debut novel based on his own youthful experiences—of dark days leading to light and a coming of age through music.

It’s the early 1990s in Glasgow, Scotland, and Stephen has emerged from a lengthy hospital stay. Diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, a little-understood disease that has robbed him of any prospects of work, friends, or independent living, he moves slowly toward new goals and meets others like him, including Richard, a friend from school, and Carrie, a young woman bedridden for five years. Feeling isolated and alone, they form their own support group, and try to get by with as little money and pain as possible. Since he’s been ill, Stephen never feels warm, inspiring Carrie to affectionately call him “The World’s Coldest Boy.� As the world seems to care less for them, the trio start to care less about fitting in with the world.

Stephen soon discovers he has a talent for writing songs. He awakens to the possibility of a spiritual life that transcends the everyday, and feels a calling for a place that might as well be on the other end of the universe let alone the world. Buoyed by tentative hope, he and Richard leave Glasgow in search of a cure in the mythic warmth and sun of California. As they float between hostels, sofas, and park benches, they discover the trip is life-changing in ways neither expected, and Stephen embraces a new-world reinvention that will change his life forever.
Melodic and captivating, filled with graceful notes, melancholic chords, and witty, thoughtful riffs on life's infinite possibilities and curiosities, Nobody’s Empire is a warm and wonderful coming-of-age novel, imbued with Stuart Murdoch's magical lyricism.]]> 384 Stuart Murdoch 0063383454 Kamilla 4 3.82 2025 Nobody's Empire
author: Stuart Murdoch
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Mongols and the West: 1221-1410]]> 679548
This book considers the Mongols as allies as well as conquerors; the perception of them in the West; the papal response to the threat (and opportunity) they presented; the fate of the Frankish principalities in the Holy Land in the path of the Mongol onslaught; Western European embassies and missions to the East; and the impact of the Mongols on the expanding world view of the maturing Middle Ages.

For courses in crusading history and medieval European history.]]> 448 Professor Peter Jackson 0582368960 Kamilla 0 to-read 3.97 2005 The Mongols and the West: 1221-1410
author: Professor Peter Jackson
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals]]> 54785515 The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.

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

Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern obsession with “getting everything done,� Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing that many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.]]> 271 Oliver Burkeman 0374159122 Kamilla 5 4.20 2021 Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
author: Oliver Burkeman
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Super Sushi Ramen Express: One Family's Journey Through the Belly of Japan]]> 27840867
Inspired by Shizuo Tsuji's classic book, Japanese Cooking, A Simple Art, food and travel writer Michael Booth sets off to take the culinary pulse of contemporary Japan, learning fascinating tips and recipes that few westerners have been privy to before. Accompanied by with two fussy eaters under the age of six, he and his wife travel the length of the country, from bear-infested, beer-loving Hokkaido to snake-infested, seaweed-loving Okinawa.

Along the way, they dine with - and score a surprising victory over - sumos; meet the indigenous Ainu; drink coffee at the dog café; pamper the world's most expensive cows with massage and beer; discover the secret of the Okinawan people's remarkable longevity; share a seaside lunch with free-diving, female abalone hunters; and meet the greatest chefs working in Japan today. Less happily, they trash a Zen garden, witness a mass fugu slaughter, are traumatised by an encounter with giant crabs, and attempt a calamitous cooking demonstration for the lunching ladies of Kyoto. They also ask, 'Who are you?' to the most famous TV stars in Japan.

What do the Japanese know about food? Perhaps more than anyone on else on earth, judging by this fascinating and funny journey through an extraordinary food-obsessed country.]]> 318 Michael Booth 1250099803 Kamilla 0 currently-reading 3.95 2009 Super Sushi Ramen Express: One Family's Journey Through the Belly of Japan
author: Michael Booth
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> All Fours 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]> 336 Miranda July 0593190262 Kamilla 3 3.52 2024 All Fours
author: Miranda July
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder]]> 13530973
In The Black Swan Taleb outlined a problem; in Antifragile he offers a definitive solution: how to gain from disorder and chaos while being protected from fragilities and adverse events. For what he calls the "antifragile" is one step beyond robust, as it benefits from adversity, uncertainty and stressors, just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension.

Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, and proposing that things be built in an antifragile manner. Extremely ambitious and multidisciplinary, Antifragile provides a blueprint for how to behave—and thrive—in a world we don't understand and which is too uncertain for us to even try to understand. He who is not antifragile will perish. Why is the city state better than the nation state, why is debt bad for you, and why is almost everything modern bound to fail? The book covers innovation, health, biology, medicine, life decisions, politics, foreign policy, urban planning, war, personal finance, and economic systems. Throughout, the voice and recipes of the ancient wisdom from Phoenician, Roman, Greek, and Medieval sources are heard loud and clear.]]> 426 Nassim Nicholas Taleb 1400067820 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.08 2012 Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times]]> 359139
Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women.

Despite the great toil required in making cloth and clothing, most books on ancient history and economics have no information on them. Much of this gap results from the extreme perishability of what women produced, but it seems clear that until now descriptions of prehistoric and early historic cultures have omitted virtually half the picture.

Elizabeth Wayland Barber has drawn from data gathered by the most sophisticated new archaeological methods—methods she herself helped to fashion.]]> 334 Elizabeth Wayland Barber 0393313484 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.30 1994 Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
author: Elizabeth Wayland Barber
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/10
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]]> <![CDATA[On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft]]> 10569 (back cover)]]> 320 Stephen King 0743455967 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.33 2000 On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
author: Stephen King
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/10
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]]> Everything I Know About Love 46041465
When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming an adult, journalist and former Sunday Times columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, finding a job, getting drunk, getting dumped, realizing that Ivan from the corner shop might just be the only reliable man in her life, and that absolutely no one can ever compare to her best girlfriends. Everything I Know About Love is about bad dates, good friends and—above all else� realizing that you are enough.

Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humor, Dolly Alderton’s unforgettable debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age—making you want to pick up the phone and tell your best friends all about it. Like Bridget Jones� Diary but all true, Everything I Know About Love is about the struggles of early adulthood in all its terrifying and hopeful uncertainty.]]> 368 Dolly Alderton 0062968785 Kamilla 0 to-read 3.98 2018 Everything I Know About Love
author: Dolly Alderton
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/10
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]]> Sociopath: A Memoir 176443093
Patric Gagne realized she made others uncomfortable before she started kindergarten. Something about her caused people to react in a way she didn’t understand. She suspected it was because she didn’t feel things the way other kids did. Emotions like fear, guilt, and empathy eluded her. For the most part, she felt nothing. And she didn’t like the way that “nothing� felt.

She did her best to pretend she was like everyone else, but the constant pressure to conform to a society she knew rejected anyone like her was unbearable. So Patric stole. She lied. She was occasionally violent. She became an expert lock-picker and home-invader. All with the goal of replacing the nothingness with...something.

In college, Patric finally confirmed what she’d long suspected. She was a sociopath. But even though it was the very first personality disorder identified—well over 200 years ago—sociopathy had been neglected by mental health professionals for decades. She was told there was no treatment, no hope for a normal life. She found herself haunted by sociopaths in pop culture, madmen and evil villains who are considered monsters. Her future looked grim.

But when Patric reconnects with an old flame, she gets a glimpse of a future beyond her diagnosis. If she’s capable of love, it must mean that she isn’t a monster. With the help of her sweetheart (and some curious characters she meets along the way) she embarks on a mission to prove that the millions of Americans who share her diagnosis aren’t all monsters either.

This is the inspiring story of her journey to change her fate and how she managed to build a life full of love and hope.]]> 368 Patric Gagne 166800318X Kamilla 0 to-read 3.74 2024 Sociopath: A Memoir
author: Patric Gagne
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/10
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]]> <![CDATA[The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life]]> 212806718 A groundbreaking guide to rejecting the default path and designing your dream life—a life centered around The 5 Types of Wealth. Launch your journey to fulfillment with this transformative system from inspirational writer, speaker, and entrepreneur Sahil Bloom.

Harsh You’ve been lied to. Throughout your life, you’ve been slowly indoctrinated to believe that money is the only type of wealth. The Your wealthy life may involve money, but in the end, it will be defined by everything else.

In The 5 Types of Wealth, Sahil Bloom offers a transformative guide for redesigning your life around five types of wealth—Time Wealth, Social Wealth, Mental Wealth, Physical Wealth, and Financial Wealth—that will lead to a durable satisfaction and happiness you can build and maintain across the seasons of your life.
Ěý
Whether you are a recent college graduate, mid-life warrior, or a retiree, this playbook will unlock new levels of freedom and fulfillment,

� Control over how you spend your time
•ĚýDepth of connection with those around you
•ĚýClarity of purpose, presence, and decision making
•ĚýImproved health and vitality
•ĚýSimple pathways to financial independence
Ěý
Bloom’s unique blend of storytelling, questions, and actionable insights enables readers to make immediate positive change and build the joyful, balanced lives they’d previously only dreamed of.]]> 400 Sahil Bloom 059372318X Kamilla 0 to-read 4.24 The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life
author: Sahil Bloom
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> Minor Detail 53575905 Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba—the catastrophe that led to the displacement and exile of some 700,000 people—and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers murder an encampment of Bedouin in the Negev desert, and among their victims they capture a Palestinian teenager and they rape her, kill her, and bury her in the sand.

Many years later, in the near-present day, a young woman in Ramallah tries to uncover some of the details surrounding this particular rape and murder, and becomes fascinated to the point of obsession, not only because of the nature of the crime, but because it was committed exactly twenty-five years to the day before she was born. Adania Shibli masterfully overlays these two translucent narratives of exactly the same length to evoke a present forever haunted by the past.]]> 144 Adania Shibli Kamilla 2 4.17 2017 Minor Detail
author: Adania Shibli
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2020/08/31
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves:
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Maybe this book was lost in translation, but I really did not enjoy the writing style. Things are repeated over and over again (I don't know how many times I need to know that the commander wiped his body down with a wet towel, for instance). The events around the crux of the novel are unclear - there's supposedly a gang rape but its glossed over in the span of a few paragraphs with no explanation of why or how they decided to do what they did afterwards. The sections in the second part of the book about the main character driving through what was Palestine and how things have changed was interesting but it all left me longing for more. There are bits and pieces that tie the two stories together, like the mirages, the gasoline, the dog...it gave it a mythical touch. And the ending is supposed to be unexpected, but the way that the characters actions are so not in tune with what her personality is laid out to be in the beginning kind of makes you expect something like that to happen. A beautiful plot concept, and I hope that there are more books that come out about this part of the world.
]]> The Memory Collectors 219401075 Four strangers time travel to the past and find themselves stuck on the day all their lives were changed in this stunning speculative mystery from award-winning film and television producer Dete Meserve, perfect for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Wrong Place Wrong Time and The Paradox Hotel.

What would you do if you could spend an hour in your past? Four strangers in the beach town of Ventura, California are about to find out.Ěý

Elizabeth aches for one more precious hour with her son who died in a senseless accident. Andy is desperate to find his first love who vanished after a whirlwind romance. Logan craves the rush of surfing and mountain climbing, yearning to reclaim the freedom he lost after a misstepĚýlanded him in a wheelchair. Brooke is looking for an hour of relief from the guilt of an unforgivable mistake.

Enter Aeon Expeditions, the groundbreaking time travelĚýinvention of Mark Saunders—which allowsĚýsome lucky clientsĚý the chanceĚýto spend an hour in their past. Even though Aeon’s technology ensures time travel can’t alter the future, all four clients,Ěýincluding Mark’s ex-wife Elizabeth,Ěýyearn to revisit the hour that changed their lives forever.Ěý

But when their “hour� extends beyond sixty minutes, they find themselves stranded in the past. As their paths intertwine unexpectedly, they unearth shocking secrets hidden in the shadows of their shared All their lives were shattered the same night on a secluded highway by the beach. As they delve into the hidden truths of that pivotal hour, a startling revelation emerges. They were not alone. Someone else was present, harboring deadly intentions.

The Memory Collectors is a heart-wrenching, genre-bending novel brimming with hope, grief and second chances.

]]> 336 Dete Meserve Kamilla 0 to-read 4.19 2025 The Memory Collectors
author: Dete Meserve
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> The Dream Hotel 218695937 A novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

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

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

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.]]> 336 Laila Lalami 0593317602 Kamilla 0 to-read 3.65 2025 The Dream Hotel
author: Laila Lalami
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men]]> 41104077
Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates the shocking root cause of gender inequality and research in Invisible Women�, diving into women’s lives at home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more. Built on hundreds of studies in the US, the UK, and around the world, and written with energy, wit, and sparkling intelligence, this is a groundbreaking, unforgettable exposé that will change the way you look at the world.]]> 448 Caroline Criado Pérez 1419729071 Kamilla 0 currently-reading 4.35 2019 Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
author: Caroline Criado PĂ©rez
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> The Dutch House 44318414
The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.]]> 337 Ann Patchett 0062963678 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.08 2019 The Dutch House
author: Ann Patchett
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> The Covenant of Water 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

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

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 715 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.34 2023 The Covenant of Water
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> A Sorceress Comes to Call 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 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.06 2024 A Sorceress Comes to Call
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> None of This Is True 62334530
A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?]]> 390 Lisa Jewell 1982179007 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.08 2023 None of This Is True
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The DallerGut Dream Department Store (DallerGut Dream Department Store, #1)]]> 199396641 What if there was a store that sold dreams? Which would you buy? And who might you become when you wake up?

In a mysterious town hidden in our collective subconscious there's a department store that sells dreams. Day and night, visitors both human and animal shuffle in to purchase their latest adventure. Each floor specializes in a specific type of dream: childhood memories, food dreams, ice skating, dreams of stardom. Flying dreams are almost always sold out. Some seek dreams of loved ones who have died.

For Penny, an enthusiastic new hire, working at Dallergut 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.]]> 288 Lee Mi-ye 1335081178 Kamilla 0 to-read 3.66 2020 The DallerGut Dream Department Store (DallerGut Dream Department Store, #1)
author: Lee Mi-ye
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> You Are Here 201465867
Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future . . . if they can survive the journey.]]> 368 David Nicholls 0063394057 Kamilla 0 to-read 3.97 2024 You Are Here
author: David Nicholls
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> Grey Bees 60634179 With a warm yet political humor, Ukraine’s most famous novelist presents a balanced and illuminating portrait of modern conflict.

Little Starhorodivka, a village of three streets, lies in Ukraine's Grey Zone, the no-man's-land between loyalist and separatist forces. Thanks to the lukewarm war of sporadic violence and constant propaganda that has been dragging on for years, only two residents retired safety inspector turned beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich and Pashka, a rival from his schooldays.

With little food and no electricity, under constant threat of bombardment, Sergeyich's one remaining pleasure is his bees. As spring approaches, he knows he must take them far from the Grey Zone so they can collect their pollen in peace. This simple mission on their behalf introduces him to combatants and civilians on both sides of the battle loyalists, separatists, Russian occupiers and Crimean Tatars.

Wherever he goes, Sergeyich's childlike simplicity and strong moral compass disarm everyone he meets. But could these qualities be manipulated to serve an unworthy cause, spelling disaster for him, his bees and his country?]]> 449 Andrey Kurkov 164605167X Kamilla 5 4.21 2018 Grey Bees
author: Andrey Kurkov
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
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Really cute/sad story that also deepens your understanding of current events
]]> <![CDATA[The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook]]> 191746386
On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution . Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment?

Hampton Sides� bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science-–the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment.

Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter.

At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.]]> 408 Hampton Sides 0385544766 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.47 2024 The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
author: Hampton Sides
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/05
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]]> You Dreamed of Empires 127938747 From a visionary Mexican author, a hallucinatory, revelatory, colonial revenge story that reimagines the fall of Tenochtitlan.

One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés entered the city of Tenochtitlan � today's Mexico City. Later that day, he would meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures.

Cortés was accompanied by his nine captains, his troops, and his two translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn, former slave, and Malinalli, a strategic, former princess. Greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely princess Atotoxli, sister and wife of Moctezuma, the Spanish nearly bungle their entrance to the city. As they await their meeting with Moctezuma � who is at a political, spiritual, and physical crossroads, and relies on hallucinogens to get himself through the day and in quest for any kind of answer from the gods � the Spanish are ensconced in the labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the city, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders at the risks of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire.

You Dreamed of Empires brings to life Tenochtitlan at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Alvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counter-attack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.]]> 220 Ălvaro Enrigue 059354479X Kamilla 0 to-read 3.75 2022 You Dreamed of Empires
author: Ălvaro Enrigue
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/05
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]]> Martyr! 139400713 A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.22 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/05
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]]> <![CDATA[A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life]]> 55290026 A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.

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

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.]]> 410 George Saunders 1984856022 Kamilla 0 4.50 2021 A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
author: George Saunders
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/24
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]]> My Sister, the Serial Killer 38819868
My Sister, the Serial Killer is a blackly comic novel about how blood is thicker - and more difficult to get out of the carpet - than water...]]> 226 Oyinkan Braithwaite 0385544235 Kamilla 2 3.64 2018 My Sister, the Serial Killer
author: Oyinkan Braithwaite
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Twelve Chairs & the Golden Calf]]> 56672329 476 Ilya Ilf 5948496716 Kamilla 0 currently-reading 4.75 1931 Twelve Chairs & the Golden Calf
author: Ilya Ilf
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.75
book published: 1931
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/28
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland]]> 40163119
Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.]]> 441 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385521316 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.47 2018 Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/21
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]]> One Day 6280118
So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that?

And every year that follows?
--back cover]]> 435 David Nicholls 0340896965 Kamilla 0 to-read 3.86 2009 One Day
author: David Nicholls
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/21
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]]> Monkey 204800603 608 Agnes Bushell 1735739766 Kamilla 3 4.20 Monkey
author: Agnes Bushell
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/21
date added: 2024/10/21
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]]> The Man Who Listens to Horses 8515 352 Monty Roberts 034542705X Kamilla 5 4.14 1997 The Man Who Listens to Horses
author: Monty Roberts
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/21
date added: 2024/10/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention� and How to Think Deeply Again]]> 57933306 Our ability to pay attention is collapsing. From the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections comes a groundbreaking examination of why this is happening--and how to get our attention back.

In the United States, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers average only three minutes. Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions--even abandoning his phone for three months--but nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention--and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.

We think our inability to focus is a personal failure to exert enough willpower over our devices. The truth is even more disturbing: our focus has been stolen by powerful external forces that have left us uniquely vulnerable to corporations determined to raid our attention for profit. Hari found that there are twelve deep causes of this crisis, from the decline of mind-wandering to rising pollution, all of which have robbed some of our attention. In Stolen Focus, he introduces readers to Silicon Valley dissidents who learned to hack human attention, and veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD. He explores a favela in Rio de Janeiro where everyone lost their attention in a particularly surreal way, and an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore workers' productivity.

Crucially, Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus--as individuals, and as a society--if we are determined to fight for it. Stolen Focus will transform the debate about attention and finally show us how to get it back.]]> 357 Johann Hari 0593138511 Kamilla 4 4.22 2022 Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again
author: Johann Hari
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/15
date added: 2024/10/15
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]]> <![CDATA[They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom]]> 60149517 A Palestinian activist jailed at sixteen after a confrontation with Israeli soldiers illuminates the daily struggles of life under occupation in this moving, deeply personal memoir.

“What would you do if you grew up seeing your home repeatedly raided? Your parents arrested? Your mother shot? Your uncle killed? Try, for just a moment, to imagine that this was your life. How would you want the world to react?�

Ahed Tamimi is a world-renowned Palestinian activist, born and raised in the small West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, which became a center of the resistance to Israeli occupation when an illegal, Jewish-only settlement blocked off its community spring. Tamimi came of age participating in nonviolent demonstrations against this action and the occupation at large. Her global renown reached an apex in December 2017, when, at sixteen years old, she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier who refused to leave her front yard. The video went viral, and Tamimi was arrested.

But this is not just a story of activism or imprisonment. It is the human-scale story of an occupation that has riveted the world and shaped global politics, from a girl who grew up in the middle of it . Tamimi’s father was born in 1967, the year that Israel began its occupation of the West Bank and he grew up immersed in the resistance movement. One of Tamimi’s earliest memories is visiting him in prison, poking her toddler fingers through the fence to touch his hand. She herself would spend her seventeenth birthday behind bars. Living through this greatest test and heightened attacks on her village, Tamimi felt her resolve only deepen, in tension with her attempts to live the normal life of a daughter, sibling, friend, and student.

An essential addition to an important conversation, They Called Me a Lioness shows us what is at stake in this struggle and offers a fresh vision for resistance. With their unflinching, riveting storytelling, Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri shine a light on the humanity not just in occupied Palestine but also in the unsung lives of people struggling for freedom around the world.]]> 288 Ahed Tamimi 0593134583 Kamilla 0 4.67 2022 They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom
author: Ahed Tamimi
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/10
date added: 2024/10/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1-5)]]> 13
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space.

"The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"

Facing annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat.

"Life, the Universe and Everything"

The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky- so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew.

"So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"

Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription conspires to thrust him back to reality. So to speak.

"Mostly Harmless"

Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself?

Also includes the short story "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe".]]> 815 Douglas Adams 0345453743 Kamilla 0 4.38 1996 The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1-5)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/10
date added: 2024/10/09
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]]> A Tale for the Time Being 15811545
Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao's drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.Ěý

Full of Ozeki's signature humour and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.]]> 432 Ruth Ozeki 0670026638 Kamilla 5 4.06 2013 A Tale for the Time Being
author: Ruth Ozeki
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/10
date added: 2024/10/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Childfree by Choice: The Movement Redefining Family and Creating a New Age of Independence]]> 43604259 From Dr. Amy Blackstone, childfree woman, co-creator of the blog we're {not} having a baby,Ěýand nationally recognized expert on the childfree choice, comes a definitive investigation into the history and current growing movement of adults choosing to forgo what it means for our society, economy, environment, perceived gender roles, and legacies, and how understanding and supporting all types of families can lead to positive outcomes for parents, non-parents, and children alike.As a childfree woman, Dr. Amy Blackstone is no stranger to a wide range of negative responses when she informs people she doesn't have--nor does she confused looks, patronizing quips, thinly veiled pity, even outright scorn and condemnation. But she is not alone in opting out when it comes to children. More people than ever are choosing to forgo parenthood, and openly discussing a choice that's still often perceived as taboo. Yet this choice, and its effects personally and culturally, are still often misunderstood. ĚýAmy Blackstone, a professor of sociology, has been studying the childfree choice since 2008, a choice she and her husband had already confidently and happily made. Using her own and others' research as well as her personal experience, Blackstone delves into the childfree movement from its conception to today, exploring gender, race, sexual orientation, politics, environmentalism, and feminism, as she strips away the misconceptions surrounding non-parents and reveals the still radical notion that support of the childfree can lead to better lives and societies for all.]]> 299 Amy Blackstone 1524744107 Kamilla 0 currently-reading 3.98 2019 Childfree by Choice: The Movement Redefining Family and Creating a New Age of Independence
author: Amy Blackstone
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/09
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> The Vaster Wilds 62952130
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.

Lauren Groff’s new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.]]> 272 Lauren Groff 0593418395 Kamilla 0 3.73 2016 The Vaster Wilds
author: Lauren Groff
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/10
date added: 2024/10/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Our Pet Queen: A New Perspective on Monarchy]]> 22890060 53 J.M.R. Higgs 0771038453 Kamilla 0 currently-reading 4.21 2014 Our Pet Queen: A New Perspective on Monarchy
author: J.M.R. Higgs
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery]]> 51473403 As seen on Good Morning America's SEPTEMBER 2020 READING LIST and FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2020!"We need to read stories about folks who have been through hell and kept going... Fascinating." �Glennon Doyle, A Favorite Book of 2020 on Good Morning America"Gildiner is nothing short of masterful�as both a therapist and writer. In these pages, she has gorgeously captured both the privilege of being given access to the inner chambers of people's lives, and the meaning that comes from watching them grow into the selves they were meant to be." �Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to SomeoneIn this fascinating narrative, therapist Catherine Gildiner’s presents five of what she calls her most heroic and memorable patients. Among a successful, first generation Chinese immigrant musician suffering sexual dysfunction; a young woman whose father abandoned her at age nine with her younger siblings in an isolated cottage in the depth of winter; and a glamorous workaholic whose narcissistic, negligent mother greeted her each morning of her childhood with "Good morning, Monster." Each patient presents a mystery, one that will only be unpacked over years. They seek Gildiner's help to overcome an immediate challenge in their lives, but discover that the source of their suffering has been long buried. As in such recent classics as The Glass Castle and Educated, each patient embodies self-reflection, stoicism, perseverance, and forgiveness as they work unflinchingly to face the truth. Gildiner's account of her journeys with them is moving, insightful, and sometimes very funny. Good Morning Monster offers an almost novelistic, behind-the-scenes look into the therapist's office, illustrating how the process can heal even the most unimaginable wounds.]]> 356 Catherine Gildiner 1250272262 Kamilla 5 4.49 2020 Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery
author: Catherine Gildiner
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/23
date added: 2024/09/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)]]> 51603444 What would you change if you could travel back in time?

 Down a small alleyway in the heart of Tokyo, there’s an underground café that’s been serving carefully brewed coffee for over a hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers its customers something else besides coffee—the chance to travel back in time.

The rules, however, are far from simple: you must sit in one particular seat, and you can’t venture outside the café, nor can you change the present. And, most important, you only have the time it takes to drink a hot cup of coffee—or risk getting stuck forever.

Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of traveling to another time: a heartbroken lover looking for closure, a nurse with a mysterious letter from her husband, a waitress hoping to say one last goodbye and a mother whose child she may never get the chance to know.

Heartwarming, wistful and delightfully quirky, Before the Coffee Gets Cold explores the intersecting lives of four women who come together in one extraordinary café, where the service may not be quick, but the opportunities are endless.]]> 227 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1488077215 Kamilla 5 3.80 2015 Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/19
date added: 2024/09/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life]]> 54744301 A revised and updated edition of Emily Nagoski’s game-changing New York Times bestseller Come As You Are, featuring new information and research on mindfulness, desire, and pleasure that will radically transform your sex life.

For much of the 20th and 21st centuries, women’s sexuality was an uncharted territory in science, studied far less frequently—and far less seriously—than its male counterpart.

That is, until Emily Nagoski’s Come As You Are, which used groundbreaking science and research to prove that the most important factor in creating and sustaining a sex life filled with confidence and joy is not what the parts are or how they’re organized but how you feel about them. In the years since the book’s initial publication, countless women have learned through Nagoski’s accessible and informative guide that things like stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman’s sexual wellbeing; they are central to it—and that even if you don’t always feel like it, you are already sexually whole by just being yourself. This revised and updated edition continues that mission with new information and advanced research, demystifying and decoding the science of sex so that everyone can create a better sex life and discover more pleasure than you ever thought possible.]]> 390 Emily Nagoski Kamilla 0 4.38 2015 Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life
author: Emily Nagoski
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2024/08/13
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]]> We the Animals 12359041 An award-winning novel in stories surrounding a young, half-white, half-Puerto Rican boy grappling with life, love, and identity as he comes of age.

In this groundbreaking debut, Justin Torres plunges us into the chaotic heart of one family, the intense bonds of three brothers, and the mythic effects of this fierce love on the people we must become.

]]> 156 Justin Torres Kamilla 0 3.79 2011 We the Animals
author: Justin Torres
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/11
date added: 2024/08/11
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]]> Horse 59109077 A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

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

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

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

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.]]> 401 Geraldine Brooks 0399562966 Kamilla 0 currently-reading 4.17 2022 Horse
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/08
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]]> Silk: A World History 181110043 304 Aarathi Prasad 0063160250 Kamilla 0 to-read 3.61 Silk: A World History
author: Aarathi Prasad
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.61
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life]]> 50887097 A wondrous debut from an extraordinary new voice in nonfiction, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a dark and astonishing tale of love, chaos, scientific obsession, and—possibly—even murder.

David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake—which sent more than a thousand of his discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered.

Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world.

When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool�a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet.

Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don’t Exist reads like a fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.]]> 225 Lulu Miller Kamilla 0 4.15 2020 Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life
author: Lulu Miller
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/20
date added: 2024/06/20
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]]> There There 37798194 Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.

Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.

Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.]]> 293 Tommy Orange Kamilla 0 3.98 2018 There There
author: Tommy Orange
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/20
date added: 2024/06/20
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]]> <![CDATA[A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II]]> 51153322
The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill's "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and--despite her prosthetic leg--helped to light the flame of the French Resistance, revolutionizing secret warfare as we know it.

Virginia established vast spy networks throughout France, called weapons and explosives down from the skies, and became a linchpin for the Resistance. Even as her face covered wanted posters and a bounty was placed on her head, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped through a death-defying hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown. But she plunged back in, adamant that she had more lives to save, and led a victorious guerilla campaign, liberating swathes of France from the Nazis after D-Day.

Based on new and extensive research, Sonia Purnell has for the first time uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hall--an astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance, and personal triumph over shocking adversity.]]> 368 Sonia Purnell 0735225311 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.19 2019 A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
author: Sonia Purnell
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect]]> 18871601 This informative guide helps you identify and heal from childhood emotional neglect so you can be more connected and emotionally present in your life. Ěý Do you sometimes feel like you’re just going through the motions in life? Do you often act like you’re fine when you secretly feel lonely and disconnected? Perhaps you have a good life and yet somehow it’s not enough to make you happy. Or perhaps you drink too much, eat too much, or risk too much in an attempt to feel something good. If so, you are not alone—and you may be suffering from emotional neglect. Ěý A practicing psychologist for more than twenty years, Jonice Webb has successfully treated numerous patients who come to her believing that something is missing inside them. While many self-help books deal with what happened to you as a child, in Running on Empty, Webb addresses the things that may not have happened for you. What goes unsaid—or what cannot be remembered—can have profound consequences that may be affecting you to this day. ĚýRunning on EmptyĚýwill help you understand your experiences and give you clear strategies for healing. It also includes a special chapter for mental health professionals.]]> 215 Jonice Webb Kamilla 0 currently-reading 4.30 2012 Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect
author: Jonice Webb
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/22
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]]> Diary of a Void 59629744 A prizewinning, thrillingly subversive debut novel about a woman in Japan who avoids harassment at work by perpetuating, for nine months and beyond, the lie that she's pregnant

When thirty-four-year-old Ms. Shibata gets a new job in Tokyo to escape sexual harassment at her old one, she finds that, as the only woman at her new workplace--a company that manufactures cardboard tubes--she is expected to do all the menial tasks. One day she announces that she can't clear away her colleagues' dirty cups--because she's pregnant and the smell nauseates her. The only thing is . . . Ms. Shibata is not pregnant.

Pregnant Ms. Shibata doesn't have to serve coffee to anyone. Pregnant Ms. Shibata isn't forced to work overtime. Pregnant Ms. Shibata rests, watches TV, takes long baths, and even joins an aerobics class for expectant mothers. But pregnant Ms. Shibata also has a nine-month ruse to keep up. Helped along by towel-stuffed shirts and a diary app on which she can log every stage of her "pregnancy," she feels prepared to play the game for the long haul. Before long, though, the hoax becomes all-absorbing, and the boundary between her lie and her life begins to dissolve.

A surreal and wryly humorous cultural critique, Diary of a Void is bound to become a landmark in feminist world literature.]]> 213 Emi Yagi 0143136879 Kamilla 0 currently-reading 3.51 2020 Diary of a Void
author: Emi Yagi
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents]]> 25647824 If you grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or selfish parent, you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, betrayal, or abandonment. You may recall your childhood as a time when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of responsibility in an effort to compensate for your parent’s behavior. These wounds can be healed, and you can move forward in your life.

In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect, and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents� emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you’ll learn how to create positive, new relationships so you can build a better life.

Discover the four types of difficult parents:

The emotional parent instills feelings of instability and anxiety The driven parent stays busy trying to perfect everything and everyone The passive parent avoids dealing with anything upsetting The rejecting parent is withdrawn, dismissive, and derogatory

Ěý

]]> 222 Lindsay C. Gibson Kamilla 5 4.53 2015 Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents
author: Lindsay C. Gibson
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/02
date added: 2024/05/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Dark Horses and Black Beauties: Animals, Women, a Passion]]> 1096486 192 Melissa Holbrook Pierson 0393049477 Kamilla 0 to-read 3.32 2000 Dark Horses and Black Beauties: Animals, Women, a Passion
author: Melissa Holbrook Pierson
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/27
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]]> Normal Women 90590116 In this darkly comic story about how we value female labor—and don’t—a new mother becomes embroiled in a dangerous mystery when her friend, a controversial entrepreneur, goes missing.

When her daughter Lotte was born, Dani had welcomed the chance to be a stay-at-home mother. To be good at something, for once. But now Dani can’t stop thinking about her seemingly healthy husband, Clark, dropping dead. Not because she hates him (not right now, anyway) but because it’s become abundantly clear to Dani that if he dies, she and Lotte will be left destitute.

And then Dani discovers The Temple. Ostensibly a yoga center, The Temple and its guardian, Renata, are committed to helping people reach their full potential. And if that sometimes requires sex work, so be it. Finally, Dani has found something she could be good at, even great at; meaningful work that will protect her and Lotte from poverty, and provide true economic independence from Clark.

Just as Dani is preparing to embrace this opportunity, Renata disappears. And Dani discovers there might be something else she’s good at: detective work.]]> 320 Ainslie Hogarth 0593467043 Kamilla 0 2.96 2023 Normal Women
author: Ainslie Hogarth
name: Kamilla
average rating: 2.96
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/26
date added: 2024/04/26
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]]> On Such a Full Sea 17707526
On Such a Full Sea takes Chang-rae Lee's elegance of prose, his masterly storytelling, and his long-standing interests in identity, culture, work, and love, and lifts them to a new plane. Stepping from the realistic and historical territories of his previous work, Lee brings us into a world created from scratch. Against a vividly imagined future America, Lee tells a stunning, surprising, and riveting story that will change the way readers think about the world they live in.

In a future, long-declining America, society is strictly stratified by class. Long-abandoned urban neighborhoods have been repurposed as highwalled, self-contained labor colonies. And the members of the labor class - descendants of those brought over en masse many years earlier from environmentally ruined provincial China - find purpose and identity in their work to provide pristine produce and fish to the small, elite, satellite charter villages that ring the labor settlement.

In this world lives Fan, a female fish-tank diver, who leaves her home in the B-Mor settlement (once known as Baltimore), when the man she loves mysteriously disappears. Fan's journey to find him takes her out of the safety of B-Mor, through the anarchic Open Counties, where crime is rampant with scant governmental oversight, and to a faraway charter village, in a quest that will soon become legend to those she left behind.]]> 407 Chang-rae Lee 1594486107 Kamilla 3 3.48 2014 On Such a Full Sea
author: Chang-rae Lee
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/26
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]]> <![CDATA[The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT]]> 3250347
ĚýĚýĚý The techniques presented in The Happiness Trap will help readers to:

ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýReduce stress and worry
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýHandle painful feelings and thoughts more effectively
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýBreak self-defeating habits
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýOvercome insecurity and self-doubt
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýCreate a rich, full, and meaningful life]]> 240 Russ Harris 1590305841 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.09 2007 The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT
author: Russ Harris
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity]]> 61153739 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � A groundbreaking manifesto on living better and longer that challenges the conventional medical thinking on aging and reveals a new approach to preventing chronic disease and extending long-term health, from a visionary physician and leading longevity expert

Wouldn’t you like to live longer? And better? In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health.

For all its successes, mainstream medicine has failed to make much progress against the diseases of aging that kill most people: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and type 2 diabetes. Too often, it intervenes with treatments too late to help, prolonging lifespan at the expense of healthspan, or quality of life. Dr. Attia believes we must replace this outdated framework with a personalized, proactive strategy for longevity, one where we take action now, rather than waiting.

This is not “biohacking,� it’s science: a well-founded strategic and tactical approach to extending lifespan while also improving our physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Dr. Attia’s aim is less to tell you what to do and more to help you learn how to think about long-term health, in order to create the best plan for you as an individual. In Outlive, readers will discover:

� Why the cholesterol test at your annual physical doesn’t tell you enough about your actual risk of dying from a heart attack.
� That you may already suffer from an extremely common yet underdiagnosed liver condition that could be a precursor to the chronic diseases of aging.
� Why exercise is the most potent pro-longevity “drug”—and how to begin training for the “Centenarian Decathlon.�
� Why you should forget about diets, and focus instead on nutritional biochemistry, using technology and data to personalize your eating pattern.
� Why striving for physical health and longevity, but ignoring emotional health, could be the ultimate curse of all.

Aging and longevity are far more malleable than we think; our fate is not set in stone. With the right roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before.]]> 496 Peter Attia 0593236599 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.33 2023 Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity
author: Peter Attia
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma]]> 18693771 A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing.

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers' capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain's natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk's own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.]]> 464 Bessel van der Kolk 0670785938 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.36 2014 The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
author: Bessel van der Kolk
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Zen and the Art of Horseback Riding]]> 21220394
This book is about my foray into the magic of the equine world, about my journey of personal growth alongside and astride my beloved ponies, about difficult choices, financial disaster, children who hated horses, and lots of guilt. It is a book dedicated to horses and horse lovers everywhere, people who love the horse for what it is, and not for its grand accomplishments. But it is especially dedicated to a little, non-descript, bay horse named A horse who told me who I was, taught me how to live, and most important, gave me a piece of himself.]]> 125 Mary Anne Donovan 0981706843 Kamilla 4 4.00 2011 Zen and the Art of Horseback Riding
author: Mary Anne Donovan
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/31
date added: 2024/03/31
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]]> An American Marriage 35064848
This stirring love story is a deeply insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward- with hope and pain- into the future.]]> 367 Tayari Jones 1616207604 Kamilla 0 4.09 2018 An American Marriage
author: Tayari Jones
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/02
date added: 2024/03/08
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]]> The Bell Jar 50497294 203 Sylvia Plath Kamilla 5 4.24 1963 The Bell Jar
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1963
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/01
date added: 2024/03/01
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]]> <![CDATA[I Will Teach You to Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. No BS. Just a 6-Week Program That Works]]> 40591670 Ěý
Buy as many lattes as you want. Choose the right accounts and investments so your money grows for you—automatically. Best of all, spend guilt-free on the things you love.
Ěý
Personal finance expert Ramit Sethi has been called a “wealth wizard� by Forbes and the “new guru on the block� by Fortune . Now he’s updated and expanded his modern money classic for a new age, delivering a simple, powerful, no-BS 6-week program that just works.
Ěý
I Will Teach You to Be Rich will show
� How to crush your debt and student loans faster than you thought possible
� How to set up no-fee, high-interest bank accounts that won’t gouge you for every penny
� How Ramit automates his finances so his money goes exactly where he wants it to—and how you can do it too
� How to talk your way out of late fees (with word-for-word scripts)
� How to save hundreds or even thousands per month (and still buy what you love)
� A set-it-and-forget-it investment strategy that’s dead simple and beats financial advisors at their own game
� How to handle buying a car or a house, paying for a wedding, having kids, and other big expenses—stress free
� The exact words to use to negotiate a big raise at work
Ěý
Plus, this 10th anniversary edition features over 80 new pages,
� New tools
� New insights on money and psychology
� Amazing stories of how previous readers used the book to create their rich lives
Ěý
Master your money—and then get on with your life.

Ěý]]> 352 Ramit Sethi 1523505745 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.24 2009 I Will Teach You to Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. No BS. Just a 6-Week Program That Works
author: Ramit Sethi
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/15
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]]> The Year of the Horses 59551334 266 Courtney Maum 1953534155 Kamilla 3 4.02 The Year of the Horses
author: Courtney Maum
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/07
date added: 2024/02/08
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]]> Crying in H Mart 54814676
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band � and meeting the man who would become her husband � her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

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

Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.]]> 243 Michelle Zauner 0525657746 Kamilla 0 4.25 2021 Crying in H Mart
author: Michelle Zauner
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/31
date added: 2024/01/31
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]]> Remarkably Bright Creatures 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]> 368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.35 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/31
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]]> Babel 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.17 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/23
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]]> Piranesi 50202953
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.]]> 272 Susanna Clarke 163557563X Kamilla 0 to-read 4.22 2020 Piranesi
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/02
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]]> World's End 19458911 477 T. Coraghessan Boyle 1101573872 Kamilla 2 4.04 1987 World's End
author: T. Coraghessan Boyle
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1987
rating: 2
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/01/01
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen]]> 112974860 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives—from the author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain

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

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

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

The act of seeing another person, Brooks argues, is profoundly creative: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, and yearning to be understood.]]> 304 David Brooks 059323006X Kamilla 0 to-read 4.09 2023 How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
author: David Brooks
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Bullshit Jobs: A Theory 34466958 From bestselling writer David Graeber, a powerful argument against the rise of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs, and their consequences.

Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.� It went viral. After a million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer.

There are millions of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs.

Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation.]]> 335 David Graeber 150114331X Kamilla 0 to-read 4.03 2018 Bullshit Jobs: A Theory
author: David Graeber
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids]]> 24716225 SIXTEEN LITERARY LUMINARIES ON THE CONTROVERSIAL SUBJECT OF BEING CHILDLESS BY CHOICE, COLLECTED IN ONE FASCINATING ANTHOLOGY

One of the main topics of cultural conversation during the last decade was the supposed “fertility crisis,� and whether modern women could figure out a way to way to have it all—a successful, demanding career and the required 2.3 children—before their biological clock stopped ticking. Now, however, conversation has turned to whether it’s necessary to have it all (see Anne-Marie Slaughter) or, perhaps more controversial, whether children are really a requirement for a fulfilling life. The idea that some women and men prefer not to have children is often met with sharp criticism and incredulity by the public and mainstream media.
ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý In this provocative and controversial collection of essays, curated by writer Meghan Daum, sixteen acclaimed writers explain why they have chosen to eschew parenthood. Contributors include Lionel Shriver, Sigrid Nunez, Kate Christiensen, Elliott Holt, Geoff Dyer, and Tim Kreider, among others, who will give a unique perspective on the overwhelming cultural pressure of parenthood.
ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýSelfish, Shallow, and Self-AbsorbedĚýmakes a thoughtful and passionate case for why parenthood is not the only path in life, taking our parent-centric, kid-fixated, baby-bump-patrolling culture to task in the process. What emerges is a more nuanced, diverse view of what it means to live a full, satisfying life.
]]> 289 Meghan Daum Kamilla 0 3.97 2015 Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids
author: Meghan Daum
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2023/03/01
date added: 2023/12/24
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]]> Trust 58210933 An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception

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

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

At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.]]> 402 Hernan Diaz 0593420314 Kamilla 0 to-read 3.77 2022 Trust
author: Hernan Diaz
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/24
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]]> Beartown (Beartown, #1) 33413128
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.]]> 432 Fredrik Backman Kamilla 0 to-read 4.27 2016 Beartown (Beartown, #1)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> Yellowface 62047984
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 319 R.F. Kuang 000853277X Kamilla 2 3.69 2023 Yellowface
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2023/11/05
date added: 2023/11/05
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]]> <![CDATA[The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality]]> 63946909
Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges was madly in love when his life was shattered by painful heartbreak. But the breakdown that followed illuminated an incontrovertible truth—that love is necessarily imbued with loss, that the one doesn’t exist without the other. German physicist Werner Heisenberg was fighting with the scientific establishment on the meaning of the quantum realm’s absurdity when he had his own epiphany—that there is no such thing as a complete, perfect description of reality. Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant pushed the assumptions of human reason to their mind-bending conclusions, but emerged with an idea that crowned a towering philosophical system—that the human mind has fundamental limits, and those limits undergird both our greatest achievements as well as our missteps.

Through fiction, science, and philosophy, the work of these three thinkers coalesced around the powerful, haunting fact that there is an irreconcilable difference between reality “out there� and reality as we experience it. Out of this profound truth comes a multitude of galvanizing the notion of selfhood, free will, and purpose in human life; the roots of morality, aesthetics, and reason; and the origins and nature of the cosmos itself.

As each of these thinkers shows, every one of us has a fundamentally incomplete picture of the world. But this is to be expected. Only as mortal, finite beings are we able to experience the world in all its richness and breathtaking majesty. We are stranded in a gulf of vast extremes, between the astronomical and the quantum, an abyss of freedom and absolute determinism, and it is in that center where we must make our home. A soaring and lucid reflection on the lives and work of Borges, Heisenberg, and Kant, The Rigor of Angels movingly demonstrates that the mysteries of our place in the world may always loom over us—not as a threat, but as a reminder of our humble humanity.]]> 368 William Egginton 0593316304 Kamilla 0 to-read 4.23 2023 The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality
author: William Egginton
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams]]> 36294636 �Why We Sleep is an important and fascinating book…Walker taught me a lot about this basic activity that every person on Earth needs. I suspect his book will do the same for you.� —Bill Gates

A New York Times bestseller and international sensation, this “stimulating and important book� (Financial Times) is a fascinating dive into the purpose and power of slumber.

With two appearances on CBS This Morning and Fresh Air's most popular interview of 2017, Matthew Walker has made abundantly clear that sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when it is absent. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remains more elusive.

Within the brain, sleep enriches a diversity of functions, including our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge, inspiring creativity.

In this “compelling and utterly convincing� (The Sunday Times) book, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker provides a revolutionary exploration of sleep, examining how it affects every aspect of our physical and mental well-being. Charting the most cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and marshalling his decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, regulate hormones, prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes, slow the effects of aging, and increase longevity. He also provides actionable steps towards getting a better night’s sleep every night.

Clear-eyed, fascinating, and accessible, Why We Sleep is a crucial and illuminating book. Written with the precision of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Sherwin Nuland, it is “recommended for night-table reading in the most pragmatic sense� (The New York Times Book Review).]]> 360 Matthew Walker 1501144332 Kamilla 0 4.44 2017 Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
author: Matthew Walker
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/16
date added: 2023/10/30
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]]> My life with Picasso 21476213 Life with Picasso, her account of those extraordinary years, is filled with intimate and astonishing revelations about the man, his work, his thoughts and his friends - Matisse, Braque, Gertrude Stein and Giacometti, among others. Francois Gilot paints a compelling portrait of her turbulent life with the temperamental (and even abusive) genius that was Picasso. As one of the few intimate witnesses to Picasso as a human being and as an artist, her account of him is invaluable for assessing him on both counts.]]> Françoise Gilot Kamilla 5 4.12 1964 My life with Picasso
author: Françoise Gilot
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1964
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/30
date added: 2023/10/30
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]]> Lady Chatterley's Lover 49583709
With her soft brown hair, lithe figure and big, wondering eyes, Constance Chatterley is possessed of a certain vitality. Yet she is deeply unhappy; married to an invalid, she is almost as inwardly paralyzed as her husband Clifford is paralyzed below the waist. It is not until she finds refuge in the arms of Mellors the game-keeper, a solitary man of a class apart, that she feels regenerated. Together they move from an outer world of chaos towards an inner world of fulfillment.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700Ěýtitles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theĚýseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-dateĚýtranslations by award-winning translators.]]> 400 D.H. Lawrence 014303961X Kamilla 2 3.48 1928 Lady Chatterley's Lover
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1928
rating: 2
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date added: 2023/10/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America]]> 1869
Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.]]> 240 Barbara Ehrenreich 0805063897 Kamilla 3 3.65 2001 Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
author: Barbara Ehrenreich
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/14
date added: 2023/10/14
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]]> Demon Copperhead 60317128 Demon Copperhead is set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. It's the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 550 Barbara Kingsolver Kamilla 0 4.58 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/09/19
date added: 2023/10/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928]]> 20821221 A magnificent new biography that revolutionizes our understandingĚýof Stalin and his world

It has the quality of myth: A poor cobbler’s son, a seminarian from an oppressed outer province of the Russian empire, reinvents himself as a revolutionary and finds a leadership role within a small group of marginal zealots. When the old world is unexpectedly brought down in a total war, the band seizes control of the country, and the new regime it founds as the vanguard of a new world order is ruthlessly dominated from within by the former seminarian until he stands as the absolute ruler of a vast and terrible state apparatus, with dominion over Eurasia. But the largest country in the world is also a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. Shortly after seizing total power, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted: the root-and-branch uprooting and collectivization of agriculture and industry across the entire Soviet Union. To stand up to the capitalists he will force into being an industrialized, militarized, collectivized great power is an act of will. Millions will die, and many more will suffer, but Stalin will push through to the end against all resistance and doubts. Where did such power come from? We think we know the story well. Remarkably, Stephen Kotkin’s epic new biography shows us how much we still have to learn.

The product of a decade of scrupulous and intrepid research, Stalin contains a host of astonishing revelations. Kotkin gives an intimate first-ever view of the Bolshevik regime’s inner geography, bringing to the fore materials from Soviet military intelligence and the secret police. He details Stalin’s invention of a fabricated trial and mass executions as early as 1918, the technique he would later impose across the whole country. The book places Stalin’s momentous decision for collectivization more deeply than ever in the tragic history of imperial Russia. Above all, Kotkin offers a convincing portrait and explanation of Stalin’s monstrous power and of Russian power in the world. Stalin restores a sense of surprise to the way we think about the former Soviet Union, revolution, dictatorship, the twentieth century, and indeed the art of history itself.
]]> 976 Stephen Kotkin 1594203792 Kamilla 3 3.94 Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
author: Stephen Kotkin
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.94
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2020/11/18
date added: 2023/09/29
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Ok so I guess that if I was in academia I would appreciate this much, much more, but for someone who reads for entertainment this was very hard to get through. Very thorough, but at the cost of being so repetitive it was hard to follow.
]]> Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Kamilla 3 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/11
date added: 2023/07/11
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]]> The Guest 62067054
A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she's been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city.

With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways and sun-blasted dunes of a rarified world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to the end of the holidays moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake.]]> 304 Emma Cline 0812998634 Kamilla 4 3.24 2023 The Guest
author: Emma Cline
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/11
date added: 2023/07/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World]]> 6025160 With penetrating insights for today, this vital history of the world economic collapse of the late 1920s offers unforgettable portraits of the four men whose personal and professional actions as heads of their respective central banks changed the course of the twentieth century

It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person’s or government’s control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions taken by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.

In Lords of Finance, we meet the neurotic and enigmatic Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, the xenophobic and suspicious Émile Moreau of the Banque de France, the arrogant yet brilliant Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank, and Benjamin Strong of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose façade of energy and drive masked a deeply wounded and overburdened man. After the First World War, these central bankers attempted to reconstruct the world of international finance. Despite their differences, they were united by a common fear—that the greatest threat to capitalism was inflation� and by a common vision that the solution was to turn back the clock and return the world to the gold standard.

For a brief period in the mid-1920s they appeared to have succeeded. The world’s currencies were stabilized and capital began flowing freely across the globe. But beneath the veneer of boom-town prosperity, cracks started to appear in the financial system. The gold standard that all had believed would provide an umbrella of stability proved to be a straitjacket, and the world economy began that terrible downward spiral known as the Great Depression.

As yet another period of economic turmoil makes headlines today, the Great Depression and the year 1929 remain the benchmark for true financial mayhem. Offering a new understanding of the global nature of financial crises, Lords of Finance is a potent reminder of the enormous impact that the decisions of central bankers can have, of their fallibility, and of the terrible human consequences that can result when they are wrong.]]> 564 Liaquat Ahamed 159420182X Kamilla 2 4.01 2009 Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World
author: Liaquat Ahamed
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2009
rating: 2
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date added: 2023/06/03
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]]> Big Swiss 50361265 A brilliantly original and funny novel about a sex therapist’s transcriptionist who falls in love with a client while listening to her sessions. When they accidentally meet in real life, an explosive affair ensues.

Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house, built in 1737, is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss, since she’s tall, stoic, and originally from Switzerland. Greta is fascinated by Big Swiss’s refreshing attitude toward trauma. They both have dark histories, but Big Swiss chooses to remain unattached to her suffering while Greta continues to be tortured by her past.

One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss’s voice at the dog park. In a panic, she introduces herself with a fake name and they quickly become enmeshed. Although Big Swiss is unaware of Greta’s true identity, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she’ll do anything to sustain the relationship�

Bold, outlandish, and filled with irresistible characters, Big Swiss is both a love story and also a deft examination of infidelity, mental health, sexual stereotypes, and more—from an amazingly talented, one-of-a-kind voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 333 Jen Beagin 1982153105 Kamilla 0 3.62 2023 Big Swiss
author: Jen Beagin
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/05/07
date added: 2023/05/07
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]]> The Travelling Cat Chronicles 40961230
An instant international bestseller and indie bestseller, The Travelling Cat Chronicles has charmed readers around the world. With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe...

With his crooked tail—a sign of good fortune—and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love.]]> 281 Hiro Arikawa 0735235244 Kamilla 3 4.35 2012 The Travelling Cat Chronicles
author: Hiro Arikawa
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2023/04/27
date added: 2023/04/27
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]]> <![CDATA[What Isn't Remembered: Stories]]> 57285703 What Isn’t Remembered explore the burden, the power, and the nature of love between people who often feel misplaced and estranged from their deepest selves and the world, where they cannot find a home. The characters yearn not only to redefine themselves and rebuild their relationships but also to recover lost loves—a parent, a child, a friend, a spouse, a partner.

A young man longs for his mother’s love while grieving the loss of his older brother. A mother’s affair sabotages her relationship with her daughter, causing a lifelong feud between the two. A divorced man struggles to come to terms with his failed marriage and his family’s genocidal past while trying to persuade his father to start cancer treatments. A high school girl feels responsible for the death of her best friend, and the guilt continues to haunt her decades later.

Evocative and lyrical, the tales in What Isn’t Remembered uncover complex events and emotions, as well as the unpredictable ways in which people adapt to what happens in their lives, finding solace from the most surprising and unexpected sources.]]> 266 Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry 1496229134 Kamilla 5 3.93 2021 What Isn't Remembered: Stories
author: Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/15
date added: 2023/03/15
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]]> This Is All I Got 51229737
More than forty-five million Americans attempt to survive under the poverty line, day by day. Nearly 60,000 people sleep in New York City-run shelters every night—forty percent of them children. This Is All I Got makes this issue deeply personal, vividly depicting one woman's hope and despair and her steadfast determination to improve her situation, despite the myriad setbacks she encounters.

Camila is a twenty-two-year-old new mother. She has no family to rely on, no partner, and no home. Despite her intelligence and determination, the odds are firmly stacked against her. Award-winning journalist Lauren Sandler tells the story of a year in Camila's life—from the birth of her son to his first birthday—as she navigates the labyrinth of poverty and homelessness in America. As Camila attempts to secure a college education and a safe place to raise her son, she copes with dashed dreams, failed relationships, and miles of red tape with grit, grace, and resilience.

This Is All I Got is a dramatic story of survival and powerful indictment of a broken system, but it is also a revealing and candid depiction of the relationship between an embedded reporter and her subject and the tricky boundaries to navigate when it's impossible to remain a dispassionate observer.]]> 352 Lauren Sandler 0399589953 Kamilla 4 4.36 2020 This Is All I Got
author: Lauren Sandler
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/15
date added: 2023/03/15
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]]> Vladimir 57452610 A provocative, razor-sharp, and timely debut novel about a beloved English professor facing a slew of accusations against her professor husband by former students—a situation that becomes more complicated when she herself develops an obsession of her own...

“When I was a child, I loved old men, and I could tell that they also loved me.�

And so we are introduced to our deliciously incisive narrator: a popular English professor whose charismatic husband at the same small liberal arts college is under investigation for his inappropriate relationships with his former students. The couple have long had a mutual understanding when it comes to their extra-marital pursuits, but with these new allegations, life has become far less comfortable for them both. And when our narrator becomes increasingly infatuated with Vladimir, a celebrated, married young novelist who’s just arrived on campus, their tinder box world comes dangerously close to exploding.

With this bold, edgy, and uncommonly assured debut, author Julia May Jonas takes us into charged territory, where the boundaries of morality bump up against the impulses of the human heart. Propulsive, darkly funny, and wildly entertaining, Vladimir perfectly captures the personal and political minefield of our current moment, exposing the nuances and the grey area between power and desire.]]> 288 Julia May Jonas 1982187654 Kamilla 0 3.65 2022 Vladimir
author: Julia May Jonas
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/28
date added: 2023/02/28
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]]> Aloft 96352
But everything isn't perfect and for such a nice guy, Jerry could wreak an amazing amount of havoc ...

Life is about to deal Jerry Battle his toughest hand yet. With his ailing father yearning to flee his Care Centre and his son teetering on bankruptcy, and, for once, no woman in his life to rely on, Jerry's daughter is about to bestow on him a father's worst nightmare. But maybe Jerry Battle needs to finally work out what it is that separates him from his loved ones and be tugged back to earth to engage with his family.]]> 352 Chang-rae Lee 0747572488 Kamilla 4 3.58 2004 Aloft
author: Chang-rae Lee
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/23
date added: 2023/02/23
shelves:
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This was a really good book. The style was a little too poetic at times but I really liked the main character, who had a lot of flaws and good side to him, and that it was about someone reaching the later stages of life rather than a coming of age story, which seems to be 90% of fiction.
]]> A Man Called Otto 63911372 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.� But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents� association to their very foundations.]]> 346 Fredrik Backman Kamilla 0 4.54 2012 A Man Called Otto
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/13
date added: 2023/02/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories]]> 218659 Everything That Rises Must Converge at the time of her death. This collection is an exquisite legacy from a genius of the American short story, in which she scrutinizes territory familiar to her readers: race, faith, and morality. The stories encompass the comic and the tragic, the beautiful and the grotesque; each carries her highly individual stamp and could have been written by no one else.]]> 269 Flannery O'Connor Kamilla 3 4.25 1965 Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories
author: Flannery O'Connor
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1965
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/27
date added: 2023/01/27
shelves:
review:
These are actually really good short stories individually, but as a collection they were too similar. The ending is always depressing and stops being surprising after you notice the patter of the first few.
]]> Memoirs of a Revolutionist 802268 504 Pyotr Kropotkin 0921689187 Kamilla 0 4.23 1899 Memoirs of a Revolutionist
author: Pyotr Kropotkin
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1899
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/27
date added: 2023/01/27
shelves:
review:

]]> The Book of Goose 60197744 Winner of the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Long-listed for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction

A New York Times Book Review Editors� Choice
A Slate Top Ten Book of the Year
A TIME Best Fiction Book of 2022

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Los Angeles Review of Books, Financial Times, San Francisco Chronicle, LitHub, Buzzfeed, and more.

A magnificent, beguiling tale winding from the postwar rural provinces to Paris, from an English boarding school to the quiet Pennsylvania home where a woman can live without her past, The Book of Goose is a story of disturbing intimacy and obsession, of exploitation and strength of will, by the celebrated author Yiyun Li.

Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised—the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now Agnès is free to tell her story.

As children in a war-ravaged backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves—until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss.]]> 320 Yiyun Li 0374606358 Kamilla 4 3.85 2022 The Book of Goose
author: Yiyun Li
name: Kamilla
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/01/01
shelves:
review:

]]> A Live Coal in the Sea 34440118 A family’s deepest secrets are exposed in this “haunting domestic drama� from the award-winning author of A Wrinkle in Time (Publishers Weekly).
Ěý
When her teenage granddaughter comes to her with a troubling question, Camilla Dickinson must confront the painful history she’s long kept hidden. Forced to relive her past, she relates a complex saga involving her beautiful, adulterous mother, her troubled son, and the difficult choices that have affected three generations of her family.
Ěý
As she goes through the difficult process of revealing her secrets, Camilla also lets go of the burden of lies she’s told. A testament to the power of acceptance and forgiveness, A Live Coal in the Sea is ultimately an exploration of the lengths to which people will go for love—and the things they’ll do to protect family.
Ěý
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Madeleine L’Engle including rare images from the author’s estate.]]> 355 Madeleine L'Engle Kamilla 1 4.11 1996 A Live Coal in the Sea
author: Madeleine L'Engle
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1996
rating: 1
read at: 2022/12/23
date added: 2022/12/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science]]> 55867888
FromĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author Sam Kean comes the gripping, untold history of science's darkest secrets, “a fascinating book [that]Ěýdeserves a wide audienceâ€� (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Science is a force for good in the world—at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process.

The Icepick Surgeon masterfully guides the reader across two thousand years of history, beginning with Cleopatra’s dark deeds in ancient Egypt. The book reveals the origins of much of modern science in the transatlantic slave trade of the 1700s, as well as Thomas Edison’s mercenary support of the electric chair and the warped logic of the spies who infiltrated the Manhattan Project. But the sins of science aren’t all safely buried in the past. Many of them, Kean reminds us, still affect us today. We can draw direct lines from the medical abuses of Tuskegee and Nazi Germany to current vaccine hesitancy, and connect icepick lobotomies from the 1950s to the contemporary failings of mental-health care. Kean even takes us into the future, when advanced computers and genetic engineering could unleash whole new ways to do one anotherĚýwrong.

Unflinching, and exhilarating to the last page, The Icepick Surgeon fuses the drama of scientific discovery with the illicit thrill of a true-crime tale. With his trademark wit and precision, Kean shows that, while science has done more good than harm in the world, rogue scientists do exist, and when we sacrifice morals for progress, we often end up with neither.]]> 368 Sam Kean 0316496502 Kamilla 0 4.00 2021 The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science
author: Sam Kean
name: Kamilla
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/28
date added: 2022/12/28
shelves:
review:

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