Andy's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 20 Apr 2025 17:03:36 -0700 60 Andy's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Mirror & the Light (Thomas Cromwell, #3)]]> 54860229 The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with her peerless, Booker Prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.

The story begins in May 1536: Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour.

Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to the breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and religious reform. But as fortune’s wheel turns, Cromwell’s enemies are gathering in the shadows. The inevitable question remains: how long can anyone survive under Henry’s cruel and capricious gaze?

Eagerly awaited and eight years in the making, The Mirror & the Light completes Cromwell’s journey from self-made man to one of the most feared, influential figures of his time. Portrayed by Mantel with pathos and terrific energy, Cromwell is as complex as he is unforgettable: a politician and a fixer, a husband and a father, a man who both defied and defined his age.]]> 759 Hilary Mantel 1250182492 Andy 0 currently-reading 4.38 2020 The Mirror & the Light (Thomas Cromwell, #3)
author: Hilary Mantel
name: Andy
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Twits 31456 96 Roald Dahl 0141318309 Andy 0 will-readalongs 3.97 1980 The Twits
author: Roald Dahl
name: Andy
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: will-readalongs
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Berenstain Bears and the Blame Game]]> 32300
Come for a visit in Bear Country with this classic First Time Book® from Stan and Jan Berenstain. Papa and Mama have had it with Brother and Sister constantly blaming each other for everything. Will the cubs ever learn to accept responsibility, or will they just keep playing the blame game? Includes over 50 bonus stickers!]]> 32 Stan Berenstain 0679887431 Andy 0 will-readalongs 3.88 1997 The Berenstain Bears and the Blame Game
author: Stan Berenstain
name: Andy
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: will-readalongs
review:

]]> Hop On Pop 206962
By combining the funniest stories, craziest creatures and zaniest pictures with his unique blend of rhyme, rhythm and repetition, Dr. Seuss helps children of all ages and abilities learn to read.]]> 64 Dr. Seuss 0007158491 Andy 0 will-readalongs 4.04 1963 Hop On Pop
author: Dr. Seuss
name: Andy
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: will-readalongs
review:

]]> Hats Are Not for Cats! 40796143
A Ěýbig, severe, plaid-hat-wearing dogĚýinsists that the small black cat in the red fez shouldn't be wearing a hat—any kind of hat—because hats are for dogs. His patronizing tirade doesn’t convince thisĚýcat, however. Defiantly, sheĚýwears an assortment of hats, described in the gleeful rhyming text, and brings in other cats to join the protest. The silliness of both text and pictures offers a cheerful take on bossiness and managing conflict, with a win-win resolution.]]> 32 Jacqueline K. Rayner 1328967190 Andy 0 will-readalongs 3.80 2019 Hats Are Not for Cats!
author: Jacqueline K. Rayner
name: Andy
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: will-readalongs
review:

]]> Eloise 782854
Eloise is a very special little girl who lives at The Plaza Hotel in New York City. She may not be pretty yet, but she’s definitely already a real person. She loves learning about people who aren’t boring. Take Eloise home with you and she’ll introduce you to life at The Plaza. You’ll be glad you did!]]> 65 Kay Thompson 067122350X Andy 0 will-readalongs 4.17 1955 Eloise
author: Kay Thompson
name: Andy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1955
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: will-readalongs
review:

]]> In the Night Kitchen 95144 40 Maurice Sendak 0099417472 Andy 0 will-readalongs 3.99 1970 In the Night Kitchen
author: Maurice Sendak
name: Andy
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: will-readalongs
review:

]]> Where the Wild Things Are 19543 38 Maurice Sendak 0099408392 Andy 0 will-readalongs 4.25 1963 Where the Wild Things Are
author: Maurice Sendak
name: Andy
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: will-readalongs
review:

]]> Dim Sum, Here We Come! 60788089 From author-illustrator Maple Lam comes a new picture book about a Chinese American girl and her younger sister as they attend their weekly dim sum family gathering. A celebration of the traditional Chinese customs passed on from generation to generation: togetherness, love, family--and FOOD!

Today is Sunday and that means its dim sum time with my whole family! I can't wait to see everyone, especially Grandma.

I'm going to eat lots of shrimp dumplings, rice noodle rolls, egg tarts, and my favorite--char siu buns. We will have to order enough for us all to share.

So what are you waiting for? Dim sum, here we come!]]> 40 Maple Lam 0062396986 Andy 0 will-readalongs 4.06 2023 Dim Sum, Here We Come!
author: Maple Lam
name: Andy
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: will-readalongs
review:

]]> The Butter Battle Book 355653 52 Dr. Seuss 0001950061 Andy 0 will-readalongs 4.14 1984 The Butter Battle Book
author: Dr. Seuss
name: Andy
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: will-readalongs
review:

]]> The Strange 61463077 1931, New Galveston, Fourteen-year-old Anabelle Crisp sets off through the wastelands of the Strange to find Silas Mundt’s gang who have stolen her mother’s voice, destroyed her father, and left her solely with a need for vengeance.

Since Anabelle’s mother left for Earth to care for her own ailing mother, her days in New Galveston have been spent at school and her nights at her laconic father’s diner with Watson, the family Kitchen Engine and dishwasher as her only companion. When the Silence came, and communication and shipments from Earth to its colonies on Mars stopped, life seemed stuck in foreboding stasis until the night Silas Mundt and his gang attacked.

At once evoking the dreams of an America explored in Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and the harder realities of frontier life in Charles Portis True Grit, Ballingrud’s novel is haunting in its evocation of Anabelle’s quest for revenge amidst a spent and angry world accompanied by a domestic Engine, a drunken space pilot, and the toughest woman on Mars.

Nathan Ballingrud’s stories have been adapted into the film Wounds and the Hulu series Monsterland, The Strange is his first novel.]]> 304 Nathan Ballingrud 1534449973 Andy 3 4.02 2023 The Strange
author: Nathan Ballingrud
name: Andy
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell]]> 43315536
In his first collection, North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud carved out a distinctly singular place in American fiction with his “piercing and merciless� (Toronto Globe and Mail) portrayals of the monsters that haunt our lives—both real and imagined: “What Nathan Ballingrud does in North American Lake Monsters is to reinvigorate the horror tradition� (Los Angeles Review of Books).

Now, in Wounds, Ballingrud follows up with an even more confounding, strange, and utterly entrancing collection of six stories, including one new novella. From the eerie dread descending upon a New Orleans dive bartender after a cell phone is left behind in a rollicking bar fight in “The Visible Filth� to the search for the map of hell in “The Butcher’s Table,� Ballingrud’s beautifully crafted stories are riveting in their quietly terrifying depictions of the murky line between the known and the unknown.]]> 289 Nathan Ballingrud 1534449949 Andy 5 4.22 2019 Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell
author: Nathan Ballingrud
name: Andy
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:
Another wonderful collection of viscera, weirdly beautiful at the reveal. Ballingrud's love of Barker shines through in the pilgrimages to hell and in the sleazy, ill feeling of New Orleans at two AM.
]]> <![CDATA[The Hobbit (The Lord of the Rings, #0)]]> 49392853
Smaug certainly looked fast asleep, almost dead and dark, with scarcely a snore more than a whiff of unseen steam, when Bilbo peeped once more from the entrance. He was just about to step out on to the floor when he caught a sudden thin and piercing ray of red from under the drooping lid of Smaug’s left eye. He was only pretending to sleep! He was watching the tunnel entrance!

Whisked away from his comfortable, unambitious life in his hobbit-hole in Bag End by Gandalf the wizard and a band of dwarves, Bilbo Baggins finds himself caught up in a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon. Although quite reluctant to take part in this quest, Bilbo surprises even himself by his resourcefulness and his skill as a burglar!

The text of this edition has been fully corrected and revised in collaboration with Christopher Tolkien and is accompanied by a wealth of beautiful watercolour paintings and delicate pencil drawings from Alan Lee.]]> 307 J.R.R. Tolkien 0008376115 Andy 5
1. The Dwarves get thirteen different voices and none of them can be told apart except for Thorin (the tough one), Fili/Kili (the young ones), and Bombur (the fat one).
2. Tolkien's writing style is easy to read past with a dash of mental sepia, but his unique subject/object organization caused me to stumble aloud. These sentences really need to be parsed out if you're reading them to an audience!
3. Poor old fat Bombur really gets roasted! In a modern retelling, he would be on semaglutides and recognized instead for his buoyant and forgiving good nature.
4. Andy Serkis deserved however many awards he won for those movies, plus the Arkenstone; doing the Gollum voice for a whole chapter blasted the skin off my larynx.]]> 4.53 1937 The Hobbit (The Lord of the Rings, #0)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Andy
average rating: 4.53
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:
In reading The Hobbit aloud to a hobbit-sized critical audience, new facets of the story make themselves clear to me:

1. The Dwarves get thirteen different voices and none of them can be told apart except for Thorin (the tough one), Fili/Kili (the young ones), and Bombur (the fat one).
2. Tolkien's writing style is easy to read past with a dash of mental sepia, but his unique subject/object organization caused me to stumble aloud. These sentences really need to be parsed out if you're reading them to an audience!
3. Poor old fat Bombur really gets roasted! In a modern retelling, he would be on semaglutides and recognized instead for his buoyant and forgiving good nature.
4. Andy Serkis deserved however many awards he won for those movies, plus the Arkenstone; doing the Gollum voice for a whole chapter blasted the skin off my larynx.
]]> 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 Andy 5
I see in the poor reviews a recurring complaint about 'dark academia' expectations. I don't have TikTok so I probably missed having certain genre or theme expectations, and I loved it. I'd therefore advise going in blank, with an open mind!]]> 4.17 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Andy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:
From time to time I stumble across something so well-researched and meticulously put together that I sink all my time in looking up the references, and barely approach the story. This is just such a book. Babel flourishes in the margins between actual historical 19th-century industrial struggle and the fantastic, even - especially! - when the linguistic and historical footnotes might send you off to Wikipedia for the evening.

I see in the poor reviews a recurring complaint about 'dark academia' expectations. I don't have TikTok so I probably missed having certain genre or theme expectations, and I loved it. I'd therefore advise going in blank, with an open mind!
]]> Liberation Day 60471573 Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose--wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned--Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.

Love Letter is a tender missive from grandfather to grandson, in the midst of a dystopian political situation in the not-too-distant future, that reminds us of our obligations to our ideals, ourselves, and each other. Ghoul is set in a Hell-themed section of an underground amusement park in Colorado, and follows the exploits of a lonely, morally complex character named Brian, who comes to question everything he takes for granted about his "reality." In Mother's Day, two women who loved the same man come to an existential reckoning in the middle of a hailstorm. And in Elliott Spencer, our eighty-nine-year-old protagonist finds himself brainwashed--his memory "scraped"--a victim of a scheme in which poor, vulnerable people are reprogrammed and deployed as political protesters.

Together, these nine subversive, profound, and essential stories coalesce into a case for viewing the world with the same generosity and clear-eyed attention as Saunders does, even in the most absurd of circumstances.]]> 256 George Saunders 0525509593 Andy 0 currently-reading 3.99 2022 Liberation Day
author: George Saunders
name: Andy
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> A Place of Greater Safety 101921 749 Hilary Mantel 0312426399 Andy 0 to-read 3.98 1992 A Place of Greater Safety
author: Hilary Mantel
name: Andy
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Human Stain 33414252
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 40 Kelly Robson 0765392798 Andy 3 3.50 2017 A Human Stain
author: Kelly Robson
name: Andy
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell, #2)]]> 58111604 New York Times bestseller, Wolf Hall delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn

Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice.

At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head? ]]> 433 Hilary Mantel Andy 5 4.56 2012 Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell, #2)
author: Hilary Mantel
name: Andy
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves:
review:

]]> I Cheerfully Refuse 198331551 I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of Rainy, an aspiring musician setting sail on Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. An endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, he seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs, and remote islands of the inland sea. After encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, he eventually lands to find an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, a crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society. As his guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy’s private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his wake.]]> 322 Leif Enger 0802162959 Andy 4 4.19 2024 I Cheerfully Refuse
author: Leif Enger
name: Andy
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Last Days 4309446 Last Days is a down-the-rabbit-hole detective novel set in an underground religious cult. The story follows Kline, a brutally dismembered detective forcibly recruited to solve a murder inside the cult. As Kline becomes more deeply involved with the group, he begins to realize the stakes are higher than he previously thought. Attempting to find his way through a maze of lies, threats, and misinformation, Kline discovers that his survival depends on an act of sheer will.

Last Days was first published in 2003 as a limited edition novella titled The Brotherhood of Mutilation. Its success led Evenson to expand the story into a full-length novel. In doing so, he has created a work that’s disturbing, deeply satisfying, and completely original.]]> 201 Brian Evenson 0980226007 Andy 0 to-read 3.71 2009 Last Days
author: Brian Evenson
name: Andy
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Wyrd and Other Derelictions 54374692 106 Adam L.G. Nevill 1916344429 Andy 5
Even when the stories themselves didn't strike me, the sheer novelty of the approach makes Wyrd worth reading.]]> 3.77 2020 Wyrd and Other Derelictions
author: Adam L.G. Nevill
name: Andy
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves:
review:
Unlike any traditional horror I've read. These are descriptions of scenes, shells with the inhabitants removed, allowing the reader to ask why and how the scene became a *haunt*. The seven stories can't really be called stories; remove the human and there is no plot, no struggle, no arc, no motivator, etc. The perspective itself unnerves, as it flies up hills and through villages, ignoring mortal constraints like feet, described by a narrator which is unaffected by the calamities and will presumably exist in vacant spaces forever after the dereliction ends, doing nothing but existing.

Even when the stories themselves didn't strike me, the sheer novelty of the approach makes Wyrd worth reading.
]]> His Black Tongue 59938773
Dead things have been found in the fields of Enfaire, a God-fearing town north of Reams. Not just dead things but twisted forms� unholy shapes. And there are rumours, too—of a blasphemous union and of fell creatures that haunt the night. Yet, even as plague and witch pyres blacken the sky, the town remains untouched by the malady that has already claimed thousands and will claim thousands more.

It is here, in Enfaire, that an old Franciscan friar and his ward take shelter from a storm. It is here, in a little town on the edge of civilization, that they will have their faith truly tested.

His Black Tongue is a tale of medieval horror, plunging the reader into the plague-torn land of 14th century France, when pestilence and death walked hand-in-hand, and life was little more than a sputtering candle, waiting to be put out. But there are worse things than death, than sickness and decay� and it comes upon leathery black wings.

Includes The Bone Fields novella and the short stories The Knights of the Non-Euclidean Table and Necropolis.]]> 256 Mitchell LĂĽthi Andy 3
Weirdly, the title story was the weakest to me, the least creepy. There's a long fight scene among some characters we don't really care about, with no stakes because we don't care about them, after a leadup of beautiful doom. The following novellas do a better job of investing hopes in their narrators.

The day/night cycles that wheeled Pilgrim are again strong: in nearly all of these tales, you can expect the narrator to be safe in light and hunted in insane ways when the moon rises. LĂĽthi is either well-read or well-researched on each of the historical settings his narrators struggle to overcome, which fleshes out the story immensely. He does a wonderful job setting the stage.

Overall this is a fun, spooky read, carried by LĂĽthi's ability to create scenes. I'd recommend his Pilgrim first (it's really phenomenal) but His Black Tongue has a share of unnerving moments.]]> 3.45 2021 His Black Tongue
author: Mitchell LĂĽthi
name: Andy
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves:
review:
I recommend this book! It's not one story, as I misunderstood from the blurb. I'm guilty of buying it without knowing what was in it because I loved Pilgrim so much.

Weirdly, the title story was the weakest to me, the least creepy. There's a long fight scene among some characters we don't really care about, with no stakes because we don't care about them, after a leadup of beautiful doom. The following novellas do a better job of investing hopes in their narrators.

The day/night cycles that wheeled Pilgrim are again strong: in nearly all of these tales, you can expect the narrator to be safe in light and hunted in insane ways when the moon rises. LĂĽthi is either well-read or well-researched on each of the historical settings his narrators struggle to overcome, which fleshes out the story immensely. He does a wonderful job setting the stage.

Overall this is a fun, spooky read, carried by LĂĽthi's ability to create scenes. I'd recommend his Pilgrim first (it's really phenomenal) but His Black Tongue has a share of unnerving moments.
]]> <![CDATA[Stormwarden (The Cycle of Fire, #1)]]> 57370647 Janny Wurts Andy 0 currently-reading 3.77 1984 Stormwarden (The Cycle of Fire, #1)
author: Janny Wurts
name: Andy
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Cycle of Fire: The Complete Series]]> 57356285 Now in one volume: three novels in the "epic tale mixing fantasy and SF . . . full of action, splendid scenes of magic and engaging secondary characters" (Publishers Weekly).

Stormwarden

A young girl, her brother, and a Firelord's descendant are caught up in the rescue of the Stormwarden Anskiere--and the unbinding of the demons that could destroy all of humanity.

Keeper of the Keys

As Jaric struggles to accept his father's heritage, Taen's brother is possessed by the demons who use him as a pawn to hunt down and slay the Firelord's heir.

Shadowfane

Jaric faces the Cycle of Fire that drove his father to madness, while Taen Dreamweaver is targeted by her brother and his demon overlords, psionically endowed aliens who have been revealed as mankind's ancient conquerors.

Praise for Janny Wurts

"Janny Wurts builds beautiful castles in the air. . . . Every detail is richly imagined and vividly rendered." --Diana Gabaldon

"A gifted creator of wonders." --Raymond E. Feist

"It ought to be illegal for one person to have this much talent." --Stephen R. Donaldson]]> 1082 Janny Wurts 1504066324 Andy 0 currently-reading 4.39 1999 The Cycle of Fire: The Complete Series
author: Janny Wurts
name: Andy
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Revenge 16032127 Yoko Ogawa.

An aspiring writer moves into a new apartment and discovers that her landlady has murdered her husband. Years later, the writer’s stepson reflects upon his stepmother and the strange stories she used to tell him. Meanwhile, a surgeon’s lover vows to kill him if he does not leave his wife. Before she can follow-through on her crime of passion, though, the surgeon will cross paths with another remarkable woman, a cabaret singer whose heart beats delicately outside of her body. But when the surgeon promises to repair her condition, he sparks the jealousy of another man who would like to preserve the heart in a custom tailored bag. Murderers and mourners, mothers and children, lovers and innocent bystanders—their fates converge in a darkly beautiful web that they are each powerless to escape.

Macabre, fiendishly clever, and with a touch of the supernatural, Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge creates a haunting tapestry of death—and the afterlife of the living.]]> 162 Yōko Ogawa Andy 5 3.91 1998 Revenge
author: YĹŤko Ogawa
name: Andy
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves:
review:
Each story is meticulously inlaid with the others, making a reread necessary.
]]> <![CDATA[The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)]]> 217313011
In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

By an “endlessly inventive� (Vulture) author with a “wicked sense of humor� (NPR), The Tainted Cup mixes the charms of detective fiction with brilliant world-building to deliver a fiendishly clever mystery that’s at once instantly recognizable and thrillingly new.]]> 432 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820710 Andy 0 to-read 4.36 2024 The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Andy
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Before You Wake: Three Horrors]]> 36007045 66 Adam L.G. Nevill Andy 5 3.53 2017 Before You Wake: Three Horrors
author: Adam L.G. Nevill
name: Andy
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
review:
Sweet variety in this collection - one simply unnerving, one of dark justice, and one portrait of despair and half-seen things in the small hours.
]]> House of Windows 53752668 The haunting debut novel by the Bram Stoker Award-winning author—“think Henry James and Joyce Carol Oates with just a few paragraphs of Joe Lansdaleâ€� (Tor.com). Ěý For the last few years, Veronica Croydon has been at the center of scandal, first as the younger woman for whom her famous professor left his wife, and then as his apparent widow. When a writer staying at the same vacation home as Veronica has the chance to hear her story, he jumps at it. What follows takes him to the dark heart of a father's troubled relationship with his only son, in a story that stretches from the Hudson Valley to Afghanistan; and from post-9/11 America to Victorian England. ĚýHouse of WindowsĚýis a haunting exploration of a marriage under strain from forces both psychological and paranormal. With its combination of literary complexity and chilling supernatural violence, it is widely considered a masterpiece of contemporary horror fiction. ĚýNew introduction by Adam NevillReading Group Guide included Ěý“John Langan is a writer of superb literary horror. BothĚýHouse of WindowsĚýandĚýThe FishermanĚýare dark and unsettling contemporary masterpieces.â€� —Peter Straub,ĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author]]> 460 John Langan Andy 3 3.79 2009 House of Windows
author: John Langan
name: Andy
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
review:
A very slow burn with interesting allusions throughout, but ultimately the friendly criticism Langan mentions postscript is true: "it was a good book, but a typical first novel, in which the writer tries to fit in everything they can between its covers."
]]> Piranesi 52702097
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.]]> 246 Susanna Clarke Andy 4 4.24 2020 Piranesi
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Andy
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/13
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell]]> 55405181
A sentient, murderous prosthetic leg; shadowy creatures lurking behind a shimmering wall; brutal barrow of all the terrors that populate The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell, perhaps the most alarming are the beings who decimated the habitable humans. In this new short story collection, Brian Evenson envisions a chilling future beyond the Anthropocene that forces excruciating decisions about survival and self-sacrifice in the face of toxic air and a natural world torn between revenge and regeneration. Combining psychological and ecological horror, each tale thrums with Evenson’s award-winning literary craftsmanship, dark humor, and thrilling suspense.]]> 254 Brian Evenson 1566896150 Andy 5 4.08 2021 The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell
author: Brian Evenson
name: Andy
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves:
review:
Well, Evenson did it again. Each tale is precise, terse, delivered with brutal efficiency of language to apply maximum tension in the barest text. These are 100-proof shots of goosebumps, lined in a row. "Myling Kommer" and "Justle" were specifically unnerving to me.
]]> Written on the Dark 218153843 From the internationally bestselling author of Tigana, All the Seas of the World, and A Brightness Long Ago comes a majestic new novel of love and war that brilliantly evokes the drama and turbulence of medieval France.

Thierry Villar is a well-known--even notorious-- tavern poet, familiar with the rogues and shadows of that world, but not at all with courts and power. He is an unlikely person, despite his quickness, to be caught up in the deadly contests of ambitious royals, assassins, and invading armies.

But he is indeed drawn into all these things on a savagely cold night in his beloved city of Orane. And so Thierry must use all the intelligence and charm he can muster as political struggles merge with a decades-long war to bring his country to the brink of destruction.

As he does, he meets his poetic equal in an aristocratic woman and is drawn to more than one unsettling person with a connection to the world beyond this one. He also crosses paths with an extraordinary young woman driven by voices within to try to heal the ailing king--and help his forces in war. A wide and varied set of people from all walks of life take their places in the rich tapestry of this story.

A new masterwork from the internationally bestselling author of All the Seas of the World, A Brightness Long Ago, and Tigana, Written on the Dark is an elegant tour de force about power and ambition playing out amid the intense human need for art and beauty, and memories to be left behind.]]> 320 Guy Gavriel Kay 0593953983 Andy 0 to-read 4.46 2025 Written on the Dark
author: Guy Gavriel Kay
name: Andy
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fall of NĂşmenor: And Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth]]> 61141847
J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a "dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told." And for many years readers would need to be content with the tantalizing glimpses of it found within the pages of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, including the forging of the Rings of Power, the building of the Barad-dûr and the rise of Sauron.

It was not until Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion after his father’s death that a fuller story could be told. Although much of the book’s content concerned the First Age of Middle-earth, there were at its close two key works that revealed the tumultuous events concerning the rise and fall of the island of Númenor. Raised out of the Great Sea and gifted to the Men of Middle-earth as a reward for aiding the angelic Valar and the Elves in the defeat and capture of the Dark Lord Morgoth, the kingdom became a seat of influence and wealth; but as the Númenóreans� power increased, the seed of their downfall would inevitably be sown, culminating in the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.

Even greater insight into the Second Age would be revealed in subsequent publications, first in Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, then expanded upon in Christopher Tolkien’s magisterial twelve-volume The History of Middle-earth, in which he presented and discussed a wealth of further tales written by his father, many in draft form.

Now, adhering to the timeline of "The Tale of Years" in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, editor Brian Sibley has assembled into one comprehensive volume a new chronicle of the Second Age of Middle-earth, told substantially in the words of Tolkien from the various published texts, with new illustrations in watercolor and pencil by the doyen of Tolkien art, Alan Lee.]]> 336 J.R.R. Tolkien Andy 4 4.26 2022 The Fall of NĂşmenor: And Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Andy
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Thousandfold Thought (The Prince of Nothing, #3)]]> 43670655 All opposition to the man once derided as the Prince of Nothing has vanished or been vanquished. Their leaders slain, the heathen Fanim have fled in disarray. One final march will bring the Holy War to the fabled city of Shimeh. But so very much has changed. Anasurimbor Kellhus, the Warrior-Prophet, now leads the Men of the Tusk. The cuckolded sorcerer Achamian serves as his tutor, betraying his school to keep safe the man he believes can prevent the Second Apocalypse. The Scylvendi barbarian, Cnaiur, succumbs finally to madness. The Consult, sensing the endgame of millennia of planning, work frantically to prepare for the coming of the No-God. The final reckoning is at hand. Faceless assassins will strike in the dead of night. Kings and Emperors will fall. The sorcerous Schools will be unleashed. And Anasurimbor Kellhus will at last confront his father and the dread revelation of the Thousandfold Thought.]]> 629 R. Scott Bakker Andy 5 4.14 2006 The Thousandfold Thought (The Prince of Nothing, #3)
author: R. Scott Bakker
name: Andy
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/22
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
review:
The struggle of memory and of each character's yearning to their earlier selves, juxtaposed against an antagonist which can mime identity and a sociopath protagonist seeking to extract it, makes this series far more intricate than the page count would suggest.
]]> <![CDATA[The Warrior Prophet (The Prince of Nothing, #2)]]> 43747509 The first battle against the heathen has been won, but while the Great Names plot and squabble over the spoils, Kellhus patiently extends his influence, drawing more followers to his banner. The sorcerer Achamian and his lover, Esmenet, submit entirely, only to have their faith tested in unimaginable ways. The warrior Cnaiur falls ever deeper into madness. The skin-spies of the Consult watch with growing trepidation. And as the vast host of the Holy War endures its sternest test in the searing wastes of the desert, a name - a title - begins to be whispered amongst the faithful. But who is the Warrior-Prophet: a dangerous heretic, who turns brother against brother? Or the only man who can avert the Second Apocalypse? The Holy War stands on a knife edge. If all is not to be lost the great powers will have to choose between their most desperate desires and their most ingrained prejudice. Between hatred and hope. Between the Warrior-Prophet and the end of the world...]]> 687 R. Scott Bakker Andy 5 4.37 2004 The Warrior Prophet (The Prince of Nothing, #2)
author: R. Scott Bakker
name: Andy
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves:
review:
No spoilers, but there is one event at the end of the book that stretches credulity. I went around the internet to find out what fans thought about how an otherwise explained story jumps into the blue to resolve a plot point. When you reach this point, check out the Wikipedia page for the siege of Antioch in 1098.
]]> The Bewitching 220458657 Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

“Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches�: That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva—stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.

In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.

Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.]]> 368 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0593874323 Andy 0 to-read 4.35 2025 The Bewitching
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Andy
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Devils (The Devils #1) 212276037 A brand-new epic fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Joe Abercrombie, featuring a notorious band of anti-heroes on a delightfully bloody and raucous journey

Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds.

Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.

Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side]]> 560 Joe Abercrombie 125088005X Andy 0 to-read 4.43 2025 The Devils (The Devils #1)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Andy
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan, #2)]]> 213618143 The brilliant detective Ana Dolabra may have finally met her match in the gripping sequel to The Tainted Cup—from the bestselling author of The Founders Trilogy.

In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire’s reach, an impossible crime has occurred. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air—abducted from his quarters while the door and windows remained locked from the inside, in a building whose entrances and exits are all under constant guard.

To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial investigator, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol.

Before long, Ana’s discovered that they’re not investigating a disappearance, but a murder—and that the killing was just the first chess move by an adversary who seems to be able to pass through warded doors like a ghost, and who can predict every one of Ana’s moves as though they can see the future.

Worse still, the killer seems to be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud. Here, the Empire's greatest minds dissect fallen Titans to harness the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the destruction would be terrible indeed—and the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn.

Din has seen Ana solve impossible cases before. But this time, with the stakes higher than ever and Ana seemingly a step behind their adversary at every turn, he fears that his superior has finally met an enemy she can’t defeat.]]> 465 Robert Jackson Bennett 0593723821 Andy 0 to-read 4.55 2025 A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan, #2)
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Andy
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Darkness That Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing, #1)]]> 43618803 Strikingly original in its conception, ambitious in scope, with characters engrossingly and vividly drawn, the first book in R. Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing series creates a remarkable world from whole cloth-its language and classes of people, its cities, religions, mysteries, taboos, and rituals-the kind of all-embracing universe Tolkien and Herbert created unforgettably in the epic fantasies The Lord of the Rings and Dune. It's a world scarred by an apocalyptic past, evoking a time both two thousand years past and two thousand years into the future, as untold thousands gather for a crusade. Among them, two men and two women are ensnared by a mysterious traveler, Anasûrimbor Kellhus—part warrior, part philosopher, part sorcerous, charismatic presence—from lands long thought dead. The Darkness That Comes Before is a history of this great holy war, and like all histories, the survivors write its conclusion.]]> 657 R. Scott Bakker Andy 5
Re-read #1 - there are about ten million things I missed the first time while foundering to place the names and factions on a map. It's a phenomenally dense book. A throwaway line in the Khanate-analogue character's PoV tells us how the Byzantine-analogue PoV character premeditates his political rivals' children into the direct path of a steppe rider charge, but you'd have to have knowledge of who's who and where and why to get anything more than a battle description from "Another officer rushed him, a young noble with the motif of House Biaxi across his shield."

It's a difficult read, but if you're willing to submit to confusion at the start and can endure the horribly pessimistic, survival-centric attitudes of the narrators, there is no series like this. Good luck and keep those Wikipedia tabs open! ]]> 4.11 2003 The Darkness That Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing, #1)
author: R. Scott Bakker
name: Andy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves:
review:
It is amazing how a sprawling plot can be advanced so effectively when the reader is trusted to infer exposition.

Re-read #1 - there are about ten million things I missed the first time while foundering to place the names and factions on a map. It's a phenomenally dense book. A throwaway line in the Khanate-analogue character's PoV tells us how the Byzantine-analogue PoV character premeditates his political rivals' children into the direct path of a steppe rider charge, but you'd have to have knowledge of who's who and where and why to get anything more than a battle description from "Another officer rushed him, a young noble with the motif of House Biaxi across his shield."

It's a difficult read, but if you're willing to submit to confusion at the start and can endure the horribly pessimistic, survival-centric attitudes of the narrators, there is no series like this. Good luck and keep those Wikipedia tabs open!
]]> <![CDATA[Memoirs of a Space Traveler: Further reminiscences of Ijon Tichy]]> 35685046
"Lem is Poland's best-known writer in the West, a Jorge Luis Borges for the Space Age, who plays in earnest with every concept of philosophy and physics, from free will to probability theory." THE NEW YORK TIMES]]> 153 Stanisław Lem 836347150X Andy 5 4.26 1971 Memoirs of a Space Traveler: Further reminiscences of Ijon Tichy
author: Stanisław Lem
name: Andy
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1971
rating: 5
read at: 2019/06/03
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England]]> 15811559
We meet the captivating Eleanor of Aquitaine, twice queen and the most famous woman in Christendom; her son, Richard the Lionheart, who fought Saladin in the Third Crusade; and King John, a tyrant who was forced to sign Magna Carta, which formed the basis of our own Bill of Rights.

This is the era of chivalry, of Robin Hood and the Knights Templar, the Black Death, the founding of Parliament, the Black Prince, and the Hundred Year’s War. It will appeal as much to readers of Tudor history as to fans of 'Game of Thrones.]]> 534 Dan Jones 0670026654 Andy 0 currently-reading 4.22 2012 The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England
author: Dan Jones
name: Andy
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)]]> 203578847 The long-awaited explosive climax to the first arc of the #1 New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive―the iconic epic fantasy masterpiece that has sold more than 10 million copies, from acclaimed bestselling author Brandon Sanderson.

Dalinar Kholin challenged the evil god Odium to a contest of champions with the future of Roshar on the line. The Knights Radiant have only ten days to prepare―and the sudden ascension of the crafty and ruthless Taravangian to take Odium’s place has thrown everything into disarray.

Desperate fighting continues simultaneously worldwide―Adolin in Azimir, Sigzil and Venli at the Shattered Plains, and Jasnah at Thaylen City. The former assassin, Szeth, must cleanse his homeland of Shinovar from the dark influence of the Unmade. He is accompanied by Kaladin, who faces a new battle helping Szeth fight his own demons . . . and who must do the same for the insane Herald of the Almighty, Ishar.

At the same time, Shallan, Renarin, and Rlain work to unravel the mystery behind the Unmade Ba-Ado-Mishram and her involvement in the enslavement of the singer race and in the ancient Knights Radiants killing their spren. And Dalinar and Navani seek an edge against Odium’s champion that can be found only in the Spiritual Realm, where memory and possibility combine in chaos. The fate of the entire Cosmere hangs in the balance.]]> 1344 Brandon Sanderson 1250319188 Andy 3 4.36 2024 Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Andy
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves:
review:
Once you get past the tweenish dialogue and catch up on the established name conventions for everything (had to keep a few Reactor tabs open) it's a fun, punchy story that makes short work of the page count.
]]> Glorious Exploits 127278133 An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history.

On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they’ve herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gelon, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians if, and only if, they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides. Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea. After all, you can hate the people but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship.

Told in a contemporary Irish voice and as riotously funny as it is deeply moving, Glorious Exploits is an unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity, and human will throughout the ages.]]> 304 Ferdia Lennon 1250893690 Andy 0 currently-reading 4.15 2024 Glorious Exploits
author: Ferdia Lennon
name: Andy
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Way Things Work: Newly Revised Edition: The Ultimate Guide to How Things Work]]> 28114573 408 David Macaulay 0544824385 Andy 0 currently-reading 4.55 2016 The Way Things Work: Newly Revised Edition: The Ultimate Guide to How Things Work
author: David Macaulay
name: Andy
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies]]> 17839778
Table of Contents
Introduction: Reading Langan, by Jeffrey Ford
Kids
How the Day Runs Down
Technicolor
The Wide, Carnivorous Sky
City of the Dog
The Shallows
The Revel
June, 1987. Hitchhiking. Mr. Norris.
Mother of Stone
Story Notes
Afterword: Note Found in a Glenfiddich Bottle, by Laird Barron
Acknowledgments]]> 322 John Langan 1614980543 Andy 0 currently-reading 4.05 2013 The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies
author: John Langan
name: Andy
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Inside the Third Reich 853201 B&W photos.]]> 672 Albert Speer 0684829495 Andy 4 4.09 1969 Inside the Third Reich
author: Albert Speer
name: Andy
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at: 2008/01/01
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1)]]> 58111608
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.]]> 614 Hilary Mantel Andy 5 4.11 2009 Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1)
author: Hilary Mantel
name: Andy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fury of the Gods (The Bloodsworn Saga, #3)]]> 61755703 The Fury of the Gods is the earth-shattering final book in John Gwynne's bestselling Norse-inspired epic fantasy series, packed with myth, magic and bloody vengeance

THE FINAL BATTLE FOR THE FATE OF VIGRIĂ APPROACHES

Varg has overcome the trials of his past and become an accepted member of the Bloodsworn, but now he and his newfound comrades face their biggest challenge yet: slaying a dragon.

Elvar is struggling to consolidate her power in Snakavik, where she faces threats from within and without. As she fights to assert her authority in readiness for the coming conflict, she faces a surely insurmountable task: reining in the ferocity of a wolf god.

As Biorr and his warband make their way north, eager for blood, Gudvarr pursues a mission of his own, hoping to win Lik-Rifa's favour and further his own ambitions.

All paths lead to Snakavik, where the lines are being drawn for the final battle - a titanic clash that will shake the foundations of the world, and bear witness to the true fury of the gods.]]> 528 John Gwynne 0356514293 Andy 0 to-read 4.46 2024 The Fury of the Gods (The Bloodsworn Saga, #3)
author: John Gwynne
name: Andy
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Read Baby, Every Day (Love Baby Healthy)]]> 23281289 Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

Winner of:2015 Creative Child Magazine Book of the Year, Baby BooksĚý "Read this to me, before I can talk. Show me the sky, as we go for a walk. Talk as you work. Talk as we play. I love your voice, and all that you say . . . " ĚýWritten by a pediatrician, this gentle, rhyming story from a baby's point of view with dreamy watercolor illustrations celebrates the beloved, healthy ritual of parent-child reading. It also reinforces recent American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations to begin daily reading with children at birth, to promote bonding, language, attention, and other aspects of development. Read Baby, Every Day promotes shared reading and togetherness and is perfect in every parent's early library to inspire the next generation of readers.Ěý]]> 14 Dr. John Hutton 193666934X Andy 5
Will's review: aaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaa aaAaaaaa AAAAAA AAAAAA (shits himself)]]> 3.83 2015 Read Baby, Every Day (Love Baby Healthy)
author: Dr. John Hutton
name: Andy
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves:
review:
Andy's review: a wonderful, surprisingly tender instruction to building a vocabulary with your newborn

Will's review: aaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaa aaAaaaaa AAAAAA AAAAAA (shits himself)
]]> Sugar & Other Stories 121456324 Sugar and Other Stories has something for everyone--as long as you've got a strong stomach. - Allison O'Toole, Shades of Fear

A devoted yet amoral creature ensures a girl's blood sugar stays up. A gory ritual creates a charming woman's perfect smile. A neglected and overworked wife is slowly subsumed by violent fantasies. In this collection of short horror comics, cartoonist Joy San masterfully explores the ways in which we contort and control ourselves, balancing the bloody and brutal with unexpected levity.]]> 160 Joy San Andy 0 to-read 3.53 Sugar & Other Stories
author: Joy San
name: Andy
average rating: 3.53
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> Dead Souls 28381 Dead Souls, Russia's first major novel, is one of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy.

In his introduction to this new translation, Robert A. Maguire discusses Gogol's life and literary career, his depiction of Russian society, and the language and narrative techniques employed in Dead Souls. This edition also includes a chronology, further reading, appendices, a glossary, map and notes.]]> 464 Nikolai Gogol 0140448071 Andy 0 4.00 1842 Dead Souls
author: Nikolai Gogol
name: Andy
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1842
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital]]> 17704902
After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several health professionals faced criminal allegations that they deliberately injected numerous patients with drugs to hasten their deaths.

Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting, unspools the mystery of what happened in those days, bringing the reader into a hospital fighting for its life and into a conversation about the most terrifying form of health care rationing.

In a voice at once involving and fair, masterful and intimate, Fink exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals just how ill-prepared we are in America for the impact of large-scale disasters—and how we can do better. A remarkable book, engrossing from start to finish, Five Days at Memorial radically transforms your understanding of human nature in crisis.]]> 558 Sheri Fink 0307718964 Andy 0 3.91 2013 Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
author: Sheri Fink
name: Andy
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/19
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]]> <![CDATA[River of the Gods: Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile]]> 58777696 From the New York Times bestselling author of RIVER OF DOUBT and DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC, the stirring story of one of the great feats of exploration of all time, and its complicated legacy

The Nile River is the longest in the world. Its fertile floodplain allowed for rise to the great civilization of ancient Egypt, but for millennia the location of its headwaters was shrouded in mystery. Pharaonic and Roman attempts to find it were stymied by a giant labyrinthine swamp, and subsequent expeditions got no further. In the 19th century, the discovery and translation of the Rosetta Stone set off a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe - and extend their colonial empires.

Two British men - Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke - were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. Burton was already famous for being the first non-Muslim to travel to Mecca, disguised as an Arab chieftain. He spoke twenty-nine languages, was a decorated soldier, and literally wrote the book on sword-fighting techniques for the British Army. He was also mercurial, subtle, and an iconoclastic atheist. Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark, passionate about hunting, Burton's opposite in temperament and beliefs.

From the start the two men clashed, Speke chafing under Burton's command and Burton disapproving of Speke's ignorance of the people whose lands through which they traveled. They would endure tremendous hardships, illness, and constant setbacks. Two years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on, but Speke did, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. When they returned to England, Speke rushed to take credit, disparaging Burton. Burton disputed his claim, and Speke launched another expedition to Africa to prove it. The two became venomous enemies, with the public siding with the more charismatic Burton, to Speke's great envy. The day before they were to publicly debate, Speke shot himself.

Yet there was a third man on both expeditions, his name obscured by imperial annals, whose exploits were even more extraordinary. This was Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who was enslaved and shipped from his home village in East Africa to India. When the man who purchased him died, he made his way into the local Sultan's army, and eventually traveled back to Africa, where he used his resourcefulness, linguistic prowess and raw courage to forge a living as a guide. Without his talents, it is likely that neither Englishman would have come close to the headwaters of the Nile, or perhaps even survived.

In RIVER OF THE GODS Candice Millard has written another peerless story of courage and adventure, set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers.
]]> 349 Candice Millard 052552407X Andy 0 3.77 2022 River of the Gods: Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile
author: Candice Millard
name: Andy
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/19
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]]> Three Moments of an Explosion 34503414
Of such concepts and unforgettable images are made the twenty-eight stories in this collection—many published here for the first time. By turns speculative, satirical, and heart-wrenching, fresh in form and language, and featuring a cast of damaged yet hopeful seekers who come face-to-face with the deep weirdness of the world—and at times the deeper weirdness of themselves�Three Moments of an Explosion is a fitting showcase for one of our most original voices.]]> 400 China Miéville Andy 0 3.80 2009 Three Moments of an Explosion
author: China Miéville
name: Andy
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Five Months at Anzac A Narrative of Personal Experiences of the Officer Commanding the 4th Field Ambulance, Australian Imperial Force]]> 19458756 57 Joseph Lievesley Beeston Andy 0 3.52 Five Months at Anzac A Narrative of Personal Experiences of the Officer Commanding the 4th Field Ambulance, Australian Imperial Force
author: Joseph Lievesley Beeston
name: Andy
average rating: 3.52
book published:
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Citadel of the Autarch (The Book of the New Sun, #4)]]> 299758 330 Gene Wolfe 0671496662 Andy 5 4.27 1983 The Citadel of the Autarch (The Book of the New Sun, #4)
author: Gene Wolfe
name: Andy
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
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Five stars for itself, another three stars for allowing the reader to touch the first three as though for the first time.
]]> <![CDATA[Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and THE WASHINGTON POST]]> 65211803
Politics. Money. Media. Tech. …It’s all here in Collision of Power.

� All the President's Men for a new generation.� � Town & Country

Marty Baron took charge of The Washington Post newsroom in 2013, after nearly a dozen years leading The Boston Globe . Just seven months into his new job, Baron received explosive Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, would buy the Post , marking a sudden end to control by the venerated family that had presided over the paper for 80 years. Just over two years later, Donald Trump won the presidency.

Now, the capital’s newspaper, owned by one of the world’s richest men, was tasked with reporting on a president who had campaigned against the press as the “lowest form of humanity.� Pressures on Baron and his colleagues were immense and unrelenting, having to meet the demands of their new owner while contending with a president who waged a war of unprecedented vitriol and vengeance against the media.

In the face of Trump’s unceasing attacks, Baron steadfastly managed the Post ’s newsroom. Their groundbreaking and award-winning coverage included stories about Trump’s purported charitable giving, misconduct by the Secret Service, and Roy Moore’s troubling sexual history. At the same time, Baron managed a restive staff during a period of rapidly changing societal dynamics around gender and race.
In Collision of Power , Baron recounts this with the tenacity of a reporter and the sure hand of an experienced editor. The result is elegant and revelatory―an urgent exploration of the nature of power in the 21st century.]]> 549 Martin Baron 1250844207 Andy 5 4.18 Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and THE WASHINGTON POST
author: Martin Baron
name: Andy
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Minority Report and Other Stories]]> 534004 Viewed by many as the greatest science fiction writer on any planet, Philip K. Dick has written some of the most intriguing, original and thought-provoking fiction of our time. This collection includes stories that will make you laugh, cringe...and stop and think.

The Minority Report: a special unit that employs those with the power of precognition to prevent crimes proves itself less than reliable...
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale: an everyguy's yearning for more exciting "memories" places him in a danger he never could have imagined (basis of the feature film Total Recall)...
Paycheck: a mechanic who has no memory of the previous two years of his life finds that a bag of seemingly worthless and unrelated objects can actually unlock the secret of his recent past � and insure that he has a future...
Second Variety: the UN's technological advances to win a global war veer out of control, threatening to destroy all of humankind (basis of the movie Screamers)...
The Eyes Have It: a whimsical, laugh-out-loud play on the words of the title.

]]> 6 Philip K. Dick 0060095261 Andy 5 3.94 1987 Minority Report and Other Stories
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Andy
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at: 2019/07/23
date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It]]> 7932991
Over the last two decades, insurance has become less of a safety net and more of a spider's sticky and complicated, designed to ensnare as much as to aid. Insurance companies now often try to delay payment of justified claims, deny payment altogether, and defend these actions by forcing claimants to enter litigation.

Jay M. Feinman, a legal scholar and insurance expert, explains how these trends developed, how the government ought to fix the system, and what the rest of us can do to protect ourselves. He shows that the denial of valid claims is not occasional or accidental or the fault of a few bad employees. It's the result of an increasing and systematic focus on maximizing profits by major companies such as Allstate and State Farm.

Citing dozens of stories of victims who were unfairly denied payment, Feinman explains how people can be more cautious when shopping for policies and what to do when pursuing a disputed claim. He also lays out a plan for the legal reforms needed to prevent future abuses. This exposé will help drive the discussion of this increasingly hot- button issue.]]> 256 Jay M. Feinman 1591843154 Andy 0 to-read 4.08 2010 Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It
author: Jay M. Feinman
name: Andy
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1)]]> 23311648
Five men and women find themselves flung into the magical land of Fionavar, First of all Worlds. They have been called there by the mage Loren Silvercloak, and quickly find themselves drawn into the complex tapestry of events. For Kim, Paul, Kevin, Jennifer and Dave all have their own part to play in the coming battle against the forces of evil led by the fallen god Rakoth Maugrim and his dark hordes.

Guy Gavriel Kay’s classic epic fantasy plays out on a truly grand scale, and has already been delighting fans of imaginative fiction for twenty years.]]> 353 Guy Gavriel Kay 1101663995 Andy 0 4.01 1984 The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1)
author: Guy Gavriel Kay
name: Andy
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/04
date added: 2024/12/04
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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 Andy 0 to-read 4.22 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Andy
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/04
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]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Andy 0 to-read 4.15 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Andy
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Devotion of Suspect X (Detective Galileo, #1)]]> 8686068
When Detective Kusanagi of the Tokyo Police tries to piece together the events of that day, he finds himself confronted by the most puzzling, mysterious circumstances he has ever investigated. Nothing quite makes sense, and it will take a genius to understand the genius behind this particular crime...]]> 298 Keigo Higashino 0312375069 Andy 0 to-read 4.16 2005 The Devotion of Suspect X (Detective Galileo, #1)
author: Keigo Higashino
name: Andy
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/24
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]]> The Eyes Are the Best Part 179780170 “Violent, smart, gruesome and wildly original, this novel pulls readers into a horrific world of murder and cannibalism while also critiquing misogyny, exploring Asian fetishization and stereotypes, sharing what it’s like to navigate two cultures and telling a touching story of a family in turmoil.� �New York Times Book Review

Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer in this feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.

Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her Appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying� yet enticing.

In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family’s claustrophobic apartment. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescending toward Ji-won and her sister as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. No, George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that.

For no matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated.

A brilliantly inventive, subversive novel about a young woman unraveling, Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part is a story of a family falling apart and trying to find their way back to each other, marking a bold new voice in horror that will leave readers mesmerized and craving more.]]> 284 Monika Kim 1645661253 Andy 0 currently-reading 3.91 2024 The Eyes Are the Best Part
author: Monika Kim
name: Andy
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/22
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]]> Ushers 218362004 A young man who has improbably escaped death twice reveals his secret in a spine-tingling short story by New York Times bestselling author Joe Hill.

Martin Lorensen is a twenty-three-year-old counselor for disturbed teenagers. He’s bright, compassionate, attractive, and outgoing. He’s also—and this is the most interesting thing—not dead. Martin has improbably survived not one but two deadly disasters that claimed dozens of lives. The kid is riding one hell of a lucky streak. Two federal agents think there is something darker at play. Now that they’ve arranged to interview Martin, they want answers. Martin is ready to share everything he knows. One thing is for certain: when it comes to escaping death, luck doesn’t figure into it at all.]]> 29 Joe Hill 1662527942 Andy 5 4.23 2024 Ushers
author: Joe Hill
name: Andy
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/22
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]]> <![CDATA[River of Stars (Under Heaven, #2)]]> 17728793 “River of Stars is a major accomplishment, the work of a master novelist in full command of his subject.”—Michael Dirda, in The Washington Post

“Game of Thrones in China.”—Salon.com

Ren Daiyan was still just a boy when he took the lives of seven men while guarding an imperial magistrate. That moment on a lonely road changed his life in entirely unexpected ways, sending him into the forests of Kitai among the outlaws. From there he emerges years later—and his life changes again, dramatically, as he circles toward the court and emperor, while war approaches Kitai from the north.

Lin Shan is the daughter of a scholar, his beloved only child. Educated by him in ways young women never are, gifted as a songwriter and calligrapher, she finds herself living a life suspended between two worlds. Her intelligence captivates an emperor—and alienates women at the court. But when her father’s life is endangered by the savage politics of the day, Shan must act in ways no woman ever has.

In an empire divided by bitter factions circling an exquisitely cultured emperor who loves his gardens and his art far more than the burdens of governing, dramatic events on the northern steppe alter the balance of power in the world, leading to events no one could have foretold, under the river of stars.]]> 658 Guy Gavriel Kay 1101608935 Andy 5 4.41 2013 River of Stars (Under Heaven, #2)
author: Guy Gavriel Kay
name: Andy
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The City and Its Uncertain Walls]]> 209192695 From the bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.

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

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

The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.]]> 449 Haruki Murakami 0593801970 Andy 0 to-read 3.72 2023 The City and Its Uncertain Walls
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Andy
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[2025 Gene Wolfe Almanac: 26 Pieces]]> 221246675
Wolfe's enigmatic work The Fifth Head of Cerberus commands the lion's share, with ten pieces amounting to 37% of the page count. The Urth Cycle clocks in at a respectable second place with seven pieces totaling 25% of the page count. In addition there are three pieces on The Book of the Long Sun, and one piece each related to Peace, the young adult novel The Devil in a Forest, and the Soldier series.

The collection is rounded out with three "general" pieces, one on the content of a science fiction anthology that had tremendous impact upon Wolfe as a child; another on Wolfe's use of two different versions of Pinocchio; and a third working toward an index of Wolfe's writings in a trade magazine, his day-job for many years before he became a full-time author.

Also included are corrections for three other works from Sirius Gene Wolfe's First Four A Chapter Guide errata, Gate of Horn, Book of Silk errata, and Lexicon Urthus (Second Edition, revised) errata.]]> 145 Michael Andre-Driussi 1947614355 Andy 0 to-read 2.50 2025 Gene Wolfe Almanac: 26 Pieces
author: Michael Andre-Driussi
name: Andy
average rating: 2.50
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/17
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]]> The Library of Babel 172366 36 Jorge Luis Borges 156792123X Andy 0 to-read 4.37 1941 The Library of Babel
author: Jorge Luis Borges
name: Andy
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1941
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/17
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]]> The Book of Elsewhere 202950650
There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who’s seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names: Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he’s known simply as “B.�

And he wants to be able to die.

In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return. But when an all-too-mortal soldier comes back to life, the impossible event ultimately points toward a force even more mysterious than B himself. One at least as strong. And one with a plan all its own.

A mind-blowing epic of ancient powers, modern war, and an outcast who cannot die. Combines Miéville’s singular style and creativity with Reeves’s haunting and soul-stirring narrative, unlike anything these two genre-bending pioneers have created before, inspired by the world of the BRZRKR comic books.]]> 352 Keanu Reeves 0593446593 Andy 0 currently-reading 3.26 2024 The Book of Elsewhere
author: Keanu Reeves
name: Andy
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/10
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]]> Death Poems 23967504 66 Thomas Ligotti Andy 4 3.61 2004 Death Poems
author: Thomas Ligotti
name: Andy
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
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]]> The Sound of Waves 19937130 193 Yukio Mishima 0307834344 Andy 4 3.88 1954 The Sound of Waves
author: Yukio Mishima
name: Andy
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1954
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Drifting Classroom, Vol. 1]]> 25849 190 Kazuo Umezu 1421507226 Andy 4 3.80 2006 The Drifting Classroom, Vol. 1
author: Kazuo Umezu
name: Andy
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/11/07
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]]> Cult X 36536502 The magnum opus by Japanese literary sensation Fuminori Nakamura, Cult X is a story that dives into the psychology of fringe religion, obsession, and social disaffection.When Toru Narazaki’s girlfriend, Ryoko Tachibana, disappears, he tries to track her down, despite the warnings of the private detective he’s hired to find her. Ryoko’s past is shrouded in mystery, but the one concrete clue to her whereabouts is a previous address in the heart of Tokyo. She lived in a compound with a group that seems to be a cult led by a charismatic guru with a revisionist Buddhist scheme of life, death, and society. Narazaki plunges into the secretive world of the cult, ready to expose himself to any of the guru’s brainwashing tactics if it means he can learn the truth about Ryoko. But the cult isn’t what he expected, and he has no idea of the bubbling violence he is stepping into.Inspired by the 1995 sarin gas terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway, Cult X is an exploration of what draws individuals into extremism. It is a tour de force that captures the connections between astrophysics, neuroscience, and religion; an invective against predatory corporate consumerism and exploitative geopolitics; and a love story about compassion in the face of nihilism.]]> 529 Fuminori Nakamura 1616957875 Andy 4 3.17 2014 Cult X
author: Fuminori Nakamura
name: Andy
average rating: 3.17
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/01
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]]> In a Glass Darkly 837422 Green Tea, The Familiar, Mr. Justice Harbottle, The Room in the Dragon Volant, and Carmilla. The five stories are purported to be cases by Dr. Hesselius, a 'metaphysical' doctor, who is willing to consider the ghosts both as real and as hallucinatory obsessions. The reader's doubtful anxiety mimics that of the protagonist, and each story thus creates that atmosphere of mystery which is the supernatural experience. This new annotated edition includes an introduction, notes on the text, and explanatory notes.

NB: The Familiar is a revision of The Watcher; Mr. Justice Harbottle is a revision of An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street.]]> 384 J. Sheridan Le Fanu 0192839470 Andy 0 to-read 3.87 1872 In a Glass Darkly
author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
name: Andy
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1872
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/19
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]]> Echo 53329253
Travel journalist and mountaineer Nick Grevers awakes from a coma to find that his climbing buddy, Augustin, is missing and presumed dead. Nick’s own injuries are as extensive as they are horrifying. His face wrapped in bandages and unable to speak, Nick claims amnesia—but he remembers everything.

He remembers how he and Augustin were mysteriously drawn to the Maudit, a remote and scarcely documented peak in the Swiss Alps.

He remembers how the slopes of Maudit were eerily quiet, and how, when they entered its valley, they got the ominous sense that they were not alone.

He remembers: something was waiting for them...

But it isn’t just the memory of the accident that haunts Nick. Something has awakened inside of him, something that endangers the lives of everyone around him�

It’s one thing to lose your life. It’s another to lose your soul.

FROM THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING SENSATION THOMAS OLDE HEUVELT comes a thrilling descent into madness and obsession as one man confronts nature—and something even more ancient and evil answers back.]]> 416 Thomas Olde Heuvelt 1250759552 Andy 0 currently-reading 3.41 2019 Echo
author: Thomas Olde Heuvelt
name: Andy
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/19
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]]> Swan Song 12972591 Ěý
In Manhattan, a homeless woman stumbles from the sewers, guided by the prophecies of a mysterious amulet, and pursued by something wicked; on Idaho’s Blue Dome Mountain, an orphaned boy falls under the influence of depraved survivalists and discovers the value of a killer instinct; and amid the devastating dust storms on the Great Plains of Nebraska, Swan forms a heart-and-soul bond with an unlikely new companion. Soon they will cross paths. But only Swan knows that they must endure more than just a trek across an irradiated country of mutated animals, starvation, madmen, and wasteland warriors.
Ěý
Swan’s visions tell of a coming malevolent force. It’s a shape-shifting embodiment of the apocalypse, and of all that is evil and despairing. And it’s hell-bent on destroying the last hope of goodness and purity in the world. Swan is that hope. Now, she must fight not only for her own survival, but for that of all mankind.
Ěý
A winner of the Bram Stoker Award and a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, Swan Song has become a modern classic, called “a chilling vision that keeps you turning pages to the shocking end� by John Saul and “a long, satisfying look at hell and salvation� by Publishers Weekly.]]> 929 Robert McCammon Andy 0 currently-reading 4.35 1987 Swan Song
author: Robert McCammon
name: Andy
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/16
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]]> An Age of Winters 205213989 In the seventeenth century, witchfinders rule and paranoia thrives in a chilling novel about unrequited love, persecution, and betrayal by the bestselling author of The Road Beyond Ruin and Broken Angels.

In 1625, the Franconian village of Eisbach has been plagued by disease, famine, heinous crimes, and a merciless winter. Katarin Jaspers is the maidservant to the enigmatic Reverend Zacharias Engel, appointed by Rome to cure the village of suspected diabolism and save every God-fearing soul.

Zacharias soon finds his first witch, and the public burning of a local man could spell the end of misfortune. As a sense of peace settles over the village, Katarin finds herself increasingly infatuated with Zacharias, who is a disruption to her predictable existence and a balm for her cruel past. But peace for Katarin is short-lived. Margaretha Katz—the new midwife—is seen as a rival for the reverend’s attention. Fear and recrimination reach a fever pitch when a great tragedy sets the town fully on edge.

With the walls of winter closing in around Eisbach once again, rumours flourish and villagers turn on each other. Now, no one is safe from the pyre.]]> 311 Gemma Liviero 166252062X Andy 0 currently-reading 3.87 2024 An Age of Winters
author: Gemma Liviero
name: Andy
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Jasmine Throne (The Burning Kingdoms, #1)]]> 54816556 Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash Tasha Suri's The Jasmine Throne, beginning a new trilogy set in a world inspired by the history and epics of India, in which a captive princess and a maidservant in possession of forbidden magic become unlikely allies on a dark journey to save their empire from the princess's traitor brother.

Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters � but is now little more than a decaying ruin.

Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, so long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides.

But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne. The other is a priestess seeking to find her family. Together, they will change the fate of an empire.]]> 540 Tasha Suri 0316538515 Andy 0 to-read 4.14 2021 The Jasmine Throne (The Burning Kingdoms, #1)
author: Tasha Suri
name: Andy
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> We Ate the Dark 136981990 Four women investigating the haunting murder of their friend discover more than they ever imagined in a terrifying novel about good and evil, love and death, and the spaces between.

Five years after Sofia Lyon disappeared, her remains are found stuffed into the hollow of a tree bursting through the floorboards of an abandoned house in the woods. The women who loved her flock home to the North Carolina hills to face their grief.

Frankie, Sofia’s twin, is in furious mourning. Poppy is heartbroken. Cass has never felt more homesick. And Marya knows something the rest of them don’t. Determined to find Sofia’s murderer, they share more than a need to see justice done for their friend. Each woman is haunted, bound to the next by something both cruel and kind, and now stalked by a shadowy presence they’ve yet to understand. Only to question, and to fear.

As Sofia’s secrets unravel, so do those of the woods, and the women soon realize that Sofia might not be who they thought she was at all. And that whoever—or whatever—killed her is coming after them.]]> 438 Mallory Pearson 1662515391 Andy 0 currently-reading 2.77 2024 We Ate the Dark
author: Mallory Pearson
name: Andy
average rating: 2.77
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Hellbound Heart: A Novel 219453699 176 Clive Barker Andy 5 4.18 1986 The Hellbound Heart: A Novel
author: Clive Barker
name: Andy
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/14
date added: 2024/10/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sword & Citadel (The Book of the New Sun, #3-4)]]> 16115017 The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene Wolfe's most remarkable work, hailed as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by Publishers Weekly, and "one of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century" by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Sword & Citadel brings together the final two books of the tetralogy in one volume:

The Sword of the Lictor is the third volume in Wolfe's remarkable epic, chronicling the odyssey of the wandering pilgrim called Severian, driven by a powerful and unfathomable destiny, as he carries out a dark mission far from his home.

The Citadel of the Autarch brings The Book of the New Sun to its harrowing conclusion, as Severian clashes in a final reckoning with the dread Autarch, fulfilling an ancient prophecy that will forever alter the realm known as Urth.

"Brilliant . . . terrific . . . a fantasy so epic it beggars the mind. An extraordinary work of art!"-Philadelphia Inquirer

"The Book of the New Sun establishes [Wolfe's] preeminence, pure and simple. . . . The Book of the New Sun contains elements of Spenserian allegory, Swiftian satire, Dickensian social consciousness and Wagnerian mythology. Wolfe creates a truly alien social order that the reader comes to experience from within . . . once into it, there is no stopping."--The New York Times Book Review]]> 415 Gene Wolfe 1429966319 Andy 5 4.32 1994 Sword & Citadel (The Book of the New Sun, #3-4)
author: Gene Wolfe
name: Andy
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
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]]> Confessions 211642069 For fans ofĚýThe GoldfinchĚýandĚýTomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, an ambitious and absorbing debut that follows three generations of women from New York to rural Ireland and back again.

New York City, late September 2001. The walls of the city are papered over with photos of the missing. Cora Brady’s father is there, the poster she made taped to columns and bridges. When a letter arrives from an aunt she didn’t know existed in Ireland with the offer of a new life, the name jogs a an old videocassette game Cora used to play as a child where two sisters must save the students of a mysterious boarding school.

County Donegal, 1974. An eclectic group of artists known as the Screamers arrives in Burtonport and moves into the old schoolhouse down the road from where Roisin lives with her older sister Moira. Alternately kind and cruel, brilliant artist Moira is a mystery to Roisin, as is Moira’s relationship with the boy next door, Michael. When the Screamers look to hire an artist in residence, Roisin enlists Michael’s help to get Moira the job, setting in motion a chain of events that will put an ocean between the sisters and threaten to tear them apart forever.

Burtonport, 2018. Lyca Brady lives in a sprawling old house with her mother, Cora, and great aunt, Ro. Abortion has just been legalized in Ireland, and Lyca is struggling to find herself outside her mother’s activism. An unexpected message from a childhood friend sends Lyca searching her house’s mysterious attic, with its strange collection of old medical equipment, piles of paperwork, and dusty boxes of ancient video games. There, she unearths secrets hidden for decades—secrets perhaps better left unknown.

Catherine Airey’s haunting debut spins a mesmerizing story of family and fate, survival and revelation, examining the irresistible gravity of the past—how it endures through generations, pervasively present even when buried or forgotten.


]]> 480 Catherine Airey 0063380137 Andy 0 to-read 3.82 2025 Confessions
author: Catherine Airey
name: Andy
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/11
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]]> Bunker Mentality 216037843 At the height of the Cold War, Roy Chisolm arrives at the edge of the free world.

An idealist in less-than-ideal times, Chisolm’s military orders have taken him to the Bunker, an underground fortress in West Germany where intelligence and war footing operations convene. Within the impenetrable concrete walls, he finds a complete lack of military protocol, a total disregard for the stakes of the game, and a life of soul-crushing absurdity.

Under constant threat of Russian annihilation, those assigned to the Bunker grapple with the inescapable futility of their posting. Chisolm struggles to maintain his moral compass in the face of disturbing apathy and chaos. But even as he plots his escape, he begins to form enigmatic bonds with his fellow warriors—and a romance outside the Bunker walls—unearthing a new understanding of trust, conviction, and love.

Inspired by true events, Bunker Mentality is Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 meets David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs, exploring the meaning of war, morality, madness, honor, and courage in a world of utter insanity.
]]> 356 Copernicus Paul Andy 0 to-read 3.43 Bunker Mentality
author: Copernicus Paul
name: Andy
average rating: 3.43
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun, #3)]]> 463378 279 Gene Wolfe 0671631934 Andy 5 4.24 1982 The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun, #3)
author: Gene Wolfe
name: Andy
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1982
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/10
date added: 2024/10/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Urth of the New Sun (The Book of the New Sun, #5)]]> 60215 The Book of the New Sun. We return to the world of Severian, now the Autarch of Urth, as he leaves the planet on one of the huge spaceships of the alien Hierodules to travel across time and space to face his greatest test, to become the legendary New Sun or die. The strange, rich, original spaceship scenes give way to travels in time, wherein Severian revisits times and places which fill in parts of the background of the four-volume work, that will thrill and intrigue particularly all readers of the earlier books. But The Urth of the New Sun is an independent structure all of a piece, an integral masterpiece to shelve beside the classics, one itself.

]]> 372 Gene Wolfe 0312863942 Andy 0 to-read 4.05 1987 The Urth of the New Sun (The Book of the New Sun, #5)
author: Gene Wolfe
name: Andy
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun, #2)]]> 463376 303 Gene Wolfe 0671416162 Andy 4 4.02 1981 The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun, #2)
author: Gene Wolfe
name: Andy
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/26
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shadows of Carcosa: Tales of Cosmic Horror by Lovecraft, Chambers, Machen, Poe, and Other Masters of the Weird]]> 21408743 315 D. Thin 1590178734 Andy 4 3.72 2002 Shadows of Carcosa: Tales of Cosmic Horror by Lovecraft, Chambers, Machen, Poe, and Other Masters of the Weird
author: D. Thin
name: Andy
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Learn Coding Basics in Hours with Small Basic: An Introduction to Computer Progamming for Absolute Beginners]]> 53865786 Newly updated for 2023! Want to learn how to code in less than a day? This book was designed for absolute beginners � you don’t need any prior experience or knowledge. Written by the Co-Founders of The Tech Academy (learncodinganywhere.com), it serves as a perfect introduction to computer programming for anyone. This book utilizes Small Basic, an educational programming language developed by Microsoft. Learn Coding Basics in Hours with Small Basic is easy and simple, and it can be completed fast. The Tech Academy is a technology school that specializes in coding bootcamps. You can enroll online and study their programs from anywhere in the world. For more information about The Tech Academy, their books and training programs, learncodinganywhere.com]]> 131 Jack C. Stanley Andy 0 currently-reading 3.20 Learn Coding Basics in Hours with Small Basic: An Introduction to Computer Progamming for Absolute Beginners
author: Jack C. Stanley
name: Andy
average rating: 3.20
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (Wastelands #1)]]> 1705697 Wastelands.
From the Book of Revelation to The Road Warrior, from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: The nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse.

Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today's most renowned authors of speculative fiction, Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world comes through nuclear war, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm, these are tales of survivors, in some cases struggling to rebuild the society that was, in others, merely surviving, scrounging for food in depopulated ruins and defending themselves against monsters, mutants, and marauders.

Wastelands delves into this bleak landscape, uncovering the raw human emotion and heart-pounding thrills at the genre's core.

Introduction by John Joseph Adams
The End of the Whole Mess by Stephen King read by Stefan Rudnicki
The People of Sand and Slag by Paolo Bacigalupi read by Alex Hyde-White
Bread and Bombs by M. Rickert read by Hillary Huber
How We Got In Town and Out Again by Jonathan Lethem read by Stefan Rudnicki
Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels by George R. R. Martin read by Arthur Morey
Waiting for the Zephyr by Tobias S. Buckell read by Gabrielle de Cuir
Salvage by Orson Scott Card read by Stefan Rudnicki
Never Despair by Jack McDevitt read by Emily Rankin
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth by Cory Doctorow read by Paul Boehmer
The Last of the O-Forms by James Van Pelt read by Stefan Rudnicki
Still Life with Apocalypse by Richard Kadrey read by Harlan Ellison
Artie’s Angels by Catherine Wells read by Emily Rankin
Judgment Passed by Jerry Oltion read by Paul Boehmer
Mute by Gene Wolfe read by Susan Hanfield
Inertia by Nancy Kress read by Hillary Huber
And the Deep Blue Sea by Elizabeth Bear read by Judy Young
Speech Sounds by Octavia E. Butler read by Lisa Renee Pitts
Killers by Carol Emshwiller read by Susan Hanfield
Ginny Sweet-hips� Flying Circus by Neal Barrett, Jr. read by Stefan Rudnicki
The End of the World as We Know It by Dale Bailey read by Arthur Morey
A Song Before Sunset by David Grigg read by Stefan Rudnicki
Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers by John Langan read by Lisa Renee Pitts

©2008 John Joseph Adams 🅿2014 Blackstone Audio]]> 333 John Joseph Adams 1597801054 Andy 0 currently-reading 3.76 2008 Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (Wastelands #1)
author: John Joseph Adams
name: Andy
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Train Dreams 12991188 116 Denis Johnson 1250007658 Andy 4 3.91 2002 Train Dreams
author: Denis Johnson
name: Andy
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/20
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shadow & Claw (The Book of the New Sun, #1-2)]]> 58403570 The Shadow of the Torturer is the first volume in this four-volume epic, the tale of young Severian, an apprentice to the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession- showing mercy toward his victim.

The Claw of the Conciliator continues the saga of Severian, banished from his home, as he undertakes a mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient relic and learn the truth about his hidden destiny.

This new Tor Essentials edition of Shadow & Claw contains a new introduction by historian and novelist Ada Palmer, author of the award-winning Too Like the Lightning.]]> 528 Gene Wolfe Andy 5 4.08 1994 Shadow & Claw (The Book of the New Sun, #1-2)
author: Gene Wolfe
name: Andy
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/20
date added: 2024/09/20
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]]> Gallipoli 877614 The classic account of one of the most tragic battles in modern history


When Turkey unexpectedly sided with Germany in World War I, Winston Churchill as First Sea Lord for the British conceived a plan of smashing through the Dardanelles, reopening the Straits to Russian shipping, and immobilizing the Turks.

Although on the night of March 18, 1915, this plan nearly succeeded--the Turks were virtually beaten. But poor communication left the Allies in the dark, allowing the Turks to prevail and the Allies to suffer a crushing quarter-million casualties.Ěý

A vivid chronicle of adventure, suspense, agony, and heroism, Gallipoli brings to life the tragic waste in human life, the physical horror, the sheer heartbreaking folly of fighting for impossible objectives with inadequate means on unknown, unmapped terrain.Ěý]]> 400 Alan Moorehead 0060937084 Andy 0 to-read 4.01 1956 Gallipoli
author: Alan Moorehead
name: Andy
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Murder Your Employer (The McMasters Guide to Homicide, #1)]]> 176442577 The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts - a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to "delete" their most deserving victim.


Who hasn’t wondered for a split second what the world would be like if a person who is the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you’ve probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this “Poison Ivy League� college—its location unknown to even those who study there—is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate…and where one’s mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live.

Prepare for an education you’ll never forget. A “fiendishly funny� (Booklist) mix of witty wordplay, breathtaking twists and genuine intrigue, Murder Your Employer will gain you admission into a wholly original world, cocooned within the most entertaining book about well-intentioned would-be murderers you’ll ever read.]]> 395 Rupert Holmes 1451648227 Andy 4 3.86 2023 Murder Your Employer (The McMasters Guide to Homicide, #1)
author: Rupert Holmes
name: Andy
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/02
date added: 2024/09/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher]]> 20563988
Whether set in a claustrophobic Saudi Arabian flat or on a precarious mountain road on a Greek island, these stories share an insight into the darkest recesses of the spirit. Displaying all of Mantel's unmistakable style and wit, they reveal a great writer at the peak of her powers.]]> 242 Hilary Mantel Andy 4 3.42 2014 The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher
author: Hilary Mantel
name: Andy
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/18
date added: 2024/09/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun, #1)]]> 60211 262 Gene Wolfe 0671540661 Andy 5 3.86 1980 The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun, #1)
author: Gene Wolfe
name: Andy
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves:
review:
Bizarre, alien, hinting at the familiar under a layer of murk. This book gave me the feeling of looking through shallow silt at a barely recognizable toy buried in lake mud.
]]> The Song of Igor's Campaign 16444506 The Song of Igor’s Campaign is the most imaginative, celebrated, and studied work of early Russian literature.


A chivalric expedition is undertaken in the late 12th century by a minor prince in the land of Rus� to defeat, against overwhelming odds, a powerful alliance in a neighboring territory. The anonymous poet who chronicled this adventure packed unprecedented metaphorical agility, keenness of observation, and fascinating imagery into the lean and powerful tale of the doomed campaign. Discovered in the late 18th century and only narrowly distributed, the original manuscript was destroyed in a fire, leading to endless debate about the provenance and authenticity of the extant versions. It also served as the basis of Borodin’s opera Prince Igor. Translated by Vladimir Nabokov, the verses that constitute The Song of Igor’s Campaign are presented in their original rhyme and meter, and Nabokov’s extensive annotations provide illuminations on all the aspects of the text.]]> 125 Unknown 1468302108 Andy 5 3.36 1185 The Song of Igor's Campaign
author: Unknown
name: Andy
average rating: 3.36
book published: 1185
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/30
date added: 2024/09/11
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]]> The Future 208840580 The bestselling, award-winning author ofĚýThe Power deliversĚýa dazzling tour de forceĚýwhereĚýa handful of friendsĚýplotĚýa daring heist to save the world from the tech giants whose greed threatens life as we know it.

When Martha Einkorn fled her father’s isolated compound in Oregon, she never expected to find herself working for a powerful social media mogul hell-bent on controlling everything. Now she’s surrounded by mega-rich companies designing private weather, predictive analytics, and covert weaponry, while spouting technological prophecy. Martha may have left the cult, but if the apocalyptic warnings in her father’s fox and rabbit sermon—once a parable to her—are starting to come true, how much future is actually left?

Across the world, in a mall in Singapore, Lai Zhen, an internet-famous survivalist, flees from an assassin. She’s cornered, desperate and—worst of all—might die without ever knowing what's going on. Suddenly, a remarkable piece of software appears on her phone telling her exactly how to escape. Who made it? What is it really for? And if those behind it can save her from danger, what do they want from her, and what else do they know about the future?

Martha and Zhen’s worlds are about to collide. An explosive chain of events is set in motion. While a few billionaires assured of their own safety lead the world to destruction, Martha’s relentless drive and Zhen’s insatiable curiosity could lead to something beautiful or the cataclysmic end of civilization.]]> 432 Naomi Alderman 1668025698 Andy 0 to-read 3.82 2023 The Future
author: Naomi Alderman
name: Andy
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[ShĹŤgun: Part Two (Asian Saga, #2)]]> 201918732
After Englishman John Blackthorne is lost at sea, he awakens in a place few Europeans know of and even fewer have seen—Nippon. Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, a land where the line between life and death is razor-thin, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, with unknown customs and language, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne’s loyalty and strength of character are tested by both passion and loss, and he is torn between two worlds that will each be forever changed.

Powerful and engrossing, capturing both the rich pageantry and stark realities of life in feudal Japan, Shogun is a critically acclaimed powerhouse of a book. Heart-stopping, edge-of-your-seat action melds seamlessly with intricate historical detail and raw human emotion. Endlessly compelling, this sweeping saga captivated the world to become not only one of the best-selling novels of all time but one of the highest-rated television miniseries, as well as inspiring a nationwide surge of interest in the culture of Japan.]]> 856 James Clavell Andy 5 4.65 1975 ShĹŤgun: Part Two (Asian Saga, #2)
author: James Clavell
name: Andy
average rating: 4.65
book published: 1975
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Operation Biting: The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler's Radar]]> 199793332 384 Max Hastings 0063341085 Andy 0 to-read 3.79 2024 Operation Biting: The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler's Radar
author: Max Hastings
name: Andy
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> House of Leaves 24800
Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.]]> 710 Mark Z. Danielewski Andy 0 currently-reading 4.11 2000 House of Leaves
author: Mark Z. Danielewski
name: Andy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>