Valerie's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 22 Apr 2024 20:33:09 -0700 60 Valerie's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive (Mental Mastery, #1)]]> 20958539 And You're About to Learn How to Use His Memory Strategies to Learn Faster, Be More Productive, and Achieve More SuccessWith over 300,000 copies sold, Unlimited Memory is a Wall Street Journal Best Seller and has been the #1 memory book on Amazon for more than two years. It has been translated into more than a dozen languages including French, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian.Most people never tap into 10% of their potential for memory.In this book, you're about to How the World's Top Memory Experts Concentrate and Remember Any Information at Will, and How You Can TooDo you ever feel like you're too busy, too stressed or just too distracted to concentrate and get work done?In Unlimited Memory, you'll learn how the world's best memory masters get themselves to concentrate at will, anytime they want. When you can easily focus and concentrate on the task at hand, and store and recall useful information, you can easily double your productivity and eliminate wasted time, stress and mistakes at work.You'll find all the tools, strategies and techniques you need to improve your memory. Here’s just a taste of the memory methods you'll 3 bad habits that keep you from easily remembering important informationHow a simple pattern of thinking can stop you from imprinting and remembering key facts, figures and ideas, and how to break this old pattern so you’ll never again be known as someone with a “bad memory”How to master your attention so you can focus and concentrate longer, even during challenging or stressful situationsHow to use your car to remember anything you want (like long lists or information you need to remember for your studies or personal life) without writing anything downSimple methods that allow you to nail down tough information or complex concepts quickly and easilyHow to combine your long-term memory (things you already know and will never forget) and short-term memory (information you want to remember right now) to create instant recall for tests, presentations and important projectsThe simple, invisible mental technique for remembering names without social awkwardness or anxietyHow using your imagination to bring boring information to life can help you dramatically improve your attention span and recallAn incredible strategy for remembering numbers (the same system Kevin used to remember Pi to 10,000 digits and beat the world memory record by 14 minutes)How to use a mental map to lock in and connect hundreds or even thousands of ideas in your long-term memory (this method will allow you to become a leading expert in your field faster than you ever dreamed possible)If you're ready to harness the incredible power of your mind to remember more in less time, this book is for you.About the AuthorFor over 25 years, Kevin Horsley has been analyzing the mind and memory and its capacity for brilliance. He is one of only a few people in the world to have received the title of International Grandmaster of Memory. He is a World Memory Championship medalist, and a two-time World Record holder for The Everest of memory tests.]]> 126 Kevin Horsley 1631619853 Valerie 0 currently-reading 4.02 2014 Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive (Mental Mastery, #1)
author: Kevin Horsley
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The Complete Fairy Tales of Brothers Grimm, Volume 1]]> 207114
Volume I contains 100 unabridged tales, including those best-known around the world:Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, Hansel And Gretel, and Little Red Cap [also known as Little Red Riding Hood ]. These wonderful tales of life, passion, and make-believe appeal not only to children-who unabashedly love them-but to readers of any age.

Translated and with an introduction by Jack Zipes

Volume 2 may be found here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29...]]> 448 Jacob Grimm 0553212389 Valerie 5 4.27 1817 The Complete Fairy Tales of Brothers Grimm, Volume 1
author: Jacob Grimm
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1817
rating: 5
read at: 2012/08/01
date added: 2023/08/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales]]> 1269427
Fairy tales seem to be innocent stories, yet they contain profound lessons for those who would dive deep into their waters of meaning. In this book, Marie-Louise von Franz uncovers some of the important lessons concealed in tales from around the world, drawing on the wealth of her knowledge of folklore, her experience as a psychoanalyst and a collaborator with Jung, and her great personal wisdom. Among the many topics discussed in relation to the dark side of life and human psychology, both individual and collective,

•How different aspects of the “shadow”—all the affects and attitudes that are unconscious to the ego personality—are personified in the giants and monsters, ghosts, and demons, evil kings, and wicked witches of fairy tales
•How problems of the shadow manifest differently in men and women
•What fairy tales say about the kinds of behavior and attitudes that invite evil
•How Jung’s technique of Active imagination can be used to overcome overwhelming negative emotions
•How ghost stories and superstitions reflect the psychology of grieving
•What fairy tales advise us about whether to struggle against evil or turn the other cheek

Dr. von Franz concludes that every rule of behavior that we can learn from the unconscious through fairy tales and dreams is usually a sometimes there must be a physical struggle against evil and sometimes a contest of wits, sometimes a display of strength or magic and sometimes a retreat. Above all, she shows the importance of relying on the central, authentic core of our being—the innermost Self, which is beyond the struggle between the opposites of good and evil.]]> 352 Marie-Louise von Franz 0877739749 Valerie 0 to-read 4.32 1974 Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales
author: Marie-Louise von Franz
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1974
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Shadow Work Workbook: Self-Care Exercises for Healing Your Trauma and Exploring Your Hidden Self]]> 60320428
Shadow work—the process of exploring your pain, trauma, and imperfections—is a powerful tool to help you embrace and accept yourself, even the parts that are difficult. The Shadow Work Workbook gives you everything you need to get started with a clear explanation of what shadow work is, how it works, and how it helps you, as well as guided meditations and accompanying journal prompts and affirmations to walk you through your own shadow work. Written by licensed therapist Jor-El Caraballo, this book is the perfect companion for your self-exploration journey.]]> 256 Jor-El Caraballo 1507219792 Valerie 0 to-read 3.86 The Shadow Work Workbook: Self-Care Exercises for Healing Your Trauma and Exploring Your Hidden Self
author: Jor-El Caraballo
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.86
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rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/04
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]]> Black Like Me 527874 192 John Howard Griffin 0451192036 Valerie 2 4.02 1961 Black Like Me
author: John Howard Griffin
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1961
rating: 2
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date added: 2022/08/20
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I couldn't stop thinking about Eddie Murphy's SNL skit when he turned himself into a white man. Anyway, the book was okay. I give it a 3 1/2 out of 5. I honestly have mixed feelings about it but I can see how helpful it may have been for the civil rights movement in the 60s.
]]> <![CDATA[Adventures in the Art of Rejection]]> 56302526 67 Sephora Woldu Valerie 0 to-read 4.00 Adventures in the Art of Rejection
author: Sephora Woldu
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/06
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]]> <![CDATA[No Gods, No Monsters (Convergence Saga, #1)]]> 55748103
Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it.

As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence. A professor follows a missing friend’s trail of bread crumbs to a mysterious secret society. And a young boy with unique abilities seeks refuge in a pro-monster organization with secrets of its own. Meanwhile, more people start disappearing, suicides and hate crimes increase, and protests erupt globally, both for and against the monsters. At the center is a mystery no one thinks to ask: Why now? What has frightened the monsters out of the dark? The world will soon find out.]]> 387 Cadwell Turnbull 1982603720 Valerie 0 to-read 3.42 2021 No Gods, No Monsters (Convergence Saga, #1)
author: Cadwell Turnbull
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Energetic Boundaries: How to Stay Protected and Connected in Work, Love, and Life]]> 11823895 Energetic Boundaries, this renowned intuitive and energy-medicine expert presents a definitive guide for maintaining this essential aspect of our health and personal integrity, including:


Our four energetic boundaries--techniques to enhance the health of your physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual borders
Self-diagnosis instructions for determining where your boundaries are weakest--and practical ways you can strengthen them
How to signal the world that you are ready for success and prosperity
Special guidance for healers, sensitives, and people whose work regularly exposes them to strong emotional forces
How healthy boundaries allow us to balance intimacy and personal autonomy in relationships and parenting
"Strong and flexible energetic boundaries allow us to share who we truly are with the world," teaches Cyndi Dale. Filled with insights, practical guidance, and easy-to-learn techniques, Energetic Boundaries is an indispensible tool for staying protected and connected in every aspect of life--in our relationships, career, and on our spiritual journey.]]> 312 Cyndi Dale 1604075619 Valerie 0 currently-reading 3.98 2011 Energetic Boundaries: How to Stay Protected and Connected in Work, Love, and Life
author: Cyndi Dale
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/10
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America]]> 1084995 736 Lerone Bennett Jr. 0140178228 Valerie 0 to-read 4.44 1964 Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America
author: Lerone Bennett Jr.
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1964
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)]]> 11021899 242 Mindy Kaling Valerie 4 3.91 2011 Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
author: Mindy Kaling
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2011/11/15
date added: 2020/08/25
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Pretty funny. Kaling is a girl's girl and still manages to be funny. I like that about her. It was fun reading about her childhood and how she got started in show business. I didn't even know she was one of the writers for The Office. I just assumed she had always been an actress. I never laughed out loud but I did chuckle a couple of times. My favorite chapter was her list of fantasies she conjures up while working out. I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars because I was a little turned off by most of the self-deprecating humor.
]]> Luster 51541496
Razor-sharp, provocatively page-turning and surprisingly tender, Luster by Raven Leilani is a painfully funny debut about what it means to be young now.]]> 227 Raven Leilani 0374194327 Valerie 0 currently-reading 3.51 2020 Luster
author: Raven Leilani
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/13
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]]> The Highly Sensitive Person 18955380 Are You A Highly Sensitive Person?

Do you have a keen imagination and vivid dreams? Is time alone each day as essential to you as food and water? Are you "too shy" or "too sensitive" according to others? Do noise and confusion quickly overwhelm you? If your answers are yes, you may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).

Most of us feel overstimulated every once in a while, but for the HSP, it's a way of life. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Elaine Aron, a clinical psychologist, workshop leader, and an HSP herself, shows you how to identify this trait in yourself and make the most of it in everyday situations. Drawing on her many years of research and hundreds of interviews, she shows how you can better understand yourself and your trait to create a fuller, richer life. Updated with a new Author's Note, including the latest scientific research, and a fresh discussion of anti-depressants for HSPs, this edition of The Highly Sensitive Person also includes:

Self-assessment tests to help you identify your particular sensitivities
Ways to reframe your past experiences in a positive light and gain greater self-esteem in the process
Insight into how high sensitivity affects both work and personal relationships
Tips on how to deal with overarousal
Information on medications and when to seek help
Techniques to enrich the soul and spirit

"Elaine Aron's perceptive analysis of this fundamental dimension of human nature is must reading. Her balanced presentation suggests new paths for making sensitivity a blessing, not a handicap." —Philip G. Zimbardo, author of Shyness

"Enlightening and empowering, this book is a wonderful gift to us all." –Riane Ensler, author of The Chalice and the Blade]]> 304 Elaine N. Aron 0806536705 Valerie 0 currently-reading 3.81 1996 The Highly Sensitive Person
author: Elaine N. Aron
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/03/28
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]]> <![CDATA[On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft]]> 7143113 Entertainment Weekly upon the publication of Stephen King's On Writing.
Part memoir, part masterclass by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999—and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery.
Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it—fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.]]> 291 Stephen King 1439156816 Valerie 0 to-read 4.49 2000 On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
author: Stephen King
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/23
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]]> On Writers and Writing 22747912
What do we mean when we say that someone is a writer? Is he or she an entertainer? A high priest of the god of Art? An improver of readers' minds and morals? Looking back on her own childhood and the development of her writing career, Margaret Atwood addresses the riddle of her own art.

Her wide-ranging reference to other writers, living and dead, is accompanied by personal anecdotes from her own experiences as a writer. The lightness of her touch is offset by a seriousness about the purpose and the pleasures of writing. Wise, candid, informative, and engaging, On Writers and Writing provides an insider's view of the writer's universe, written by one of the most celebrated writers of our time.]]> 256 Margaret Atwood 0771007728 Valerie 0 to-read 3.84 2002 On Writers and Writing
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/23
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]]> Daddy Issues 46115960 128 Katherine Angel 1999922395 Valerie 0 to-read 3.46 2019 Daddy Issues
author: Katherine Angel
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/08/04
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]]> Mostly Dead Things 41817578 356 Kristen Arnett 1947793306 Valerie 0 to-read 3.36 2019 Mostly Dead Things
author: Kristen Arnett
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/08/04
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]]> <![CDATA[On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous]]> 41880609 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born � a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam � and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.]]> 246 Ocean Vuong 0525562028 Valerie 0 to-read 4.05 2019 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/08/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture]]> 35068524 368 Roxane Gay 0062413503 Valerie 0 to-read 4.43 2018 Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture
author: Roxane Gay
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/08/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Book on Palo: Deities, Initiatory Rituals and Ceremonies]]> 413975 150 Raúl J. Cañizares 0942272668 Valerie 0 to-read 3.79 2002 The Book on Palo: Deities, Initiatory Rituals and Ceremonies
author: Raúl J. Cañizares
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/04/25
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]]> The Underground Railroad 29584452 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]> 322 Colson Whitehead Valerie 0 currently-reading 4.19 2016 The Underground Railroad
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/04/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Stoicism: How To Be A Stoic (Understanding The Top 10 Stoic Principles)]]> 40523545
In this book, we delve deeper into the understanding of becoming a Stoic by looking at the ten principles of Stoicism.


In each principle, you will also encounter exercises to practice these principles in your daily life. We also look into the characteristics of what a Stoic looks like.

]]> 109 Mark P. Smith Valerie 0 currently-reading 4.20 Stoicism: How To Be A Stoic (Understanding The Top 10 Stoic Principles)
author: Mark P. Smith
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/03/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Improving Emotional Intelligence: Master Your Emotions and Communication Skills (Achieve Success and Happiness through Emotional intelligence)]]> 22725535
Recognizing, understanding, and controlling your feelings can be very difficult. This book will deepen your understanding of emotional intelligence and enhance your ability for its application.
This book will give you a firsthand look at how to develop and maintain powerful relationships through self-awareness, self-management, self-motivation, social awareness and relationship management.


- Self-Awareness � The core component of Emotional Intelligence
- Self-Management � Regulating and Taking Responsibility for you Emotions
- Social Awareness � Perceiving and Understanding What People Feel
- Relationship Management � The People Skills
- Strategies to develop Emotional Intelligence
- and much more!

Download your copy today!]]> 29 Awakening books Valerie 0 currently-reading 3.50 2014 Improving Emotional Intelligence: Master Your Emotions and Communication Skills (Achieve Success and Happiness through Emotional intelligence)
author: Awakening books
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/03/21
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]]> <![CDATA[NeuroLoveology: The Power To Mindful Love & Sex]]> 22231833 including the tools to enhance that relationship, emotionally and sexually. There have been huge advances in the studies of neuroscience, which have given us an even greater understanding of the complicated ways in which the brain receives, accepts and transmits the millions of stimuli it encounters on a daily basis. One of the most fascinating aspects of these studies is the careful unraveling of the exact magic behind love and attraction.

Readers will discover new ways to make their environment more love-friendly so that the mind and body is ready, willing and able to give and receive love. This experiential, playful,hands-on book will offer the tools to create a love-changing experience that will last a lifetime. A myriad of romantic, sensual and erotic TO DO’s are included throughout the book, marked with a special icon. Additionally throughout the book, there will be words of
wisdom by experts in the field of neuroscience and the science of love and sex in a sidebar entitled, Genius Corner.]]> 299 Ava Cadell Valerie 0 currently-reading 4.00 2013 NeuroLoveology: The Power To Mindful Love & Sex
author: Ava Cadell
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/03/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice]]> 19064670 226 Paul Butler Valerie 0 currently-reading 3.92 2009 Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice
author: Paul Butler
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/03/10
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Soul Stories 19859199 True Stories That Transform Lives Writing with profound psychological and spiritual insight, prize-winning author Gary Zukav has had a major impact on the consciousness of millions. In his New York Times number-one bestseller, The Seat of the Soul, he explained how the expansion of human perception beyond the five senses leads to a new understanding of power -- the alignment of the personality with the soul -- which in turn leads to an awareness of our extraordinary creative abilities. Now, in one of the most important and useful books you will ever read, Soul Stories, Zukav shows how this new understanding of power -- authentic power -- transforms lives in countless ways. Soul Stories is filled with marvelous stories that show how concepts such as intuition, harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for life actually express themselves in people's lives. Best of all, the stories lead to practical advice on how you can discover your own Soul Stories and the truths they reveal about the deepest sources of your being. Wonderfully readable, Soul Stories is a wise and inspirational book.]]> 234 Gary Zukav 1416561986 Valerie 0 4.44 2000 Soul Stories
author: Gary Zukav
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/02/28
shelves: currently-reading, wanna-re-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1)]]> 32075671 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062498533 can be found here.

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl's struggle for justice.]]> 454 Angie Thomas 0062498533 Valerie 0 to-read 4.46 2017 The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1)
author: Angie Thomas
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/02/24
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]]> The Secret of Letting Go 563728 Every page has new ideas and concepts that can help to improve your life. Sometimes you may feel you just need to bear up with your problems. Like many people, you may believe that a little suffering is good. Well, in actuality, suffering is not good. But how do you get over it?
Sometimes people are willing to suffer because they care about someone else and don't want to hurt them Finley writes that, "suffering doesn't prove that you know what it means to care about yourself or others. What it does prove is you haven't seen through your own ideas about caring or you wouldn't be so careless with yourself." The book includes nine more powerful ways to snap the spell of suffering.
All though the book you will read about techniques and ideas you can apply to your life, all designed to bring you more peace, joy, and happiness than you've ever known. There are also numerous examples showing how people made use of these things in their lives. You will see how it can apply to you, too.
This is the book that will really show you how to change your life. And you'll love the new you!]]> 240 Guy Finley 0875422233 Valerie 0 currently-reading 3.72 1899 The Secret of Letting Go
author: Guy Finley
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1899
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/02/24
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]]> What We Owe to Each Other 278553
Scanlon bases his contractualism on a broader account of reasons, value, and individual well-being that challenges standard views about these crucial notions. He argues that desires do not provide us with reasons, that states of affairs are not the primary bearers of value, and that well-being is not as important for rational decision-making as it is commonly held to be. Scanlon is a pluralist about both moral and non-moral values. He argues that, taking this plurality of values into account, contractualism allows for most of the variability in moral requirements that relativists have claimed, while still accounting for the full force of our judgments of right and wrong.]]> 432 T.M. Scanlon 067400423X Valerie 0 to-read 3.84 1999 What We Owe to Each Other
author: T.M. Scanlon
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/12/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> Hoodoo 23719417 Then a mysterious man called the Stranger comes to town, and Hoodoo starts dreaming of the dead rising from their graves. Even worse, he soon learns the Stranger is looking for a boy. Not just any boy. A boy named Hoodoo. The entire town is at risk from the Stranger’s black magic, and only Hoodoo can defeat him. He’ll just need to learn how to conjure first.
Set amid the swamps, red soil, and sweltering heat of small town Alabama in the 1930s, Hoodoo is infused with a big dose of creepiness leavenedwith gentle humor.


ձ> 208 Ronald L. Smith 0544445252 Valerie 0 to-read 3.76 2015 Hoodoo
author: Ronald L. Smith
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/06/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy]]> 248718 336 Robert Farris Thompson 0394723694 Valerie 0 to-read 4.26 1983 Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy
author: Robert Farris Thompson
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/06/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Jambalaya: The Natural Woman's Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals]]> 920739 A Marvelous Blend of Memoir, Folk Wisdom, and Afro-American Beliefs.

Actress, storyteller, and priestess Luisah Teish dramatically re-creates centuries-old African-American traditions with music, memoir, and folk wisdom.]]> 288 Luisah Teish 0062508598 Valerie 0 to-read 4.40 1985 Jambalaya: The Natural Woman's Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals
author: Luisah Teish
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/06/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia Magica of African-American Conjure]]> 648968 224 Catherine Yronwode 0971961204 Valerie 0 to-read 4.42 2002 Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia Magica of African-American Conjure
author: Catherine Yronwode
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/06/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lilith, but dark 39851195 86 Nichole Perkins 1945028149 Valerie 0 to-read 4.43 2018 Lilith, but dark
author: Nichole Perkins
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/06/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky]]> 31522415
In “Who Will Greet You at Home,� a National Magazine Award finalist for The New Yorker, A woman desperate for a child weaves one out of hair, with unsettling results. In “Wild,� a disastrous night out shifts a teenager and her Nigerian cousin onto uneasy common ground. In "The Future Looks Good," three generations of women are haunted by the ghosts of war, while in "Light," a father struggles to protect and empower the daughter he loves. And in the title story, in a world ravaged by flood and riven by class, experts have discovered how to "fix the equation of a person" - with rippling, unforeseen repercussions.

Evocative, playful, subversive, and incredibly human, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky heralds the arrival of a prodigious talent with a remarkable career ahead of her.]]> 232 Lesley Nneka Arimah 0735211027 Valerie 0 currently-reading 4.10 2017 What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky
author: Lesley Nneka Arimah
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/09/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Who Fears Death (Who Fears Death, #1)]]> 18935845 An award-winning literary author enters the world of magical realism with her World Fantasy Award-winning novel of a remarkable woman in post-apocalyptic Africa.

In a post-apocalyptic Africa, the world has changed in many ways; yet in one region genocide between tribes still bloodies the land. A woman who has survived the annihilation of her village and a terrible rape by an enemy general wanders into the desert, hoping to die. Instead, she gives birth to an angry baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand. Gripped by the certainty that her daughter is different—special—she names her Onyesonwu, which means "Who fears death?" in an ancient language.

It doesn't take long for Onye to understand that she is physically and socially marked by the circumstances of her conception. She is Ewu—a child of rape who is expected to live a life of violence, a half-breed rejected by her community. But Onye is not the average Ewu. Even as a child, she manifests the beginnings of a remarkable and unique magic. As she grows, so do her abilities, and during an inadvertent visit to the spirit realm, she learns something someone powerful is trying to kill her.

Desperate to elude her would-be murderer and to understand her own nature, she embarks on a journey in which she grapples with nature, tradition, history, true love, and the spiritual mysteries of her culture, and ultimately learns why she was given the name she Who Fears Death.]]> 401 Nnedi Okorafor 1101516003 Valerie 0 currently-reading 4.20 2010 Who Fears Death (Who Fears Death, #1)
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/08/01
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bestseller Bound Anthology (Volume 1)]]> 11789820
Wish Upon A Star by Lainey Bancroft
Tears For Hesh by J. Michael Radcliffe
You Can Call Me Ari by Darcia Helle
Flames by Maria Savva
Minor Details by Jaleta Clegg
Ice Cream Man by Neil Schiller
No Eyes But Mine Shall See by Sharon E. Cathcart
The First Texas Twister by Magnolia Belle
Shadow Lantern by Gareth Lewis
Stained by Amy Saunders]]> 71 Darcia Helle Valerie 0 currently-reading 3.49 2011 Bestseller Bound Anthology (Volume 1)
author: Darcia Helle
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/08/01
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[This Year You Write Your Novel]]> 219462 - Create a daily writing regimen to fit any writer's needs--and how to stick to it.
- Determine the narrative voice that's right for every writer's style.
- Get past those first challenging sentences and into the heart of a story.]]> 111 Walter Mosley 0316065412 Valerie 0 currently-reading 3.74 2007 This Year You Write Your Novel
author: Walter Mosley
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/03/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[You Are A Writer (So Start Acting Like One)]]> 13610173
In You Are a Writer, Jeff Goins shares his own story of self-doubt and what it took for him to become a professional writer and best-selling author—and the principles he’s learned from seeing many others do the same. He gives you practical steps to improve your writing, get published, and build a platform that puts you in charge.

This book is about what it takes to be a writer in the 21st Century. You will learn the importance of passion and discipline and how to show up every day to do the work. You Are a Writer will help you fall back in love with writing and build an audience who shares your love. It’s about living the dream of a life dedicated to words.]]> 77 Jeff Goins Valerie 0 currently-reading 3.82 2012 You Are A Writer (So Start Acting Like One)
author: Jeff Goins
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/03/09
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Summer that Melted Everything]]> 26114523 Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984:
the year a heatwave scorched the small town of Breathed, Ohio.
The year he became friends with the devil.


When local prosecutor Autopsy Bliss publishes an invitation to the devil to come to the country town of Breathed, Ohio, nobody quite expected that he would turn up. They especially didn't expect him to turn up a tattered and bruised thirteen-year-old boy.


Fielding, the son of Autopsy, finds the boy outside the courthouse and brings him home, and he is welcomed into the Bliss family. The Blisses believe the boy, who calls himself Sal, is a runaway from a nearby farm town. Then, as a series of strange incidents implicate Sal � and riled by the feverish heatwave baking the town from the inside out � there are some around town who start to believe that maybe Sal is exactly who he claims to be.


But whether he's a traumatised child or the devil incarnate, Sal is certainly one strange fruit: he talks in riddles, his uncanny knowledge and understanding reaches far outside the realm of a normal child � and ultimately his eerily affecting stories of Heaven, Hell, and earth will mesmerise and enflame the entire town.


Devastatingly beautiful, The Summer That Melted Everything is a captivating story about community, redemption, and the dark places where evil really lies.

]]> 320 Tiffany McDaniel 1250078067 Valerie 0 to-read 3.97 2016 The Summer that Melted Everything
author: Tiffany McDaniel
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/02/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Nix 28251002
To save her, Samuel will have to embark on his own journey, uncovering long-buried secrets about the woman he thought he knew, secrets that stretch across generations and have their origin all the way back in Norway, home of the mysterious Nix. As he does so, Samuel will confront not only Faye’s losses but also his own lost love, and will relearn everything he thought he knew about his mother, and himself.]]> 625 Nathan Hill 110194661X Valerie 0 to-read 4.08 2016 The Nix
author: Nathan Hill
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/02/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> Swing Time 28390369
Dazzlingly energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is a story about friendship and music and stubborn roots, about how we are shaped by these things and how we can survive them. Moving from northwest London to West Africa, it is an exuberant dance to the music of time.]]> 453 Zadie Smith 0241144159 Valerie 0 to-read 3.55 2016 Swing Time
author: Zadie Smith
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence]]> 15808840
Showing how promotion/prevention focus applies across a wide range of situations from selling products to managing employees to raising children to getting a second date, Halvorson and Higgins show us how to identify focus, how to change focus, and how to use focus exactly the right way to get results. Short, punchy, and prescriptive, Focus will help you see not just what’s going on around you� but what’s underneath.

Visit the author's website at for a special pre-order giveaway.]]> 272 Heidi Grant Halvorson 1594631026 Valerie 0 to-read 4.00 2013 Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence
author: Heidi Grant Halvorson
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time]]> 84699
Climb the ladder to personal success?

The secret, master networker Keith Ferrazzi claims, is in reaching out to other people. As Ferrazzi discovered early in life, what distinguishes highly successful people from everyone else is the way they use the power of relationships—so that everyone wins.

In Never Eat Alone , Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps—and inner mindset—he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his Rolodex, people he has helped and who have helped him.

The son of a small-town steelworker and a cleaning lady, Ferrazzi first used his remarkable ability to connect with others to pave the way to a scholarship at Yale, a Harvard MBA, and several top executive posts. Not yet out of his thirties, he developed a network of relationships that stretched from Washington’s corridors of power to Hollywood’s A-list, leading to him being named one of Crain’s 40 Under 40 and selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the Davos World Economic Forum.

Ferrazzi's form of connecting to the world around him is based on generosity, helping friends connect with other friends. Ferrazzi distinguishes genuine relationship-building from the crude, desperate glad-handling usually associated with “networking.� He then distills his system of reaching out to people into practical, proven principles. Among them:

Don’t keep score: It’s never simply about getting what you want. It’s about getting what you want and making sure that the people who are important to you get what they want, too.

“Ping� constantly: The Ins and Outs of reaching out to those in your circle of contacts all the time—not just when you need something.

Never eat alone: The dynamics of status are the same whether you’re working at a corporation or attending a society event� “invisibility� is a fate worse than failure.

In the course of the book, Ferrazzi outlines the timeless strategies shared by the world’s most connected individuals, from Katherine Graham to Bill Clinton, Vernon Jordan to the Dalai Lama.

Chock full of specific advice on handling rejection, getting past gatekeepers, becoming a “conference commando,� and more, Never Eat Alone is destined to take its place alongside How to Win Friends and Influence People as an inspirational classic.]]> 309 Keith Ferrazzi 0385512058 Valerie 0 to-read 3.84 Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time
author: Keith Ferrazzi
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Self-Help 90872
In these tales of loss and pleasure, lovers and family, a woman learns to conduct an affair, a child of divorce dances with her mother, and a woman with a terminal illness contemplates her exit. Filled with the sharp humor, emotional acuity, and joyful language Moore has become famous for, these nine glittering tales marked the introduction of an extravagantly gifted writer.]]> 163 Lorrie Moore 0307277291 Valerie 0 to-read 4.13 1985 Self-Help
author: Lorrie Moore
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/02/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> We Should All Be Feminists 22738563 We Should All Be Feminists, a personal, eloquently-argued essay—adapted from her much-viewed TEDx talk of the same name—by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award-winning author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun.

With humor and levity, here Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century—one rooted in inclusion and awareness. She shines a light not only on blatant discrimination, but also the more insidious, institutional behaviors that marginalize women around the world, in order to help readers of all walks of life better understand the often masked realities of sexual politics. Throughout, she draws extensively on her own experiences—in the U.S., in her native Nigeria, and abroad—offering an artfully nuanced explanation of why the gender divide is harmful for women and men, alike.

Argued in the same observant, witty and clever prose that has made Adichie a bestselling novelist, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman today—and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.]]> 65 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Valerie 0 currently-reading 4.42 2012 We Should All Be Feminists
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/02/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind]]> 17979605 Th� giới đã thay đổi. Cách chúng ta làm việc cũng phải thay đổi. Với s� khôn ngoan có được t� 20 b� óc sáng tạo hàng đầu, t� Dan Ariely đến Seth Godin, t� Mark McGuinness đến Tiffany Shlain, Đừng Đ� Nước Đến Chân Mới Nhảy mang đến cho bạn những ý kiến sâu sắc và giá tr� của việc tối ưu hóa nhịp điệu hàng ngày. Bạn s� thấy rằng thói quen làm việc của mình đã b� phó mặc thích nghi với môi trường xung quanh hơn là đáp ứng s� thích của chính bạn. Hãy s� dụng cuốn sách k� năng thú v� này như một cơ hội đ� đánh giá mọi th�. Hãy dừng lại giữa dòng công việc không ngừng ngh� đ� đánh giá cách bạn thực hiện nó. Ch� bằng cách có trách nhiệm v� thói quen hằng ngày của mình bạn mới có th� thực s� tác động tới những gì quan trọng nhất đối với mình.
Đừng Đ� Nước Đến Chân Mới Nhảy ch� ra bốn k� năng cốt lõi đ� tiến đến thành công:
Xây dựng thói quen hàng ngày vững chắc
Thuần hóa các công c�
Tìm kiếm s� tập trung trong th� giới nhiều phân tán
Mài sắc tư duy sáng tạo.]]> 211 Jocelyn K. Glei Valerie 0 currently-reading 3.80 2013 Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind
author: Jocelyn K. Glei
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/01/28
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Another Brooklyn 30064150
New York Times Bestseller

A SeattleTimes pick for Summer Reading Roundup 2017

The acclaimed New York Times bestselling and National Book Award–winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming delivers her first adult novel in twenty years.

Running into a long-ago friend sets memory from the 1970s in motion for August, transporting her to a time and a place where friendship was everything—until it wasn’t. For August and her girls, sharing confidences as they ambled through neighborhood streets, Brooklyn was a place where they believed that they were beautiful, talented, brilliant—a part of a future that belonged to them.

But beneath the hopeful veneer, there was another Brooklyn, a dangerous place where grown men reached for innocent girls in dark hallways, where ghosts haunted the night, where mothers disappeared. A world where madness was just a sunset away and fathers found hope in religion.

Like Louise Meriwether’s Daddy Was a Number Runner and Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina, Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn heartbreakingly illuminates the formative time when childhood gives way to adulthood—the promise and peril of growing up—and exquisitely renders a powerful, indelible, and fleeting friendship that united four young lives.

ձ> 197 Jacqueline Woodson Valerie 0 currently-reading 3.94 2016 Another Brooklyn
author: Jacqueline Woodson
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/26
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)]]> 8423493
Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before... and surprising readers at every turn.]]> 439 Suzanne Collins Valerie 5 4.42 2009 Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2012/01/26
date added: 2016/12/27
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[I Think I Am In Friend-Love With You]]> 20423644 YALSA Quick Pick Award Winner Express your love for your friends with this sweet, loving book that celebrates the joy of true friendship.I have a confession to make. I think I am in friend-love with you. What’s friend-love? It’s that super-awesome bond you share with someone who makes you happy every time you text each other, or meet up for an epic outing. It’s not love-love. You don’t want to swap saliva; you want to swap favorite books. But it’s just as intense and just as amazing. And it’s this search for that connection that comic-book artist Yumi Sakugawa captures in I Think I Am in Friend-Love with You. It’s perfect if you've ever fallen in friend-love and want to show that person how much you love them...in a platonic way, of course.]]> 131 Yumi Sakugawa 1440573034 Valerie 0 4.10 2013 I Think I Am In Friend-Love With You
author: Yumi Sakugawa
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2016/12/03
date added: 2016/12/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us]]> 6452796 The New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation

Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.]]> 242 Daniel H. Pink 1594488843 Valerie 0 to-read 3.94 2009 Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
author: Daniel H. Pink
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/09/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> Purity 23754479
Young Pip Tyler doesn't know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she's saddled with $130,000 in student debt, that she's squatting with anarchists in Oakland, and that her relationship with her mother � her only family � is hazardous. But she doesn't have a clue who her father is, why her mother chose to live as a recluse with an invented name, or how she'll ever have a normal life.

Enter the Germans. A glancing encounter with a German peace activist leads Pip to an internship in South America with The Sunlight Project, an organization that traffics in all the secrets of the world � including, Pip hopes, the secret of her origins. TSP is the brainchild of Andreas Wolf, a charismatic provocateur who rose to fame in the chaos following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now on the lam in Bolivia, Andreas is drawn to Pip for reasons she doesn't understand, and the intensity of her response to him upends her conventional ideas of right and wrong.

Purity is a grand story of youthful idealism, extreme fidelity, and murder. The author of The Corrections and Freedom has imagined a world of vividly original characters � Californians and East Germans, good parents and bad parents, journalists and leakers � and he follows their intertwining paths through landscapes as contemporary as the omnipresent Internet and as ancient as the war between the sexes. Purity is the most daring and penetrating book yet by one of the major writers of our time.]]> 563 Jonathan Franzen 0374239215 Valerie 0 to-read 3.62 2015 Purity
author: Jonathan Franzen
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/09/01
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]]> Divergent (Divergent, #1) 8306857 In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

]]> 487 Veronica Roth 0062024027 Valerie 0 to-read 4.28 2011 Divergent (Divergent, #1)
author: Veronica Roth
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/05/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Wild Seed (Patternmaster, #1) 764647 279 Octavia E. Butler 0446606723 Valerie 0 4.12 1980 Wild Seed (Patternmaster, #1)
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/05/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Frida Kahlo: The Paintings 91762
Her works are so incendiary in emotion and subject matter that one art critic suggested the walls of an exhibition be covered with asbestos.

In this beautiful book, art historian Hayden Herrera brings together numerous paintings and sketches by the amazing Mexican artist, documenting each with explanatory text that probes the influences in Kahlo‘s life and their meaning for her work. Included among the illustrations are more than eighty full–color paintings, as well as dozens of black–and–white pictures and line illustrations. Among the famous and little–known works included in Frida Kahlo: The Paintings are The Two Fridas, Self–Portrait as a Tehuana, Without Hope, The Dream, The Little Deer, Diego and I, Henry Ford Hospital, My Birth, and My Nurse and I. Here, too, are documentary photographs of Frida Kahlo and her world that help to illuminate the various stages of her life.

About the Author:
Hayden Herrera is an art historian. She has lectured widely, curated several exhibitions of art, taught Latin American art at New York University, and has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is the author of numerous articles and reviews for such publications as Art in America, Art Forum, Connoisseur, and the New York Times, among others. Her books include Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo; Mary Frank; and Matisse: A Portrait. She is working on a critical biography of Arshile Gorky. She lives in New York City.]]> 272 Hayden Herrera 0060923199 Valerie 5 4.24 1991 Frida Kahlo: The Paintings
author: Hayden Herrera
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/12/11
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Club Dead (Sookie Stackhouse, #3)]]> 685386 292 Charlaine Harris 0441010512 Valerie 0 to-read 3.90 2003 Club Dead (Sookie Stackhouse, #3)
author: Charlaine Harris
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/07/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> To Kill a Mockingbird 37449 here .

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.

Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos.]]> 376 Harper Lee 1439550417 Valerie 0 4.30 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/03/12
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking]]> 8520610 The book that started the Quiet Revolution

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society.

In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.

Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content.]]> 333 Susan Cain 0307352145 Valerie 0 currently-reading 4.07 2012 Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
author: Susan Cain
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/11/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> I married an artist 10334882 238 Billy Button Valerie 0 to-read 4.67 1951 I married an artist
author: Billy Button
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.67
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/11/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Bad Feminist 18813642 Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink—all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I’m not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue.

In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman of color while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years and commenting on the state of feminism today. The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture.

Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better.

Feel me, see me, hear me, reach me --
Peculiar benefits --
Typical first year professor --
To scratch, claw or grope clumsily or frantically --
How to be friends with another woman --
Girls, girls, girls --
I once was Miss America --
Garish, glorious spectacles --
Not here to make friends --
How we all lose --
Reaching for catharsis : getting fat right (or wrong) and Diana Spechler's Skinny --
The smooth surfaces of idyll --
The careless language of sexual violence --
What we hunger for --
The illusion of safety/the safety of illusion --
The spectacle of broken men --
A tale of three coming out stories --
Beyond the measure of men --
Some jokes are funnier than others --
Dear young ladies who love Chris Brown --
So much they would let him beat them --
Blurred lines, indeed --
The trouble with Prince Charming, or, He who trespassed against us --
The solace of preparing fried foods and other quaint remembrances from 1960s Mississippi : thoughts on The help --
Surviving Django --
Beyond the struggle narrative --
The morality of Tyler Perry --
The last day of a young black man --
When less is more --
The politics of respectability --
When Twitter does what journalism cannot --
The alienable rights of women --
Holding out for a hero --
A tale of two profiles --
The racism we all carry --
Tragedy, call, compassion, response --
Bad feminist : take one --
Bad feminist : take two]]> 320 Roxane Gay 0062282719 Valerie 0 to-read 3.93 2014 Bad Feminist
author: Roxane Gay
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/11/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Judy Blume and Lena Dunham in Conversation]]> 20350909 80 Judy Blume Valerie 0 to-read 4.03 2013 Judy Blume and Lena Dunham in Conversation
author: Judy Blume
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/11/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going with Your Gut]]> 18730154 My Drunk Kitchen was born.

My Drunk Kitchen (the book!) includes recipes, stories, color photographs, and tips and tricks to inspire your own adventures in tipsy cooking. Hannah offers cocktail recommendations, culinary advice (like, remember to turn off the oven when you go to bed), and shares never-before-seen recipes such as:


The Hartwich (Knowledge is ingenuity! Learn from the past!) Can Bake (Inventing things is hard! You don't have to start from scratch!) Latke Shotkes (Plan ahead to avoid a night of dread!) Tiny Sandwiches (Size doesn't matter! Aim to satisfy.) Saltine Nachos (It's not about resources! It's about being resourceful.)
In the end, My Drunk Kitchen may not be your go-to guide for your next dinner party . . . but it will make you laugh and drink . . . I mean think . . . about life.]]> 225 Hannah Hart 0062293036 Valerie 0 to-read 3.94 2014 My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going with Your Gut
author: Hannah Hart
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/07/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1)]]> 2157743 The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known...of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect—a man divided in his soul...of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame...and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state and brother against brother.

A spellbinding epic of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of twelfth-century England, this is Ken Follett's historical masterpiece.]]> 973 Ken Follett 0451225244 Valerie 0 to-read 4.26 1989 The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1)
author: Ken Follett
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/06/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mean Streets - Life in the Apartheid Police (Book 1) College Days (Mean Streets Police Books)]]> 19226878 Many “anti� books were published, especially by the mainstream publishing houses and although they have a function and fulfilled a financial need, the Mean Streets Series is not like that.
This is a story of a man, a junior officer that grew up in Apartheid South Africa and joined the Police at age 18 with the specific purpose to serve, to hunt criminals and terrorists and to kill them if needs be. He would go on to become an attorney at one of the most famous human rights law firms in Africa.
A mesmerizing story. For those that were not members of the SAP between 1985-1991, and most were not, this is the closest you will ever get to see the world from the policemen’s “Makes the world of a policeman come to life. Brilliant exposé of what it really feels like to have been part of the SAP during the years of apartheid. The author is painstakingly honest about his emotions and experiences during that time. A must read...� is one reviewer’s remarks.
“Outstanding book, 1 of 3 on the SAP by this author... Genuine honest look from the inside by one who was there, did that, got the T-shirt and all the rest� said another.
“These books provide an entertaining glimpse into not only the world of Law Enforcement but also into a department which has been under media attack for decades. Of course Apartheid was a terrible and racist system, and the police enforced those very laws, but the author does an excellent job in explaining the reasons behind this in a clear and concise manner. If you try to understand ANYTHING from the police point of view, the author's reasoning will answer some tough questions. The series is informative, funny, entertaining and a series I enjoyed reading...� wrote a former NYPD officer.
The various Mean Streets Books were read by many, criticized by some and loved by a lot more as an eye-opener to that closed world. The South African Police Force had almost nothing in common with a Sheriff's Department or the “Bobby on the Beat� � think Marines with police powers and you are closer to the truth. The highly trained policemen were fighting terrorists as mechanized infantry besides dealing with “normal� crime in between. The statistics show that most of the terrorists were killed by the South African Police Force, not the Army, during South Africa’s Border War. 98% of all terrorists inside South Africa died by police bullets.
The Police likewise had a decade more experience in counterinsurgency, learning their trade during the Rhodesian Bush War. Their daily duties involved dealing with vicious and brutal crime, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency and full-scale riots, depending on where they were.
The Mean Streets Book Series is a warning. They will show you what happens when unscrupulous politicians gain control of a highly disciplined Police Force and there is no “Bill of Human Rights� to stop them from implementing the country’s laws. No matter how unfair the laws may be or no matter what opposition is faced, these police officers will not turn a blind eye or walk away. They will react in kind every time and violently if provoked or not. They were feared with good reason - they were brutally effective and true to their traditions. Yet they also showed kindness and saved life at times.
This, the First Book in the Series is an account of the author's basic training and other provocative events at the South African Police College in Pretoria. It is not merely a police biography but an intense look at how an honorable Police Force became an “Instrument of Terror� mostly because of politics way above the policemen’s pay grade.
Funny, and insightful. At times you laugh, at times you cry, and sporadically you shake your head.]]> 309 Jacobus Kotze 1301057177 Valerie 0 to-read 3.93 2012 Mean Streets - Life in the Apartheid Police (Book 1) College Days (Mean Streets Police Books)
author: Jacobus Kotze
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/06/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)]]> 822995 here.

Time is out of joint. The summer of peace and plenty, ten years long, is drawing to a close, and the harsh, chill winter approaches like an angry beast. Two great leaders—Lord Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon—who held sway over and age of enforced peace are dead...victims of royal treachery. Now, from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns, as pretenders to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms prepare to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war.

As a prophecy of doom cuts across the sky—a comet the color of blood and flame—six factions struggle for control of a divided land. Eddard’s son Robb has declared himself King in the North. In the south, Joffrey, the heir apparent, rules in name only, victim of the scheming courtiers who teem over King’s Landing. Robert’s two brothers each seek their own dominion, while a disfavored house turns once more to conquest. And a continent away, an exiled queen, the Mother of Dragons, risks everything to lead her precious brood across a hard hot desert to win back the crown that is rightfully hers.

A Clash of Kings transports us into a magnificent, forgotten land of revelry and revenge, wizardry and wartime. It is a tale in which maidens cavort with madmen, brother plots against brother, and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside.

Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, the price of glory may be measured in blood. And the spoils of victory may just go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel...and the coldest hearts. For when rulers clash, all of the land feels the tremors.

Audacious, inventive, brilliantly imagined, A Clash of Kings is a novel of dazzling beauty and boundless enchantment—a tale of pure excitement you will never forget.]]> 913 George R.R. Martin 0006479898 Valerie 0 to-read 4.32 1998 A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/06/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Travel To the G-Spot -- The Guide Book]]> 13635466
Determined to make sense out of what just happened to his life, he looks back through some of his stories from around the world to figure out how he reached this disturbing closing chapter. Along the way, he recounts a childhood of coddled captivity in the suburbs and not being allowed to cross the big streets alone, to exotic tales of intrigue, indulgence and debauchery in places from Thailand to Tonga to Times Square. He confesses that he considers travel writing an addiction that he must overcome, and admits that he’s only done it to confront his self-loathing and fear of everything.

He also manages to blow the lid off a secretive world of free trips and professional perks that exposes the dirty underbelly of a filthy business that is obviously not a problem to anyone but himself.

It’s the humorous, dark and oddly hopeful story of a character who was raised to always do his best, learns that’s often not required, and, instead of just getting on with his life like everyone else, continually sabotages his own best efforts by actually questioning why that's okay? It's a line of inquiry he deeply believes more people should be exploring, and though time’s running out for Danny, he can still remember Nana Belle, his grandmother, who made his childhood bed and cooked his soft-boiled eggs, saying, "It's never too late."

How much of the book is realistic?

According to the author, "All of it, I hope. It's a fictional memoir of a guy in our world. He's a writer. He has a family and friends. He travels to some pretty exotic places and writes about it, but he's not a werewolf or a hobbit. It has to seem real, I think. The thing is, I've been a travel writer for a long time. It's a great life, and worth sharing. Although I always strive for the truth, there's a deeper level of truth that isn't wanted in stories that are published. This book is an effort to get closer to those deeper truths by telling a story about what really happens to a writer on one fantastic trip after another that most people can only dream about. There's a dark side to it, sure, but overall it's just supposed to be funny. I hope it resonates for readers who grew up in the 50s, 60s and 70s, and for those who wonder why all those folks are the way they are."

�...combines gritty realism, sharp social satire, hilarious comedy and a smooth, confident writing style.�
-ŷ

" …kinda like a little Paul Theroux, mixed with some Hunter S. Thompson. Stir in a tad of Philip Roth and shake vigorously.�
-Taos Cowboy

“…a very, very funny book.�
-The Oklahoman

It’s a must read for anyone who travels, wants to, or ever dreamed of being a travel writer.]]> 270 Steve Cohen 1452432929 Valerie 0 to-read 3.84 2012 Travel To the G-Spot -- The Guide Book
author: Steve Cohen
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me]]> 9461095
Just when Hilary feels like her life is finally in order, she gets a sucker-punch to the gut: Her ex-has written a novel based on their relationship in which he refers to her throughout as the “fat-assed girlfriend.� Her response to this affront is just one of the many hilarious stories in My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me--a laugh-out-loud, tell-all in which Hilary sets the record straight on all her exes.]]> 240 Hilary Winston 1402779798 Valerie 0 to-read 3.40 2011 My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me
author: Hilary Winston
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[African Magic: Traditional Ideas That Heal A Continent]]> 766842 211 Heidi Holland 0670896616 Valerie 0 to-read 3.89 2003 African Magic: Traditional Ideas That Heal A Continent
author: Heidi Holland
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/09/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> NW 13537891 NW is a quietly devastating novel of encounters, mercurial and vital, like the city itself.]]> 296 Zadie Smith 0241144140 Valerie 0 to-read 3.49 2012 NW
author: Zadie Smith
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories]]> 13531832 Swamplandia! � a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize � comes a magical and uniquely daring collection of stories that showcases the author’s gifts at their inimitable best.

Within these pages, a community of girls held captive in a Japanese silk factory slowly transmute into human silkworms and plot revolution; a group of boys stumble upon a mutilated scarecrow that bears an uncanny resemblance to a missing classmate that they used to torment; a family’s disastrous quest for land in the American West has grave consequences; and in the marvelous title story, two vampires in a sun-drenched lemon grove try to slake their thirst for blood and come to terms with their immortal relationship.

Vampires in the lemon grove --
Reeling for the Empire --
Seagull army descends on Strong Beach, 1979 --
Proving up --
Barn at the end of our term --
Dougbert Shackleton's rules for Antarctic tailgating --
New veterans --
Graveless doll of Eric Mutis]]> 243 Karen Russell 0307957233 Valerie 0 to-read 3.68 2013 Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories
author: Karen Russell
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> My Heart Is an Idiot: Essays 13166633 But as much as Rothbart is a tragically lovable, irresistibly brokenhearted hero, it’s his prose that’s the star of the book. In the tradition of David Sedaris and Sloane Crosley but going places very much his own, his essays show how things that are seemingly so wrong can be so, so right.]]> 307 Davy Rothbart 0374280843 Valerie 0 to-read 3.60 2012 My Heart Is an Idiot: Essays
author: Davy Rothbart
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Women Who Run With the Wolves 241823
In "Women Who Run With the Wolves," Dr Estes unfolds rich intercultural myths, fairytales and stories, many from her own family, in order to help women reconnect with the fierce, healthy, visionary attributes of this instinctual nature. Through the stories and commentaries in this remarkable book, we retrieve, examine, love, and understand the Wild Woman, and hold her against our deep psyches as one who is both magic and medicine. Dr Estes has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul.]]> 537 Clarissa Pinkola Estés 0345409876 Valerie 0 currently-reading 4.12 1992 Women Who Run With the Wolves
author: Clarissa Pinkola Estés
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/08/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass]]> 5660772 52 Lewis Carroll Valerie 4 4.01 1871 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
author: Lewis Carroll
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1871
rating: 4
read at: 2013/08/22
date added: 2013/08/22
shelves:
review:

]]> Saga, Volume 1 15704307
Collects: Saga #1-6.]]> 160 Brian K. Vaughan 1607066017 Valerie 0 wishlist 4.16 2012 Saga, Volume 1
author: Brian K. Vaughan
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/04/21
shelves: wishlist
review:

]]> Shine Shine Shine 13167199 Shine, Shine, Shine is a shocking, searing, breathless love story, a gripping portrait of modern family, and a stunning exploration of love, death and what it means to be human.

Sunny Mann has masterminded a life for herself and her family in a quiet Virginia town. Her house and her friends are picture-perfect. Even her genius husband, Maxon, has been trained to pass for normal. But when a fender bender on an average day sends her coiffed blonde wig sailing out the window, her secret is exposed. Not only is she bald, Sunny is nothing like the Stepford wife she’s trying to be. As her facade begins to unravel, we discover the singular world of Sunny, an everywoman searching for the perfect life, and Maxon, an astronaut on his way to colonize the moon.

Theirs is a wondrous, strange relationship formed of dark secrets, decades-old murders and the urgent desire for connection. As children, the bald, temperamental Sunny and the neglected savant Maxon found an unlikely friendship no one else could understand. She taught him to feel -- helped him translate his intelligence for numbers into a language of emotion. He saw her spirit where others saw only a freak. As they grew into adults, their profound understanding blossomed into love and marriage.

But with motherhood comes a craving for normalcy that begins to strangle Sunny’s marriage and family. As Sunny and Maxon are on the brink of destruction, at each other’s throats with blame and fear of how they’ve lost their way, Maxon departs for the moon, where he’s charged with programming the robots that will build the fledgling colony. Just as the car accident jars Sunny out of her wig and into an awareness of what she really needs, an accident involving Maxon’s rocket threatens everything they’ve built, revealing the things they’ve kept hidden. And nothing will ever be the same.]]> 309 Lydia Netzer 1250007070 Valerie 0 wishlist 3.43 2012 Shine Shine Shine
author: Lydia Netzer
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/04/21
shelves: wishlist
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change]]> 36072 372 Stephen R. Covey 0743269519 Valerie 0 currently-reading 4.16 1989 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
author: Stephen R. Covey
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/04/21
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Artist's Way at Work: Riding the Dragon]]> 97944 The Artists' Way, Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan, co-creators of the country's most successful course on creativity, were often told that their techniques helped people achieve their business goals. This spurred them to refine the methods to help people perform more creatively and effectively at work. The program is revealed in The Artists' Way at Work: a twelve-week encounter with your own ingenuity, struggles, strengths and dreams -- as well as the political guidance to enable you to get things done.Through powerful self-assessment exercises with intriguing titles such as "Power Inside vs. Power Outside," "Developing Creative Continuity," and "Finding Your Truth," readers learn to release their creative spirit at work and tap reserves of energy, vision, and passion. The Artists' Way at Work will help you excel in your job, launch the business of your dreams, or find the career you love. Best of all, you will learn to "live in the paradox" -- to develop a personal philosophy of excellence that sustains you, whatever the future holds.

The processes in this book are rooted in cutting-edge principles of human development, organizational behavior, and the arts. They have been rigorously tested among business audiences and will unleash a degree of satisfaction at work (and in life) you may never have believed possible. For every one of us who works, The Artists' Way at Work reveals a completely new way to thrive.]]> 312 Mark Bryan 0688166350 Valerie 4 4.04 1998 The Artist's Way at Work: Riding the Dragon
author: Mark Bryan
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/01/14
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review:

]]> The 20th Century Art Book 257257 512 Phaidon Press 0714847984 Valerie 4 3.99 1996 The 20th Century Art Book
author: Phaidon Press
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/01/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Frida Kahlo: 1907-1954 Pain and Passion]]> 772976 (Portrait of an artist, always an artist, above all an artist.)

]]> 96 Andrea Kettenmann 3822859834 Valerie 5 4.21 1993 Frida Kahlo: 1907-1954 Pain and Passion
author: Andrea Kettenmann
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/01/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business]]> 12609433
Marketers at Procter & Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern—and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year.

An untested CEO takes over one of the largest companies in America. His first order of business is attacking a single pattern among his employees—how they approach worker safety—and soon the firm, Alcoa, becomes the top performer in the Dow Jones.

What do all these people have in common? They achieved success by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives.

They succeeded by transforming habits.

In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.

Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.

At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.

Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.]]> 375 Charles Duhigg 1400069289 Valerie 0 to-read 4.13 2012 The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
author: Charles Duhigg
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/10/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> This Is How You Lose Her 15997864
Junot Díaz's first book, Drown, established him as a major new literary voice - 'a strong, fresh, authentic talent' (Hanif Kureishi) - and his first novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao topped bestseller lists. His new collection, This Is How You Lose Her, is about the haunting, impossible power of love - passionate love, illicit love, fading love, maternal love.

On a beach in Santo Domingo, a doomed relationship flounders; in the heat of a hospital laundry room in New Jersey, a woman does her lover's washing and thinks about his wife; in Boston, a man buys his love-child, his only son, his first baseball kit. At the centre of these stories is the irrepressible, irresistible voice of Yunior, a young Dominican finding his way in New Jersey. As he and his family persist through broken promises, broken hearts and painful longing, passion, as always, triumphs over experience.

In prose that is endlessly energetic, inventive, tender and funny, This Is How You Lose Her lays bare the infinite longing and inevitable weaknesses of the human heart.]]> 141 Junot Díaz 0571294200 Valerie 0 currently-reading 3.80 2010 This Is How You Lose Her
author: Junot Díaz
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/09/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales]]> 22917 Children’s and Household Tales, The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales contains the essential bedtime stories for children worldwide for the better part of two centuries.The Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, were German linguists and cultural researchers who gathered legendary folklore and aimed to collect the stories exactly as they heard them.2012 marked the 200th anniversary of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and what better way to celebrate than to include all 211 stories into the Knickerbocker Classic Series?

Featuring all your favorite classics, including “Hansel and Gretel,� “Cinderella,� “The Frog Prince,� “Rapunzel,� “Snow White,� “Rumpelstiltskin,� and dozens more, The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales is also accompanied by 40 color plates and 60 black and white illustrations from award-winning English illustrator Arthur Rackham, whose books and prints are now highly sought-after collectibles.

The third title in the Knickerbocker Classic series has 800 pages of classic fairy tales to enjoy and will also feature a full-cloth binding, ribbon marker, and will fit neatly in an elegant slipcase for your personal library collection.

Also includes a selection of stunning color reproductions by the famous illustrator, Arthur Rackham.
]]> 880 Jacob Grimm Valerie 5 4.30 1812 The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales
author: Jacob Grimm
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1812
rating: 5
read at: 2012/08/01
date added: 2012/08/01
shelves:
review:
I've had this book forever but I had to bring it out again for a course on fantasy and sci-fi. I'm glad I did because now I look at these stories in such a different light.
]]> <![CDATA[Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1)]]> 1918955
Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't such a bright idea.]]> 320 Charlaine Harris 0441015972 Valerie 0 3.75 2001 Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1)
author: Charlaine Harris
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/07/19
shelves:
review:

]]> Under the Dome 7415714
Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens -- town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing -- even murder -- to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out.]]> 1249 Stephen King Valerie 0 to-read 4.01 2009 Under the Dome
author: Stephen King
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/06/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hypnotist (Joona Linna, #1)]]> 9835731 Prepare for The Hypnotist to cast its spell

In the frigid clime of Tumba, Sweden, a gruesome triple homicide attracts the interest of Detective Inspector Joona Linna, who demands to investigate the murders. The killer is still at large, and there’s only one surviving witness—the boy whose family was killed before his eyes. Whoever committed the crimes wanted this boy to die: he’s suffered more than one hundred knife wounds and lapsed into a state of shock. Desperate for information, Linna sees only one option: hypnotism. He enlists Dr. Erik Maria Bark to mesmerize the boy, hoping to discover the killer through his eyes.

It’s the sort of work that Bark has sworn he would never do again—ethically dubious and psychically scarring. When he breaks his promise and hypnotizes the victim, a long and terrifying chain of events begins to unfurl.

An international sensation, The Hypnotist is set to appear in thirty-seven countries, and it has landed at the top of bestseller lists wherever it’s been published—in France, Holland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Denmark. Now it’s America’s turn. Combining the addictive power of the Stieg Larsson trilogy with the storytelling drive of The Silence of the Lambs, this adrenaline-drenched thriller is spellbinding from its very first page.]]> 503 Lars Kepler 0374173958 Valerie 0 to-read 3.76 2009 The Hypnotist (Joona Linna, #1)
author: Lars Kepler
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/06/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail]]> 12262741 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State � and she would do it alone.

Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.]]> 336 Cheryl Strayed 0307592731 Valerie 0 to-read 4.05 2012 Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
author: Cheryl Strayed
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/06/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sweetest Swing in Baseball]]> 1508211 Rebecca Gilman 0571224768 Valerie 3 3.67 2004 The Sweetest Swing in Baseball
author: Rebecca Gilman
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2012/03/23
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review:

]]> Imagine: How Creativity Works 12987640
From the New York Times best-selling author of How We Decide comes a sparkling and revelatory look at the new science of creativity. Shattering the myth of muses, higher powers, even creative “types,� Jonah Lehrer demonstrates that creativity is not a single gift possessed by the lucky few. It’s a variety of distinct thought processes that we can all learn to use more effectively.

Lehrer reveals the importance of embracing the rut, thinking like a child, daydreaming productively, and adopting an outsider’s perspective (travel helps). He unveils the optimal mix of old and new partners in any creative collaboration, and explains why criticism is essential to the process. Then he zooms out to show how we can make our neighborhoods more vibrant, our companies more productive, and our schools more effective.

You’ll learn about Bob Dylan’s writing habits and the drug addictions of poets. You’ll meet a Manhattan bartender who thinks like a chemist, and an autistic surfer who invented an entirely new surfing move. You’ll see why Elizabethan England experienced a creative explosion, and how Pixar’s office space is designed to spark the next big leap in animation.

Collapsing the layers separating the neuron from the finished symphony, Imagine reveals the deep inventiveness of the human mind, and its essential role in our increasingly complex world.


ձ> 279 Jonah Lehrer 0547386079 Valerie 0 to-read 3.97 2012 Imagine: How Creativity Works
author: Jonah Lehrer
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/03/15
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]]> <![CDATA[And Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on their Craft and the Industry]]> 6013145 337 Mike Sacks 1582975051 Valerie 0 to-read 4.05 2009 And Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on their Craft and the Industry
author: Mike Sacks
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/03/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Razor's Edge 1980242 W. Somerset Maugham 1597371432 Valerie 0 to-read 4.05 1944 The Razor's Edge
author: W. Somerset Maugham
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1944
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/01/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays]]> 304268 482 Christopher Hitchens 1560255803 Valerie 0 to-read 4.13 2004 Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays
author: Christopher Hitchens
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/12/16
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]]> Letters to a Young Contrarian 503150 From bestselling author and provocateur Christopher Hitchens, the classic guide to the art of principled dissent and disagreement

In Letters to a Young Contrarian, bestselling author and world-class provocateur Christopher Hitchens inspires the radicals, gadflies, mavericks, rebels, and angry young (wo)men of tomorrow. Exploring the entire range of "contrary positions"—from noble dissident to gratuitous nag—Hitchens introduces the next generation to the minds and the misfits who influenced him, invoking such mentors as Emile Zola, Rosa Parks, and George Orwell. As is his trademark, Hitchens pointedly pitches himself in contrast to stagnant attitudes across the ideological spectrum. No other writer has matched Hitchens's understanding of the importance of disagreement—to personal integrity, to informed discussion, to true progress, to democracy itself.]]> 141 Christopher Hitchens 0465030335 Valerie 0 to-read 4.13 2001 Letters to a Young Contrarian
author: Christopher Hitchens
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/12/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Lotus Eaters 7133965 Ona stifling day in 1975, the North Vietnamese army is poised to roll into Saigon. As the fall of the city begins, two lovers make their way through the streets to escape to a new life. Helen Adams, an American photojournalist, must take leave of a war she is addicted to and a devastated country she has come to love. Linh, the Vietnamese man who loves her, must grapple with his own conflicted loyalties of heart and homeland. As they race to leave, they play out a drama of devotion and betrayal that spins them back through twelve war-torn years, beginning in the splendor of Angkor Wat, with their mentor, larger-than-life war correspondent Sam Darrow, once Helen's infuriating love and fiercest competitor, and Linh's secret keeper, boss andtruest friend.

Tatjana Soli paints a searing portrait of an American woman’s struggle and triumph in Vietnam, a stirring canvas contrasting the wrenching horror of war and the treacherous narcotic of obsession with the redemptive power of love. Readers will be transfixed by this stunning novel of passion, duty and ambition among the ruins of war.

]]> 389 Tatjana Soli 0312611579 Valerie 0 to-read 3.85 2010 The Lotus Eaters
author: Tatjana Soli
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/12/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Gunslinger Born (Stephen King's The Dark Tower: Beginnings, #1)]]> 342445
Sumptuously drawn by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove, adapted by long-time Stephen King expert Robin Furth (author of Stephen King's The Dark Tower: A Concordance) and scripted by New York Times bestseller Peter David, this series delves in depth into Roland's origins - the perfect introduction to this incredibly realized world; while long-time fans will thrill to adventures merely hinted at in the novels. Be there for the very beginning of a modern classic of fantasy literature.

Collects Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #1-7.]]> 240 Peter David 0785121447 Valerie 0 to-read 4.23 2007 The Gunslinger Born (Stephen King's The Dark Tower: Beginnings, #1)
author: Peter David
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/12/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life]]> 548523 280 Judith Kolberg 1583913580 Valerie 0 to-read 3.99 2002 ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life
author: Judith Kolberg
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/12/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Other People's Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See]]> 2051819
� "i think UR great. wanna have wine & Tequila again sometime?"

� "I can't believe you're real, and I think about you constantly in some way or the other all day. I haven't given the finger to anyone driving since I met you."

� "With you I learned how to fight cleaner, how to talk things out better, and how to make a strong loving family out of nothing. These are priceless gifts that I will carry with me the rest of my life. One more thing you did for you left, and I had to get through it."

� "P.S. I look forward to your letters too much to call. Also, where do you stand on chains?"]]> 192 Bill Shapiro 0307382648 Valerie 0 to-read 3.80 2007 Other People's Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See
author: Bill Shapiro
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/12/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within]]> 44905 336 Natalie Goldberg 1590303164 Valerie 0 to-read 4.21 1986 Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within
author: Natalie Goldberg
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/12/14
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)]]> 6421982 An alternate cover edition for this ASIN can be found here

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. To the south, the king’s powers are failing—his most trusted adviser dead under mysterious circumstances and his enemies emerging from the shadows of the throne. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the frozen land they were born to. Now Lord Eddard Stark is reluctantly summoned to serve as the king’s new Hand, an appointment that threatens to sunder not only his family but the kingdom itself.

Sweeping from a harsh land of cold to a summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, A Game of Thrones tells a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; a child is lost in the twilight between life and death; and a determined woman undertakes a treacherous journey to protect all she holds dear. Amid plots and counter-plots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, allies and enemies, the fate of the Starks hangs perilously in the balance, as each side endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

Unparalleled in scope and execution, A Game of Thrones is one of those rare reading experiences that catch you up from the opening pages, won’t let you go until the end, and leave you yearning for more.]]> 819 George R.R. Martin Valerie 0 to-read 4.50 1996 A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/12/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Postmortal 10673576
Old age can never kill him now.

The only problem is, everything else still can...

Imagine a near future where a cure for aging is discovered and-after much political and moral debate-made available to people worldwide. Immortality, however, comes with its own unique problems-including evil green people, government euthanasia programs, a disturbing new religious cult, and other horrors.

Witty, eerie, and full of humanity, The Postmortal is an unforgettable thriller that envisions a pre-apocalyptic world so real that it is completely terrifying.]]> 369 Drew Magary 0143119826 Valerie 0 to-read 3.75 2011 The Postmortal
author: Drew Magary
name: Valerie
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/12/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 7723926 Could you survive on your own in the wild, with every one out to make sure you don't live to see the morning?

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

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weight survival against humanity and life against love.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins Valerie 4 4.38 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2011/12/09
date added: 2011/12/10
shelves:
review:

]]> The Principles of Uncertainty 627055 Maira Kalman paints her highly personal worldview in this inimitable combination of image and text

An irresistible invitation to experience life through a beloved artist's psyche, The Principles of Uncertainty is a compilation of Maira Kalman's New York Times columns. Part personal narrative, part documentary, part travelogue, part chapbook, and all Kalman, these brilliant, whimsical paintings, ideas, and images - which initially appear random - ultimately form an intricately interconnected worldview, an idiosyncratic inner monologue.]]> 327 Maira Kalman 159420134X Valerie 0 to-read 4.04 2007 The Principles of Uncertainty
author: Maira Kalman
name: Valerie
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/12/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>