Carl's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 12 Oct 2024 09:59:59 -0700 60 Carl's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Blackouts 203578933 From the bestselling author of We the Animals, Blackouts mines lost histories--personal and collective.

Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly, but who has haunted the edges of his life. Juan Gay--playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized--has a project to pass along to this new narrator. It is inspired by a true artifact of a book, Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns, which contains stories collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator trade stories--moments of joy and oblivion--and resurrect lost loves, lives, mothers, fathers, minor heroes. The past is with us, beside us, ahead of us; what are we to create from its gaps and erasures?

Inspired by Kiss of the Spider Woman, Pedro Páramo, Voodoo Macbeth, the book at its own center and the woman who created it, oral histories, and many more texts, images, and influences, Justin Torres's Blackouts is a work of fiction that sees through the inventions of history and narrative. An extraordinary work of creative imagination, it insists that we look long and steady at the world we have inherited and the world we have made--a world full of ghostly shadows and flashing moments of truth.]]> 320 Justin Torres 1250338069 Carl 0 to-read 3.57 2023 Blackouts
author: Justin Torres
name: Carl
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Down and Delirious in Mexico City: The Aztec Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century]]> 11083993 MEXICO CITY, with some 20 million inhabitants, is the largest city in the Western Hemisphere. Enormous growth, raging crime, and tumultuous politics have also made it one of the most feared and misunderstood. Yet in the past decade, the city has become a hot spot for international business, fashion, and art, and a magnet for thrill-seeking expats from around the world. In 2002, Daniel Hernandez traveled to Mexico City, searching for his cultural roots. He encountered a city both chaotic and intoxicating, both underdeveloped and hypermodern. In 2007, after quitting a job, he moved back. With vivid, intimate storytelling, Hernandez visits slums populated by ex-punks; glittering, drug-fueled fashion parties; and pseudo-native rituals catering to new-age Mexicans. He takes readers into the world of youth subcultures, in a city where punk and emo stand for a whole way of life—and sometimes lead to rumbles on the streets. Surrounded by volcanoes, earthquake-prone, and shrouded in smog, the city that Hernandez lovingly chronicles is a place of astounding manifestations of danger, desire, humor, and beauty, a surreal landscape of “cosmic violence.� For those who care about one of the most electrifying cities on the planet, “Down & Delirious in Mexico City is essential reading� (David Lida, author of First Stop in the New World).]]> 290 Daniel Hernandez Carl 0 currently-reading 4.06 2011 Down and Delirious in Mexico City: The Aztec Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century
author: Daniel Hernandez
name: Carl
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/28
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[A Previous Life: Another Posthumous Novel (Bloomsbury)]]> 60784842


'Elegant, filthy � and quite possibly the queerest thing you will read all year.' - Guardian


'Intriguing and inventive.' - Electric Literature, "Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Book of the Year"


'A dizzyingly enticing and kaleidoscopic take on the spectrum of sexual experiences.' - Publishers Weekly, starred review
_____________

A daring, category-confounding, and ruthlessly funny novel from National Book Award honored author Edmund White that explores polyamory and bisexuality, aging and love.

Sicilian aristocrat and musician, Ruggero, and his younger American wife, Constance, agree to break their marital silence and write their Confessions. Until now they had a ban on speaking about the past, since transparency had wrecked their previous marriages. As the two alternate reading the memoirs they’ve written about their lives, Constance reveals her multiple marriages to older men, and Ruggero details the affairs he’s had with men and women across his lifetime―most importantly his passionate affair with the author Edmund White.

Sweeping outward from the isolated Swiss ski chalet where the couple reads to travel through Europe and the United States, White’s new novel pushes for a broader understanding of sexual orientation and pairs humor and truth to create his most fascinating and complex characters to date. As in all of White’s earlier novels, this is a searing, scintillating take on physical beauty and its inevitable decline. But in this experimental new mode―one where the author has laid himself bare as a secondary character―White explores the themes of love and age through numerous eyes, hearts and minds.

Delightful, irreverent, and experimental, A Previous Life proves once more why White is considered a master of American literature.]]> 288 Edmund White 1639730729 Carl 0 to-read 1.50 2022 A Previous Life: Another Posthumous Novel (Bloomsbury)
author: Edmund White
name: Carl
average rating: 1.50
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lady with the Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, Literary Tastemaker Extraordinaire]]> 29865727
A conduit to the literature of Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance, Blanche also legitimized the hard-boiled detective fiction of writers such as Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Raymond Chandler; signed and nurtured literary authors like Willa Cather, Elizabeth Bowen, and Muriel Spark; acquired momentous works of journalism by John Hersey and William Shirer; and introduced American readers to Albert Camus, André Gide, and Simone de Beauvoir, giving these French writers the benefit of her consummate editorial taste.

As Knopf celebrates its centennial, Laura Claridge looks back at the firm's beginnings and the dynamic woman who helped to define American letters for the twentieth century. Drawing on a vast cache of papers, Claridge also captures Blanche's "witty, loyal, and amusing" personality, and her charged yet oddly loving relationship with her husband. An intimate and often surprising biography, The Lady with the Borzoi is the story of an ambitious, seductive, and impossibly hardworking woman who was determined not to be overlooked or easily categorized.]]> 416 Laura Claridge 0374709734 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.36 2016 The Lady with the Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, Literary Tastemaker Extraordinaire
author: Laura Claridge
name: Carl
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/09/28
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]]> Statesman 27993908 This is the second of a projected trilogy of dialogues, in which an unnamed stranger sets out to satisfy Socrates' desire for an account of sophist, statesman, and philosopher. (The third was never written.) Focus Philosohpical Library’s Statesman includes a faithful, clear, and consistent translation to English, with notes. It also includes an exploratory essay, glossary of crucial Greek terms, supplemental diagrams illustrating diairesis ("The Divisions of the Statesman"), and an appendix on the paradigm of weaving.]]> 176 Plato Carl 0 currently-reading 3.75 -360 Statesman
author: Plato
name: Carl
average rating: 3.75
book published: -360
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/08/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Ballet Helps Everything!: Ten Reasons Why (Garage Ballet Book 1)]]> 53533835 Be your Best! Discover the power of Ballet to unlock day-to-day skills that help you enjoy the body you live in! Ballet Helps Everything! - Ten Reasons Why is the perfect guide to understanding how Ballet develops critical skills that elevate your physical awareness, mental focus, and personal discipline.Ballet training is a lifetime asset with proven value for every student, a mindful practice that encourages confidence and competence� And that’s what Garage Ballet� is all about!Within this book, written by Dawn C Crouch, a former dancer with Houston Ballet and experienced Ballet instructor, and bursting with practical information, you � Understand the benefits of increased strength, flexibility, and coordination� Appreciate the value of spatial awareness� Discover the impact of poise and grace on relationships and career prospects� Enhance longevity with improved posture, balance, and body alignment� Set achievable goals and learn from motivating stories and quotesBallet Helps Everything! - Ten Reasons Why, the first book in the Garage Ballet� series, is world-class advice delivered in an easy-to-understand way that will help anyone, regardless of age or skill level, to grasp the methods and purpose of ballet training.Invest in your child! Invest in yourself! Buy this book to step into success today!]]> 82 Dawn C. Crouch Carl 0 currently-reading 4.27 Ballet Helps Everything!: Ten Reasons Why (Garage Ballet Book 1)
author: Dawn C. Crouch
name: Carl
average rating: 4.27
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rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Clever Gut Diet: How to Revolutionize Your Body from the Inside Out]]> 35125815 From #1 New York Times bestselling author of The FastDiet and The 8-Week Blood Sugar Diet, a groundbreaking book about your gut—the “second brain� of the body—and “the life-changing new plan that’ll make you healthier, happier, and slimmer� (Daily Mail). Your gut is astonishingly clever. It contains millions of neurons and is home to the microbiome, an army of tiny organisms that influence your mood, your immune system, and even your appetite.In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Mosley takes us on a revelatory journey through the gut, showing how junk food and overuse of antibiotics have wiped out many “good� gut bacteria leading to a modern plague of allergies, food intolerances, and obesity. Drawing from the latest cutting-edge research, Dr. Mosley provides scientifically proven ways to control your cravings, boost your mood, and lose weight by feeding the “good� bacteria that keep you healthy and lean, while staving off “bad� bacteria that contribute to weight gain and disease.Dr. Mosley also shares a simple two-phase healing program, an effective way to repair and replenish the microbiome and to ease intestinal distress. Discover how foods like chocolate, red wine, and cheese can be part of a gut-healthy diet; how fasting can strengthen the gut and boost “good� bacteria; how changing your microbiome can undo the damage of yo-yo dieting; and how opening a window (and other simple acts) can improve gut health.Packed with delicious, healing recipes, meal plans, checklists, and helpful tips, The Clever Gut Diet includes all the tools you need to transform your gut and your health for the rest of your life.]]> 289 Michael Mosley 1501172751 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.14 2017 The Clever Gut Diet: How to Revolutionize Your Body from the Inside Out
author: Michael Mosley
name: Carl
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/11/23
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]]> <![CDATA[A Body of Work: Dancing to the Edge and Back]]> 35264741 David Hallberg, the first American to join the famed Bolshoi Ballet as a principal dancer and the dazzling artist The New Yorker described as “the most exciting male dancer in the western world,� presents a look at his artistic life—up to the moment he returns to the stage after a devastating injury that almost cost him his career.Beginning with his real-life Billy Elliot childhood—an all-American story marred by intense bullying—and culminating in his hard-won comeback, Hallberg’s “moving and intelligent� (Daniel Mendelsohn) memoir dives deep into life as an artist as he wrestles with ego, pushes the limits of his body, and searches for ecstatic perfection and fulfillment as one of the world’s most acclaimed ballet dancers.Rich in detail ballet fans will adore, Hallberg presents an “unsparing…inside look� (The New York Times) and also reflects on universal and relatable themes like inspiration, self-doubt, and perfectionism as he takes you into daily classes, rigorous rehearsals, and triumphant performances, searching for new interpretations of ballet’s greatest roles. He reveals the loneliness he felt as a teenager leaving America to join the Paris Opera Ballet School, the ambition he had to tame as a new member of American Ballet Theatre, and the reasons behind his headline-grabbing decision to be the first American to join the top rank of Bolshoi Ballet, tendered by the Artistic Director who would later be the victim of a vicious acid attack. Then, as Hallberg performed throughout the world at the peak of his abilities, he suffered a crippling ankle injury and botched surgery leading to an agonizing retreat from ballet and an honest reexamination of his entire life.Combining his powers of observation and memory with emotional honesty and artistic insight, Hallberg has written a great ballet memoir and an intimate portrait of an artist in all his vulnerability, passion, and wisdom. �Candid and engrossing� (The Washington Post), A Body of Work is a memoir “for everyone with a heart� (DC Metro Theater Arts).]]> 433 David Hallberg Carl 0 currently-reading 4.27 2017 A Body of Work: Dancing to the Edge and Back
author: David Hallberg
name: Carl
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Empire's Crossroads: A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present Day]]> 23610519 A “wide-ranging, vivid� narrative history of one of the most coveted and complex regions of the the Caribbean (The Observer).   Ever since Christopher Columbus stepped off the Santa Maria and announced that he had arrived in the Orient, the Caribbean has been a stage for projected fantasies and competition between world powers. In Empire’s Crossroads, British American historian Carrie Gibson offers a panoramic view of the region from the northern rim of South America up to Cuba and its rich, important history.   After that fateful landing in 1492, the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, and even the Swedes, Scots, and Germans sought their fortunes in the islands for the next two centuries. These fraught years gave way to a booming age of sugar, horrendous slavery, and extravagant wealth, as well as the Haitian Revolution and the long struggles for independence that ushered in the modern era.   Gibson tells not only of imperial expansion—European and American—but also of life as it is lived in the islands, from before Columbus through the tumultuous twentieth century. Told “in fluid, colorful prose peppered with telling anecdotes,� Empire’s Crossroads provides an essential account of five centuries of history (Foreign Affairs).   “Judicious, readable and extremely well-informed . . . Too many people know the Caribbean only as a tourist destination; [Gibson] takes us, instead, into its fascinating, complex and often tragic past. No vacation there will ever feel quite the same again.� —Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars and King Leopold’s Ghost]]> 642 Carrie Gibson 0802192351 Carl 0 currently-reading 3.98 2014 Empire's Crossroads: A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present Day
author: Carrie Gibson
name: Carl
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/11/02
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]]> <![CDATA[A Dash of Genius (Kindle Single)]]> 16123949
Includes several original recipes and their easily-cooked adaptations by Tower for the home cook of today.

“Auguste Escoffier was the first great star of modern cooking. Acknowledged during his lifetime as the greatest chef in the world.� Kenneth James author of Escoffier. The King of Chefs

“Auguste Escoffier--the culinary legend whose brilliance and dedication changed the course of culinary history forever.� From the book description of his Memories of My Life.

“I am the Emperor of Germany, but you are the Emperor of Chefs.� Germany's Emperor Wilhelm II


Why anyone would want to read about a chef who wore formal wear and high heels in the kitchen? Or who modernized restaurant kitchens while bemoaning the disappearance of wood in their stoves? The answer is simple � because cooking and restaurants in America would not be what they are today without him. Because the principles he taught, lectured, and wrote about in Europe and America, are the foundation of all that is taught in culinary schools and the best restaurants.
By the time Escoffier died in Monte Carlo in 1935, this slender, aquiline, handsome, perceptive little man with brilliant dark eyes and snowy hair and moustache had transformed the world of both professional chefs and amateur cooks, not only in France, but the United States and England. He taught the English to eat frogs and Americans to turn from T-bones to filet of sole with lobster sauce, Tournedos Rossini, and PĂŞche Melba. After Escoffier there were recipes for everything for everyone from scrambled eggs on buttered toast to strawberries Ă  la Ritz with whipped cream as well as all the usual elaborate dishes for the rich.

But the book is not just about food. Read about London, Paris, and Monte Carlo with the most glittering international society the world has ever seen, lead by the future King of England, Russian Grand Dukes, Princes, and the most famous actresses and courtesans of the day. Also included are the creation of the first great modern hotels by César Ritz and Escoffier, and the even grander parties, huge successes, and disasters brilliantly and famously avoided by them - the world’s greatest hospitality team.


Mario Batali: “I consider Jeremiah Tower my ultimate mentor, and his voice, style, and opinions the arbiters of taste and truth in the restaurant industry.�

Daniel Boulud: “Jeremiah Tower’s erudite references to other cookbooks and gastronomic luminaries have made me rethink my entire culinary library.�

Bruce Palling: “Jeremiah Tower virtually created the concept of California Cuisine.� Wall Street Journal Europe, 2010

Charlie Trotter: “Jeremiah Tower is firmly ensconced in the pantheon of great American chefs.”]]> 80 Jeremiah Tower Carl 0 currently-reading 3.74 2012 A Dash of Genius (Kindle Single)
author: Jeremiah Tower
name: Carl
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov: A Novel]]> 42038793
A meticulously researched novel, featuring an extraordinary cast of characters (including Picasso, Diaghilev, Stravinsky, Magnus Hirschfield, and of course the master himself, Vladimir Nabokov), this is ultimately the story of a beautiful and vulnerable boy growing into an enlightened and courageous man.]]> 320 Paul Russell Carl 0 currently-reading 4.08 2010 The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov: A Novel
author: Paul Russell
name: Carl
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/07/06
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]]> <![CDATA[De Letras Libres: AntologĂ­a de Mexicanos en Red (Spanish Edition)]]> 54130876 63 Jeanette Eureka Carl 0 currently-reading 0.0 De Letras Libres: AntologĂ­a de Mexicanos en Red (Spanish Edition)
author: Jeanette Eureka
name: Carl
average rating: 0.0
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rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise]]> 25047788 "Beautifully written and wise � [Martin Prechtel] offers stories that are precious and life-sustaining. Read carefully, and listen deeply."—Mary Oliver, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winnerInspiring hope, solace, and courage in living through our losses, author Martín Prechtel, trained in the Tzutujil Maya shamanic tradition, shares profound insights on the relationship between grief and praise in our culture--how the inability that many of us have to grieve and weep properly for the dead is deeply linked with the inability to give praise for living. In modern society, grief is something that we usually experience in private, alone, and without the support of a community. Yet, as Prechtel says, "Grief expressed out loud for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses."Prechtel explains that the unexpressed grief prevalent in our society today is the reason for many of the social, cultural, and individual maladies that we are currently experiencing. According to Prechtel, "When you have two centuries of people who have not properly grieved the things that they have lost, the grief shows up as ghosts that inhabit their grandchildren." These "ghosts," he says, can also manifest as disease in the form of tumors, which the Maya refer to as "solidified tears," or in the form of behavioral issues and depression. He goes on to show how this collective, unexpressed energy is the long-held grief of our ancestors manifesting itself, and the work that can be done to liberate this energy so we can heal from the trauma of loss, war, and suffering.At base, this "little book," as the author calls it, can be seen as a companion of encouragement, a little extra light for those deep and noble parts in all of us.]]> 185 Martin Prechtel 1583949402 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.41 2015 The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise
author: Martin Prechtel
name: Carl
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Raw: PrEP: Pedagogy, and the Politics of Barebacking (The Exquisite Corpse Book 3)]]> 48928227
"Essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of sex, sexuality and sexual representation in the 21st century." —John Mercer, author of Gay Pornography

"Finally, queer theory returns to a topic it has had surprisingly little to say about: sex! Underpinning these essays is a thrilling wager: that desire demands discourse but resists rationalization." —Damon R. Young, author of Making Sex Public and Other Cinematic Fantasies

"A major contribution to research. It opens up the discourse on barebacking to a varity of perspectives and theoretical arguments, and makes clear that the topic remains relevant." —John Paul Ricco, author of The Decision Between Us

"Raw provides an account of the state of queer-theoretical scholarship on bareback today, and makes a pluralising and distinctive contribution to that body of work, significantly broadening this field of scholarship." —Oliver Davis, editor of Bareback Sex and Queer Theory across Three National Contexts (France, UK, US)

Contributors: Jonathan A. Allan (Brandon University), Tim Dean (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Elliot Evans (University of Birmingham), Christien Garcia (University of Cambridge), Octavio R. Gonzales (Wellesley College), Adam J. Greteman (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Frank G. Karioris (University of Pittsburgh & American University of Central Asia), Gareth Longstaff (Newcastle University), Paul Morris (San Francisco), Susanna Paasonen (University of Turku), Diego Semerene (Oxford Brookes University), Evangelos Tziallas (Concordia University), Ricky Varghese (Toronto), Rinaldo Walcott (University of Toronto)Ěý±Ő±Ő> 356 Ricky Varghese 0889776857 Carl 0 currently-reading 0.0 2019 Raw: PrEP: Pedagogy, and the Politics of Barebacking (The Exquisite Corpse Book 3)
author: Ricky Varghese
name: Carl
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/22
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]]> A Planet of Viruses 26874075


Fortunately, science writer Carl Zimmer is here to guide us. In this compact volume, he tells the story of how the smallest living things known to science can bring an entire planet of people to a halt--and what we can learn from how we've defeated them in the past.



Planet of Viruses covers such   threats as Ebola, MERS, and chikungunya virus; tells about recent scientific discoveries, such as a hundred-million-year-old virus that infected the common ancestor of armadillos, elephants, and humans; and shares new findings that show why climate change may lead to even deadlier outbreaks. Zimmer’s lucid explanations and fascinating stories demonstrate how deeply humans and viruses are intertwined. Viruses helped give rise to the first life-forms, are responsible for many of our most devastating diseases, and will continue to control our fate for centuries. Thoroughly readable, and, for all its honesty about the threats, as reassuring as it is frightening, A Planet of Viruses is a fascinating tour of a world we all need to better understand.]]> 133 Carl Zimmer 022632026X Carl 0 currently-reading 4.36 2011 A Planet of Viruses
author: Carl Zimmer
name: Carl
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/19
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]]> Nureyev 13065284 1150 Julie Kavanagh Carl 0 currently-reading 4.20 2007 Nureyev
author: Julie Kavanagh
name: Carl
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/13
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]]> Aztec (Aztec, #1) 29371535 Aztec is the extraordinary story of the last and greatest native civilization of North America. Told in the words of one of the most robust and memorable characters in modern fiction, Mixtli-Dark Cloud, Aztec reveals the very depths of Aztec civilization from the peak and feather-banner splendor of the Aztec Capital of Tenochtitlan to the arrival of Hernán Cortás and his conquistadores, and their destruction of the Aztec empire. The story of Mixtli is the story of the Aztecs themselves---a compelling, epic tale of heroic dignity and a colossal civilization's rise and fall.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 772 Gary Jennings 0765392178 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.34 1980 Aztec (Aztec, #1)
author: Gary Jennings
name: Carl
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1980
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/12
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Write an Autobiographical Novel]]> 36520053 New York Times, and "brilliant" by the Washington Post. With his first collection of nonfiction, he's sure to secure his place as one of the finest essayists of his generation as well.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author's manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation's history, including his father's death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing �-- ​Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley �-- ​the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump.

By turns commanding, heartbreaking, and wry, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel asks questions about how we create ourselves in life and in art, and how to fight when our dearest truths are under attack.]]> 0 Alexander Chee 1328764419 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.31 2018 How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
author: Alexander Chee
name: Carl
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Born to Win: Transactional Analysis with Gestalt Experiments]]> 6626677 One of the all-time classic self-help books--with over four million in printTwenty-five years and four million readers show that Born to Win can change lives for the better. This bestselling classic uses the well-known psychological method called transactional analysis (TA) to uncover the roles we unconsciously act out day after day. Its fifty gestalt exercises have helped a generation realize how they communicate with others and think about themselves. If you want to have more control over your life, work more efficiently, and love others happily, Born to Win will help bring out the insight and confidence of a born winner."For the general reader [Born to Win] is probably the clearest and most up-to-date statement of the current thinking in transactional analysis, and easily the best of the popular books."--Psychology Today"Enriching, stimulating, rewarding reading is here for anyone interested in understanding himself, his relationship with others, and his goals."--Kansas City Times]]> 317 Muriel James 0786722835 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.45 1971 Born to Win: Transactional Analysis with Gestalt Experiments
author: Muriel James
name: Carl
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/02/27
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]]> Poems 20769290 108 Rainer Maria Rilke Carl 0 currently-reading 3.91 1978 Poems
author: Rainer Maria Rilke
name: Carl
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/02/16
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina]]> 19899316 A bestselling and prizewinning memoir by African American ballerina Misty Copeland, Life in Motion is the vividly told story of her journey to the world-class American Ballet Theatre—and delves into the harrowing family conflicts that nearly drove her away from ballet as a thirteen-year-old prodigy.Determination meets dance in this New York Times bestselling memoir by the history-making ballerina Misty Copeland, recounting the story of her journey to become the first African-American principal ballerina at the prestigious American Ballet Theatre. When she first placed her hands on the barre at an after-school community center, no one expected the undersized, underprivileged, and anxious thirteen-year-old to become one of America’s most groundbreaking dancers . A true prodigy, she was attempting in months roles that take most dancers years to master. But when Misty became caught between the control and comfort she found in the world of ballet and the harsh realities of her own life, she had to choose to embrace both her identity and her dreams, and find the courage to be one of a kind. With an insider’s passion, Misty opens a window into the life of an artist who lives life center stage, from behind the scenes at her first classes to her triumphant roles in some of the world’s most iconic ballets. A sensational memoir as “sensitive� and “clear-eyed� (The Washington Post) as her dancing, Life in Motion is a story of passion, identity and grace for anyone who has dared to dream of a different life.]]> 289 Misty Copeland Carl 0 currently-reading 4.06 2014 Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina
author: Misty Copeland
name: Carl
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/02/07
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]]> How We Fight For Our Lives 44172623 From award-winning poet Saeed Jones, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir written at the crossroads of sex, race, and power.

“People don’t just happen,â€� writes Saeed Jones. “We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us. The â€Iâ€� it seems doesn’t exist until we are able to say, â€I am no longer yours.â€� â€�

Haunted and haunting, Jones’s memoir tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence—into tumultuous relationships with his mother and grandmother, into passing flings with lovers, friends and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another—and to one another—as we fight to become ourselves.

Blending poetry and prose, Jones has developed a style that is equal parts sensual, beautiful, and powerful—a voice that’s by turns a river, a blues, and a nightscape set ablaze. How We Fight for Our Lives is a one of a kind memoir and a book that cements Saeed Jones as an essential writer for our time.]]> 208 Saeed Jones 150113275X Carl 0 currently-reading 4.33 2019 How We Fight For Our Lives
author: Saeed Jones
name: Carl
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/01/04
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]]> War God: Nights of the Witch 18874999 570 Graham Hancock 1780361890 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.24 2013 War God: Nights of the Witch
author: Graham Hancock
name: Carl
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/12/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Silk Roads: A New History of the World]]> 25968463 “This is history on a grand scale, with a sweep and ambition that is rare� A proper historical epic of dazzling range and achievement.� —William Dalrymple, The Guardian

The epic history of the crossroads of the world—the meeting place of East and West and the birthplace of civilization

It was on the Silk Roads that East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures and religions. From the rise and fall of empires to the spread of Buddhism and the advent of Christianity and Islam, right up to the great wars of the twentieth century—this book shows how the fate of the West has always been inextricably linked to the East.

Peter Frankopan realigns our understanding of the world, pointing us eastward. He vividly re-creates the emergence of the first cities in Mesopotamia and the birth of empires in Persia, Rome and Constantinople, as well as the depredations by the Mongols, the transmission of the Black Death and the violent struggles over Western imperialism. Throughout the millennia, it was the appetite for foreign goods that brought East and West together, driving economies and the growth of nations.

From the Middle East and its political instability to China and its economic rise, the vast region stretching eastward from the Balkans across the steppe and South Asia has been thrust into the global spotlight in recent years. Frankopan teaches us that to understand what is at stake for the cities and nations built on these intricate trade routes, we must first understand their astounding pasts. Far more than a history of the Silk Roads, this book is truly a revelatory new history of the world, promising to destabilize notions of where we come from and where we are headed next.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 657 Peter Frankopan Carl 0 currently-reading 4.25 2015 The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
author: Peter Frankopan
name: Carl
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/11/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Fate and Destiny, the Two Agreements of the Soul]]> 20581470 336 Michael Meade Carl 0 currently-reading 4.41 2004 Fate and Destiny, the Two Agreements of the Soul
author: Michael Meade
name: Carl
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/09
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]]> Mexico: Democracy Interrupted 19059193 329 Jo Tuckman 0300160321 Carl 0 currently-reading 3.77 2012 Mexico: Democracy Interrupted
author: Jo Tuckman
name: Carl
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/07/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Soho: Debut collection presenting an uncompromising portrait of love and shame within London's Soho community]]> 39783761 91 Richard Scott Carl 0 currently-reading 4.06 2018 Soho: Debut collection presenting an uncompromising portrait of love and shame within London's Soho community
author: Richard Scott
name: Carl
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/07/02
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]]> Oaxaca Journal 19312551 Ěý±Ő±Ő> 176 Oliver Sacks 0307947580 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.30 2002 Oaxaca Journal
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Carl
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/06/29
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]]> City of Night 19024837 The cult classic novel from “one of the few major American writers whose life is as interesting, and meaningful, as his work� (Michael Cunningham).   When John Rechy’s explosive first book appeared in 1963, it marked a radical departure from all other stories of its kind, and gave voice to a subculture that had never before been revealed with such acuity. It earned comparisons to Jean Genet and Jack Kerouac, even as Rechy—who had based the novel on his own life—was personally attacked by scandalized reviewers. Nevertheless, City of Night became an international bestseller and ushered in a new era of fiction. More than fifty years later, it remains a classic.   Bold and inventive in style, Rechy is unflinching in his portrayal of one anonymous “youngman� and his search for self-knowledge and love within a furtive, neon-lit world of male hustlers, drag queens, closeted cops, and fetishists. As the narrator moves from El Paso to Times Square, from Pershing Square to the French Quarter, and through the lives of an extraordinary collection of characters who dwell in this clandestine world, Rechy delivers a portrait of the edges of America that has lost none of its power to move and exhilarate.   “Rechy’s tone rings absolutely true, is absolutely his own, and he has the kind of discipline which allows him a rare and beautiful recklessness. He tells the truth, and tells it with such passion that we are forced to share in the life he conveys. This is a most humbling and liberating achievement.� —James Baldwin]]> 514 John Rechy 0802192777 Carl 0 currently-reading 3.89 1963 City of Night
author: John Rechy
name: Carl
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1963
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/06/12
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]]> <![CDATA[E-Squared: Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality]]> 18632214 E-Squared could best be described as a lab manual with simple experiments that prove reality is malleable, consciousness trumps matter, and you shape your life with your mind. Yes, you read that right. It says prove.
The nine experiments, each of which can be conducted with absolutely no money and very little time expenditure, demonstrate that spiritual principles are as dependable as gravity, as consistent as Newton’s laws of motion.
Rather than take it on faith, E-Squared invites you to prove the following
� There is an invisible energy force or field of infinite possibilities.
� You impact the field and draw from it according to your beliefs and expectations.
� Your connection to the field provides accurate and unlimited guidance.
� The universe is limitless, abundant, and strangely accommodating.
E-Squared is the remarkable truth that spiritual seekers have been looking for over the centuries. Discover why everyone is talking about it TODAY!]]> 197 Pam Grout Carl 0 4.03 2013 E-Squared: Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality
author: Pam Grout
name: Carl
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2019/06/12
date added: 2019/06/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself]]> 19437999 The Untethered Soul offers simple yet profound answers to these questions.

Whether this is your first exploration of inner space, or you’ve devoted your life to the inward journey, this book will transform your relationship with yourself and the world around you. You’ll discover what you can do to put an end to the habitual thoughts and emotions that limit your consciousness. By tapping into traditions of meditation and mindfulness, author and spiritual teacher Michael A. Singer shows how the development of consciousness can enable us all to dwell in the present moment and let go of painful thoughts and memories that keep us from achieving happiness and self-realization.

Copublished with the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) The Untethered Soul begins by walking you through your relationship with your thoughts and emotions, helping you uncover the source and fluctuations of your inner energy. It then delves into what you can do to free yourself from the habitual thoughts, emotions, and energy patterns that limit your consciousness. Finally, with perfect clarity, this book opens the door to a life lived in the freedom of your innermost being.]]> 314 Michael A. Singer 1608820491 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.37 2007 The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself
author: Michael A. Singer
name: Carl
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/06/09
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex and How to Get It]]> 18921612 261 Marty Klein Carl 0 currently-reading 4.06 2012 Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex and How to Get It
author: Marty Klein
name: Carl
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/06/08
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]]> <![CDATA[No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life]]> 6629438 Nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for a Nobel Peace Prize, Thich Nhat Hanh is one of today’s leading sources of wisdom, peace, compassion and comfort.With hard-won wisdom and refreshing insight, Thich Nhat Hanh confronts a subject that has been contemplated by Buddhist monks and nuns for twenty-five-hundred years� and a question that has been pondered by almost anyone who has ever What is death? In No Death, No Fear, the acclaimed teacher and poet examines our concepts of death, fear, and the very nature of existence. Through Zen parables, guided meditations, and personal stories, he explodes traditional myths of how we live and die. Thich Nhat Hanh shows us a way to live a life unfettered by fear.]]> 210 Thich Nhat Hanh 110121855X Carl 0 currently-reading 4.50 2002 No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life
author: Thich Nhat Hanh
name: Carl
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/05/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World]]> 36200111 Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, shares the ultimate choose-your-own-adventure book--a compilation of tools, tactics, and habits from 130+ of the world's top performers. From iconic entrepreneurs to elite athletes, from artists to billionaire investors, their short profiles can help you answer life's most challenging questions, achieve extraordinary results, and transform your life.

From the

In 2017, several of my close friends died in rapid succession. It was a very hard year, as it was for many people.

It was also a stark reminder that time is our scarcest, non-renewable resource.

With a renewed sense of urgency, I began asking myself many

Were my goals my own, or simply what I thought I should want?
How much of life had I missed from underplanning or overplanning?
How could I be kinder to myself?
How could I better say "no" to the trivial many to better say "yes" to the critical few?
How could I best reassess my priorities and my purpose in this world?

To find answers, I reached out to the most impressive world-class performers in the world, ranging from wunderkinds in their 20s to icons in their 70s and 80s. No stone was left unturned.

This book contains their answers--practical and tactical advice from mentors who have found solutions. Whether you want to 10x your results, get unstuck, or reinvent yourself, someone else has traveled a similar path and taken notes.

This book, Tribe of Mentors, includes many of the people I grew up viewing as idols or demi-gods. Less than 10% have been on my podcast (The Tim Ferriss Show, more than 200 million downloads), making this a brand-new playbook of playbooks.

No matter your challenge or opportunity, something in these pages can help.

Among other things, you will

- More than 50 morning routines--both for the early riser and those who struggle to get out of bed.
- How TED curator Chris Anderson realized that the best way to get things done is to let go.
- The best purchases of $100 or less (you'll never have to think about the right gift again).
- How to overcome failure and bounce back towards success.
- Why Humans of New York creator Brandon Stanton believes that the best art will always be the riskiest.
- How to meditate and be more mindful (and not just for those that find it easy).
- Why tennis champion Maria Sharapova believe that "losing makes you think in ways victories can't."
- How to truly achieve work-life balance (and why most people tell you it isn't realistic).
- How billionaire Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz transformed the way he engages with difficult situations to reduce suffering.
- Ways to thrive (and survive) the overwhelming amount of information you process every day.
- How to achieve clarity on your purpose and assess your priorities.
- And much more.

This reference book, which I wrote for myself, has already changed my life. I certainly hope the same for you.

I wish you luck as you forge your own path.

All the best,

Tim Ferriss]]> 561 Timothy Ferriss 132899497X Carl 0 currently-reading 4.05 2017 Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World
author: Timothy Ferriss
name: Carl
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/02/26
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]]> <![CDATA[The Afterlife Connection: A Therapist Reveals How to Communicate with Departed Loved Ones]]> 20184523
In these pages we learn that transcommunication is not simply "a hello from heaven" but a powerful therapeutic tool that is available to any of us. Through the story of her deceased mother's many dream visits and manifestations--as well as those visits her patients receive from their loved ones-we learn to be alert to the signs of such phenomena and to recognize the messages they contain.

We see how her patients come to feel safe and protected again--as though they have a guardian angel-once they learn to open themselves up to these possibilities. Through this communication, which is at once spiritual and very concrete, the pain of grieving can be made more bearable. Ambivalent relationships can be healed. And a loved one's messages can bring relief and joy.]]> 276 Jane Greer Carl 0 currently-reading 4.00 2003 The Afterlife Connection: A Therapist Reveals How to Communicate with Departed Loved Ones
author: Jane Greer
name: Carl
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/02/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife]]> 19776461 206 Eben Alexander 1451695209 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.01 2012 Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife
author: Eben Alexander
name: Carl
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/12/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully]]> 33733181 Death is not waiting for us at the end of a long road. Death is always with us, in the marrow of every passing moment. She is the secret teacher hiding in plain sight, helping us to discover what matters most in life.

Life and death are a package deal. They cannot be pulled apart and we cannot truly live unless we are aware of death. The Five Invitations is an exhilarating meditation on the meaning of life and how maintaining and ever-present consciousness of death can bring us closer to our truest selves. As a renowned teacher of compassionate care-giving and the cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project, Frank Ostaseski has sat on the precipice of death with more than a thousand people. In The Five Invitations, he distills the lessons gleaned over the course of his career, offering an evocative and stirring guide that points a radical path to transformation.

The Five Invitations:
-Don’t Wait
-Welcome Everything, Push Away Nothing
-Bring Your Whole Self to the Experience
-Find a Place of Rest in the Middle of Things
-Cultivate Don’t Know Mind

These invitations show us how to wake up fully to our lives. They can be understood as best practices for anyone coping with death or navigating any sort of transition or crisis; they guide us toward appreciating life’s preciousness. Death can be a valuable companion on the road to living well, forging a rich and meaningful life, and letting go of regret. The Five Invitations is a powerful and inspiring exploration of the essential wisdom dying has to impart to all of us.

]]> 305 Frank Ostaseski 1250074665 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.59 2017 The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully
author: Frank Ostaseski
name: Carl
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2017
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]]> <![CDATA[The Guardians: An Elegy for a Friend]]> 13365479 The Guardians is an elegy for Manguso's friend Harris, two years after he escaped from a psychiatric hospital and jumped under that train. The narrative contemplates with unrelenting clarity their crowded postcollege apartment, Manguso's fellowship year in Rome, Harris's death and the year that followed—the year of mourning and the year of Manguso's marriage. As Harris is revealed both to the reader and to the narrator, the book becomes a monument to their intimacy and inability to express their love to each other properly, and to the reverberating effects of Harris's presence in and absence from Manguso's life. There is grief in the book but also humor, as Manguso marvels at the unexpected details that constitute a friendship. The Guardians explores the insufficiency of explanation and the necessity of the imagination in making sense of anything.]]> 124 Sarah Manguso Carl 0 currently-reading 4.04 2012 The Guardians: An Elegy for a Friend
author: Sarah Manguso
name: Carl
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/11/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Spanish Short Stories for Beginners: 20 Captivating Short Stories to Learn Spanish & Grow Your Vocabulary the Fun Way! (Easy Spanish Stories, #1)]]> 37933322 Do you know what the hardest thing for a Spanish learner is?Finding PROPER reading material that they can handle…which is precisely the reason we’ve written this book!Teachers love giving out tough, expert-level literature to their students, books that present many new problems to the reader and force them to search for words in a dictionary every five minutes � it’s not entertaining, useful or motivating for the student at all, and many soon give up on learning at all!In this book we have compiled 20 easy-to-read, compelling and fun stories that will allow you to expand your vocabulary and give you the tools to improve your grasp of the wonderful Spanish tongue.How Spanish Short Stories for Beginners Each story will involve an important lesson of the tools in the Spanish language (Verbs, Adjectives, Past Tense, Giving Directions, and more), involving an interesting and entertaining story with realistic dialogues and day-to-day situations.The summaries a synopsis in Spanish and in English of what you just read, both to review the lesson and for you to see if you understood what the tale was about.At the end of those summaries, you’ll be provided with a list of the most relevant vocabulary involved in the lesson, as well as slang and sayings that you may not have understood at first glance!Finally, you’ll be provided with a set of tricky questions in Spanish, providing you with the chance to prove that you learned something in the story. Don’t worry if you don’t know the answer to any � we will provide them immediately after, but no cheating!We want you to feel comfortable while learning the tongue; after all, no language should be a barrier for you to travel around the world and expand your social circles!So look no further! Pick up your copy of Spanish Short Stories for Beginners and improve your Spanish right now!]]> 212 Lingo Mastery Carl 0 currently-reading 3.70 Spanish Short Stories for Beginners: 20 Captivating Short Stories to Learn Spanish & Grow Your Vocabulary the Fun Way! (Easy Spanish Stories, #1)
author: Lingo Mastery
name: Carl
average rating: 3.70
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/11/03
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]]> Death in Venice 6473113


Published on the eve of World War I, a decade after Buddenbrooks had established Thomas Mann as a literary celebrity, Death in Venice tells the story of Gustave von Aschenbach, a successful but aging writer who follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fulfillment that instead leads to his erotic doom.

In the decaying city, besieged by an unnamed epidemic, he becomes obsessed with an exquisite Polish boy, Tadzio. “It is a story of the voluptuousness of doom,� Mann wrote. “But the problem I had especially in mind was that of the artist’s dignity.”]]> 160 Thomas Mann Carl 0 currently-reading 3.83 1911 Death in Venice
author: Thomas Mann
name: Carl
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1911
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/09/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Conquest: Cortés, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico]]> 19144222 THE UNPARALLELED HISTORY OF THE FALL OF OLD MEXICO

Drawing on newly discovered sources and writing with brilliance, drama, and profound historical insight, Hugh Thomas presents an engrossing narrative of one of the most significant events of Western history.

Ringing with the fury of two great empires locked in an epic battle, Conquest captures in extraordinary detail the Mexican and Spanish civilizations and offers unprecedented in-depth portraits of the legendary opponents, Montezuma and Cortés. Conquest is an essential work of history from one of our most gifted historians.]]> 852 Hugh Thomas Carl 0 currently-reading 4.42 1993 Conquest: Cortés, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico
author: Hugh Thomas
name: Carl
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/09/03
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]]> Mexico 20441204
LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS

Here is the story of an American journalist who travels to Mexico to report on the upcoming duel between two great matadors, but who is ultimately swept up in the dramatic story of his Mexican ancestors. From the brutality and brilliance of the ancients, to the iron fist of the invading Spaniards, to the modern-day Mexicans battling through dust and bloodshed to build a nation upon the ashes of revolution, James Michener weaves it all into an epic human story that ranks with the best of his beloved, bestselling novels.

A MAIN SELECTION OF THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB]]> 657 James A. Michener Carl 0 currently-reading 4.00 1992 Mexico
author: James A. Michener
name: Carl
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/08/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness]]> 19191558 An intimate guide to self-acceptance and discovery that offers a Buddhist perspective on wholeness within the framework of a Western understanding of self.For decades, Western psychology has promised fulfillment through building and strengthening the ego. We are taught that the ideal is a strong, individuated self, constructed and reinforced over a lifetime. But Buddhist psychiatrist Mark Epstein has found a different way.Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart shows us that happiness doesn't come from any kind of acquisitiveness, be it material or psychological. Happiness comes from letting go. Weaving together the accumulated wisdom of his two worlds--Buddhism and Western psychotherapy—Epstein shows how "the happiness that we seek depends on our ability to balance the ego's need to do with our inherent capacity to be." He encourages us to relax the ever-vigilant mind in order to experience the freedom that comes only from relinquishing control.Drawing on events in his own life and stories from his patients, Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart teaches us that only by letting go can we start on the path to a more peaceful and spiritually satisfying life.]]> 227 Mark Epstein 0307830098 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.02 1998 Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness
author: Mark Epstein
name: Carl
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/08/06
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]]> Skinned Alive 11355621 290 Edmund White 0307764524 Carl 0 currently-reading 3.67 1995 Skinned Alive
author: Edmund White
name: Carl
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/06/27
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke]]> 8135351 “You have to live life to the limit, not according to each day but by plumbing its depth.”–RAINER MARIA RILKEIn this treasury of uncommon wisdom and spiritual insight, the best writings and personal philosophies of one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets, Rainer Maria Rilke, are gleaned by Ulrich Baer from thousands of pages of never-before translated correspondence. The result is a profound vision of how the human drive to create and understand can guide us in every facet of life. Arranged by theme–from everyday existence with others to the exhilarations of love and the experience of loss, from dealing with adversity to the nature of inspiration, here are Rilke’s thoughts on how to live life in a meaningful and “How good life is. How fair, how incorruptible, how impossible to not even by strength, not even by willpower, and not even by courage. How everything remains what it is and has only this to come true, or to exaggerate and push too far.� “The work of art is adjustment, balance, reassurance. It can be neither gloomy nor full of rosy hopes, for its essence consists of justice.� “I personally feel a greater affinity to all those religions in which the middleman is less essential or almost entirely suppressed.� “To be loved means to be ablaze. To love to shine with inexhaustible oil. To be loved is to pass away; to love is to last.”Intimate, stylistically masterful, brilliantly translated, and brimming with the wonder and passion of Rilke, The Poet’s Guide to Life is comparable to the best works of wisdom in all of literature and a perfect book for all occasions.]]> 185 Rainer Maria Rilke Carl 0 currently-reading 4.54 2005 The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke
author: Rainer Maria Rilke
name: Carl
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/06/09
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]]> The Trauma of Everyday Life 18459460
Western psychology teaches that if we understand the cause of trauma, we might move past it while many drawn to Eastern practices see meditation as a means of rising above, or distancing themselves from, their most difficult emotions. Both, Epstein argues, fail to recognize that trauma is an indivisible part of life and can be used as a lever for growth and an ever deeper understanding of change. When we regard trauma with this perspective, understanding that suffering is universal and without logic, our pain connects us to the world on a more fundamental level. The way out of pain is through it.

Epstein’s discovery begins in his analysis of the life of Buddha, looking to how the death of his mother informed his path and teachings. The Buddha’s spiritual journey can be read as an expression of primitive agony grounded in childhood trauma. Yet the Buddha’s story is only one of many in The Trauma of Everyday Life. Here, Epstein looks to his own experience, that of his patients, and of the many fellow sojourners and teachers he encounters as a psychiatrist and Buddhist. They are alike only in that they share in trauma, large and small, as all of us do. Epstein finds throughout that trauma, if it doesn’t destroy us, wakes us up to both our minds� own capacity and to the suffering of others. It makes us more human, caring, and wise. It can be our greatest teacher, our freedom itself, and it is available to all of us.]]> 256 Mark Epstein 1101622652 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.09 2013 The Trauma of Everyday Life
author: Mark Epstein
name: Carl
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/05/25
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]]> The Sparsholt Affair 35654339 465 Alan Hollinghurst 1101874589 Carl 0 currently-reading 3.79 2017 The Sparsholt Affair
author: Alan Hollinghurst
name: Carl
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/05/14
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]]> Think And Grow Rich 35711801 337 Napoleon Hill 2377874657 Carl 0 currently-reading 4.13 1937 Think And Grow Rich
author: Napoleon Hill
name: Carl
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1937
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/04/27
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (GP Self-Help Collection Book 4)]]> 29248106
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind has been a bestseller since its first publication in 1963, selling many millions of copies since its original publication. It is one of the most brilliant and beloved spiritual self-help works of all time which can help you heal yourself, banish your fears, sleep better, enjoy better relationships and just feel happier. The techniques are simple and results come quickly. You can improve your relationships, your finances, your physical well-being.Dr Joseph Murphy explains that life events are actually the result of the workings of your conscious and subconscious minds. He suggests practical techniques through which one can change one's destiny, principally by focusing and redirecting this miraculous energy. Years of research studying the world's major religions convinced him that some Great Power lay behind all spiritual life and that this power is within each of us.'The Power of Your Subconscious Mind' will open a world of success, happiness, prosperity, and peace for you.

Top 10 ebooks by General

â—� Civilization and Its Discontents, 9789387669529

â—� Feeling is the Secret, 9789388760188

â—� How to Attract Money, 9789388118415

â—� My Inventions, 9789388118095

â—� The Game of Life and How to Play It, 9789387669468

â—� The Ladies' Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness, 9788180320378

â—� The Magic of Believing, 9789388118101

â—� The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, 9788180320958

â—� The Richest Man in Babylon, 9789387669383

â—� The Secret Teachings of All Ages, 9789389440362

â—� The World as I See It, 9789388118088

â—� Why I Killed Gandhi, 9789389440072]]> 163 Joseph Murphy Carl 0 currently-reading 4.19 1963 The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (GP Self-Help Collection Book 4)
author: Joseph Murphy
name: Carl
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1963
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/04/07
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]]> Write for Your Life 6626037 208 Lawrence Block Carl 0 currently-reading 4.19 1986 Write for Your Life
author: Lawrence Block
name: Carl
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/04/06
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World]]> 20961520 259 Benny Lewis Carl 0 currently-reading 3.94 2014 Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World
author: Benny Lewis
name: Carl
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/03/09
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Christodora 27070074
Their neighbor, Hector, a Puerto Rican gay man who was once a celebrated AIDS activist but is now a lonely addict, becomes connected to Milly and Jared’s lives in ways none of them can anticipate. Meanwhile, Milly and Jared’s adopted son Mateo grows to see the opportunity for both self-realization and oblivion that New York offers. As the junkies and protesters of the 1980's give way to the hipsters of the 2000's and they, in turn, to the wealthy residents of the crowded, glass-towered city of the 2020's, enormous changes rock the personal lives of Milly and Jared and the constellation of people around them.

Moving kaleidoscopically from the Tompkins Square Riots and attempts by activists to galvanize a true response to the AIDS epidemic, to the New York City of the future, Christodora recounts the heartbreak wrought by AIDS, illustrates the allure and destructive power of hard drugs, and brings to life the ever-changing city itself.]]> 496 Tim Murphy 080212528X Carl 4 4.28 2016 Christodora
author: Tim Murphy
name: Carl
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2018/02/15
date added: 2018/02/15
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]]> Under the Volcano 18912153 This is an alternate cover edition for B009S33I9A

Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, has come to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. Here the consul's debilitating malaise is drinking, and activity that has overshadowed his life. Under the Volcano is set during the most fateful day of the consul's life--the Day of the Dead, 1938. His wife, Yvonne, arrives in Quauhnahuac to rescue him and their failing marriage, inspired by a vision of life together away from Mexico and the circumstances that have driven their relationship to the brink of collapse. Yvonne's mission is to save the consul is further complicated by the presence of Hugh, the consul's half-brother, and Jacques, a childhood friend. The events of this one day unfold against a backdrop unforgettable for its evocation of a Mexico at once magical and diabolical.

Under the Volcano remains one of the most powerful and lyrical statements on the human condition and one man's constant struggle against the elemental forces that threaten to destroy him.]]> 448 Malcolm Lowry Carl 0 currently-reading 3.38 1947 Under the Volcano
author: Malcolm Lowry
name: Carl
average rating: 3.38
book published: 1947
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/01/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris]]> 20803416 273 Edmund White 1620406322 Carl 0 currently-reading 3.65 2014 Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris
author: Edmund White
name: Carl
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/01/01
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam]]> 19182199 Winner of the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book PrizeA New York Times Notable Book of the YearWinner of the Whiting Writers' AwardA Seattle Post-Intelligencer Best Book of the YearCatfish and Mandala is the story of an American odyssey—a solo bicycle voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam—made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland. Intertwined with an often humorous travelogue spanning a year of discovery is a memoir of war, escape, and ultimately, family secrets.Andrew X. Pham was born in Vietnam and raised in California. His father had been a POW of the Vietcong; his family came to America as "boat people." Following the suicide of his sister, Pham quit his job, sold all of his possessions, and embarked on a year-long bicycle journey that took him through the Mexican desert; on a thousand-mile loop from Narita in South Korea to Kyoto in Japan; and, after five months and 2,357 miles, to Saigon, where he finds "nothing familiar in the bombed-out darkness." In Vietnam, he's taken for Japanese or Korean by his countrymen, except, of course, by his relatives, who doubt that as a Vietnamese he has the stamina to complete his journey ("Only Westerners can do it"); and in the United States he's considered anything but American. A vibrant, picaresque memoir written with narrative flair and an eye-opening sense of adventure, Catfish and Mandala is an unforgettable search for cultural identity.]]> 354 Andrew X. Pham Carl 0 currently-reading 4.27 1999 Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam
author: Andrew X. Pham
name: Carl
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/12/12
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Silent 18940005 383 Sara Alva Carl 0 to-read 4.25 2013 Silent
author: Sara Alva
name: Carl
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/08/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Buddha 27304 240 Karen Armstrong 0143034367 Carl 0 currently-reading 3.91 2001 Buddha
author: Karen Armstrong
name: Carl
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/07/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Quiet American 3698 Graham Greene's classic exploration of love, innocence, and morality in Vietnam

"I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused," Graham Greene's narrator Fowler remarks of Alden Pyle, the eponymous "Quiet American" of what is perhaps the most controversial novel of his career. Pyle is the brash young idealist sent out by Washington on a mysterious mission to Saigon, where the French Army struggles against the Vietminh guerrillas. As young Pyle's well-intentioned policies blunder into bloodshed, Fowler, a seasoned and cynical British reporter, finds it impossible to stand safely aside as an observer. But Fowler's motives for intervening are suspect, both to the police and himself, for Pyle has stolen Fowler's beautiful Vietnamese mistress.

First published in 1956 and twice adapted to film, The Quiet American remains a terrifiying and prescient portrait of innocence at large. This Graham Greene Centennial Edition includes a new introductory essay by Robert Stone.]]> 180 Graham Greene 0143039024 Carl 0 currently-reading 3.97 1955 The Quiet American
author: Graham Greene
name: Carl
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1955
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/07/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within]]> 44905 336 Natalie Goldberg 1590303164 Carl 0 buddhism 4.21 1986 Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within
author: Natalie Goldberg
name: Carl
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at: 2017/07/29
date added: 2017/07/29
shelves: buddhism
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice]]> 402843
So begins this most beloved of all American Zen books. Seldom has such a small handful of words provided a teaching as rich as has this famous opening line. In a single stroke, the simple sentence cuts through the pervasive tendency students have of getting so close to Zen as to completely miss what it’s all about. An instant teaching on the first page. And that’s just the beginning.

In the forty years since its original publication, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind has become one of the great modern Zen classics, much beloved, much reread, and much recommended as the best first book to read on Zen. Suzuki Roshi presents the basics—from the details of posture and breathing in zazen to the perception of nonduality—in a way that is not only remarkably clear, but that also resonates with the joy of insight from the first to the last page. It’s a book to come back to time and time again as an inspiration to practice, and it is now available to a new generation of seekers in this fortieth anniversary edition, with a new afterword by Shunryu Suzuki’s biographer, David Chadwick.
]]> 138 Shunryu Suzuki 0834800799 Carl 0 buddhism 4.21 1970 Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice
author: Shunryu Suzuki
name: Carl
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at: 2017/07/29
date added: 2017/07/29
shelves: buddhism
review:

]]> Vietnam: Rising Dragon 7958830 272 Bill Hayton 0300152035 Carl 0 to-read 3.83 2010 Vietnam: Rising Dragon
author: Bill Hayton
name: Carl
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/06/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future]]> 28108821
We are entering, as Case explains, the “Third Wave� of the Internet. The first wave saw AOL and other companies lay the foundation for consumers to connect to the Internet. The second wave saw companies like Google and Facebook build on top of the Internet to create search and social networking capabilities, while apps like Snapchat and Instagram leveraged the smartphone revolution. Now, Case argues, we’re entering the Third a period in which entrepreneurs will vastly transform major “real world� sectors such as health, education, transportation, energy, and food—and in the process change the way we live our daily lives.

Part memoir, part manifesto, and part playbook for the future, The Third Wave explains the ways in which newly emerging technology companies will have to rethink their relationships with customers, with competitors, and with governments; and offers advice for how entrepreneurs can make winning business decisions and strategies—and how all of us can make sense of this ever-changing digital age.]]> 273 Steve Case Carl 0 3.92 The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future
author: Steve Case
name: Carl
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2017/06/28
date added: 2017/06/28
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]]> The Sport of Kings 28636686
The Forges: one of the oldest and proudest families in Kentucky; descended from the first settlers to brave the Wilderness Road; as mythic as the history of the South itself � and now, first-time horse breeders.

Through an act of naked ambition, Henry Forge is attempting to blaze this new path on the family's crop farm. His daughter, Henrietta, becomes his partner in the endeavour but has desires of her own. When Allmon Shaughnessy, an African American man fresh from prison, comes to work in the stables, the ugliness of the farm's history rears its head. Together through sheer will, the three stubbornly try to create a new future � one that isn't determined by Kentucky's bloody past � while they mould Hellsmouth into a champion.

The Sport of Kings has the force of an epic. A majestic story of speed and hunger, racism and justice, this novel is an astonishment from start to finish.]]> 545 C.E. Morgan 0007313268 Carl 0 3.57 2016 The Sport of Kings
author: C.E. Morgan
name: Carl
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2017/06/28
date added: 2017/06/28
shelves:
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]]> The Stranger's Child 7552716
In the late summer of 1913, George Sawle brings his Cambridge schoolmate - a handsome, aristocratic young poet named Cecil Valance - to his family's modest home outside London for the weekend. George is enthralled by Cecil, and soon his sixteen-year-old sister, Daphne, is equally besotted by him and the stories he tells about Corley Court, the country estate he is heir to. But what Cecil writes in Daphne's autograph album will change their and their families' lives forever: a poem that, after Cecil is killed in the Great War and his reputation burnished, will become a touchstone for a generation, a work recited by every schoolchild in England. Over time, a tragic love story is spun, even as other secrets lie buried - until, decades later, an ambitious biographer threatens to unearth them.

Rich with Hollinghurst's signature gifts - haunting sensuality, delicious wit and exquisite lyricism - The Stranger's Child is a tour de force: a masterly novel about the lingering power of desire, how the heart creates its own history, and how legends are made.]]> 564 Alan Hollinghurst 0330483242 Carl 0 to-read 3.35 2011 The Stranger's Child
author: Alan Hollinghurst
name: Carl
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/06/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation]]> 5599679 128 Parker J. Palmer 0470469331 Carl 4 4.30 1999 Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
author: Parker J. Palmer
name: Carl
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2017/04/28
date added: 2017/06/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China]]> 18490568 As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party's struggle to retain control. He asks probing questions: Why does a government with more success lifting people from poverty than any civilization in history choose to put strict restraints on freedom of expression? Why do millions of young Chinese professionals-fluent in English and devoted to Western pop culture-consider themselves "angry youth," dedicated to resisting the West's influence? How are Chinese from all strata finding meaning after two decades of the relentless pursuit of wealth?
Writing with great narrative verve and a keen sense of irony, Osnos follows the moving stories of everyday people and reveals life in the new China to be a battleground between aspiration and authoritarianism, in which only one can prevail.]]> 403 Evan Osnos 0374280746 Carl 0 to-read 4.24 2014 Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
author: Evan Osnos
name: Carl
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/05/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion]]> 18774981
From Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of numerous New York Times bestselling books, Waking Up is for the twenty percent of Americans who follow no religion but who suspect that important truths can be found in the experiences of such figures as Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history. Throughout this book, Harris argues that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow, and that how we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the quality of our lives.

Waking Up is part memoir and part exploration of the scientific underpinnings of spirituality. No other book marries contemplative wisdom and modern science in this way, and no author other than Sam Harris—a scientist, philosopher, and famous skeptic—could write it.]]> 256 Sam Harris 1451636016 Carl 3
This book is a great supplement to a meditation practice if you already know how to meditate. ]]> 3.88 2014 Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion
author: Sam Harris
name: Carl
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2016/05/16
date added: 2016/05/16
shelves:
review:
I love the place where Sam Harris is coming from. I have always been attracted to the idea of religion but always found it very disappointing upon closer examination. I like his focus on meditation.

This book is a great supplement to a meditation practice if you already know how to meditate.
]]> Push 6931274
Includes a Reading Group Guide

Precious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old, has up until now been invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem's casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment as she learns not only how to write about her life, but how to make it truly her own for the first time.]]> 192 Sapphire 0307474844 Carl 0 to-read 3.72 1996 Push
author: Sapphire
name: Carl
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/05/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hyper: A Personal History of ADHD]]> 18775376
Among the first generation of boys prescribed medication for hyperactivity in the 1980s, Timothy Denevi took Ritalin at the age of six, and during the first week, it triggered a psychotic reaction. Doctors recommended behavior therapy, then antidepressants. Nothing worked. As Timothy's parents and doctors sought to treat his behavior, he was subjected to a liquid diet, a sleep-deprived EEG, and bizarre behavioral assessments before finding help in therapy combined with medication. In Hyper, Timothy describes how he makes his way through school, knowing he is a problem for those who love him, longing to be able to be good and fit in, hanging out with boys who have similar symptoms but meet different ends, and finally realizing he has to come to grips with his disorder before his life spins out of control.

Skillfully and seamlessly using his own experience as a springboard, Denevi also reveals the origins of ADHD, from the late nineteenth century when hyperactivity was attributed to defective moral conscience, demons, or head trauma, through the twentieth century when food additives, bad parenting, and even government conspiracies were blamed, to the most recent genetic research. He traces drug treatment from Benzedrine in 1937 through the common usage of the stupifying chlorpromazine and brand new Ritalin in the 1950s to the use of antidepressants in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

Riveting, thought-provoking, and deeply intelligent, this is a remarkable book both for its sensitive portrait of a child's experience as well as for its ability to illuminate a remarkably complex and controversial mental condition. Rick Lavoie, author of It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend, says Hyper is "a significant and singular contribution to our field."]]> 288 Timothy Denevi 1476702578 Carl 0 4.03 2014 Hyper: A Personal History of ADHD
author: Timothy Denevi
name: Carl
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2016/02/29
date added: 2016/05/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History]]> 43185 Vanity Fair. Now the award-winning journalist and Vanity Fair special correspondent tells the complete story of Cunanan, his unwitting victims, and the moneyed, hedonistic world in which they lived and died, culled from interviews with over 400 people, and details from thousands of pages of police reports.

In chilling detail, Maureen Orth reveals how Andrew Cunanan met his superstar victim...why police and the FBI repeatedly failed to catch Cunanan...why other victims' families stonewalled the investigation...controversial findings of the Versace autopsy report, and more. Here is a late-century odyssey that races across America from California's wealthy gay underworld to modest midwestern homes of families mourning their slaughtered sons to the celebration of decadence that is Versace's South Beach. It is at once a landmark work of investigative journalism and a riveting account of a sociopath, his savage crimes, and the mysteries he left along the way.]]> 560 Maureen Orth 044022585X Carl 5 favorites 3.61 1999 Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History
author: Maureen Orth
name: Carl
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2016/02/01
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:
This book was an amazing read. I was too young to remember much about Versace's murder. I only remembered that it was a gay man who killed him. I picked up this book because I wanted to know more about the story. This is a exciting suspenseful novel, and and very illuminating view of what it is like to be gay in the 90's. So much has changed since then.
]]> <![CDATA[When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times]]> 687278
� Using painful emotions to cultivate wisdom, compassion, and courage
� Communicating so as to encourage others to open up rather than shut down
� Practices for reversing habitual patterns
� Methods for working with chaotic situations
� Ways for creating effective social action]]> 148 Pema Chödrön 1570623449 Carl 5 favorites 4.27 1996 When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
author: Pema Chödrön
name: Carl
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 2016/03/15
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[States of Desire: Travels in Gay America]]> 157503 352 Edmund White 0452266890 Carl 0 favorites 3.95 1980 States of Desire: Travels in Gay America
author: Edmund White
name: Carl
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> The Coming Storm 244779 The Coming Storm is a delicately and brilliantly rendered tale that reveals the most closely held secrets of the human heart. Russell's award-winning novel is the story of four interlocking lives - Louis Tremper, the headmaster at the Forge School; his wife Claire; Tracey Parker, a 25-year old gay man and recently hired teacher at the Forge School; and Noah Lathrop III, a troubled student; all of whom struggle with their own inner demons, desires, and conflicted loyalties. When Tracey and Noah become involved in an illicit relationship, dark incidents from the school's past begin colliding with the current growing confusion that all of them must face. Compelling and poignant, this is the finest work yet from one of the best contemporary American novelists.]]> 371 Paul Russell 0312263031 Carl 5 favorites
This is my first time reading Paul Russell, and now I want to read all his books. I think Paul Russell is very brave to take on the subject matter in this book.

This book is about a part of gay life that we have not figured out yet. The parts that are not very easy to understand, and the parts that have yet to gain mainstream acceptance, but still exist and call out for exploration.

This book is an adventure into the familiar and into the unknown. ]]> 3.87 1999 The Coming Storm
author: Paul Russell
name: Carl
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2012/10/05
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:
I could not put this book down once I started reading it.

This is my first time reading Paul Russell, and now I want to read all his books. I think Paul Russell is very brave to take on the subject matter in this book.

This book is about a part of gay life that we have not figured out yet. The parts that are not very easy to understand, and the parts that have yet to gain mainstream acceptance, but still exist and call out for exploration.

This book is an adventure into the familiar and into the unknown.
]]> Boys of Life 244781 320 Paul Russell 0452268370 Carl 5 favorites 3.85 1991 Boys of Life
author: Paul Russell
name: Carl
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea]]> 6178648 Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population.

Taking us into a landscape most of us have never before seen, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today—an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, in which radio and television dials are welded to the one government station, and where displays of affection are punished; a police state where informants are rewarded and where an offhand remark can send a person to the gulag for life.

Demick takes us deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors. Through meticulous and sensitive reporting, we see her six subjects—average North Korean citizens—fall in love, raise families, nurture ambitions, and struggle for survival. One by one, we experience the moments when they realize that their government has betrayed them.

Nothing to Envy is a groundbreaking addition to the literature of totalitarianism and an eye-opening look at a closed world that is of increasing global importance.]]> 316 Barbara Demick 0385523904 Carl 5 favorites 4.43 2009 Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
author: Barbara Demick
name: Carl
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2012/09/23
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Uncharted Lives: Understanding the Life Passages of Gay Men]]> 235927 256 Stanley Siegel 0452274486 Carl 5 favorites 4.20 1994 Uncharted Lives: Understanding the Life Passages of Gay Men
author: Stanley Siegel
name: Carl
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2009/05/01
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals]]> 3109 What should we have for dinner? For omnivore like ourselves, this simple question has always posed a dilemma. When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods on offer might shorten your life. Today, buffered by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. The omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.
The Omnivore's Dilemma is groundbreaking book, in which one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species. Should we eat a fast-food hamburger? Something organic? Or perhaps something we hunt, gather, or grow ourselves?
To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.
The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us. Ultimately, this is a book as much about visionary solutions as it is about problems, and Pollan contends that, when it comes to food, doing the right thing often turns out to be the tastiest thing an eater can do. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore’s Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same.]]> 450 Michael Pollan 1594200823 Carl 5 favorites 4.18 2006 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
author: Michael Pollan
name: Carl
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2007/10/01
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[City Boy: My Life in New York in the 1960s and 70s]]> 6559265 304 Edmund White 1596914025 Carl 5 favorites 3.73 1999 City Boy: My Life in New York in the 1960s and 70s
author: Edmund White
name: Carl
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2012/06/06
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> Jack Holmes and His Friend 12047756
Moving among beautifully delineated characters in a variety of social milieus, Edmund White brings narrative daring and an exquisite sense of life's submerged drama to this masterful exploration of friendship, sexuality, and sensibility during a watershed moment in history.]]> 392 Edmund White 1408805790 Carl 5 favorites 3.58 2012 Jack Holmes and His Friend
author: Edmund White
name: Carl
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2012/05/05
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly]]> 33313 A deluxe, annotated edition of Kitchen Confidential to celebrate the life of Anthony Bourdain, featuring new photo inserts

Over two decades ago, the New Yorker published a now infamous article, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,� by then little-known chef Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain spared no one’s appetite as he revealed what happens behind the kitchen door. The article was a sensation, and the book it spawned, the now iconic Kitchen Confidential, became an even bigger sensation and megabestseller. Frankly confessional, addictively acerbic, and utterly unsparing, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business.

Fans will love to return to this deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade, laying out Bourdain’s more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute cuisine. Including a handwritten introduction and annotations done by Bourdain about a decade after the book was originally published, this edition also features previously unpublished photos to accompany the now-classic text.]]> 312 Anthony Bourdain 0060899220 Carl 5 favorites 4.17 2000 Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: Carl
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2008/03/01
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> Tourism 538779
Bhupinder 'Puppy' Singh Johal � handsome, rakish and spiritually disenfranchised � has left behind the immigrant neighbourhood of Southall to mix with the elite of metropolitan London society. Sexually ambitious, he is intent on living life to the full, regardless of the consequences. When sloaney rich-girl Sophie falls for him, he grabs the chance to escape his past and pursue the woman of his dreams, the voluptuous sophisticate Sarupa, who happens to be engaged to Sophie’s cousin.
Using whatever and whoever he can, Puppy explores the grit and glamour of a city seething with the possibilities and politics of money, race and an incendiary cocktail that explodes, changing him and those closest to him forever...]]> 256 Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal 0099493047 Carl 5 favorites 3.28 2006 Tourism
author: Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal
name: Carl
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2008/11/01
date added: 2016/05/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany]]> 139220
In a fast-paced, candid narrative, Buford describes the frenetic experience of working in Babbo’s kitchen: the trials and errors (and more errors), humiliations and hopes, disappointments and triumphs as he worked his way up the ladder from slave to cook. He talks about his relationships with his kitchen colleagues and with the larger-than-life, hard-living Batali, whose story he learns as their friendship grows through (and sometimes despite) kitchen encounters and after-work all-nighters.

Buford takes us to the restaurant in a remote Appennine village where Batali first apprenticed in Italy and where Buford learns the intricacies of handmade pasta . . . the hill town in Chianti where he is tutored in the art of butchery by Italy’s most famous butcher, a man who insists that his meat is an expression of the Italian soul . . . to London, where he is instructed in the preparation of game by Marco Pierre White, one of England’s most celebrated (or perhaps notorious) chefs. And throughout, we follow the thread of Buford’s fascinating reflections on food as a bearer of culture, on the history and development of a few special dishes (Is the shape of tortellini really based on a woman’s navel? And just what is a short rib?), and on the what and why of the foods we eat today.

Heat is a marvelous hybrid: a richly evocative memoir of Buford’s kitchen adventure, the story of Batali’s amazing rise to culinary (and extra-culinary) fame, a dazzling behind-the-scenes look at the workings of a famous restaurant, and an illuminating exploration of why food matters.

It is a book to delight in—and to savor.]]> 336 Bill Buford 1400041201 Carl 5 favorites 3.90 2006 Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
author: Bill Buford
name: Carl
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2008/03/01
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
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]]> The Picture of Dorian Gray 5297
In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.]]> 272 Oscar Wilde Carl 5 favorites 4.13 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Carl
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1890
rating: 5
read at: 2006/05/01
date added: 2016/05/02
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]]> Shantaram 33600
So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear.

Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.

As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power.

Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas—this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based on the life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature.]]> 936 Gregory David Roberts 192076920X Carl 5 favorites 4.27 2003 Shantaram
author: Gregory David Roberts
name: Carl
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2006/07/01
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> Life of Pi 4214 460 Yann Martel 0770430074 Carl 5 favorites 3.94 2001 Life of Pi
author: Yann Martel
name: Carl
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2007/01/01
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> A Fraction of the Whole 1833852 An irreverent comic adventure, spanning three continents, about a father and son against each other and against the world.

For most of his life, Jasper Dean couldn’t decide whether to pity, hate, love, or murder his certifiably paranoid father, Martin, a man who overanalyzed anything and everything and imparted his self-garnered wisdom to his only son. But now that Martin is dead, Jasper can fully reflect on the crackpot who raised him in intellectual captivity, and what he realizes is that, for all its lunacy, theirs was a grand adventure.

As he recollects the events that led to his father’s demise, Jasper recounts a boyhood of outrageous schemes and shocking discoveries—about his infamous outlaw uncle, Terry, his mysteriously absent European mother, and Martin’s constant losing battle to make a lasting mark on the world he so disdains. It’s a story that takes them from the Australian bush to the cafés of bohemian Paris, from the Thai jungle to strip clubs, asylums, labyrinths, and criminal lairs, and from the highs of first love to the lows of failed ambition. The result is a wild rollercoaster ride from obscurity to infamy, and the moving, memorable story of a father and son whose spiritual symmetry transcends all their many shortcomings.

A Fraction of the Whole is an uproarious indictment of the modern world and its mores, and the epic debut of the blisteringly funny and talented Steve Toltz.]]> 530 Steve Toltz 0385521723 Carl 5 favorites 4.13 2008 A Fraction of the Whole
author: Steve Toltz
name: Carl
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2009/03/01
date added: 2016/05/02
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]]> Let the Great World Spin 5941033
Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author’s most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s.

Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the middle of the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam, only to discover just how much divides them even in grief. A young artist finds herself at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth.

Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the “artistic crime of the century.� A sweeping and radical social novel, Let the Great World Spin captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. Hailed as a “fiercely original talent� (San Francisco Chronicle), award-winning novelist McCann has delivered a triumphantly American masterpiece that awakens in us a sense of what the novel can achieve, confront, and even heal.]]> 351 Colum McCann 1400063736 Carl 5 favorites 3.95 2009 Let the Great World Spin
author: Colum McCann
name: Carl
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2010/03/01
date added: 2016/05/02
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]]> Freedom 7905092
But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz—outré rocker and Walter's college best friend and rival—still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become "a very different kind of neighbor," an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes?

In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.
(jacket)]]> 562 Jonathan Franzen 0374158460 Carl 5 favorites 3.78 2010 Freedom
author: Jonathan Franzen
name: Carl
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2010/11/01
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
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]]> The Spell 30104 The Spell details the restlessness of every human heart.]]> 272 Alan Hollinghurst 0140286373 Carl 5 favorites 3.55 1998 The Spell
author: Alan Hollinghurst
name: Carl
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2011/06/01
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> The Corrections 3805 After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The middle child, Chip, has lost his seemingly secure academic job and is failing spectacularly at his new line of work. And Denise, the youngest, has escaped a disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man - or so her mother fears. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.
Stretching from the Midwest at midcentury to the Wall Street and Eastern Europe of today, "The Corrections" brings an old-fashioned world of civic virtue and sexual inhibitions into violent collision with the era of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental healthcare, and globalised greed. Richly realistic, darkly hilarious, deeply humane, it confirms Jonathan Franzen as one of our most brilliant interpreters of American society and the American soul.]]> 653 Jonathan Franzen 1841156736 Carl 5 favorites 3.83 2001 The Corrections
author: Jonathan Franzen
name: Carl
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2011/10/01
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco]]> 781182 592 Bryan Burrough 0060536357 Carl 5 favorites 4.26 1989 Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
author: Bryan Burrough
name: Carl
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1989
rating: 5
read at: 2012/02/01
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
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]]> The Line of Beauty 139087
As the boom years of the eighties unfold, Nick, an innocent in the world of politics and money, finds his life altered by the rising fortunes of this glamorous family. His two vividly contrasting love affairs, one with a young black clerk and one with a Lebanese millionaire, dramatize the dangers and rewards of his own private pursuit of beauty, a pursuit as compelling to Nick as the desire for power and riches among his friends.

Richly textured, emotionally charged, disarmingly comic, this U.K. bestseller is a major work by one of our finest writers.]]> 438 Alan Hollinghurst 0739464469 Carl 5 favorites 3.76 2004 The Line of Beauty
author: Alan Hollinghurst
name: Carl
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2007/08/01
date added: 2016/05/02
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review:

]]> The Swimming-Pool Library 30106 352 Alan Hollinghurst 0679722564 Carl 5 favorites 3.77 1988 The Swimming-Pool Library
author: Alan Hollinghurst
name: Carl
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 2010/04/01
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> Like People in History 449189
Through the lends of their complex, tumultuous, yet enduring relationship - and their involvement with the handsome model, poet and decorated Vietnam vet Matt Loguidice, whom they both love - Felice Picano chronicles and celebrates gay life and subculture over the last half of the twentieth century.

From Malibu Beach in its palmist surfer days to the legendary parties at Fire Island Pines in the 1970s, from San Francisco during its gayest era to AIDS activism in Greenwich Village in the 1990s, Like People in History presents 'the heroic and funny saga of the last three decades by someone who saw everything and forgot nothing' (Edmund White).]]> 528 Felice Picano 0349108382 Carl 0 to-read 4.02 1995 Like People in History
author: Felice Picano
name: Carl
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/05/02
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]]> What Belongs to You 22929602
What Belongs to You is a stunning debut novel of desire and its consequences. With lyric intensity and startling eroticism, Garth Greenwell has created an indelible story about the ways in which our pasts and cultures, our scars and shames can shape who we are and determine how we love.

Listening length: 6 hours, 11 minutes]]> 195 Garth Greenwell 0374288224 Carl 5
This book is so much more than that. This author has significantly added to my understanding of my gay experience. Books like this are the reason I read gay fiction!"]]> 3.79 2016 What Belongs to You
author: Garth Greenwell
name: Carl
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2016/04/27
date added: 2016/04/27
shelves:
review:
"Part II was fascinating. I was somewhat skeptical of this book when I got started. I was about to write it off as being a run of the mill book about a trick and an older man and the spell the trick had over him. Been there, done that.

This book is so much more than that. This author has significantly added to my understanding of my gay experience. Books like this are the reason I read gay fiction!"
]]> Quicksand 23492644
Liam is a struggling writer and a failing cop. Aldo, his best friend and muse, is a haplessly criminal entrepreneur with an uncanny knack for disaster. As Aldo's luck worsens, Liam is inspired to base his next book on his best friend's exponential misfortunes and hopeless quest to win back his one great love: his ex-wife, Stella. What begins as an attempt to make sense of Aldo's mishaps spirals into a profound story of faith and friendship.

With the same originality and buoyancy that catapulted his first novel, A Fraction of the Whole, onto prize lists around the world—including shortlists for the Man Booker Prize and the Guardian First Book Award—Steve Toltz has created a rousing, hysterically funny but unapologetically dark satire about fate, faith, friendship, and the artist's obligation to his muse. Sharp, witty, kinetic, and utterly engrossing, Quicksand is a subversive portrait of twenty-first-century society in all its hypocrisy and absurdity.]]> 368 Steve Toltz 147679782X Carl 0 to-read 3.47 2015 Quicksand
author: Steve Toltz
name: Carl
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/04/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market]]> 30810
Reefer Madness is a powerful investigation that illuminates the shadow economy and the culture that casts that shadow.
(back cover)]]> 352 Eric Schlosser 0618446702 Carl 5 3.79 2003 Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
author: Eric Schlosser
name: Carl
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2007/11/01
date added: 2016/04/25
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]]> <![CDATA[You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense]]> 38504 Charles Bukowski examines cats and his childhood in You Get So Alone at Times, a book of poetry that reveals his tender side. The iconic tortured artist/everyman delves into his youth to analyze its repercussions.

“The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles.� —Joyce Carol Oates

“[Bukowski] brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.� —Leonard Cohen, songwriter]]> 320 Charles Bukowski 0876856830 Carl 5 4.19 1986 You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Carl
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at: 2011/03/01
date added: 2016/04/25
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]]> The White Tiger 1768603
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life—having nothing but his own wits to help him along.

Born in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for his village's wealthiest man, two house Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man's (very unlucky) son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram's new world is a revelation. While his peers flip through the pages of Murder Weekly ("Love -- Rape -- Revenge!"), barter for girls, drink liquor (Thunderbolt), and perpetuate the Great Rooster Coop of Indian society, Balram watches his employers bribe foreign ministers for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink liquor (single-malt whiskey), and play their own role in the Rooster Coop. Balram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell Johnnie Walker Black Label bottles (all but one). He also finds a way out of the Coop that no one else inside it can perceive.

Balram's eyes penetrate India as few outsiders can: the cockroaches and the call centers; the prostitutes and the worshippers; the ancient and Internet cultures; the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger. And with a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create virtue, and money doesn't solve every problem -- but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations.

The White Tiger recalls The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, and narrative genius, with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation —and a startling, provocative debut.]]> 276 Aravind Adiga 1416562591 Carl 5 3.76 2008 The White Tiger
author: Aravind Adiga
name: Carl
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2009/03/01
date added: 2016/04/25
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]]> Vernon God Little 11711 This is an alternative cover edition for ISBN 9780571215164

Named as one of the 100 Best Things in the World by GQ magazine in 2003, the riotous adventures of Vernon Gregory Little in small town Texas and beachfront Mexico mark one of the most spectacular, irreverent and bizarre debuts of the twenty-first century so far. Its depiction of innocence and simple humanity (all seasoned with a dash of dysfunctional profanity) in an evil world is never less than astonishing. The only novel to be set in the barbecue sauce capital of Central Texas, Vernon God Little suggests that desperate times throw up the most unlikely of heroes.]]> 279 D.B.C. Pierre Carl 5 3.62 2003 Vernon God Little
author: D.B.C. Pierre
name: Carl
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2006/06/01
date added: 2016/04/25
shelves:
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]]>