Eva's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 08 Jul 2020 13:20:37 -0700 60 Eva's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Normal People 41057294
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.]]> 273 Sally Rooney 1984822179 Eva 0 3.81 2018 Normal People
author: Sally Rooney
name: Eva
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/07/08
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]]> Conversations with Friends 37506350
Written with gemlike precision and marked by a sly sense of humor, Conversations with Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth, and the messy edges of female friendship.]]> 307 Sally Rooney 0451499069 Eva 3 3.77 2017 Conversations with Friends
author: Sally Rooney
name: Eva
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2020/04/07
date added: 2020/07/08
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review:

]]> The Vegetarian 25489025
Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.]]> 188 Han Kang 0553448188 Eva 3 3.61 2007 The Vegetarian
author: Han Kang
name: Eva
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2020/07/08
date added: 2020/07/08
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]]> Trust Exercise 40046059
In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,� two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley.

The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence.

As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.]]> 257 Susan Choi 1250309883 Eva 4 3.12 2019 Trust Exercise
author: Susan Choi
name: Eva
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/03/28
date added: 2020/06/04
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]]> Life of Pi 4214 460 Yann Martel 0770430074 Eva 5
And in those last few chapters, you suddenly realize that the moral has changed as well.

You feel Martel’s words lingering, suggesting, and you find yourself wondering whether you are his atheist who takes the deathbed leap of faith � hoping for white light and love? Or the agnostic who , in trying to stay true to his reasonable self, explains the mysteries of life and death in only scientific terms, lacking imagination to the end, and, essentially, missing the better story?

There is no use in trying to provide a brief synopsis for this ravishing tale of a young boy from India left adrift in the Pacific in a lifeboat with a tiger who used to reside in his father’s zoo in Pondicherry. There is no use because once you finish the book you might decide that this was not, indeed, what the book was about at all. There is no use because, depending on your philosophical bent, the book will mean something very different to your best friend than it will to you. There is no use because it is nearly impossible to describe what makes this book so grand.

Read this book. Not because it is an exceptional piece of literary talent. It is, of course. But there are many good authors and many good books. While uncommon, they are not endangered. Read this book because in recent memory - aside from Jose Saramago’s arresting Blindness � there have been no stories which make such grand statements with such few elements. As Pi says in his story “Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.� It is the same with Martel’s undulating fable of a book about a boy in a boat with a tiger. A simple story with potentially life altering consequences for it’s readers.

As Martel writes, "The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no?" Like Schroedinger's cat in the box, the way this book is understood, the way it is perceived affects what it is. There has been some talk that this book will make it’s readers believe in god. I think it’s a question of perspective. To behold this gem of a novel as an adventure of man against the elements (the “dry, yeastless factuality� of what actually happened) is certainly one way to go about it. But to understand this piece to be something indescribable, something godlike, is by far the greater leap of faith.

Oh, but worth the leap, if the reader is like that atheist, willing to see the better story.


]]> 3.94 2001 Life of Pi
author: Yann Martel
name: Eva
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2002/10/01
date added: 2013/12/04
shelves:
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It is not so much that The Life of Pi, is particularly moving (although it is). It isn’t even so much that it is written with language that is both delicate and sturdy all at once (which it is, as well). And it’s certainly not that Yann Martel’s vision filled passages are so precise that you begin to feel the salt water on your skin (even though they are). It is that, like Bohjalian and Byatt and all of the great Houdini’s of the literary world, in the last few moments of your journey � after you’ve felt the emotions, endured the moments of heartache, yearned for the resolution of the characters� struggle � that you realize the book is not what you thought it was. The story transforms, instantly, and forever.

And in those last few chapters, you suddenly realize that the moral has changed as well.

You feel Martel’s words lingering, suggesting, and you find yourself wondering whether you are his atheist who takes the deathbed leap of faith � hoping for white light and love? Or the agnostic who , in trying to stay true to his reasonable self, explains the mysteries of life and death in only scientific terms, lacking imagination to the end, and, essentially, missing the better story?

There is no use in trying to provide a brief synopsis for this ravishing tale of a young boy from India left adrift in the Pacific in a lifeboat with a tiger who used to reside in his father’s zoo in Pondicherry. There is no use because once you finish the book you might decide that this was not, indeed, what the book was about at all. There is no use because, depending on your philosophical bent, the book will mean something very different to your best friend than it will to you. There is no use because it is nearly impossible to describe what makes this book so grand.

Read this book. Not because it is an exceptional piece of literary talent. It is, of course. But there are many good authors and many good books. While uncommon, they are not endangered. Read this book because in recent memory - aside from Jose Saramago’s arresting Blindness � there have been no stories which make such grand statements with such few elements. As Pi says in his story “Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.� It is the same with Martel’s undulating fable of a book about a boy in a boat with a tiger. A simple story with potentially life altering consequences for it’s readers.

As Martel writes, "The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no?" Like Schroedinger's cat in the box, the way this book is understood, the way it is perceived affects what it is. There has been some talk that this book will make it’s readers believe in god. I think it’s a question of perspective. To behold this gem of a novel as an adventure of man against the elements (the “dry, yeastless factuality� of what actually happened) is certainly one way to go about it. But to understand this piece to be something indescribable, something godlike, is by far the greater leap of faith.

Oh, but worth the leap, if the reader is like that atheist, willing to see the better story.



]]> <![CDATA[Hot Mess: speculative fiction about climate change]]> 13554121
"She Says Goodbye Tomorrow" by Eric Sipple
As microclimates shift and a once-abundant vineyard withers away, its owner fights to keep her family’s winery and memories alive. How long can she put off moving on?

"Haute Mess" by Rachel Lynn Brody
Even Fashionistas get the climate change blues.

"In Between the Dark and the Light" by Miranda Doerfler
When state-sponsored executions threaten to claim his only daughter, Brett Zerum does everything he can to save her and escape to a new, otherworldly paradise.

"Traditionbus ne Copulate" by Sare Liz Gordy
The Way of the Geonome will eventually call everyone home. But with humans wiped out in the apocalypse, who’s left to answer?

"Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom." by Rachel Lynn Brody
A boy struggles to keep a promise to his father, while his mother shields him from tragedy in an information-saturated age.

"The World Gets Smaller, and Things Get Left Behind" by RJ Astruc
Everyone knew the deluge was coming. Now, tourists at a new Atlantis visit the city that couldn’t be saved.]]> Rachel Lynn Brody Eva 0 to-read 4.06 2012 Hot Mess: speculative fiction about climate change
author: Rachel Lynn Brody
name: Eva
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Diary of a Young Girl 48855
In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annexe� of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly humorous, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.
--back cover]]> 283 Anne Frank Eva 4 4.19 1947 The Diary of a Young Girl
author: Anne Frank
name: Eva
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1947
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> The Time Traveler's Wife 14050 537 Audrey Niffenegger 0965818675 Eva 3 3.90 2003 The Time Traveler's Wife
author: Audrey Niffenegger
name: Eva
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 3
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date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]> 311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X Eva 4 4.15 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Eva
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> <![CDATA[A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius]]> 4953 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read for decades to come.]]> 530 Dave Eggers 0375725784 Eva 5 3.70 2000 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
author: Dave Eggers
name: Eva
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Eva 5 3.70 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: Eva
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> The Great Gatsby 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Eva 4 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Eva
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 4
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]]> Brave New World 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]> 268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 Eva 5 3.99 1932 Brave New World
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Eva
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> Franny and Zooey 5113 ‘Everything everybody does is so—I don’t know—not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and—sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much only in a different way.�

First published in The New Yorker as two sequential stories, ‘Franny� and ‘Zooey� offer a dual portrait of the two youngest members of J. D. Salinger’s fictional Glass family.

Franny Glass is a pretty, effervescent college student on a date with her intellectually confident boyfriend, Lane. They appear to be the perfect couple, but as they struggle to communicate with each other about the things they really care about, slowly their true feelings come to the surface. The second story in this book, ‘Zooey�, plunges us into the world of her ethereal, sophisticated family. When Franny’s emotional and spiritual doubts reach new heights, her older brother Zooey, a misanthropic former child genius, offers her consolation and brotherly advice.

Written in Salinger’s typically irreverent style, these two stories offer a touching snapshot of the distraught mindset of early adulthood and are full of the insightful emotional observations and witty turns of phrase that have helped make Salinger’s reputation what it is today.]]> 201 J.D. Salinger 0316769029 Eva 3 3.97 1957 Franny and Zooey
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Eva
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1957
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> The Catcher in the Rye 7178 The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

]]> 234 J.D. Salinger 0316769487 Eva 4 3.76 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Eva
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1951
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> The Stranger 49552 The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."]]> 123 Albert Camus Eva 5 4.04 1942 The Stranger
author: Albert Camus
name: Eva
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1942
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Laughter and Forgetting]]> 240976 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970's. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than just its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed and experienced.]]> 313 Milan Kundera 0060932147 Eva 5 4.01 1979 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
author: Milan Kundera
name: Eva
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1)]]> 6310 (back cover)]]> 176 Roald Dahl 0142403881 Eva 4 4.16 1964 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1)
author: Roald Dahl
name: Eva
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1964
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> The Metamorphosis 485894 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 0553213695 / 9780553213690

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."

With it's startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first opening, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote, "Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man."]]> 201 Franz Kafka 0553213695 Eva 5 3.90 1915 The Metamorphosis
author: Franz Kafka
name: Eva
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1915
rating: 5
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]]> James and the Giant Peach 6689 176 Roald Dahl 0375814248 Eva 4 4.04 1961 James and the Giant Peach
author: Roald Dahl
name: Eva
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1961
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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review:

]]> Shopgirl 531412
With more than 340,000 copies in print, Steve Martin's Shopgirl has landed on bestseller lists nationwide including: New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times.

Filled with the kind of witty, discerning observations that have brought Steve Martin incredible critical success, this story of modern day love and romance is a work of disarming tenderness.]]> 163 Steve Martin 0575071907 Eva 3 3.30 2000 Shopgirl
author: Steve Martin
name: Eva
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Perks of Being a Wallflower]]> 22628 offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see
what it looks like from the dance floor.

This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction: The Perks of Being A WALLFLOWER

This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that the perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.

(back cover)]]> 213 Stephen Chbosky Eva 3 4.24 1999 The Perks of Being a Wallflower
author: Stephen Chbosky
name: Eva
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> The Moosewood Cookbook 530597 235 Mollie Katzen 0898154901 Eva 5 3.89 1977 The Moosewood Cookbook
author: Mollie Katzen
name: Eva
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1977
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (Ishmael, #1)]]> 227265 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

TEACHER SEEKS PUPIL.
Must have an earnest desire to
save the world. Apply in person.

It was just a three-line ad in the personals section, but it launched the adventure of a lifetime...

So begins Ishmael, an utterly unique and captivating novel that has earned a large and passionate following among readers and critics alike—one of the most beloved and bestselling novels of spiritual adventure ever published.]]> 266 Daniel Quinn 0553375407 Eva 5 3.99 1992 Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (Ishmael, #1)
author: Daniel Quinn
name: Eva
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> Lolita 7604 Librarian's note: Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141182537.

Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Dolores Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.]]> 368 Vladimir Nabokov 0679723161 Eva 3 3.87 1955 Lolita
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Eva
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1955
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> The Catcher in the Rye 5107 It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school...

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

J.D. Salinger's (1919�2010) classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.]]> 277 J.D. Salinger 0316769177 Eva 3 3.81 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Eva
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> The World Without Us 248787 A penetrating, page-turning tour of a post-human Earth

In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us. In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; which everyday items may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe.

The World Without Us reveals how, just days after humans disappear, floods in New York's subways would start eroding the city's foundations, and how, as the world's cities crumble, asphalt jungles would give way to real ones. It describes the distinct ways that organic and chemically treated farms would revert to wild, how billions more birds would flourish, and how cockroaches in unheated cities would perish without us. Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders from rabbis to the Dalai Lama, and paleontologists—who describe a prehuman world inhabited by megafauna like giant sloths that stood taller than mammoths—Weisman illustrates what the planet might be like today, if not for us.

From places already devoid of humans (a last fragment of primeval European forest; the Korean DMZ; Chernobyl), Weisman reveals Earth's tremendous capacity for self-healing. As he shows which human devastations are indelible, and which examples of our highest art and culture would endure longest, Weisman's narrative ultimately drives toward a radical but persuasive solution that needn't depend on our demise. It is narrative nonfiction at its finest, and in posing an irresistible concept with both gravity and a highly readable touch, it looks deeply at our effects on the planet in a way that no other book has.]]> 324 Alan Weisman Eva 5 3.81 2007 The World Without Us
author: Alan Weisman
name: Eva
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/11/07
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]]> Catch-22 168668
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.]]> 453 Joseph Heller 0684833395 Eva 4 3.99 1961 Catch-22
author: Joseph Heller
name: Eva
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1961
rating: 4
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]]> The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 11275
In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.]]> 607 Haruki Murakami 0965341984 Eva 5 4.16 1994 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Eva
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1994
rating: 5
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]]> 1984 5470 328 George Orwell Eva 4 4.15 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Eva
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 4
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]]> Jitterbug Perfume 338 is an epic.

Which is to say, it begins in the forests of ancient Bohemia and doesn’t conclude until nine o’clock tonight (Paris time).

It is a saga, as well. A saga must have a hero, and the hero of this one is a janitor with a missing bottle.

The bottle is blue, very, very old, and embossed with the image of a goat-horned god.

If the liquid in the bottle actually is the secret essence of the universe, as some folks seem to think, it had better be discovered soon because it is leaking and there is only a drop or two left.]]> 342 Tom Robbins 0553348981 Eva 4 4.15 1984 Jitterbug Perfume
author: Tom Robbins
name: Eva
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1984
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present]]> 2767 Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen as the exploitation and manipulation of the majority by rigged systems that hugely favor a small aggregate of elite rulers from across the orthodox political parties.
A People's History has been assigned as reading in many high schools and colleges across the United States. It has also resulted in a change in the focus of historical work, which now includes stories that previously were ignored

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s book “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those…whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.”]]> 729 Howard Zinn 0060838655 Eva 5 4.07 1980 A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present
author: Howard Zinn
name: Eva
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1980
rating: 5
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]]> Blindness 2526 No food, no water, no government, no obligation, no order.

Discover a chillingly powerful and prescient dystopian vision from one of Europe's greatest writers.

A driver waiting at the traffic lights goes blind. An ophthalmologist tries to diagnose his distinctive white blindness, but is affected before he can read the textbooks.
It becomes a contagion, spreading throughout the city. Trying to stem the epidemic, the authorities herd the afflicted into a mental asylum where the wards are terrorised by blind thugs. And when fire destroys the asylum, the inmates burst forth and the last links with a supposedly civilised society are snapped.

This is not anarchy, this is blindness.

‘Saramago repeatedly undertakes to unite the pressing demands of the present with an unfolding vision of the future. This is his most apocalyptic, and most optimistic, version of that project yet� Independent]]> 326 José Saramago Eva 5 4.04 1995 Blindness
author: José Saramago
name: Eva
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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]]> Memories, Dreams, Reflections 612188 Memories, Dreams, Reflections includes Jung's VII Sermones ad Mortuos. It is a fully corrected edition. From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 430 C.G. Jung 0679723951 Eva 2 4.16 1962 Memories, Dreams, Reflections
author: C.G. Jung
name: Eva
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1962
rating: 2
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]]> Even Cowgirls Get the Blues 7572
Featuring Bonanza Jellybean and the smooth-riding cowgirls of Rubber Rose Ranch. Chink, lascivious guru of yams and yang. Julian, Mohawk by birth; asthmatic esthete and husband by disposition. Dr. Robbins, preventive psychiatrist and reality instructor...

Follow Sissy's amazing odyssey from Virginia to chic Manhattan to the Dakota Badlands, where FBI agents, cowgirls, and ecstatic whooping cranes explode in a deliciously drawn-out climax...

"This is one of those special novels--a piece of working magic, warm, funny, and san--that you just want to ride off into the sunset with."--Thomas Pynchon

"The best fiction, so far, to come out of the American counterculture."-- "Chicago Tribune Book World"]]> 366 Tom Robbins 1842430246 Eva 3 3.79 1976 Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
author: Tom Robbins
name: Eva
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1976
rating: 3
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]]> The Giving Tree 370493
So begins a story of unforgettable perception, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein.

Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave.

This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation. Shel Silverstein has created a moving parable for readers of all ages that offers an affecting interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return.]]> 64 Shel Silverstein 0060256656 Eva 5 4.38 1964 The Giving Tree
author: Shel Silverstein
name: Eva
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1964
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies]]> 1842
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a national bestseller: the global account of the rise of civilization that is also a stunning refutation of ideas of human development based on race.

In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth Club of California's Gold Medal]]> 498 Jared Diamond 0739467352 Eva 4 4.04 1997 Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
author: Jared Diamond
name: Eva
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1997
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[World Made by Hand (World Made by Hand #1)]]> 1689657
A captivating, utterly realistic novel, World Made by Hand takes speculative fiction beyond the apocalypse and shows what happens when life gets extremely local.]]> 317 James Howard Kunstler 0871139782 Eva 3 3.65 2007 World Made by Hand (World Made by Hand #1)
author: James Howard Kunstler
name: Eva
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2007
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1)]]> 37781 Things Fall Apart is written with remarkable economy and subtle irony. Uniquely and richly African, at the same time it reveals Achebe's keen awareness of the human qualities common to men of all times and places.]]> 215 Chinua Achebe Eva 4 3.73 1958 Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1)
author: Chinua Achebe
name: Eva
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1958
rating: 4
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]]> Holy Blood, Holy Grail 606818
Priča koja govori o zakopanom blagu ubrzo prerasta u pravu detektivsku avanturu istorijskih razmera. Ova savremena potraga za Gralom donosi nam uvid u šifrovane poruke na pergamentima, saznajemo mnogo o tajnim udruženjima, templarima, jereticima iz 12. veka, kao i o mračnim franačkim kraljevima koji su vladali pre više od 1.300 godina. Autori zaključuju da nije najvažnije sticanje materijalnih dobara i bogatstva već upravo razotkrivanje prastare tajne koja baca novu svetlost na savremenu politiku i osnove hrišćanstva. Kakve se to misterije provlače kroz vekove? Knjiga koja intrigira i uznemirava javnost od kada se prvi put pojavila.]]> 496 Richard Leigh Eva 4 3.48 1982 Holy Blood, Holy Grail
author: Richard Leigh
name: Eva
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1982
rating: 4
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]]> Welcome to the Monkey House 4985 Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, these superb stories share Vonnegut’s audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision.

Alternative cover edition here ]]> 331 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385333501 Eva 3 4.14 1968 Welcome to the Monkey House
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Eva
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1968
rating: 3
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]]> 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 Eva 5 3.83 2001 The Corrections
author: Jonathan Franzen
name: Eva
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2001
rating: 5
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]]> Middlesex 2187 Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.]]> 529 Jeffrey Eugenides 0312422156 Eva 4 4.03 2002 Middlesex
author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: Eva
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2002
rating: 4
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]]> The Jane Austen Book Club 2152 The Extraordinary New York Times Bestseller

In California's central valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her eye for the frailties of human behavior and her ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships.

Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy.

]]> 288 Karen Joy Fowler 0452286530 Eva 2 3.12 2004 The Jane Austen Book Club
author: Karen Joy Fowler
name: Eva
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2004
rating: 2
read at: 2007/09/01
date added: 2010/10/04
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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 Eva 4 3.78 2010 Freedom
author: Jonathan Franzen
name: Eva
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2010
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Good Earth (House of Earth, #1)]]> 1078
Hard times come upon Wang Lung and his family when flood and drought force them to seek work in the city. The working people riot, breaking into the homes of the rich and forcing them to flee. When Wang Lung shows mercy to one noble and is rewarded, he begins to rise in the world, even as the House of Hwang falls.]]> 418 Pearl S. Buck 1416500189 Eva 4 4.00 1931 The Good Earth (House of Earth, #1)
author: Pearl S. Buck
name: Eva
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1931
rating: 4
read at: 2010/10/04
date added: 2010/10/04
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]]> The Echo Maker 19794
Set against the Platte River’s massive spring migrations � one of the greatest spectacles in nature � The Echo Maker is a gripping mystery that explores the improvised human self and the even more precarious brain that splits us from and joins us to the rest of creation.]]> 451 Richard Powers 0374146357 Eva 4 3.42 2006 The Echo Maker
author: Richard Powers
name: Eva
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2010/10/04
date added: 2010/10/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost]]> 331046 192 Jean Liedloff 0201050714 Eva 5 4.05 1975 The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost
author: Jean Liedloff
name: Eva
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1975
rating: 5
read at: 2010/10/04
date added: 2010/10/04
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]]> Dry 32370 293 Augusten Burroughs 0312423799 Eva 4 4.02 2003 Dry
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Eva
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2007/09/01
date added: 2007/11/29
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]]> The Master of Go 13752 From the Nobel Prize-winning author and acclaimed writer of Thousand Cranes comes the luminous chronicle of a match of the Japanese game Go played between a master and a younger, more modern challenger that serves as a suspenseful elegy for an entire society.

Go is a game of strategy in which two players attempt to surround each other’s black or white stones. Simple in its fundamentals, infinitely complex in its execution, Go is an essential expression of the Japanese spirit. And in his fictional chronicle of a match played between a revered and heretofore invincible Master and a younger, more modern challenger, Yasunari Kawabata captured the moment in which the immutable traditions of imperial Japan met the onslaught of the twentieth century.

The competition between the Master of Go and his opponent, Otaké, is waged over several months and layered in ceremony. But beneath the game’s decorum lie tensions that consume not only the players themselves but their families and retainers—tensions that turn this particular contest into a duel that can only end in death. Luminous in its detail, both suspenseful and serene, The Master of Go is written with the poetic economy and psychological acumen that brought Kawabata the Nobel Prize for Literature.]]> 189 Yasunari Kawabata 0679761063 Eva 4 3.87 1951 The Master of Go
author: Yasunari Kawabata
name: Eva
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1951
rating: 4
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]]> Becoming a Writer 76788
With close reference to the great writers of her day--Wolfe, Forster, Wharton and so on--Brande gives practical but inspirational advice about finding the right time of day to write and being very self disciplined about it--"You have decided to write at four o'clock, and at four o'clock you must write." She's strong on confidence building and there's a lot about cheating your unconscious which will constantly try to stop you writing by coming up with excuses. Then there are exercises to help you get into the right frame of mind and to build up writing stamina. She also shows how to harness the unconscious, how to fall into the "artistic coma," then how to re-emerge and be your own critic.

This is Dorothea Brande's legacy to all those who have ever wanted to express their ideas in written form. A sound, practical, inspirational and charming approach to writing, it fulfills on finding "the writer's magic."]]> 192 Dorothea Brande 0874771641 Eva 3 4.01 1934 Becoming a Writer
author: Dorothea Brande
name: Eva
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1934
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> The Rules of Attraction 9912 From the bestselling author of American Psycho comes this satirical black comedy about the death of romance.

Set at an affluent liberal arts college during the height of the Reagan eighties, The Rules of Attraction follows a handful of rowdy, spoiled, sexually promiscuous students with no plans for the future—or even the present. Three of them—Sean, Paul, and Lauren—become involved in a love triangle of sorts within a sequence of drug runs, "Dressed to Get Screwed" parties, and "End of the World" parties.

As Bret Easton Ellis trains his incisive gaze on the kids at the self-consciously bohemian Camden College, treating their sexual posturing and agonies with a mixture of acrid hilarity and compassion, he exposes the moral vacuum at the center of their lives.]]> 283 Bret Easton Ellis 067978148X Eva 2 3.74 1987 The Rules of Attraction
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Eva
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1987
rating: 2
read at: 2002/10/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Mrs. Dalloway Reader: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition]]> 126393
Includes essays and commentary from:
Michael Cunningham
E. M. Forster
Margo Jefferson
James Wood
Mary Gordon
Elaine Showalter
Daniel Mendelsohn
Sigrid Nunez
Deborah Eisenberg
Elissa Schappell]]> 378 Virginia Woolf 0156030152 Eva 3 3.86 2003 The Mrs. Dalloway Reader: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Eva
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2003
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> Memoirs of a Geisha 930
In "Memoirs of a Geisha," we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction - at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful - and completely unforgettable.]]> 434 Arthur Golden 0739326228 Eva 4 4.07 1997 Memoirs of a Geisha
author: Arthur Golden
name: Eva
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2002/10/01
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]]> Siddhartha 52036 152 Hermann Hesse Eva 4 4.07 1922 Siddhartha
author: Hermann Hesse
name: Eva
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1922
rating: 4
read at: 2002/09/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles]]> 16033 870 Margaret George 0312155859 Eva 3 4.09 1992 Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles
author: Margaret George
name: Eva
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1992
rating: 3
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date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> Choke 29059 Victor Mancini, a medical-school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times.

Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious scam: he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. He then allows himself to be “saved� by fellow patrons who, feeling responsible for Victor’s life, go on to send checks to support him.

When he’s not pulling this stunt, Victor cruises sexual addiction recovery workshops for action, visits his addled mom, and spends his days working at a colonial theme park.

His creator, Chuck Palahniuk, renowned author of classics like Fight Club, is the visionary we need and the satirist we deserve.]]> 293 Chuck Palahniuk 0385720920 Eva 2 3.71 2001 Choke
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Eva
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at: 2002/07/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Fire: From A Journal of Love - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1934-1937)]]> 18361 ]]> 448 Anaïs Nin 0151000883 Eva 4 4.11 1987 Fire: From A Journal of Love - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1934-1937)
author: Anaïs Nin
name: Eva
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1987
rating: 4
read at: 2002/07/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> Bel Canto 5826 318 Ann Patchett Eva 4 3.93 2001 Bel Canto
author: Ann Patchett
name: Eva
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2002/05/01
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]]> After You'd Gone 675323
Alice Raikes takes a train from London to Scotland to visit her family, but when she gets there she witnesses something so shocking that she insists on returning to London immediately. A few hours later, Alice is lying in a coma after an accident that may or may not have been a suicide attempt. Alice's family gathers at her bedside and as they wait, argue, and remember, long-buried tensions emerge. The more they talk, the more they seem to conceal. Alice, meanwhile, slides between varying levels of consciousness, recalling her past and a love affair that recently ended. A riveting story that skips through time and interweaves multiple points of view, After You'd Gone is a novel of stunning psychological depth, marking the debut of a major literary talent.]]> 384 Maggie O'Farrell 0142000329 Eva 3 4.01 2000 After You'd Gone
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Eva
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2000
rating: 3
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]]> A Map of the World 5205
A loner by nature, Alice is torn between a yearning for solitude coupled with a deep need to be at the center of a perfect family. On this particular day, Emma has started the morning with a violent tantrum, her little sister Claire is eating pennies, and it is Alice's turn to watch her neighbor's two small girls as well as her own. She absentmindedly steals a minute alone that quickly becomes ten: time enough for a devastating accident to occur. Her neighbor's daughter Lizzy drowns in the farm's pond, and Alice - whose own volatility and unmasked directness keep her on the outskirts of acceptance - becomes the perfect scapegoat. At the same time, a seemingly trivial incident from Alice's past resurfaces and takes on gigantic proportions, leading the Goodwins far from Lizzy's death into a maze of guilt and doubt culminating in a harrowing court trial and the family's shattering downfall.]]> 400 Jane Hamilton 0385720106 Eva 3 3.82 1992 A Map of the World
author: Jane Hamilton
name: Eva
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1992
rating: 3
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]]> Bee Season 251762
Myla Goldberg's keen eye for detail brings Eliza's journey to three-dimensional life. As she rises from classroom obscurity to the blinding lights and outsized expectations of the National Bee, Eliza's small pains and large joys are finely wrought and deeply felt.

Not merely a coming-of-age story, Goldberg's first novel delicately examines the unraveling fabric of one family. The outcome of this tale is as startling and unconventional as her prose, which wields its metaphors sharply and rings with maturity. The work of a lyrical and gifted storyteller, Bee Season marks the arrival of an extraordinarily talented new writer.]]> 275 Myla Goldberg 0385498802 Eva 4 3.57 2000 Bee Season
author: Myla Goldberg
name: Eva
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2002/04/01
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]]> <![CDATA[More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction]]> 137918 Prozac Nation, to astonishing literary acclaim. A cultural phenomenon by age twenty-six, she had fame, money, respecteverything she had always wanted except that one, true thing: happiness.
For all of her professional success, Wurtzel felt like a failure. She had lost friends and lovers, every magazine job she'd held, and way too much weight. She couldn't write, and her second book was past due. But when her doctor prescribed Ritalin to help her focus-and boost the effects of her antidepressants -- Wurtzel was spared. The Ritalin worked. And worked. The pills became her sugar...the sweetness in the days that have none. Soon she began grinding up the Ritalin and snorting it. Then came the cocaine, then more Ritalin, then more cocaine. Then I need more. I always need more. For all of my life I have needed more...
More, Now, Again is the brutally honest, often painful account of Wurtzel's descent into drug addiction. It is also a love story: How Wurtzel managed to break free of her relationship with Ritalin and learned to love life, and herself, is at the heart of this ultimately uplifting memoir that no reader will soon forget.]]> 336 Elizabeth Wurtzel 0743223314 Eva 3 3.88 2000 More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction
author: Elizabeth Wurtzel
name: Eva
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 2002/03/01
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]]> <![CDATA[A Home at the End of the World]]> 2137 A Home at the End of the World masterfully depicts the charged, fragile relationships of urban life today.]]> 342 Michael Cunningham 0312424086 Eva 3 3.93 1990 A Home at the End of the World
author: Michael Cunningham
name: Eva
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at: 2002/02/01
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]]> The Hours 11899 The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that became a motion picture starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, directed by Stephen Daldry from a screenplay by David Hare.

In The Hours, Michael Cunningham, widely praised as one of the most gifted writers of his generation, draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair. The narrative of Woolf's last days before her suicide early in World War II counterpoints the fictional stories of Samuel, a famous poet whose life has been shadowed by his talented and troubled mother, and his lifelong friend Clarissa, who strives to forge a balanced and rewarding life in spite of the demands of friends, lovers, and family.

Passionate, profound, and deeply moving, this is Cunningham's most remarkable achievement to date.]]> 230 Michael Cunningham 0312305060 Eva 5 3.95 1998 The Hours
author: Michael Cunningham
name: Eva
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1998
rating: 5
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]]> Naked 4138 Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview—a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics, to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertaken (of course!) with a quadriplegic companion; a family gathers for a wedding in the face of imminent death. Through it all is Sedaris's unmistakable voice, without doubt one of the freshest in American writing.]]> 304 David Sedaris Eva 3 4.10 1997 Naked
author: David Sedaris
name: Eva
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at: 2002/02/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> Me Talk Pretty One Day 4137 272 David Sedaris 0349113912 Eva 4 4.01 2000 Me Talk Pretty One Day
author: David Sedaris
name: Eva
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2002/02/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> Into the Wild 1845 Librarian's Note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

In April, 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, a party of moose hunters found his decomposed body. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw away the maps. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.]]> 207 Jon Krakauer 0385486804 Eva 3 4.01 1996 Into the Wild
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Eva
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2002/01/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934]]> 46064 384 Anaïs Nin 0156260255 Eva 5 4.15 The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
author: Anaïs Nin
name: Eva
average rating: 4.15
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2002/01/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> Alias Grace 58027 636 Margaret Atwood 3442723434 Eva 4 3.97 1996 Alias Grace
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Eva
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2002/01/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> Good Harbor 25717 The Red Tent, now crafts a moving novel of contemporary female friendship.

Good Harbor is the long stretch of Cape Ann beach where two women friends walk and talk, sharing their personal histories and learning life's lessons from each other. Kathleen Levine, a longtime resident of Gloucester, Massachusetts, is maternal and steady, a devoted children's librarian, a convert to Judaism, and mother to two grown sons. When her serene life is thrown into turmoil by a diagnosis of breast cancer at fifty-nine, painful past secrets emerge and she desperately needs a friend. Forty-two-year-old Joyce Tabachnik is a sharp-witted freelance writer who is also at a fragile point in her life. She's come to Gloucester to follow her literary aspirations, but realizes that her husband and young daughter are becoming increasingly distant. Together, Kathleen and Joyce forge a once-in-a-lifetime bond and help each other to confront scars left by old emotional wounds.]]> Anita Diamant 0330491660 Eva 2 3.27 2001 Good Harbor
author: Anita Diamant
name: Eva
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> The Tale of Murasaki 369669
In the eleventh century Murasaki Shikibu wrote the world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji , the most popular work in the history of Japanese literature. In The Tale of Murasaki , Liza Dalby has created a breathtaking fictionalized narrative of the life of this timeless poet–a lonely girl who becomes such a compelling storyteller that she is invited to regale the empress with her tales. The Tale of Murasaki is the story of an enchanting time and an exotic place. Whether writing about mystical rice fields in the rainy mountains or the politics and intrigue of the royal court, Dalby breathes astonishing life into ancient Japan.]]> 426 Liza Dalby 0385497954 Eva 4 3.84 2000 The Tale of Murasaki
author: Liza Dalby
name: Eva
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2000
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> Waiting 235773 Waiting, PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author Ha Jin draws on his intimate knowledge of contemporary China to create a novel of unexpected richness and feeling. This is the story of Lin Kong, a man living in two worlds, struggling with the conflicting claims of two utterly different women as he moves through the political minefields of a society designed to regulate his every move and stifle the promptings of his innermost heart.

For more than seventeen years, this devoted and ambitious doctor has been in love with an educated, clever, modern woman, Manna Wu. But back in the traditional world of his home village lives the wife his family chose for him when he was young—a humble and touchingly loyal woman, whom he visits in order to ask, again and again, for a divorce. In a culture in which the ancient ties of tradition and family still hold sway and where adultery discovered by the Party can ruin lives forever, Lin's passionate love is stretched ever more taut by the passing years. Every summer, his compliant wife agrees to a divorce but then backs out. This time, Lin promises, will be different.

Tracing these lives through their summer of decision and beyond, Ha Jin vividly conjures the texture of daily life in a place where the demands of human longing must contend with the weight of centuries of custom. Waiting charms and startles us with its depiction of a China that remains hidden to Western eyes even as it moves us with its piercing vision of the universal complications of love.]]> 310 Ha Jin 0375706410 Eva 4 3.54 1999 Waiting
author: Ha Jin
name: Eva
average rating: 3.54
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2002/01/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Wideacre (The Wideacre Trilogy, #1)]]> 16188 688 Philippa Gregory 0743249291 Eva 2 3.33 1987 Wideacre (The Wideacre Trilogy, #1)
author: Philippa Gregory
name: Eva
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1987
rating: 2
read at: 2007/10/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Smotherhood: Wickedly Funny Confessions from the Early Years]]> 1790294
ձ> 211 Amanda Lamb 1599212080 Eva 2 3.40 2007 Smotherhood: Wickedly Funny Confessions from the Early Years
author: Amanda Lamb
name: Eva
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2007
rating: 2
read at: 2007/10/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Case Histories (Jackson Brodie, #1)]]> 16243 1 A little girl disappears in the night.
2 A beautiful young office worker falls to a maniac's attack.
3 A new mother is overwhelmed by demands from her baby and husband - until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape.
Result : Startling connections and discoveries emerge. . . .]]> 389 Kate Atkinson 0316010707 Eva 3 3.79 2004 Case Histories (Jackson Brodie, #1)
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Eva
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2007/08/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love]]> 851678 264 Carole Radziwill 0743276949 Eva 4 4.16 2005 What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love
author: Carole Radziwill
name: Eva
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2007/09/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> On Chesil Beach 815309
It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come. Edward, eager for rapture, frets over Florence’s response to his advances and nurses a private fear of failure, while Florence’s anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by sheer disgust at the idea of physical contact, but dreads disappointing her husband when they finally lie down together in the honeymoon suite.

Ian McEwan has caught with understanding and compassion the innocence of Edward and Florence at a time when marriage was presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and independence. On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from McEwan—a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.]]> 166 Ian McEwan 0224081187 Eva 3 3.61 2007 On Chesil Beach
author: Ian McEwan
name: Eva
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2007/10/01
date added: 2007/11/17
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]]> The Year of Magical Thinking 7815
From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later–the night before New Year's Eve–the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."]]> 227 Joan Didion 1400078431 Eva 3 3.94 2005 The Year of Magical Thinking
author: Joan Didion
name: Eva
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2007/09/01
date added: 2007/11/17
shelves:
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]]>