Vivi's bookshelf: all

Vivi's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 02 May 2025 07:52:47 -0700 60 Vivi's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Bei den Zigeunerinnen - bk348 104627113 0 Mircea Eliade 3518371150 Vivi 0 to-read 0.0

author: Mircea Eliade
name: Vivi
average rating: 0.0
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]]> Die schönen Fremden 28800459
"Mircea Cărtărescu versteht in einer Weise zu erzählen, die überwältigt und packt." (Andreas Breitenstein, Neue Züricher Zeitung)]]> 304 Mircea Cărtărescu 3552057641 Vivi 0 to-read 3.33 2010 Die schönen Fremden

author: Mircea Cărtărescu
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/02
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]]> Knisternde Schädel 207685269 Es gibt keinen Unterschied zwischen Wahnsinn und Normalität

Roger Van de Velde war ein belgischer Journalist, einer der engagiertesten Humanisten seiner Zeit und hochgradig süchtig nach Schmerzmitteln. Als er begann, täglich sechzig Tabletten statt der verschriebenen vier zu nehmen und Rezepte zu fälschen, endete er im Maßregelvollzug. Viele Jahre seines kurzen Lebens verbrachte er in psychiatrischen Anstalten, wo er heimlich seine »Kompagnons der Misere« porträtierte.
In zwanzig humorvollen, bissigen und brillanten Geschichten erfahren wir, wie Jules Leroy seine heißgeliebte Katze meuchelt, weil sie sein noch heißer geliebtes wöchentliches Roastbeef gefressen hat; wie »Haut-und-Knochen« im Adamskostüm durch die Anstalt flitzt oder wie ein Neuankömmling, der sich den ominösen Spruch »Margaritas ante porcos« auf den Unterarm tätowieren ließ, Van de Velde vom Tablettenmissbrauch heilen möchte.

Roger Van de Veldes wortgewandte Porträts seiner Leidensgenossen in der psychiatrischen Anstalt sind, bei allem schwarzen Humor, Zeugnisse des Mitgefühls. In seiner Doppelrolle des Beobachters und Betroffenen weiß er, dass es keinen Unterschied gibt zwischen Wahnsinn und Normalität. Und er schafft es, inmitten dieser menschenfeindlichen Umgebung Menschlichkeit aufzudecken.]]> 130 Roger van de Velde 3518225480 Vivi 4 4.13 1969 Knisternde Schädel

author: Roger van de Velde
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/27
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]]> Gegenlicht 201904495 »Pirkko Saisio ist vermutlich die beste lebende Autorin Finnlands.«��Aamulehti��

Eine Abiturientin verlässt ihre Geburtsstadt Helsinki, um in der fernen Schweiz die Liebe und Anerkennung zu finden, die ihr in ihrem sozialistischen Elternhaus versagt geblieben ist. Doch in der Fremde erkennt sie, dass ihre Sehnsucht nach Zugehörigkeit sie immer enger in ihrem Korsett verschnürt, statt sie daraus zu befreien. In leuchtender Prosa erzählt Pirkko Saisio davon, wie viel es als Frau aufzugeben gilt, um wahrhaft unabhängig zu sein.��

Es ist das Jahr 1968, als die Protagonistin mit neunzehn Jahren die Schule abschließt. Mit dem Vorsatz, die Enge ihres Elternhauses und ihrer Schulzeit in Helsinki hinter sich zu lassen, reist sie in die Schweiz �� voller hochfliegender Träume und hungrig nach Liebe. Doch das kleine Land im Herzen Europas entpuppt sich nicht als das ersehnte Paradies, und das Waisenhaus, in dem sie arbeiten will, wirft sie zurück auf ihre Jugend in Finnland. Plötzlich ist sie wieder das sprachlose Kind aus dem Arbeitermilieu, das um jeden Preis von seinem Umfeld angenommen werden will, und doch nicht dazugehören kann. »Gegenlicht« ist ein brillantes Buch über das Erwachsenwerden. Die vielfach ausgezeichnete finnische Autorin Pirkko Saisio findet eine einzigartige Sprache für die Kraft und den Mut, den es braucht, um die Gesetze der Kindheit zu durchbrechen und die eigene Bestimmung zu finden.]]> 249 Pirkko Saisio 3608122982 Vivi 0 currently-reading 3.88 2000 Gegenlicht

author: Pirkko Saisio
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/25
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]]> <![CDATA[The Mysterious Island (Captain Nemo, #3)]]> 32831
What unfolds in Jules Verne’s imaginative marvel is both an enthralling mystery and the ultimate in survivalist adventures.]]> 723 Jules Verne 0812972120 Vivi 4 4.14 1874 The Mysterious Island (Captain Nemo, #3)

The Mysterious Island (Captain Nemo, #3)

author: Jules Verne
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1874
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/04/22
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]]> Warum wir noch hier sind 125119594 TAUSEND WORTE FÜR LEERE
Auf dem Tisch liegt ein Fotoalbum. Fotos von Etty als Baby. Etty mit vier Jahren im Schwimmbad. Etty mit Elf beim Mini-Golf. Etty mit vierzehn Jahren vor der Haustür, kurz vor ihrem gewaltsamen Tod. Die Gefahr, der Frauen und Mädchen in dieser Welt ausgesetzt sind, ist nun in die unmittelbare Nähe der Erzählerin gerückt. Denn Etty war die Tochter ihrer besten Freundin Heide. Von nun an unterliegt ihre Welt einer zweiten Zählzeit. Da, wo Ettys Leben endete, fängt für sie ein anderes Leben an. Was bleibt, sind diese Fotos, die Erinnerungen und so viele Wie weiterleben? Wie jeden Tag aufstehen? Wie sich weiterhin in der Wohnung aufhalten, in der Etty zuhause war? Wie ihr Lachen, ihre frechen Antworten, ihre feinen Gesichtszüge erinnern, ohne zu zerbrechen? Der eigentlich unmögliche Versuch, das Geschehene zu verstehen, wird zum Versuch, zu funktionieren.
IM SCHWEBEZUSTAND, AUFGELADEN MIT LIEBE, UNTERFÜTTERT MIT HILFLOSIGKEIT
Mit beeindruckender Präzision beleuchtet Marlen Pelny die Geschichte eines Femizides aus der Perspektive der Hinterbliebenen und lässt uns dabei überwältigende Emotionen spüren. Sie zeigt, was es bedeutet, zurückzubleiben. Wenn einer Mutter zwei Tage Sonderurlaub zur Trauer zugestanden werden. Wenn Ordner voller Bürokratie abgearbeitet werden müssen �� ganz oben auf Geburts- und Sterbeurkunde, mit denen sich nun Ettys ganzes Leben zusammenfassen lässt. Wenn sich die Trauer in pochende Kopfschmerzen verwandelt und man sich ein Leben ohne ihn nicht mehr vorstellen kann. Aber Wie es sich anfühlt, wenn die eigene Stadt, Berlin, wo man sich nicht nur zuhause sondern auch frei gefühlt hat, plötzlich zur Gefahrenzone wird.
"HIN UND WIEDER WERDEN WIR UNSERE KÖPFE AUF DIE WAAGE LEGEN UND SCHAUEN, OB SIE LEICHTER WERDEN, MIT DER ZEIT"
Hier erzählt eine zarte und zugleich kraftvolle Erzählerin so nahbar, dass man sie auf keinen Fall alleine lassen möchte. Klar, aber nicht voyeuristisch, schonungslos, aber nicht brutal wird fein und dicht von Verlust und Trost, von Trauer und Liebe, von einem Danach erzählt. Dieser Roman ist eine sprachlich kraftvolle gegen Ungerechtigkeit, die tötet. Gegen die Gewalt, der wir täglich begegnen und die wir zu überleben versuchen.]]> 225 Marlen Pelny 3709984084 Vivi 0 currently-reading 4.46 Warum wir noch hier sind

author: Marlen Pelny
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> Der Bau 12003883 50 Franz Kafka Vivi 3 3.83 1924 Der Bau

author: Franz Kafka
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1924
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> Consent: A Memoir 200798634 Half a Life. She asks herself whether she told the whole truth back then. What did truth look like to her in the era of love-bead curtains, when no one asked who was served by the permissibility of May-December romance? With new understanding about the imbalance of power between an older man and a minor girl, Ciment re-explores the erotic wild ride and intellectual flowering that shaped an improbable but blissful marriage that lasted for forty-five years, until her husband’s death at age ninety-three.]]> 145 Jill Ciment 0593701062 Vivi 3 3.83 2024 Consent: A Memoir

author: Jill Ciment
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Villainess Turns the Hourglass, Vol. 1 (The Villainess Turns the Hourglass, Vol. 1)]]> 166395789 TURN BACK THE SANDS OF TIME��

The vile Aria Roscent is sentenced to execution for her cruel and vicious misdeeds against her angelic half sister, Mielle. Even Aria herself believes it’s what she deserves―until Mielle gleefully reveals that she was the true mastermind all along. The helpless Aria makes a final, fervent wish for a chance to redo everything just as the blade swings down…and snaps to attention at the dining room table as her fourteen-year-old self! Armed with knowledge of what’s to come, Aria’s ready to turn the tables on Mielle!]]> 288 Sansobee Vivi 4 4.15 2023 The Villainess Turns the Hourglass, Vol. 1 (The Villainess Turns the Hourglass, Vol. 1)

The Villainess Turns the Hourglass, Vol. 1 (The Villainess Turns the Hourglass, Vol. 1)

author: Sansobee
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
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]]> Stadt der Hunde 211104906 255 Leon de Winter 325761523X Vivi 3 3.78 2023

author: Leon de Winter
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> The Hour of the Star 762390 The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector's consummate final novel, may well be her masterpiece. Narrated by the cosmopolitan Rodrigo S.M., this brief, strange, and haunting tale is the story of Macabéa, one of life's unfortunates. Living in the slums of Rio de Janeiro and eking out a poor living as a typist, Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Cola, and her rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly, underfed, sickly, and unloved. Rodrigo recoils from her wretchedness, and yet he cannot avoid realization that for all her outward misery, Macabéa is inwardly free. She doesn't seem to know how unhappy she should be. Lispector employs her pathetic heroine against her urbane, empty narrator--edge of despair to edge of despair--and, working them like a pair of scissors, she cuts away the reader's preconceived notions about poverty, identity, love, and the art of fiction. In her last novel she takes readers close to the true mystery of life, and leaves us deep in Lispector territory indeed.]]> 96 Clarice Lispector 0811211908 Vivi 4 4.11 1977 The Hour of the Star

author: Clarice Lispector
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Schmetterling und Taucherglocke]]> 262299
Er war 43 Jahre alt, Vater zweier Kinder und erfolgreicher Redakteur, als ihn am 8.12.1995 ein Gehirnschlag all seiner bisherigen Lebensmöglichkeiten beraubte. Von diesem Tag an blieb er vollständig gelähmt, unfähig zu sprechen, zu schlucken oder auch nur ein Glied zu rühren, und die einzige Möglichkeit, sich verständlich zu machen, war das Blinzeln mit einem Auge. Fünfzehn Monate später beendete er ein Buch, das er allein mit dem linken Augenlid diktiert hatte.

Ein einzigartiges Dokument: zum ersten Mal berichtet ein Opfer des Locked-in-Syndroms, was in einem Menschen vorgeht, der äußerlich zur Statue erstarrt, doch innerlich quicklebendig geblieben ist. Bauby selbst hat die Hoffnung nie aufgegeben. Die Krankheit hat ihn zu einem Schriftsteller gemacht, der nicht nur mit bewundernswertem Humor seine Situation analysiert, sondern Phantasie und das Schreiben als das beste Gegenmittel begreift.]]> 128 Jean-Dominique Bauby 3423125659 Vivi 4 3.82 1997 Schmetterling und Taucherglocke

author: Jean-Dominique Bauby
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wheel of the Year: An Illustrated Guide to Nature's Rhythms]]> 61271694 A beautifully illustrated, interactive guide to ancient, nature-based holidays and customs. Through themed meditations, crafts, and rituals, young readers can learn about old and new ways of honoring the seasons—and create their own!

Each “spoke�� in The Wheel of the Year marks an important turning point: the winter and summer solstices, the spring and fall equinoxes, and the festivals of seeding, growing, and harvesting that arrive in between. Within each section, enjoy:
An overview of the holiday and its significance in cultures around the world
A sensory scavenger hunt for sights, sounds, and smells the season
Ideas for a seasonal altar using objects from nature
Themed crafts, rituals, games, and recipes
Blending nature connection with art, poetry, and myth, The Wheel of the Year conveys the magic and beauty of ancient traditions and encourages young readers to notice, care for, and celebrate the natural world around them.]]> 256 Fiona Cook 1524874809 Vivi 3 4.51 The Wheel of the Year: An Illustrated Guide to Nature's Rhythms

The Wheel of the Year: An Illustrated Guide to Nature's Rhythms

author: Fiona Cook
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.51
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
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]]> How Can I Help You 60392079 A razor-sharp suspense about two local librarians whose lives become dangerously intertwined.

No one knows Margo’s real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small town public library only know her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality, and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of countless premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges.

That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo’s subtly sinister edge, and watches her carefully. When a patron’s death in the library bathroom gives her a hint of Margo’s mysterious past, Patricia can’t resist digging deeper—even as this new fixation becomes all-consuming.

Taut and compelling, How Can I Help You explores the dark side of human nature and the dangerous pull of artistic obsession.]]> 256 Laura Sims 059354370X Vivi 4 3.40 2023

author: Laura Sims
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art]]> 22709886 'Flaubert believed that it was impossible to explain one art form in terms of another, and that great paintings required no words of explanation. Braque thought the ideal state would be reached when we said nothing at all in front of a painting. But we are very far from reaching that state. We remain incorrigibly verbal creatures who love to explain things, to form opinions, to argue... It is a rare picture which stuns, or argues, us into silence. And if one does, it is only a short time before we want to explain and understand the very silence into which we have been plunged.'

Julian Barnes began writing about art with a chapter on Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa in his 1989 novel A History of the World in 10½ Chapters. Since then he has written a series of remarkable essays , chiefly about French artists, for a variety of journals and magazines. Gathering them for this book, he realised that he had unwittingly been retracing the story of how art made its way from Romanticism to Realism and into Modernism.]]> 276 Julian Barnes 022410201X Vivi 4 3.99 2011 Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art

author: Julian Barnes
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
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]]> Orbital 123136728
A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.

Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction.

The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?]]> 207 Samantha Harvey 0802161545 Vivi 3 3.55 2023 Orbital

author: Samantha Harvey
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/01
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]]> Llamadlas brujas 59246259
En este libro la cuidada narración de Gemma Camblor y las exquisitas ilustraciones de Esther Gili se unen una vez más para ahondar en las múltiples facetas de uno de los arquetipos femeninos más cautivadores de la literatura y la historia universales.

Las autoras recrean diferentes momentos históricos y escenarios de todo el mundo para que unas mujeres muchas veces marginadas o desconocidas cobren protagonismo junto con los sobrecogedores cuentos y leyendas creados en torno a ellas. Un fascinante imaginario mágico que te sorprenderá en cada página.]]> 184 Gemma Camblor 8418820047 Vivi 5 4.29 2021 Llamadlas brujas

author: Gemma Camblor
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2021
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/02/28
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]]> Zwei Sekunden brennende Luft 197129285 143 Diaty Diallo 3862416410 Vivi 4 4.05 2023

author: Diaty Diallo
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
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]]> The Forgotten Garden 3407877 The Forgotten Garden is a captivating, atmospheric and compulsively readable story of the past, secrets, family and memory from the international best-selling author Kate Morton.

Cassandra is lost, alone and grieving. Her much loved grandmother, Nell, has just died and Cassandra, her life already shaken by a tragic accident ten years ago, feels like she has lost everything dear to her. But an unexpected and mysterious bequest from Nell turns Cassandra’s life upside down and ends up challenging everything she thought she knew about herself and her family.

Inheriting a book of dark and intriguing fairytales written by Eliza Makepeace—the Victorian authoress who disappeared mysteriously in the early twentieth century—Cassandra takes her courage in both hands to follow in the footsteps of Nell on a quest to find out the truth about their history, their family and their past; little knowing that in the process, she will also discover a new life for herself.
]]> 648 Kate Morton 0330449605 Vivi 0 to-read 4.14 2008 The Forgotten Garden

author: Kate Morton
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Fabian. Die Geschichte eines Moralisten]]> 1131999 256 Erich Kästner 3423110066 Vivi 4 4.12 1931

author: Erich Kästner
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1931
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> Szklany klosz 63047571 Nowe wydanie bestsellerowej powieści Sylvii Plath wzbogacone klimatycznymi ilustracjami utalentowanej francuskiej rysowniczki Bei Rebaï.

Klasyczna i wiecznie aktualna. Szokująca, realistyczna i sugestywna powieść o kobiecie wpadającej w otchłań szaleństwa.

Esther jest wyjątkowo inteligentna, piękna, utalentowana, jednak powoli jej świat się rozpada.

Kiedy ma dziewiętnaście lat, przyjeżdża do Nowego Jorku �� miasta szczęścia, igraszek, kariery �� na miesięczny staż w redakcji miesięcznika dla dziewcząt. Ma poznać miasto, spędzić miło czas. Nie potrafi się jednak odnaleźć. Nie ma ochoty na nocne zabawy, jest zniechęcona. Odkrywa, że dobre oceny, które zawsze zdobywała w szkole, tutaj nie mają znaczenia. Esther nie umie zdecydować, na czym jej zależy, co ją interesuje i kim być. Nie czuje się taka jak inne dziewczyny �� śliczne, uśmiechnięte i zadowolone z życia. Przychodzi załamanie��

Szklany klosz to podróż do najmroczniejszych i najbardziej przerażających zakamarków ludzkiej psychiki. Powieść ukazała się w styczniu 1963 roku. Niecały miesiąc później Sylvia Plath popełniła samobójstwo.]]> 368 Sylvia Plath Vivi 5 4.31 1963 Szklany klosz

author: Sylvia Plath
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1963
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Drei Romane: Kyra Kyralina / Onkel Angiel / Die Haiduken]]> 165429692 0 Panait Istrati Vivi 4 4.00 1923

Drei Romane: Kyra Kyralina / Onkel Angiel / Die Haiduken

author: Panait Istrati
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1923
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/30
date added: 2025/01/30
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]]> Little Fires Everywhere 34273236
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned �� from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren �� an enigmatic artist and single mother �� who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother–daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town �� and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at an unexpected and devastating cost . . .]]> 338 Celeste Ng 0735224293 Vivi 3 4.05 2017 Little Fires Everywhere

author: Celeste Ng
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/01/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Das Buch von Blanche und Marie]]> 1919664 236 Per Olov Enquist 3446205691 Vivi 2 3.02 2004

author: Per Olov Enquist
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.02
book published: 2004
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/01/22
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]]> <![CDATA[I Saw Water: An Occult Novel and Other Selected Writings]]> 22208031 228 Ithell Colquhoun 0271064234 Vivi 4 3.95 2014

I Saw Water: An Occult Novel and Other Selected Writings

author: Ithell Colquhoun
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Last of the Light: About Twilight]]> 25311693 The Last of the Light, Peter Davidson takes readers through our culture’s long engagement with the concept of twilight—from the melancholy of smoky English autumn evenings to the midnight sun of northern European summers and beyond. Taking in poets and painters, Victorians and Romans, city and countryside, and deftly combining memoir, literature, philosophy, and art history, Davidson shows how the atmospheric shadows and the in-between nature of twilight has fired the imagination and generated works of incredible beauty, mystery, and romance. Ambitious and brilliantly executed, this is the perfect book for the bedside table, richly rewarding and endlessly thought-provoking.
]]> 280 Peter Davidson 1780235100 Vivi 4 3.94 2015 The Last of the Light: About Twilight

author: Peter Davidson
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780063251922.

"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver Vivi 5 4.46 2022

author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> Haha Heartbreak 62617552 150 Olivia Kuderewski 386391354X Vivi 4 3.84

author: Olivia Kuderewski
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
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]]> The Foundation Pit 715995 The Foundation Pit portrays a group of workmen and local bureaucrats engaged in digging the foundation pit for what is to become a grand 'general' building where all the town's inhabitants will live happily and 'in silence.']]> 141 Andrei Platonov 0810111454 Vivi 0 to-read 3.81 1930

author: Andrei Platonov
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1930
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Charleston: The Bloomsbury Muse]]> 58975691
Accompanying an exhibition at Philip Mould & Company in London, this lavish catalog tells the story of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s enduring attachment to their home at Charleston Farmhouse in East Sussex through the work of the artists produced between the two world wars.��

Members of the Bloomsbury Group, Bell and Grant’s family home functioned as the collective’s country retreat and became a venue for progressive social self-expression. Their fondness for their Charleston Farmhouse, its idyllic surroundings, and its constant flow of visitors can be witnessed through their art. Beginning with radical modern works influenced by European trends—from painted furniture to depictions of food preparation in the kitchen, from the barns to the pond, from people to the household cat—this catalog tells a story of more than thirty years of astonishing artistic output. Focusing on Vanessa and Duncan’s most productive creative years, this volume illustrates how Charleston fed their artistic impulses and inspired a glorious canon of art.]]> 128 Lawrence Hendra 1913645185 Vivi 5 4.25 Charleston: The Bloomsbury Muse

author: Lawrence Hendra
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
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]]> <![CDATA[A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #2)]]> 352921
No one liked CC de Poitiers. Not her quiet husband, not her spineless lover, not her pathetic daughter—and certainly none of the residents of Three Pines. CC de Poitiers managed to alienate everyone, right up until the moment of her death.

When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, of the Sûreté du Québec, is called to investigate, he quickly realizes he's dealing with someone quite extraordinary. CC de Poitiers was electrocuted in the middle of a frozen lake, in front of the entire village, as she watched the annual curling tournament. And yet no one saw anything. Who could have been insane enough to try such a macabre method of murder—or brilliant enough to succeed?

With his trademark compassion and courage, Gamache digs beneath the idyllic surface of village life to find the dangerous secrets long buried there. For a Quebec winter is not only staggeringly beautiful but deadly, and the people of Three Pines know better than to reveal too much of themselves. But other dangers are becoming clear to Gamache. As a bitter wind blows into the village, something even more chilling is coming for Gamache himself.]]> 311 Louise Penny 0312352565 Vivi 3 4.04 2006 A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #2)

A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #2)

author: Louise Penny
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/22
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]]> Kyra Kyralina 96739 «Serré dans les bras de Kyra, je ne pus voir autre chose, dans cette seconde terrible, que le frère tombant à la renverse et le père qui se jetait par la fenêtre du port ; je fermai les yeux, étouffé ; mais je les rouvris aussitôt, pour voir mon aîné, par terre, la tête éclatée comme une pastèque brisée contre un mur, et les deux oncles déchargeant quatre feux de pistolet sur les traces de mon père, penchés sur la fenêtre par où il venait de se sauver. Me lâchant, Kyra bondit au milieu de la chambre et cria :
- Vous l'avez raté !»]]> 160 Panait Istrati 0785924388 Vivi 3 4.10 1923 Kyra Kyralina

author: Panait Istrati
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1923
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Carolee Schneemann: From Then and Beyond]]> 100224046 From Then and Beyond consists of interviews with Schneemann conducted by art historian Oliver Kielmayer (Kunsthalle Winterthur) and curator Lara Pan at her home in New Paltz, New York. The transcript of these interviews, edited into 27 monologues and dialogues, is the last substantial testimony by the artist and is complemented by illustrations of her works and photographs of her house.]]> 240 Carolee Schneemann 3903572969 Vivi 0 to-read 0.0 Carolee Schneemann: From Then and Beyond

Carolee Schneemann: From Then and Beyond

author: Carolee Schneemann
name: Vivi
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/08
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]]> Driver 6238071 158 James Sallis Vivi 2 3.39 2005 Driver

author: James Sallis
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/14
date added: 2024/12/08
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]]> Flush 18844 204 Virginia Woolf 0156319527 Vivi 5 3.86 1933 Flush

author: Virginia Woolf
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1933
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Francesca Woodman: On Being an Angel]]> 28216857 On Being an Angel takes its title from a caption the artist inscribed on two of her photographs—self-portraits with her head thrust back and her chest thrust forward. Typical of Woodman’s work in the way they cast the female body as simultaneously physical and immaterial, these photographs and the evocative title they share are apt choices to encapsulate the work of an artist whose legacy has been unavoidably colored by her tragic personal biography and her death, at age 22, by suicide. In less than a decade, Woodman produced a fascinating body of work—in black and white and in color—exploring gender, representation, sexuality and the body through the photographing of her own body and those of her friends. Since her death, Woodman’s influence continues to grow: her work has been the subject of numerous in-depth studies and exhibitions in recent years, and her photographs have inspired artists all over the world.

Published to accompany a travelling exhibition of Woodman’s work, Francesca Woodman: On Being an Angel offers a comprehensive overview of Woodman’s oeuvre, organized chronologically, with texts by Anna Tellgren, Anna-Karin Palm and the artist’s father, George Woodman.]]> 232 Francesca Woodman 3863357507 Vivi 5 4.59 2015 Francesca Woodman: On Being an Angel

author: Francesca Woodman
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/04
date added: 2024/12/04
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]]> Ten Steps to Nanette 40588534 Nanette, even as she declared that she was quitting stand-up. Now, she takes us through the defining moments in her life that led to the creation of Nanette and her powerful decision to tell the truth-no matter the cost.

'There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself.' -Hannah Gadsby, Nanette

Gadsby's unique stand-up special Nanette was a viral success that left audiences captivated by her blistering honesty and her ability to create both tension and laughter in a single moment. But while her worldwide fame might have looked like an overnight sensation, her path from open mic to the global stage was hard-fought and anything but linear.

Ten Steps to Nanette traces Gadsby's growth as a queer person from Tasmania-where homosexuality was illegal until 1997-to her ever-evolving relationship with comedy, to her struggle with late-in-life diagnoses of autism and ADHD, and finally to the backbone of Nanette - the renouncement of self-deprecation, the rejection of misogyny, and the moral significance of truth-telling.

Equal parts harrowing and hilarious, Ten Steps to Nanette continues Gadsby's tradition of confounding expectations and norms, properly introducing us to one of the most explosive, formative voices of our time.]]> 400 Hannah Gadsby 1742374034 Vivi 5 4.45 2022

author: Hannah Gadsby
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/30
date added: 2024/11/30
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]]> Intermezzo 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 Vivi 4 3.87 2024 Intermezzo

author: Sally Rooney
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/27
date added: 2024/11/27
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]]> Indigo 20665571 400 Clemens J. Setz 0871402688 Vivi 5 3.37 2012 Indigo

author: Clemens J. Setz
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/11/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Childfree Christ: Antinatalism in early Christianity]]> 57695520 65 Théophile de Giraud Vivi 5 4.14

The Childfree Christ: Antinatalism in early Christianity

author: Théophile de Giraud
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/11/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession]]> 62873378 One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first the story of the world’s most prolific art thief, Stéphane Breitwieser.

In this spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, the best-selling author of The Stranger in the Woods brings us into Breitwieser’s strange world—unlike most thieves, he never stole for money, keeping all his treasures in a single room where he could admire them.

For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than two hundred heists over nearly eight years—in museums and cathedrals all over Europe—Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than three hundred objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion.

In The Art Thief, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser’s strange and fascinating world. Unlike most thieves, Breitwieser never stole for money. Instead, he displayed all his treasures in a pair of secret rooms where he could admire them to his heart’s content. Possessed of a remarkable athleticism and an innate ability to circumvent practically any security system, Breitwieser managed to pull off a breathtaking number of audacious thefts. Yet these strange talents bred a growing disregard for risk and an addict’s need to score, leading Breitwieser to ignore his girlfriend’s pleas to stop—until one final act of hubris brought everything crashing down.

This is a riveting story of art, crime, love, and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.]]> 224 Michael Finkel 0525657320 Vivi 4 3.92 2023 The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession

author: Michael Finkel
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/09
date added: 2024/11/09
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]]> Monstrosa 197114766 Schauerroman meets Body Horror: Eine Opernsängerin nimmt im Kampf mit fragwürdigen Idealmaßen und ihren eigenen Dämonen monströse Züge an �� mit ungeahnten Folgen.
Isabella Vlcek, eine übergewichtige, essgestörte Opernsängerin ohne Engagements, sucht in einer psychiatrischen Klinik Heilung für sich und ihre Stimme. Als sie auf eine Clique eng verschworener trifft, die sie ablehnen und seltsame Rituale abhalten, brechen alte Traumata auf. Von Albträumen gequält, muss Isa mitansehen, wie ihr Körper sich verwandelt. Während sie mit ihrem neuen, monströsen Selbst kämpft, beginnt auch beim Rest der Gruppe die Verwandlung ��
Rhea Krčmářová schafft eine packende Reflexion über die Entfremdung vom eigenen Körper und den Preis virtueller Schönheitsnormen.]]> 308 Rhea Krcmárová 3218014093 Vivi 3 4.05 Monstrosa

author: Rhea Krcmárová
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.05
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
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]]> Thirsty Ghosts 197191522 Two families inhabit this immersive polyvocal work, an intergenerational saga announced with The Cruelty Men (2018) and continued here as punk rockers and Magdalene laundries spiral into a post-colonial Ireland still haunted by its tribal undertow. Scenes surface from Ireland's mythological past, Tudor plantations, workhouses and industrial schools, the Troubles laid bare, the transformative pre-digital decades playing out in this propulsive narrative. Thirsty Ghosts is epic in scope while intimate in focus.
The Lyons, professionals in a newly independent state, are attacked by paramilitaries in their family home in Tyrone. The eccentric O Conaills of Kerry, traumatized by displacement, find themselves in leafy Dublin 4. We encounter a servant who meets Henry VIII, a Lithuanian Jewish family who become part of the fabric of Dublin, and a wild young girl who escapes the laundry only to stumble into a psycho pimp.
Related with dark humour, verve and high literary style, Thirsty Ghosts is a revelatory exploration of Ireland combining themes of power, class, fertility, violence and deep love, forces as universal as the old stories that permeate and illuminate each character's life.]]> 383 Emer Martin 1843518791 Vivi 4 4.37 2023 Thirsty Ghosts

author: Emer Martin
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/03
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]]> Letzte Geschichten 1900354 --amazon.de]]> 296 Olga Tokarczuk 3421059020 Vivi 3 3.65 2004

author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/30
date added: 2024/10/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Baltic Belles (The Dedalus Book of Latvian Women's Literature)]]> 63054868
It is a period marked by change, war, occupying regimes, and renewed freedom. Much of the early work written by Latvian women writers such as Anna Rumane-Kenina, Angelika Gailite, Anna Brigadere, Alija Baumane, and Mirdza Bendrupe is realist in nature, depicting an upheaval of mores and relationships forged not through tradition, but the pangs of love and passion. The Soviet era brought strict censorship to all forms of the arts, including literature. Despite this, authors like Regina Ezera were able to push their craft deeper into the psychological analysis of their characters. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, US-based Latvian exile writer Ilze Skipsna forged ahead with her own version of the psychological short story, delving into the mind of an exiled writer."]]> 304 Eva Eglāja-Kristsone Vivi 3 3.80 Baltic Belles (The Dedalus Book of Latvian Women's Literature)

Baltic Belles (The Dedalus Book of Latvian Women's Literature)

author: Eva Eglāja-Kristsone
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.80
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/28
date added: 2024/10/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Die Abschaffung der Wochentage (German Edition)]]> 62099892
Moritz Franz Beichls soghafter Debütroman ist eine rückhaltlose Hymne an die Lust, legt aber auch ungeschönt Zeugnis ab vom Leben mit Depression und bipolaren Erkrankungen. Als der Erzähler von seinem Freund verlassen und nach einem Suizidversuch in die Psychiatrie eingeliefert wird, beginnt er, an den verlorenen Geliebten zu schreiben. Er textet obsessiv, ohne Hoffnung auf Antwort, aber auch luzide und ironisch, was die Zustände im Spital betrifft. Nach der Entlassung wagt er ein neues Leben auf der Suche nach dem prekären Gleichgewicht von Alltag und Exzess. Über das intime Bekenntnis hinaus beschreibt Beichl immer auch den gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit Gefühlen und Körpern, mit nicht normierten Psychen und queerem Begehren.]]> 203 Moritz Franz Beichl 3701746788 Vivi 4 3.83 Die Abschaffung der Wochentage (German Edition)

Die Abschaffung der Wochentage (German Edition)

author: Moritz Franz Beichl
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.83
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/26
date added: 2024/10/26
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]]> Koirapuisto 51806845
Koirapuisto on kahdessa aikatasossa vyöryvä kertomus nykypäivän Helsingistä ja Ukrainan itsenäisyyden vuosista, hedelmöitysbisneksestä ja korruptiosta. Samalla se on syvän inhimillinen tarina uskollisuudesta, rakkaudesta ja lapsensa menettäneestä naisesta.

Sofi Oksanen yhdistää Euroopan lähihistoriaa luotaavan realismin ja psykologisen trillerin. Teos nostaa kaunokirjallisuuteemme uuden teeman: liiketoiminnaksi valjastetun lapsitehtailun maailman.]]> 404 Sofi Oksanen 9520119442 Vivi 4 3.56 2019 Koirapuisto

author: Sofi Oksanen
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/10/23
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]]> The Chairs 259238 60 Eugène Ionesco 0571194516 Vivi 4 3.89 1951

author: Eugène Ionesco
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1951
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/20
date added: 2024/10/20
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]]> El legado de Catherine Elliot 41730856 216 Esther Gili 8416890870 Vivi 0 to-read 4.25 2018

author: Esther Gili
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> �ձ��ٰ��ܱ�Բ�ü��ܲԲ� 136029673
Sarah und David gehören zu den Auserwählten, die an der Elite-Schauspielschule CAPA aufgenommen werden. Sarah stammt aus einfachen Verhältnissen, David aus reichem Elternhaus. Wie ihre Mitschü konkurrieren sie um die Sympathien ihres Lehrers Mr Kingsley, dem eigentlichen Star der Schule. Kingsley ist ein Charismatiker, der jeden Raum zum Leuchten bringt und dann durchschneidet wie eine Messerklinge. Selbst die Eltern haben keinen Einfluss darauf, was innerhalb der Schulmauern geschieht. Als Sarah und David ihren Unterschieden zum Trotz eine Beziehung anfangen, ziehen sie alle Aufmerksamkeit auf sich �� und setzen damit eine Dynamik in Gang, die der Welt außerhalb der Schule über Jahre Rätsel aufgibt. Bis zwei Außenseiterinnen sich Gehör verschaffen und unseren Blick auf das, was damals geschah, auf Intimität und Inszenierung, Fakt und Fiktion, Geltung und Gewalt radikal verändern.]]> 353 Susan Choi 3910372120 Vivi 3 2.85 2019 �ձ��ٰ��ܱ�Բ�ü��ܲԲ�

author: Susan Choi
name: Vivi
average rating: 2.85
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/14
date added: 2024/10/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #1)]]> 338691
But Gamache knows that evil is lurking somewhere behind the white picket fences and that, if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will start to give up its dark secrets...]]> 293 Louise Penny 0312948557 Vivi 3 3.86 2005 Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #1)

Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #1)

author: Louise Penny
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
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]]> Nachtblaue Blumen 205958383
Auch die Tänzerin und ihre Freundin Cléo, der wegen ihrer Krämpfe Medikamente verabreicht werden, dienen als Fallbeispiele. Warum verschlimmert sich die gespenstische Krankheit bei ihnen stetig? Gibt es einen Weg raus aus der Salpêtrière, die man im Paris der Jahrhundertwende die «weibliche Hölle» nannte?

Um nicht den Verstand zu verlieren, hält die Tänzerin alles in ihrem Notizbuch fest. Ein feiner und humorvoller Roman.]]> 128 Alexander Kamber 303926074X Vivi 4 3.37 Nachtblaue Blumen

author: Alexander Kamber
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.37
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/10
date added: 2024/10/10
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]]> Null 18590490 jeg lurer på når noen skal
se at jeg brenner inne
Det er ingen som kan se at
jeg har masse å komme med
Jeg tenker at det bare er
et spørsmål om tid før noen
oppdager meg

Hva kan skje hvis du er helt åpen for verden? Hvis det ikke fins grenser for hva du kan være med på? Den unge jenta i romanen Null er villig til å gå langt i sin søken etter et liv der hun er helt til stede, helt oppfylt, der hun er noen. Gine Cornelia Pedersens debutroman er en bejaende og eksplosiv tirade om å være sårbar, glad, desperat, grenseløs og fylt av håp.]]> 181 Gine Cornelia Pedersen 8249511174 Vivi 5 3.73 2013 Null

author: Gine Cornelia Pedersen
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/10/05
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]]> Vladimir 57846324 A provocative, razor-sharp, and timely debut novel about a beloved English professor facing a slew of accusations against her professor husband by former students—a situation that becomes more complicated when she herself develops an obsession of her own...

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

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

With this bold, edgy, and uncommonly assured debut, author Julia May Jonas takes us into charged territory, where the boundaries of morality bump up against the impulses of the human heart. Propulsive, darkly funny, and wildly entertaining, Vladimir perfectly captures the personal and political minefield of our current moment, exposing the nuances and the grey area between power and desire.]]> 238 Julia May Jonas 1982187638 Vivi 3 3.41 2022

author: Julia May Jonas
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/02
date added: 2024/10/02
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]]> Solenoid 27826456
Based on Cărtărescu's own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist's life and quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics. One character asks another: when you rush into the burning building, will you save the newborn or the artwork? On a broad scale, the novel’s investigations of other universes, dimensions, and timelines reconcile the realms of life and art.

The novel is grounded in the reality of late 1970s/early 1980s Communist Romania, including long lines for groceries, the absurdities of the education system, and the misery of family life. The text includes sequences in a tuberculosis sanatorium, an encounter with an anti-death protest movement, a society of dream investigators, and an extended visit to the minuscule world of dust mites living on a microscope slide.

Combining fiction with autobiography and history�� the scientists Nicolae Tesla and George Boole, for example, appear alongside the Voynich manuscript―Solenoid ruminates on the exchanges possible between the alternate dimensions of life and art, as various, monstrous dimensions erupt within the Communist present.]]> 840 Mircea Cărtărescu 9735050595 Vivi 3 4.19 2015

author: Mircea Cărtărescu
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2015
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/10/02
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]]> The Twisted Ones 42527596 When a young woman clears out her deceased grandmother’s home in rural North Carolina, she finds long-hidden secrets about a strange colony of beings in the woods.

When Mouse’s dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother's house, she says yes. After all, how bad could it be?

Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there’s more—Mouse stumbles across her step-grandfather’s journal, which at first seems to be filled with nonsensical rants…until Mouse encounters some of the terrifying things he described for herself.

Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse finds herself face to face with a series of impossible terrors—because sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real, and they’re looking for you. And if she doesn’t face them head on, she might not survive to tell the tale.

From Hugo Award–winning author Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher.]]> 385 T. Kingfisher 1534429573 Vivi 3 3.60 2019 The Twisted Ones

author: T. Kingfisher
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/27
date added: 2024/09/27
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]]> Of Mice and Men 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.��

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]> 107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 Vivi 3 3.88 1937 Of Mice and Men

author: John Steinbeck
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/25
date added: 2024/09/25
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]]> Why Didn't They Ask Evans? 102303 Why didn't they ask Evans? Bobby and Frances would love to know. Unfortunately, asking the wrong people has sent the amateur sleuths running for their lives--on a wild and deadly pursuit to discover who Evans is, what it was he wasn't asked, and why the mysterious inquiry has put their own lives in mortal danger...
]]> 288 Agatha Christie 0312981597 Vivi 3 3.92 1934 Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

author: Agatha Christie
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1934
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/23
date added: 2024/09/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Sealskin Trousers and other Stories]]> 13015485 127 Eric Linklater Vivi 0 to-read 3.81 1947

author: Eric Linklater
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1947
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/23
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]]> What I Loved 125502 370 Siri Hustvedt Vivi 5 4.10 2002

author: Siri Hustvedt
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/20
date added: 2024/09/20
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]]> <![CDATA[How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (The Folk of the Air, #3.5)]]> 53439886
Once upon a time, there was a boy with a wicked tongue.

Before he was a cruel prince or a wicked king, he was a faerie child with a heart of stone . Revealing a deeper look into the dramatic life of Elfhame’s enigmatic high king, Cardan, his tale includes delicious details of life before The Cruel Prince, an adventure beyond The Queen of Nothing, and familiar moments from The Folk of the Air trilogy, told wholly from Cardan’s perspective.

This new installment in the Folk of the Air series is a return to the heart-racing romance, danger, humor, and drama that enchanted readers everywhere. Each chapter is paired with lavish and luminous full-color art, making this the perfect collector’s item to be enjoyed by both new audiences and old.]]> 200 Holly Black Vivi 4 4.15 2020 How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (The Folk of the Air, #3.5)

How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (The Folk of the Air, #3.5)

author: Holly Black
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/15
date added: 2024/09/15
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]]> Bonjour tristesse 61672
La villa est magnifique, l'été brûlant, la Méditerranée toute proche. Cécile a dix-sept ans. Elle ne connaît de l'amour que des baisers, des rendez-vous, des lassitudes. Pas pour longtemps. Son père, veuf, est un adepte joyeux des liaisons passagères et sans importance. Ils s'amusent, ils n'ont besoin de personne, ils sont heureux. La visite d'une femme de cœur, intelligente et calme, vient troubler ce délicieux désordre. Comment écarter la menace ? Dans la pinède embrasée, un jeu cruel se prépare.
C'était l'été 1954. On entendait pour la première fois la voix sèche et rapide d'un « charmant petit monstre » qui allait faire scandale. la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle commençait. Elle serait à l'image de cette adolescente déchirée entre le remords et le culte du plaisir.

Set against the translucent beauty of France in summer, Bonjour Tristesse is a bittersweet tale narrated by Cecile, a seventeen-year-old girl on the brink of womanhood, whose meddling in her father's love life leads to tragic consequences.

Endearing, self-absorbed, seventeen-year-old Cécile is the very essence of untroubled amorality. Freed from the stifling constraints of boarding school, she joins her father—a handsome, still-young widower with a wandering eye—for a carefree, two-month summer vacation in a beautiful villa outside of Paris with his latest mistress. Cécile cherishes the free-spirited moments she and her father share, while plotting her own sexual adventures with a "tall and almost beautiful" law student. But the arrival of her late mother's best friend intrudes upon a young girl's pleasures. And when a relationship begins to develop between the adults, Cécile and her lover set in motion a plan to keep them apart...with tragic, unexpected consequences.

The internationally beloved story of a precocious teenager's attempts to understand and control the world around her, Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse is a beautifully composed, wonderfully ambiguous celebration of sexual liberation, at once sympathetic and powerfully unsparing.]]> 154 Françoise Sagan 2266127748 Vivi 4 3.76 1954

author: Françoise Sagan
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1954
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/11
date added: 2024/09/11
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]]> Antarctica 492459 Antarctica, have been acclaimed by The Observer to be "among the finest contemporary stories written recently in English."

In "Antarctica," a married woman travels out of town to see what it's like to sleep with a man other than her husband. "Love in the Tall Grass" takes Cordelia down a coastal road on the last day of the twentieth century to keep a date with her lover that has been nine years in the waiting. "Stay Close to the Water's Edge" tells of a young Harvard student who is pitilessly humiliated by his homophobic stepfather on his birthday. Keegan's writing has a clear vision of unaffected truths and boldly explores a world where dreams, memory, and chance have crippling consequences for those involved. The stories are often dark and enveloped in a palpable atmosphere, and the reader feels that something "big" is going on in each of these carefully sculpted tales.

The award-winning Antarctica, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001, and recipient of the prestigious Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the William Trevor Prize, and the Martin Healy Award, is a haunting debut.]]> 224 Claire Keegan 0802139019 Vivi 4 3.86 1999 Antarctica

author: Claire Keegan
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/06
date added: 2024/09/06
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]]> Reiche Mädchen 3462934 Eigentlich könnte Franziska glücklich sein. Sie ist jung, hübsch und hat eine funktionierende Beziehung. Doch in ihr tun sich Abgründe auf. Eine obsessive ›amour fou�� zerreißt ihre Welt, willenlos, wie ein Opfertier, wartet sie täglich auf den verheirateten Simon. Sie rechnet permanent mit seinen Überraschungsbesuchen, schmückt die Wohnung wie für einen Gottesdienst, plündert Feinkostabteilungen, kauft Blumen und Whiskey, als gelte es das Überleben in einem Bunker für mehrere Wochen zu sichern. Die Liebe zu Simon erweist sich als masochistische Fiktion, Franziskas Leben als Kriegsgebiet. Immer wieder schlagen Silke Scheuermanns Geschichten, wie in KRIEG ODER FRIEDEN, ins Unheimliche um, verstricken sich ihre Helden in der unsichtbaren Falle einer als ungenügend empfundenen Existenz.

Silke Scheuermann ist eine der bedeutenden Lyrikerinnen der Gegenwart, ihr Umgang mit Sprache ein Leseerlebnis. Mit den Erzählungen REICHE MÄDCHEN legt sie ihr erwartetes Prosadebut vor, poetisch und akzentuiert wie ihre Lyrik. Ironisch, lakonisch, amüsant und messerscharf zeichnet sie das Bild einer Generation, die sich nach dem Gewöhnlichen sehnt und doch so viel mehr als das Gewöhnliche will.]]> 192 Silke Scheuermann 3442461448 Vivi 3 3.32 2005 Reiche Mädchen

author: Silke Scheuermann
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/27
date added: 2024/08/27
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]]> 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 Vivi 4 3.81 2018 Normal People

author: Sally Rooney
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Beautiful World, Where Are You]]> 75555793 *The Sunday Times and Global number one bestseller*
*Winner of Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards*
*A Book of the Year in The Times, the Guardian, the Irish Times and the Financial Times*

Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he'd like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend Eileen is getting over a break-up and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.

Alice, Felix, Eileen and Simon are still young - but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they worry about sex and friendship and the times they live in. Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?]]> 337 Sally Rooney 0571365442 Vivi 3 3.50 2021 Beautiful World, Where Are You

author: Sally Rooney
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2021
rating: 3
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]]> Conversations with Friends 32187419 A sharply intelligent novel about two college students and the strange, unexpected connection they forge with a married couple.

Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A college student and aspiring writer, she devotes herself to a life of the mind--and to the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi, her best friend and comrade-in-arms. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where a journalist named Melissa spots their potential. Drawn into Melissa's orbit, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband. Private property, Frances believes, is a cultural evil--and Nick, a bored actor who never quite lived up to his potential, looks like patriarchy made flesh. But however amusing their flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy neither of them expect. As Frances tries to keep her life in check, her relationships increasingly resist her control: with Nick, with her difficult and unhappy father, and finally even with Bobbi. Desperate to reconcile herself to the desires and vulnerabilities of her body, Frances's intellectual certainties begin to yield to something new: a painful and disorienting way of living from moment to moment.

Written with gem-like precision and probing intelligence, Conversations With Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth."]]> 304 Sally Rooney 0451499077 Vivi 5 3.74 2017

author: Sally Rooney
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/27
date added: 2024/08/25
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]]> The Exiles 49397137 The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel about three women whose lives are bound together in nineteenth-century Australia and the hardships they weather together as they fight for redemption and freedom in a new society.

Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,�� Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.

During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel—a skilled midwife and herbalist—is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.

Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.

In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose,��The Exiles��is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.

��
]]> 370 Christina Baker Kline 0062356348 Vivi 4 4.12 2020

author: Christina Baker Kline
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/22
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]]> Shanghai Performance 10658661
SHANGHAI PERFORMANCE ist ein schillernder Roman über Sehen und Gesehenwerden, Kunst und Identität sowie eine Gesellschaft, die ihren ganz eigenen Regeln folgt. Silke Scheuermann reflektiert über Frauenbilder in Zeiten der Globalisierung, über moderne weibliche Lebensläufe und erzählt auf spannende Weise von einer "ewigen Tragödie der Schuld".]]> 312 Silke Scheuermann 3895613738 Vivi 3 3.41 2011 Shanghai Performance

author: Silke Scheuermann
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2011
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/08/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Habe ich dir eigentlich schon erzählt... Ein Märchen für alle]]> 1486483
Anna (Selbstauskunft: »Ich bin ja noch nicht richtig etwas«) und Max (»Ich sehe aus wie etwas, das noch im Ofen ist«) sind Nachbarskinder. Sie leben in einem Wohnblock in der DDR, lernen sich aber erst kennen, als Annas Mutter mal wieder betrunken auf der Straße umfällt und Max sie rettet. Während die Mutter schnarchend ihren Rausch ausschläft, beschließen die beiden die Flucht. Einfach weg. Sie trampen Richtung Polen, geraten in die Fänge eines Ehepaares, das Kinder an Fabrikbesitzer verkauft, bekommen eine Ahnung vom Glück in Budapest und werden in Rumänien zum Betteln gezwungen. Doch die Flucht gelingt: In Constanta gehen die beiden als blinde Passagiere an Bord eines türkischen Frachtschiffs. Anna und Max lassen eine Heimat zurück, die ihnen keine war, und starten Hand in Hand in ein neues Leben.

In ihrem neuen Buch bringt Sibylle Berg zusammen, was zusammen gehört: Märchen und Coming-of-age-Roman, Satire und Romanze. Aus der wechselnden Perspektive von Anna und Max berichtet sie von der ganz normalen Pubertätshölle, mit Verlassenheitsgefühlen, erstem Verliebtsein und Eifersucht. Warmherzig und skurril, zärtlich und grotesk erzählt sie von der Flucht aus der doppelten Repression durch Eltern und Staat.

]]> 169 Sibylle Berg 3462037358 Vivi 4 3.74 2006 Habe ich dir eigentlich schon erzählt... Ein Märchen für alle

Habe ich dir eigentlich schon erzählt... Ein Märchen für alle

author: Sibylle Berg
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/21
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]]> Liebe / Liebe 58403401 Saschas Kindheit ist stumm. Für ihre Mutter ist sie unsichtbar. Dafür quält ihr Vater sie mit viel zu viel Nähe. Gute-Nacht-Küsse nennt er das. Wie eine Million Steine liegen sie ihr auf der Brust. Sascha weiß, dass diese Nähe nicht richtig ist, auch wenn sie die Wörter noch nicht kennt, die die Erwachsenen dafür haben. Die Wände im Hochhaus, in dem Sascha aufwächst, verschlucken, was in der Wohnung passiert. Zumindest scheint es dem Mädchen so. Wie sonst ist es für sie zu begreifen, dass sich hier niemand füreinander interessiert?

Familie, was ist das eigentlich?
Mit Vaters „Gute-Nacht-Küssen�� ist es endlich zu Ende, als Sascha sich bei ihrem Großvater wiederfindet. Bei dem alten Mann, an dessen Herzlichkeit sie sich erst gewöhnen muss. Sie trifft Charlie, das Mädchen, das sie am ersten Schultag an der Hand nimmt und nie wieder loslässt. Da sind auch Rosa, die Hündin, und das neue Ich, das in Sascha wächst. Ein ungewohntes Gefühl breitet sich aus: Menschen und Nähe können guttun. Im Kreis ihrer neuen Familie reift ein neuer Kern: ein starkes Herz, das zu Vertrauen fähig ist. Wenn sie jetzt an Liebe denkt, denkt sie an Charlie. Doch dann meldet sich das Gestern und holt Sascha ein. Wie wird sie ihm mit den Lebensmenschen an ihrer Seite begegnen?

Vom Mut, das Leben selbst in die Hand zu nehmen
Das Alte abstreifen, sich lösen vom Schmerzhaften, das Neue ins Leben lassen. �� Behutsam erkundet Marlen Pelny die Möglichkeit einer Verbundenheit außerhalb der Konstellation Vater-Mutter-Kind. Dieses Buch schickt dich zuerst dorthin, wo du nicht sein willst. Dann überwältigt es dich mit seinem Vertrauen darauf, dass Empathie und Liebe tatsächlich möglich sind. Sascha ist eine wahre Heldin, die nicht aufhört zu glauben: an das Heilen von Wunden, an das Leben und an all die innigen Beziehungen, die es für sie bereithält.

Triggerwarnung:
Dieser Roman konfrontiert dich mit sexueller Gewalt, Kindesmissbrauch und Selbstverletzung.]]> 216 Marlen Pelny 3709981417 Vivi 5 3.73 2021 Liebe / Liebe

author: Marlen Pelny
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/08/21
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]]> The Whale Rider 133497
Kahu will not be ignored. And in her struggle she has a unique ally: the whale rider himself, from whom she has inherited the ability to communicate with whales. Once that sacred gift is revealed, Kahu may be able to reestablish her people's ancestral connections, earn her great-grandfather's attention—and lead her tribe to a bold new future.]]> 152 Witi Ihimaera 0152050167 Vivi 5 3.84 1987 The Whale Rider

author: Witi Ihimaera
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1987
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/08/20
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]]> Whale Fall 195888522 A stunning debut from an award-winning writer, about loss, isolation, folklore, and the joy and dissonance of finding oneself by exploring life outside one’s community

In 1938, a dead whale washes up on the shores of remote Welsh island. For Manod, who has spent her whole life on the island, it feels like both a portent of doom and a symbol of what may lie beyond the island's shores. A young woman living with her father and her sister (to whom she has reluctantly but devotedly become a mother following the death of their own mother years prior), Manod can't shake her welling desire to explore life beyond the beautiful yet blisteringly harsh islands that her hardscrabble family has called home for generations.

The arrival of two English ethnographers who hope to study the island culture, then, feels like a boon to her—both a glimpse of life outside her community and a means of escape. The longer the ethnographers stay, the more she feels herself pulled towards them, reckoning with a sensual awakening inside herself, despite her misgivings that her community is being misconstrued and exoticized.

With shimmering prose tempered by sharp wit, Whale Fall tells the story of what happens when one person's ambitions threaten the fabric of a community, and what can happen when they are realized. O'Connor paints a portrait of a community and a woman on the precipice, forced to confront an outside world that seems to be closing in on them.]]> 224 Elizabeth O'Connor 0593700910 Vivi 3 3.80 2024 Whale Fall

author: Elizabeth O'Connor
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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]]> Alles, was wir geben mussten 1508424 348 Kazuo Ishiguro 3442736102 Vivi 5 3.86 2005

author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/19
date added: 2024/08/19
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]]> Piranesi 50202953
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.]]> 272 Susanna Clarke 163557563X Vivi 4 4.22 2020

author: Susanna Clarke
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/18
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]]> Walk the Blue Fields 2524702
A masterful portrait of a country wrestling with its past and of individuals eking out their futures, Walk the Blue Fields is a breathtaking collection from one of Ireland’s greatest talents, and a resounding articulation of all the yearnings of the human heart.]]> 168 Claire Keegan 0802170498 Vivi 0 to-read 4.02 2007

author: Claire Keegan
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/18
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]]> Der Meister und Margarita 1414809
Bulgakow begann 1929 mit der Arbeit an dem Roman und vernichtete 1930 eine erste Fassung. Letzte Korrekturen diktierte er, todkrank und erblindet, auf dem Sterbebett. Der Roman konnte erst Jahrzehnte später publiziert werden; er erschien 1966 in der Zeitschrift Moskva mit willkürlichen Kürzungen der Redaktion. Nach vollständiger Publikation 1966 im Ausland erschien die erste ungekürzte sowjetische Ausgabe 1973.

Ende der 1920er Jahre taucht während der Karwoche in Moskau der Satan Voland mit Gefolge auf, um Freitagnacht seinen alljährlichen Ball zu geben. Einige Tage lang wird Moskau vom Teufelsspuk heimgesucht. Den Menschen, die mit Volands Gefolge in Berührung kommen, wird übel mitgespielt �� doch sie verdienen es nicht anders, denn sie sind fast allesamt verlogen, geldgierig und anmaßend. Eine Ausnahme bilden der namenlose Meister, der geniale Autor eines Pilatus-Romans, und seine Geliebte Margarita. Sie verloren einander aus den Augen, als der Meister, dessen Roman von Literaturfunktionären als konterrevolutionär eingestuft und für den Druck abgelehnt wurde, einen Nervenzusammenbruch erlitt, das Manuskript verbrannte und in eine Nervenheilanstalt eingewiesen wurde. In der Hoffnung, etwas über ihren Geliebten zu erfahren, ist Margarita bereit, die Gastgeberin auf dem Ball beim Satan zu spielen. Als Lohn für ihren selbstlosen Einsatz wird sie wieder mit dem Meister zusammengeführt; sein Roman wird vor dem Vergessenwerden gerettet.

Die Handlung des Romans spielt sich in drei unterschiedlichen Welten ab. Die erste ist die reale Welt der Moskauer Gegenwart. In zahlreichen temporeichen und aberwitzigen Episoden zeichnet Bulgakow ein satirisches Porträt der durch ideologische Gängelung verrohten und demoralisierten sowjetischen Gesellschaft; sein besonderes Augenmerk gilt den unbegabt-opportunistischen Vertretern des offiziösen Literaturbetriebs. Die zweite ist die überzeitliche Parallelwelt des Übersinnlichen und Jenseitigen. Dort tummeln sich Voland und sein Gefolge, Hexen, Vampire und die zum Leben erweckten Besucher des Satansballs �� Giftmischer, Massenmörder und sonstige Großverbrecher. Die dritte schließlich ist die vergangene Welt des alten Jerusalem �� der Handlungsort des vom Meister verfassten Passions-Romans über Pilatus und Jeschua han-Nasri, der als Roman im Roman eingeschoben ist. Alle drei Welten sind miteinander durch ein komplexes Netz gemeinsamer Motive, paralleler Figuren und Handlungsmomente verknüpft. So korrespondiert beispielsweise die Gestalt Jeschua han-Nasris mit der Gestalt des Meisters, die wiederum autobiografische Züge des realen Romanautors Bulgakow trägt.

Übersetzungen in mehrere Weltsprachen, zahlreiche Werkanalysen, Bühnenfassungen und Verfilmungen zeugen von der künstlerischen Kraft des Romans und von der von ihm ausgehenden Faszination.]]> 496 Mikhail Bulgakov Vivi 5 4.17 1967 Der Meister und Margarita

author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1967
rating: 5
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]]> Favorita 200239037 Eine wilde, wütende, witzige und spielerische Geschichte, die Fragen nach Identität, Zugehörigkeit, sexuellem Begehren und patriarchalischer ... auf den Punkt bringt.

»Es tut mir leid, deine Mutter wurde getötet.« Mit diesen Worten beginnt Filas Reise von der Schweiz nach Italien. Von dem Land, in dem sie aufgewachsen ist, in das Land, das ihre Großmutter als junge Frau verlassen hat und in das ihre Mutter verschwunden ist. Fila zeichnet die Geschichte dieser beiden Frauen nach, zusammen mit ihren Erinnerungen und ihren Begegnungen auf dem feministischen Widerstandskämpferinnen, faschistischen Deserteuren und dem Geist einer jungen Bäuerin mit durchschnittener Kehle. Der Roadtrip auf den Spuren ihrer geheimnisvollen Mutter führt sie zum mutmaßlichen Mörder - und mitten ins Herz des faschistischen Zirkels, der das Land kontrolliert.��

Favorita erzählt eine wilde, wütende, spielerische Geschichte, die Fragen nach Identität, Zugehörigkeit, sexuellem Begehren und patriarchalischer Gewalt gegen Mensch und Umwelt auf den Punkt bringt. Eine Lektüre, bei der man den Atem anhält und sich fragt, was zur Hölle man da gerade liest - ein Roman, der einen nicht mehr loslässt und noch lange nachwirkt. ��]]> 424 Michelle Steinbeck 3843731764 Vivi 3 3.76 Favorita

author: Michelle Steinbeck
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.76
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/14
date added: 2024/08/14
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]]> The Remains of the Day 28921 Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN 0571225381 here.

In the summer of 1956, Stevens, a long-serving butler at Darlington Hall, decides to take a motoring trip through the West Country. The six-day excursion becomes a journey into the past of Stevens and England, a past that takes in fascism, two world wars, and an unrealised love between the butler and his housekeeper.]]> 258 Kazuo Ishiguro Vivi 5 4.14 1989 The Remains of the Day

author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1989
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/08/12
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]]> Nincshof 141265567
Ein turbulenter Sommer beginnt, und es entspinnt sich eine Geschichte über das Vergessen und das Erinnern. Über das Leben und seine Irrwitzigkeiten. Übers Heutige und Gestrige. Über die Komik von Landkarten, das Fiktive an der Realität und die Wirklichkeit von Ausgedachtem.]]> 369 Johanna Sebauer 3832160752 Vivi 3 4.11 Nincshof

author: Johanna Sebauer
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/12
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]]> The Rachel Incident 63094957
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.]]> 304 Caroline O'Donoghue 0593535707 Vivi 3 4.06 2023

author: Caroline O'Donoghue
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/08/09
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]]> Ways of Seeing 2784 John Berger’s Classic Text on Art

Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the (London) Sunday Times a critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has.

"Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of the professional art critics . . . He is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation" —Peter Fuller, Arts Review

"The influence of the series and the book . . . was enormous . . . It opened up for general attention to areas of cultural study that are now commonplace" —Geoff Dyer in Ways of Telling.]]> 176 John Berger 0140135154 Vivi 5 3.93 1972 Ways of Seeing

author: John Berger
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1972
rating: 5
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]]> Rebecca 17899948 Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives--presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.

First published in 1938, this classic gothic novel is such a compelling read that it won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century.]]> 449 Daphne du Maurier 0316323705 Vivi 5 4.28 1938 Rebecca

author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1938
rating: 5
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]]> Milk Fed 54304105 The Pisces and So Sad Today.

Rachel is twenty-four, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of existential control, by way of obsessive food rituals, while working as an underling at a Los Angeles talent management agency. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. Rachel is content to carry on subsisting—until her therapist encourages her to take a ninety-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting.

Early in the detox, Rachel meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favorite frozen yogurt shop and is intent upon feeding her. Rachel is suddenly and powerfully entranced by Miriam—by her sundaes and her body, her faith and her family—and as the two grow closer, Rachel embarks on a journey marked by mirrors, mysticism, mothers, milk, and honey.

Pairing superlative emotional insight with unabashed vivid fantasy, Broder tells a tale of appetites: physical hunger, sexual desire, spiritual longing, and the ways that we as humans can compartmentalize these so often interdependent instincts. Milk Fed is a tender and riotously funny meditation on love, certitude, and the question of what we are all being fed, from one of our major writers on the psyche—both sacred and profane.]]> 304 Melissa Broder 1982142499 Vivi 4 3.56 2021 Milk Fed

author: Melissa Broder
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2021
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd (Flavia de Luce, #8)]]> 26194013 307 Alan Bradley 1409149501 Vivi 4 3.97 2016

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd (Flavia de Luce, #8)

author: Alan Bradley
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Der Sommer in dem Linda schwimmen lernte]]> 10781088 270 Roy Jacobsen 3940731587 Vivi 5 3.84 2009

Der Sommer in dem Linda schwimmen lernte

author: Roy Jacobsen
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/04
date added: 2024/08/04
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]]> Der Fall Collini 12431313 208 Ferdinand von Schirach 3492054757 Vivi 3 4.23 2011

author: Ferdinand von Schirach
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/30
date added: 2024/07/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)]]> 7235533 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings, book one of The Stormlight Archive begins an incredible new saga of epic proportion.

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar's niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan's motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.

The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.

Speak again the ancient oaths:

Life before death.
Strength before weakness.
Journey before Destination.

and return to men the Shards they once bore.

The Knights Radiant must stand again.]]> 1007 Brandon Sanderson 0765326353 Vivi 3 4.66 2010 The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)

The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)

author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.66
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/25
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]]> <![CDATA[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]> 89724 Shirley Jackson’s beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family’s dark secret

Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate. This edition features a new introduction by Jonathan Lethem.]]> 152 Shirley Jackson 0143039970 Vivi 5 3.93 1962 We Have Always Lived in the Castle

author: Shirley Jackson
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1962
rating: 5
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]]> Lolly Willowes 937105 ��
But it’s in the countryside, among nature, where Lolly has her first taste of freedom. Duty-bound to no one except herself, she revels in the solitary life. When her nephew moves there, and Lolly feels once again thrust into her old familial role, she reaches out to the otherworldly, to the darkness, to the unheeded power within the hearts of women to feel at peace once more��.��.��.]]> 222 Sylvia Townsend Warner 0940322161 Vivi 5 3.75 1926 Lolly Willowes

author: Sylvia Townsend Warner
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1926
rating: 5
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]]> Nettle & Bone 56179377
Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince—if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.

On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra's family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last.]]> 243 T. Kingfisher 1250244048 Vivi 4 4.07 2022 Nettle & Bone

author: T. Kingfisher
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/23
date added: 2024/07/23
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]]> Im Wasser sind wir schwerelos 57198577
Ludwik ist verliebt. Es ist der Sommer nach dem Examen, ein Sommer, in dem alles anders wird. Denn Ludwik ist verliebt in Janusz, eine Unmöglichkeit in Polen im Jahr 1980. Zu zweit verbringen sie magische Tage an einem verborgenen See im Wald. Hier können sie sich einander offenbaren, hier erleben sie die große Liebe. Doch irgendwann ist der Sommer zu Ende, sie müssen zurück in die Stadt. Die Welt befindet sich im Umbruch, Ludwik träumt von der Flucht in den Westen, Janusz wählt eine Karriere innerhalb des Systems. Ludwik muss sich entscheiden: für ein Leben voller Heimlichkeiten �� oder den Mut, er selbst zu sein.]]> 221 Tomasz Jedrowski 3455011179 Vivi 4 4.32 2020 Im Wasser sind wir schwerelos

author: Tomasz Jedrowski
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/12
date added: 2024/07/12
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]]> The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Vivi 3 4.17 1992

author: Donna Tartt
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/07
date added: 2024/07/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Dr. Mukti and other tales of woe]]> 815614 Book by Self, Will 257 Will Self 0747565317 Vivi 4 3.51 2004

author: Will Self
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/07/02
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]]> Fairy Tale 60177373 Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes deep into the well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for their world or ours.

Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house at the top of a big hill. In the backyard is a locked shed from which strange sounds emerge, as if some creature is trying to escape. When Mr. Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie the house, a massive amount of gold, a cassette tape telling a story that is impossible to believe, and a responsibility far too massive for a boy to shoulder.

Because within the shed is a portal to another world—one whose denizens are in peril and whose monstrous leaders may destroy their own world, and ours. In this parallel universe, where two moons race across the sky, and the grand towers of a sprawling palace pierce the clouds, there are exiled princesses and princes who suffer horrific punishments; there are dungeons; there are games in which men and women must fight each other to the death for the amusement of the “Fair One.�� And there is a magic sundial that can turn back time.

A story as old as myth, and as startling and iconic as the rest of King’s work, Fairy Tale is about an ordinary guy forced into the hero’s role by circumstance, and it is both spectacularly suspenseful and satisfying.]]> 607 Stephen King 1668002175 Vivi 3 4.05 2022

author: Stephen King
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/30
date added: 2024/06/30
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]]> Mit brennender Geduld 1210242 149 Antonio Skármeta 3492226787 Vivi 4 3.51 1985

author: Antonio Skármeta
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1985
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/06/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Pessimism is for Lightweights: 13 Pieces of Courage and Resistance]]> 40694902 36 Salena Godden 1912722135 Vivi 3 4.33 2018

Pessimism is for Lightweights: 13 Pieces of Courage and Resistance

author: Salena Godden
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2018
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/06/24
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]]> Das dreißigste Jahr 1944695 Kurz vor seinem 30. Geburtstag stürzt der Held dieser Erzählung in eine schwere Identitätskrise: Er verzweifelt an der Welt und vor allem auch an der Sprache. "Eine neue Sprache zu schaffen, die getaugt hätte, das Neue auszudrücken" , das wollte er schaffen. Die vorherrschende Sprache ist für ihn nur "Gaunersprache". Sein verzweifeltes, unentschlossenes Umherwandern umfasst alle Stadien der Auflösung und der Suche nach Sinn. Egal, in welchem Land er sich aufhält, immer fühlt er sich in der "Falle". Weder die Liebe noch ein bürgerlicher Beruf können ihn retten. Und sein alter Freund oder Begleiter Moll "die Laus im Pelz, der der eine Sprache hat" wird zum Inbegriff des Angepassten, Unechten. Mit dieser 1961 erschienenen Erzählung "Das dreißigste Jahr" aus dem gleichnamigen Erzählband wendet sich die brillante Lyrikerin Ingeborg Bachmann hin zur Prosa und vollzieht mit ihren eigenen Worten "einen Umzug im Kopf". Das Sprach-Thema war ihr ganzes Leben lang für sie von größter Bedeutung. Sie suchte eine "andere Sprache" für eine neue Welt. "Die Welt und er selbst schien sich kündbar."

Solche tiefen Sätze und die vielen lyrisch formulierten Grenzüberschreitungen brauchen besondere Sprecher. Der "König der Vorleser", Gert Westphal, und Oswald Döpke wechseln sich ab. Sicher ist: Wer nur ein klein wenig für Sprachmagie übrig hat, dem wird diese Aufnahme aus dem Jahr 1961 gefallen. Lesung ohne Musik, Spieldauer: 79 Minuten, 1CD. Mit Booklet.

-- culture.text

]]> 192 Ingeborg Bachmann 3492245501 Vivi 4 3.92 1961 Das dreißigste Jahr

author: Ingeborg Bachmann
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1961
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/06/18
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]]> Things We Lost in the Fire 30375706
But alongside the black magic and disturbing disappearances, these stories are fueled by compassion for the frightened and the lost, ultimately bringing these characters—mothers and daughters, husbands and wives—into a surprisingly familiar reality. Written in hypnotic prose that gives grace to the grotesque, Things We Lost in the Fire is a powerful exploration of what happens when our darkest desires are left to roam unchecked, and signals the arrival of an astonishing and necessary voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 192 Mariana Enríquez 045149511X Vivi 3 4.04 2016 Things We Lost in the Fire

author: Mariana Enríquez
name: Vivi
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/06/16
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]]> Love Me Tender 50371656
Constance Debré poursuit sa quête entamée avec Play Boy, celle du sens, de la vie juste, de la vie bonne. Après la question de l’identité se pose la question de l’autre et de l’amour sous toutes ses formes, de l’amour maternel aux variations amoureuses. Faut-il, pour être libre, accueillir tout ce qui nous arrive ? Faut-il tout embrasser, jusqu’�� nos propres défaites ? Peut-on renverser le chagrin ?]]> 122 Constance Debré 2081471922 Vivi 3 3.84 2020 Love Me Tender

author: Constance Debré
name: Vivi
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/14
date added: 2024/06/14
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]]>