Melissa's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 17 Feb 2025 19:24:40 -0800 60 Melissa's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Lion Women of Tehran 199898012 A heartfelt novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.�

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls� high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.]]> 336 Marjan Kamali Melissa 0 currently-reading 4.60 2024 The Lion Women of Tehran
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/17
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]]> Early Morning Riser 56305491 A wise, bighearted, boundlessly joyful novel of love, disaster, and unconventional family

Jane falls in love with Duncan easily. He is charming, good-natured, and handsome but unfortunately, he has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City, Michigan. Jane sees Duncan’s old girlfriends everywhere–at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away.

While Jane may be able to come to terms with dating the world’s most prolific seducer of women, she wishes she did not have to share him quite so widely. His ex-wife, Aggie, a woman with shiny hair and pale milkmaid skin, still has Duncan mow her lawn. His coworker, Jimmy, comes and goes from Duncan’s apartment at the most inopportune times. Sometimes Jane wonders if a relationship can even work with three people in it–never mind four. Five if you count Aggie’s eccentric husband, Gary. Not to mention all the other residents of Boyne City, who freely share with Jane their opinions of her choices.

But any notion Jane had of love and marriage changes with one terrible car crash. Soon Jane’s life is permanently intertwined with Duncan’s, Aggie’s, and Jimmy’s, and Jane knows she will never have Duncan to herself. But could it be possible that a deeper kind of happiness is right in front of Jane’s eyes? A novel that is alternately bittersweet and laugh-out-loud funny, Katherine Heiny’s Early Morning Riser is her most astonishingly wonderful work to date.]]> 337 Katherine Heiny 0525659358 Melissa 0 to-read 3.79 2021 Early Morning Riser
author: Katherine Heiny
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Forks Over Knives Plan: How to Transition to the Life-Saving, Whole-Food, Plant-Based Diet]]> 19796867 From the creators of the groundbreaking documentary comes the New York Times bestselling diet plan Sanjay Gupta called “the prescription you need to live a long, healthy life”—a plan to transition to a delicious whole-foods, plant-based diet in just twenty-eight days.The trailblazing film Forks Over Knives helped spark a medical and nutritional revolution. Backed by scientific research, the film’s doctors and expert researchers made a radical but convincing case that modern diseases can be prevented and often reversed by leaving meat, dairy, and highly refined foods off the plate and adopting a whole-food, plant-based diet instead. Now, The Forks Over Knives Plan shows you how to put this life-saving, delicious diet into practice in your own life. This easy-to-follow, meal-by-meal makeover is the approach Doctors Alona Pulde and Matthew Lederman (featured in the documentary) use every day in their nutritional health practice—a simple plan that focuses on hearty comfort foods and does not involve portion control or worrying about obtaining single nutrients like protein and calcium. In just four short weeks you’ll learn how to stock your refrigerator, plan meals, combat cravings, and discover all the tips and tricks you’ll need to eat on the go and snack healthily. You’ll also get 100 simple, tasty recipes to keep you on the right track, beautiful photographs, a 28-day eating guide, and advice throughout the book from people just like you. Whether you’re already a convert and just want a dietary reboot, or you’re trying a plant-based diet for the first time, The Forks Over Knives Plan makes it easier than ever to transition to this healthiest way of eating…and to maintain it for life.]]> 454 Alona Pulde Melissa 0 to-read 4.04 2014 The Forks Over Knives Plan: How to Transition to the Life-Saving, Whole-Food, Plant-Based Diet
author: Alona Pulde
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Collected Writings of Zelda Fitzgerald]]> 19464327
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald has long been an American cultural icon. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, this southern belle turned flapper was talented in dance, painting, and writing but lived in the shadow of her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald’s success.

This meticulously edited collection includes Zelda’s only published novel, Save Me the Waltz , an autobiographical account of the Fitzgeralds� adventures in Paris and on the Riviera; her celebrated farce, Scandalabra ; eleven short stories; twelve articles; and a selection of letters to her husband, written over the span of their marriage, that reveals the couple’s loving and turbulent relationship. The Collected Writings affirms Zelda’s place as a writer and as a symbol of the Lost Generations as she struggled to define herself through her art.]]> 521 Zelda Fitzgerald 1476758921 Melissa 5 4.00 1991 The Collected Writings of Zelda Fitzgerald
author: Zelda Fitzgerald
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1991
rating: 5
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]]> The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr 43446857 Inspired by a woman and events forgotten by history, bestselling author Susan Holloway Scott weaves together carefully researched fact and fiction to tell the story of Mary Emmons, and the place she held in the life--and the heart--of the notorious Aaron Burr.

He was a hero of the Revolution, a brilliant politician, lawyer, and very nearly president; a skillful survivor in a raw new country filled with constantly shifting loyalties. Today Aaron Burr is remembered more for the fatal duel that killed rival Alexander Hamilton. But long before that single shot destroyed Burr's political career, there were other dark whispers about that he was untrustworthy, a libertine, a man unafraid of claiming whatever he believed should be his.

Sold into slavery as a child in India, Mary Emmons was brought to an America torn by war. Toughened by the experiences of her young life, Mary is intelligent, resourceful, and strong. She quickly gains the trust of her new mistress, Theodosia Prevost, and becomes indispensable in a complicated household filled with intrigue--especially when the now-widowed Theodosia marries Colonel Aaron Burr. As Theodosia sickens with the fatal disease that will finally kill her, Mary and Burr are drawn together into a private world of power and passion, and a secret, tangled union that would have shocked the nation . . .]]> 400 Susan Holloway Scott 1496719190 Melissa 4 4.37 2019 The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr
author: Susan Holloway Scott
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2019
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> Mrs Van Gogh 146815366 As intricate and absorbing as a Van Gogh painting…MRS VAN GOGH will stay with me for a long time.� New York Times bestseller Hazel Gaynor

“All the characters jump off the page…what we have here is a very fine novel.� Historical Novel Society

She’s been painted out of history…until nowWho tells her story?

In 1890, Vincent Van Gogh dies penniless, unknown, a man tortured by his own mind.

Eleven years later his work is exhibited in Paris and his unparalleled talent finally recognised. The tireless efforts of one woman gave the world one of its greatest creative minds.

But twenty-eight year old Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent’s sister-in-law and the keeper of his immense collection of paintings, sketches and letters, has, until now, been written out of history. This beautiful, moving novel finally gives this extraordinary woman a voice�

Praise for Mrs Van Gogh:“[ brilliantly fictionalized account of the life of a woman who the world needs to know better� Lit Hub

“W󲹳 an exquisitely written book, I loved every moment! How lucky readers are going to be to read this utterly absorbing and deeply moving book for the first time. Such a treat!� USA Today bestseller Deborah Carr

“A truly impressive book and a great talent.� Sunday Times bestseller Caroline Corcoran

“Brings to vivid life an extraordinary woman� will appeal to all lovers of historical fiction. A story that deserves to be told and widely known.� Essie Fox

⭐⭐⭐⭐� �This book is exquisite! Everything about Johanna's story is astoundingly beautiful and hers is a story that needed to be told, a voice that deserved to be heard�

⭐⭐⭐⭐� “A beautifully done historical novel, it was so well written and did everything that I was hoping for�

⭐⭐⭐⭐ �A beautifully written historical novel� Johanna was ahead of her time and the author portrayed her authentically�

⭐⭐⭐⭐�Historical fiction at its best. A well-written story about a strong woman with a fascinating life�

⭐⭐⭐⭐ “The author paints a beautiful picture�If you enjoy historical fiction and you like strong female characters, I highly recommend”]]> 481 Caroline Cauchi 000864151X Melissa 2 4.20 2023 Mrs Van Gogh
author: Caroline Cauchi
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 2
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]]> The Answer Is No 219876684 In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?

Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.]]> 68 Fredrik Backman 1662526520 Melissa 4 3.94 2024 The Answer Is No
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/13
date added: 2025/02/13
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]]> Go as a River 63922271 A sweeping, heart-stopping epic of a young woman's journey to becoming, set against the harsh beauty of mid-century Colorado

On a cool autumn day in 1948, Victoria Nash delivers late-season peaches from her family's farm set amid the wild beauty of Colorado. As she heads into her village, a disheveled stranger stops to ask her the way. How she chooses to answer will unknowingly alter the course of both their young lives.

So begins the mesmerizing story of split-second choices and courageous acts that propel Victoria away from the only home she has ever known and towards a reckoning with loss, hope and her own untapped strength.

Gathering all the pieces of her small and extraordinary existence, spinning through the eddies of desire, heartbreak and betrayal, she will arrive at a single rocky decision that will change her life forever.

Go as a River is a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettable characters and a breathtaking natural setting, it is a sweeping story of survival and becoming, of the deepest mysteries of love, truth and fate.]]> 299 Shelley Read 1954118244 Melissa 0 currently-reading 4.47 2023 Go as a River
author: Shelley Read
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/27
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]]> The Echo of Old Books 62060274
With no trace of how these mysterious books came into the world, Ashlyn is caught up in a decades-old literary mystery, beckoned by two hearts in ruins, whoever they were, wherever they are. Determined to learn the truth behind the doomed lovers� tale, she reads on, following a trail of broken promises and seemingly unforgivable betrayals. The more Ashlyn learns about Hemi and Belle, the nearer she comes to bringing closure to their love story—and to the unfinished chapters of her own life.]]> 431 Barbara Davis 1542038154 Melissa 0 to-read 4.27 2023 The Echo of Old Books
author: Barbara Davis
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/08
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]]> Weyward 60654349 I am a Weyward, and wild inside.

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.]]> 329 Emilia Hart 125028080X Melissa 0 to-read 4.03 2023 Weyward
author: Emilia Hart
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/08
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]]> The Covenant of Water 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 715 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Melissa 0 to-read 4.34 2023 The Covenant of Water
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/21
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]]> The Island of Missing Trees 58684163 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.

Years later, a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited - her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.

A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.]]> 350 Elif Shafak 1635578604 Melissa 4 4.19 2021 The Island of Missing Trees
author: Elif Shafak
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2021
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/05
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]]> <![CDATA[The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)]]> 1232 487 Carlos Ruiz Zafón Melissa 0 to-read 4.26 2001 The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)
author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/04
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]]> Funny Story 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé, Peter, told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it... right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Melissa 4 4.21 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/17
date added: 2024/07/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo]]> 32620332
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the �80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 Melissa 0 to-read 4.39 2017 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/31
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]]> All the Light We Cannot See 18143977
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here]]> 544 Anthony Doerr 1476746583 Melissa 0 4.31 2014 All the Light We Cannot See
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/31
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]]> Remarkably Bright Creatures 59710157 For fans of A Man Called Ove, a charming, witty and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]> 362 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204177 Melissa 4 4.51 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/28
date added: 2024/05/28
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]]> In Pieces 39685404 In this intimate, haunting literary memoir and New York Times Notable Book of the year, an American icon tells her own story for the first time -- about a challenging and lonely childhood, the craft that helped her find her voice, and a powerful emotional legacy that shaped her journey as a daughter and a mother.One of the most celebrated, beloved, and enduring actors of our time, Sally Field has an infectious charm that has captivated the nation for more than five decades, beginning with her first TV role at the age of seventeen. From Gidget's sweet-faced "girl next door" to the dazzling complexity of Sybil to the Academy Award-worthy ferocity and depth of Norma Rae and Mary Todd Lincoln, Field has stunned audiences time and time again with her artistic range and emotional acuity. Yet there is one character who always remained the shy and anxious little girl within. With raw honesty and the fresh, pitch-perfect prose of a natural-born writer, and with all the humility and authenticity her fans have come to expect, Field brings readers behind-the-scenes for not only the highs and lows of her star-studded early career in Hollywood, but deep into the truth of her lifelong relationships--including her complicated love for her own mother. Powerful and unforgettable, In Pieces is an inspiring and important account of life as a woman in the second half of the twentieth century.]]> 417 Sally Field 1538763044 Melissa 4 4.26 2018 In Pieces
author: Sally Field
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/20
date added: 2023/11/20
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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 Melissa 0 to-read 3.86 2005 Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #1)
author: Louise Penny
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/01
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]]> The Moonstone 6138
This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the definitive 1871 edition.]]> 528 Wilkie Collins 0375757856 Melissa 0 to-read 3.90 1868 The Moonstone
author: Wilkie Collins
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1868
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/01
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]]> Hang the Moon 61341819 From Jeannette Walls, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle, comes a riveting new novel about an indomitable young woman in Virginia during Prohibition.

Most folk thought Sallie Kincaid was a nobody who’d amount to nothing. Sallie had other plans.

Sallie Kincaid is the daughter of the biggest man in a small town, the charismatic Duke Kincaid. Born at the turn of the 20th century into a life of comfort and privilege, Sallie remembers little about her mother who died in a violent argument with the Duke. By the time she is just eight years old, the Duke has remarried and had a son, Eddie. While Sallie is her father’s daughter, sharp-witted and resourceful, Eddie is his mother’s son, timid and cerebral. When Sallie tries to teach young Eddie to be more like their father, her daredevil coaching leads to an accident, and Sallie is cast out.

Nine years later, she returns, determined to reclaim her place in the family. That’s a lot more complicated than Sallie expected, and she enters a world of conflict and lawlessness. Sallie confronts the secrets and scandals that hide in the shadows of the Big House, navigates the factions in the family and town, and finally comes into her own as a bold, sometimes reckless bootlegger.

You will fall in love with Sallie Kincaid, a feisty and fearless, terrified and damaged young woman who refuses to be corralled.]]> 368 Jeannette Walls Melissa 4 4.14 2023 Hang the Moon
author: Jeannette Walls
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/12
date added: 2023/08/12
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]]> I'm Glad My Mom Died 60763786
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,� eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?� She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died , Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly , she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!�), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.]]> 320 Jennette McCurdy Melissa 4 4.50 2022 I'm Glad My Mom Died
author: Jennette McCurdy
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/02
date added: 2023/06/02
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]]> The Winners (Beartown, #3) 60209470
As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.

So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?

Everything.

The long-awaited conclusion to the beloved New York Times bestselling and “engrossing� (People) Beartown series—which inspired an HBO series of the same name—follows the small hockey town’s residents as they grapple with change, pain, hope, and redemption.]]> 673 Fredrik Backman 1982112794 Melissa 0 to-read 4.42 2022 The Winners (Beartown, #3)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/08/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Goodful Cookbook: Simple and Balanced Recipes to Live Well]]> 44599128
The Goodful philosophy is use a foundation of wholesome, fresh ingredients, eat when hungry, and ultimately do what you need to do to feel good.

Holistic lifestyles touted in the media can be expensive, time-consuming, or out of reach. Goodful breaks this mold by lending a helping hand to those interested in living well without pretension, judgment, or breaking the bank. We know that nutrition means something different to everyone. All of our recipes indicate if they are vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, or dairy-free. We encourage readers to tailor anything and everything totheir personal definition of mindfulness that willbest suit themselves and their loved ones.

The Goodful Cookbook offers more than 125 recipes along with 50 beautiful photos, illustrations, inspirationaltips, useful charts, and guides for bringing wellness into your whole life such as a “what’s in season?� chart, foods for your mood,a section on meal prep to help manage stress through the week,and a food storage guide. We wrote this book for you and your intentions. The Goodful Cookbook shows how anyone (yes, even you!) can enjoy a mindful, nutritious, and sustainable lifestyle. Half of the recipes are fan favorites and star performers from our videos and the other half are new and never before seen.

Want to learn more? Check us out on social media. Our audience loves us not only for our easy recipes based on nourishing whole foods, but also for our home hacks like “How to Regrow Vegetables from Kitchen Scraps� and features on self-care, gardening, fitness, and sustainability.]]> 256 Goodful 0593135490 Melissa 5 3.71 The Goodful Cookbook: Simple and Balanced Recipes to Live Well
author: Goodful
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 5
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date added: 2022/07/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking: 101 Entirely Plant-based, Mostly Gluten-Free, Easy and Delicious Recipes]]> 27833849
Dana Shultz founded the Minimalist Baker blog in 2012 to share her passion for simple cooking and quickly gained a devoted worldwide following. Now, in this long-awaited debut cookbook, Dana shares 101 vibrant, simple recipes that are entirely plant-based, mostly gluten-free, and 100% delicious. Packed with gorgeous photography, this practical but inspiring cookbook

•Recipes that each require 10 ingredients or less, can be made in one bowl, or require 30 minutes or less to prepare.
•Delicious options for hearty entrées, easy sides, nourishing breakfasts, and decadent desserts—all on the table in a snap
� Essential plant-based pantry and equipment tips
•Easy-to-follow, step-by-step recipes with standard and metric ingredient measurements

Minimalist Baker’s Everyday Cooking is a totally no-fuss approach to cooking for anyone who loves delicious food that happens to be healthy too.
]]> 295 Dana Shultz 0735210969 Melissa 5 favorites 4.21 2016 Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking: 101 Entirely Plant-based, Mostly Gluten-Free, Easy and Delicious Recipes
author: Dana Shultz
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2016
rating: 5
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date added: 2022/07/20
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> Hemingway's Girl 13606274 In Depression-era Key West, Mariella Bennet, the daughter of an American fisherman and a Cuban woman, knows hunger. Her struggle to support her family following her father's death leads her to a bar and bordello, where she bets on a risky boxing match...and attracts the interest of two world-famous writer, Ernest Hemingway, and Gavin Murray, one of the WWI veterans who are laboring to build the Overseas Highway.
When Mariella is hired as a maid by Hemingway's second wife, Pauline, she enters a rarified world of lavish, celebrity-filled dinner parties and elaborate off-island excursions. As she becomes caught up in the tensions and excesses of the Hemingway household, the attentions of the larger-than-life writer become a dangerous temptation...even as straightforward Gavin Murray draws her back to what matters most. Will she cross an invisible line with the volatile Hemingway, or find a way to claim her own dreams? As a massive hurricane bears down on Key West, Mariella faces some harsh truths...and the possibility of losing everything she loves.
]]> 280 Erika Robuck 1101599367 Melissa 5 4.25 2012 Hemingway's Girl
author: Erika Robuck
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/15
date added: 2022/02/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1)]]> 29588376 ASIN B000JMKNJ2 moved to the more recent edition

An orphan’s life is harsh—and often short—in the mysterious island city of Camorr. But young Locke Lamora dodges death and slavery, becoming a thief under the tutelage of a gifted con artist. As leader of the band of light-fingered brothers known as the Gentleman Bastards, Locke is soon infamous, fooling even the underworld’s most feared ruler. But in the shadows lurks someone still more ambitious and deadly. Faced with a bloody coup that threatens to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the enemy at his own brutal game—or die trying.]]> 752 Scott Lynch Melissa 0 currently-reading 4.32 2006 The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1)
author: Scott Lynch
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/02/09
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot]]> 55683973 An extraordinary friendship. A lifetime of stories.
Their last one begins here.

Life is short. No-one knows that better than seventeen-year-old Lenni living on the terminal ward. But as she is about to learn, it's not only what you make of life that matters, but who you share it with.

Dodging doctor's orders, she joins an art class where she bumps into fellow patient Margot, a rebel-hearted eighty-three-year-old from the next ward. Their bond is instant as they realize that together they have lived an astonishing one hundred years.

To celebrate their shared century, they decide to paint their life of growing old and staying young, of giving joy, of receiving kindness, of losing love, of finding the person who is everything.

As their extraordinary friendship deepens, it becomes vividly clear that life is not done with Lenni and Margot yet.

Fiercely alive, disarmingly funny and brimming with tenderness, THE ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF LENNI AND MARGOT unwraps the extraordinary gift of life even when it is about to be taken away, and revels in our infinite capacity for friendship and love when we need them most. ]]> 352 Marianne Cronin 0063017512 Melissa 5 4.40 2021 The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot
author: Marianne Cronin
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/09
date added: 2022/02/09
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]]> Going There 57007708 Heartbreaking, hilarious, and brutally honest, Going Thereis the deeply personal life story of a girl next door turned household name.

For more than forty years, Katie Couric has been an iconic presence in the media world. In her brutally honest, hilarious, heartbreaking memoir, she reveals what was going on behind the scenes of her sometimes tumultuous personal and professional life - a story she’s never shared, until now. Of the medium she loves, the one that made her a household name, she says, “Television can put you in a box; the flat-screen can flatten. On TV, you are larger than life but smaller, too. It is not the whole story, and it is not the whole me. This book is.�

Beginning in early childhood, Couric was inspired by her journalist father to pursue the career he loved but couldn’t afford to stay in. Balancing her vivacious, outgoing personality with her desire to be taken seriously, she overcame every obstacle in her way: insecurity, an eating disorder, being typecast, sexism . . . challenges, and how she dealt with them, setting the tone for the rest of her career. Couric talks candidly about adjusting to sudden fame after her astonishing rise to co-anchor of the TODAY show, and guides us through the most momentous events and news stories of the era, to which she had a front-row seat: Rodney King, Anita Hill, Columbine, the death of Princess Diana, 9/11, the Iraq War . . . In every instance, she relentlessly pursued the facts, ruffling more than a few feathers along the way. She also recalls in vivid and sometimes lurid detailthe intense pressure on female anchors to snag the latest “get”—often sensational tabloid stories like Jon Benet Ramsey, Tonya Harding, and OJ Simpson.

Couric’s position as one of the leading lights of her profession was shadowed by the shock and trauma of losing her husband to stage 4 colon cancer when he was just 42, leaving her a widow and single mom to two daughters, 6 and 2. The death of her sister Emily, just three years later, brought yet more trauma—and an unwavering commitment to cancer awareness and research, one of her proudest accomplishments.

Couric is unsparing in the details of her historic move to the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News—a world rife with sexism and misogyny. Her “welcome� was even more hostile at 60 Minutes, an unrepentant boys club that engaged in outright hazing of even the most established women. In the wake of the MeToo movement, Couric shares her clear-eyed reckoning with gender inequality and predatory behavior in the workplace, and downfall of Matt Lauer—a colleague she had trusted and respected for more than a decade.

Couric also talks about the challenge of finding love again, with all the hilarity, false-starts, and drama that search entailed, before finding her midlife Mr. Right. Something she has never discussed publicly—why her second marriage almost didn’t happen.

If you thought you knew Katie Couric, think again. Going There is the fast-paced, emotional, riveting story of a thoroughly modern woman, whose journey took her from humble origins to superstardom. In these pages, you will find a friend, a confidante, a role model, a survivor whose lessons about life will enrich your own.]]> 736 Katie Couric 0316593311 Melissa 0 to-read 3.99 2021 Going There
author: Katie Couric
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/12/25
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]]> Us Against You (Beartown, #2) 37755109 New York Times bestselling author of Beartown and A Man Called Ove, hailed as “a writer of astonishing depth [with] the remarkable ability to make you understand the feelings of each of a dozen different characters� (The Washington Times), a heart-wrenching story of how loyalty, friendship, and love carry a town through its darkest days.

After everything that the citizens of Beartown have gone through, they are struck yet another blow when they hear that their beloved local hockey team will soon be disbanded. What makes it worse is the obvious satisfaction that all the former Beartown players, who now play for a rival team in Hed, take in that fact. Amidst the mounting tension between the two rivals, a surprising newcomer is handpicked to be Beartown’s new hockey coach.

Soon a new team starts to take shape around Amat, the fastest player you’ll ever see; Benji, the intense lone wolf; and Vidar, a born-to-be-bad troublemaker. But bringing this team together proves to be a challenge as old bonds are broken, new ones are formed, and the enmity with Hed grows more and more acute.

As the big match approaches, the not-so-innocent pranks and incidents between the communities pile up and their mutual contempt grows deeper. By the time the last game is finally played, a resident of Beartown will be dead, and the people of both towns will be forced to wonder if, after all they’ve been through, the game they love can ever return to something simple and innocent.

Us Against You is a declaration of love for all the big and small, bright and dark stories that form and color our communities. Compelling and heartbreaking, it’s a roller-coaster ride of emotions and a showcase for “Fredrik Backman’s pitch-perfect dialogue and unparalleled understanding of human nature� (Shelf Awareness).]]> 434 Fredrik Backman Melissa 5 4.40 2017 Us Against You (Beartown, #2)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/26
date added: 2021/08/26
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]]> Beartown (Beartown, #1) 31675787
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.]]> 432 Fredrik Backman Melissa 5 4.36 2016 Beartown (Beartown, #1)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2021/06/01
date added: 2021/06/01
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]]> Anxious People 49127718 A poignant, charming novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined

Looking at real estate isn't usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can't fix up their own marriage. There's a wealthy banker who has been too busy making money to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can't seem to agree on anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment's only bathroom, and you've got the worst group of hostages in the world.

Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises, these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in a motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.

Humorous, compassionate, and wise, Anxious People is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious of times.

Includes short story - The Last Round of Golf]]> 336 Fredrik Backman 198216963X Melissa 5 4.17 2019 Anxious People
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2021/04/04
date added: 2021/04/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Acid for the Children: A Memoir]]> 29231567 With "virtuosic vulnerability" (The Atlantic), the iconic bassist and Red Hot Chili peppers co-founder pens a love letter to a youth spent wild in Los Angeles in his raw and riveting coming-of-age memoir.

In Acid for the Children, Flea takes readers on a deeply personal and revealing tour of his formative years, spanning from Australia to the New York City suburbs to, finally, Los Angeles. Through hilarious anecdotes, poetical meditations, and occasional flights of fantasy, Flea deftly chronicles the experiences that forged him as an artist, a musician, and a young man. His dreamy, jazz-inflected prose makes the Los Angeles of the 1970s and 80s come to gritty, glorious life, including the potential for fun, danger, mayhem, or inspiration that lurked around every corner. It is here that young Flea, looking to escape a turbulent home, found family in a community of musicians, artists, and junkies who also lived on the fringe. He spent most of his time partying and committing petty crimes. But it was in music where he found a higher meaning, a place to channel his frustration, loneliness, and love. This left him open to the life-changing moment when he and his best friends, soul brothers, and partners-in-mischief came up with the idea to start their own band, which became the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Acid for the Children is the debut of a stunning new literary voice, whose prose is as witty, entertaining, and wildly unpredictable as the author himself. It's a tenderly evocative coming-of-age story and a raucous love letter to the power of music and creativity from one of the most renowned musicians of our time.]]> 400 Flea 1455530522 Melissa 0 to-read 4.17 2019 Acid for the Children: A Memoir
author: Flea
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The 4% Break-Thru: 96% of Small Business Owners Fail Within 10 Years. Entrepreneurs: Outlast the 96%, Avoid Burnout, and Create the Life You Love]]> 50828207
ENTREPRENEURS, DISCOVER HOW YOU CAN JOIN THE 4% and create the life you love.

Do you feel overwhelmed, over-stressed, overworked, over fatigued, out of control, or overweight, and want to create a healthy business and healthy life(style)?



Learn first hand from Dr. Lance Knaub, an entrepreneur who bootstrapped from zero to 7 figures and overcame adversity to accomplish the dream business goal of building a rock star team to fearlessly operate the business he founded, Breakthru Physical Therapy + Fitness.

The 4% Break-Thru is a 3 step process that will be your guide to creating your Perfect Life via impactful personal development exercises, best business practices, and actionable health information. Optimize your inner superstrengths and go from burnout and stress to Superhero Success in as little as 6 weeks.



The 4% Break-Thru will provide your serious ROI, and allow you to achieve a net gain in time, energy, and productivity



John Lee Dumas--host of the award winning business podcast, Entrepreneurs on Fire--states,



"The 4% Break-Thru helps entrepreneurs build an automated business machine so they can have a fulfilled life togetherwith their thriving business.

If only a book like The 4% Break-Thru was available when I started Entrepreneurs on Fire, I might not have sustained as much extraordinary stress, and could have had success more rapidly.

With mentors and coaches, follow someone who is where you want to be. Dr. Lance has accomplished the entrepreneurial dream of creating a business with thorough processes that is being operated by his talented team.

Transform your life and transform your business with The 4% Break-Thru."



The 4% Break-Thru

Pre-and post-assessments to objectively measure your baseline, and most importantly your improvement following The 4% Break-Thru process.Personal development and thought exercises to discover what is uniquely essential to you for fulfillment in life and business.Consolidated best business practice methods to build a solid foundation and scale your organization.Actionable health information that is based on the best available research to allow you to stay healthy and achieve balance and fulfillment while you are scaling.Key takeaways and action steps summarized in each chapter.Workbook-style allows you to complete each step in The 4% Break-Thru process sequentially to ensure you have a comprehensive plan for a fulfilled life combined with entrepreneurial success.Click Buy Now and transform your business and life today!]]> 259 Dr. Lance Knaub Melissa 0 to-read 4.00 The 4% Break-Thru: 96% of Small Business Owners Fail Within 10 Years. Entrepreneurs: Outlast the 96%, Avoid Burnout, and Create the Life You Love
author: Dr. Lance Knaub
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/02
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]]> Looking for Alaska 46264133 First drink. First prank. First friend. First love. Last words.

Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words--and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps". Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another. A modern classic, this stunning debut marked #1 bestselling author John Green's arrival as a groundbreaking new voice in contemporary fiction.

Newly updated edtition includes a brand-new Readers' Guide featuring a Q&A with author John Green ]]> 272 John Green 0593109066 Melissa 0 to-read 3.79 2005 Looking for Alaska
author: John Green
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell]]> 35995489
Sam believed it was God who sent Ernie Cantwell, the only African American kid in his class, to be the friend he so desperately needed. And that it was God’s idea for Mickie Kennedy to storm into Our Lady of Mercy like a tornado, uprooting every rule Sam had been taught about boys and girls.

Forty years later, Sam, a small-town eye doctor, is no longer certain anything was by design—especially not the tragedy that caused him to turn his back on his friends, his hometown, and the life he’d always known. Running from the pain, eyes closed, served little purpose. Now, as he looks back on his life, Sam embarks on a journey that will take him halfway around the world. This time, his eyes are wide open—bringing into clear view what changed him, defined him, and made him so afraid, until he can finally see what truly matters.]]> 448 Robert Dugoni 1503949001 Melissa 4 4.37 2018 The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell
author: Robert Dugoni
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/06
date added: 2021/01/09
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]]> <![CDATA[And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer]]> 31373633 A little book with a big heart!

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, and Britt-Marie Was Here comes an exquisitely moving portrait of an elderly man’s struggle to hold on to his most precious memories, and his family’s efforts to care for him even as they must find a way to let go.

With all the same charm of his bestselling full-length novels, here Fredrik Backman once again reveals his unrivaled understanding of human nature and deep compassion for people in difficult circumstances. This is a tiny gem with a message you’ll treasure for a lifetime.]]> 97 Fredrik Backman 1501160575 Melissa 5 4.34 2015 And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/07/06
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review:
This was a quick emotional read that I related to on many levels. When it was over I wasn't ready for it to be over. I'm re-reading it to highlight all the sections I keep sharing with others and don't want to forget.
]]> <![CDATA[Run Like a Mother: How to Get Moving—and Not Lose Your Family, Job, or Sanity]]> 10844978 Two elite runners share inspirational advice and practical strategies to help multitasking women make running part of their busy lives. Dimitry McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea understand how the forces of everyday life—both external and internal—can keep a wife, mother, or working woman from lacing up her shoes and going for a run. As multihyphenates themselves, they have faced the same challenges. In Run Like a Mother, they share their running expertise and real-world experience in ensuring that running is part of their lives. More than a simple running guide,Run Like a Motheris like a friendly conversation aimed at strengthening a woman's inner athlete. Real achievement is a healthy mix of inspiration and perspiration, which is why the authors have groundedRun Like a Motherin a host of practical tips on shoes, training, racing, nutrition, and injuries, all designed to help women balance running with their professional and personal lives.]]> 259 Dimity McDowell 1449400248 Melissa 0 4.08 2010 Run Like a Mother: How to Get Moving—and Not Lose Your Family, Job, or Sanity
author: Dimity McDowell
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/07/06
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]]> An Arrangement of Light 19401484 The New York Times as "one of America’s most important novelists," international bestselling author Nicole Krauss (The History of Love, Great House) is among the most ambitious and distinctive writers of our time. Her chilling new short story, An Arrangement of Light, is irrefutable evidence of Krauss’s gifts.

Narrated by the personal secretary to a world-famous landscape architect, it’s a haunting tale about how survival of the fittest, whether for flora or fauna, beast or man, is often a guarantee of treachery, and how our loyalties can become as trapping as any prison.

Set in an unnamed country as familiar as it is otherworldly, the story begins with a young horticulturist’s admiration for the work of a great man and his hope to help build a new public park in the capital. He ends up securing far more than that: a complicity with the park’s celebrated designer he could never have imagined or indeed wished for. And when a military coup ushers capricious generals into power and they arrive in their black sedans with dark plans for the new park, the personal secretary discovers that dreams risk running headlong into nightmares. Ultimately he must reckon with the fact that nature, for all its beauty, is cruel and conniving, and that a good gardener cannot tame it, only bend its neck.]]> 21 Nicole Krauss Melissa 0 3.44 2012 An Arrangement of Light
author: Nicole Krauss
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> The Storyteller's Secret 35889205 From the bestselling author of Trail of Broken Wings comes an epic story of the unrelenting force of love, the power of healing, and the invincible desire to dream.

Nothing prepares Jaya, a New York journalist, for the heartbreak of her third miscarriage and the slow unraveling of her marriage in its wake. Desperate to assuage her deep anguish, she decides to go to India to uncover answers to her family’s past.

Intoxicated by the sights, smells, and sounds she experiences, Jaya becomes an eager student of the culture. But it is Ravi—her grandmother’s former servant and trusted confidant—who reveals the resilience, struggles, secret love, and tragic fall of Jaya’s pioneering grandmother during the British occupation. Through her courageous grandmother’s arrestingly romantic and heart-wrenching story, Jaya discovers the legacy bequeathed to her and a strength that, until now, she never knew was possible.]]> 399 Sejal Badani 1542048273 Melissa 0 lost-interest 4.08 2018 The Storyteller's Secret
author: Sejal Badani
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/07/06
shelves: lost-interest
review:

]]> Girl in Pieces 29236380
Every new scar hardens Charlie’s heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not care anymore, which is sometimes what has to happen before you can find your way back from the edge.]]> 416 Kathleen Glasgow 1101934719 Melissa 0 to-read 3.94 2016 Girl in Pieces
author: Kathleen Glasgow
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/07/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life]]> 44600621 Ali Wong's heartfelt and hilarious letters to her daughters (the two she put to work while they were still in utero), covering everything they need to know in life, like the unpleasant details of dating, how to be a working mom in a male-dominated profession, and how she trapped their dad.

In her hit Netflix comedy special Baby Cobra, an eight-month pregnant Ali Wong resonated so heavily that she became a popular Halloween costume. Wong told the world her remarkably unfiltered thoughts on marriage, sex, Asian culture, working women, and why you never see new mom comics on stage but you sure see plenty of new dads.

The sharp insights and humor are even more personal in this completely original collection. She shares the wisdom she's learned from a life in comedy and reveals stories from her life off stage, including the brutal singles life in New York (i.e. the inevitable confrontation with erectile dysfunction), reconnecting with her roots (and drinking snake blood) in Vietnam, tales of being a wild child growing up in San Francisco, and parenting war stories. Though addressed to her daughters, Ali Wong's letters are absurdly funny, surprisingly moving, and enlightening (and disgusting) for all.]]> 240 Ali Wong 052550883X Melissa 0 to-read 3.83 2019 Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life
author: Ali Wong
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> More Myself: A Journey 44002910 An intimate, revealing look at one artist’s journey from self-censorship to full expression.

As one of the most celebrated musicians of our time, Alicia Keys has enraptured the nation with her heartfelt lyrics, extraordinary vocal range, and soul-stirring piano compositions. Yet away from the spotlight, Alicia has grappled with private heartache―over the challenging and complex relationship with her father, the people-pleasing nature that characterized her early career, the loss of privacy surrounding her romantic relationships, and the oppressive expectations of female perfection.

Since her rise to fame, Alicia’s public persona has belied a deep personal truth: she has spent years not fully recognizing or honoring her own worth. After withholding parts of herself for so long, she is at last exploring the questions that live at the heart of her story: Who am I, really? And once I discover that truth, how can I become brave enough to embrace it?

More Myself is part autobiography, part narrative documentary. Alicia’s journey is revealed not only through her own candid recounting, but also through vivid recollections from those who have walked alongside her. The result is a 360-degree perspective on Alicia’s path―from her girlhood in Hell’s Kitchen and Harlem, to the process of self-discovery she’s still navigating.

In More Myself, Alicia shares her quest for truth―about herself, her past, and her shift from sacrificing her spirit to celebrating her worth. With the raw honesty that epitomizes Alicia’s artistry, More Myself is at once a riveting account and a clarion call to readers: to define themselves in a world that rarely encourages a true and unique identity.]]> 272 Alicia Keys 1250153298 Melissa 0 to-read 4.15 2020 More Myself: A Journey
author: Alicia Keys
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/31
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]]> This Is How It Always Is 43364981 An alternative cover edition for this ASIN can be found here and here.

This is how a family keeps a secret…and how that secret ends up keeping them.

This is how a family lives happily ever after…until happily ever after becomes complicated.

This is how children change…and then change the world.

This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess.

When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl.

Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes.

This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. And it’s about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan. And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever.

"This is a novel everyone should read. It’s brilliant. It’s bold. And it’s time.�
―Elizabeth George, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Banquet of Consequences]]> 338 Laurie Frankel Melissa 0 to-read 4.36 2017 This Is How It Always Is
author: Laurie Frankel
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/05/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Notes to Self 43467786 The international sensation that illuminates the experiences women are supposed to hide—from addiction, anger, sexual assault, and infertility to joy, sensuality, and love.WINNER OF THE AN POST IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR •“Emilie Pine’s voice is razor-sharp and raw; her story is utterly original yet as familiar as my own breath.”—Glennon Doyle, #1New York Timesbestselling author ofLove WarriorIn this dazzling debut, Emilie Pine speaks to the events that have marked her life—those emotional disruptions for which our society has no adequate language, at once bittersweet, clandestine, and ordinary. She writes with radical honesty on the unspeakable grief of infertility, on caring for an alcoholic parent, on taboos around female bodies and female pain, on sexual violence and violence against the self. This is the story of one woman, and of all women. Devastating, poignant, and wise—and joyful against the odds—Notes to Self is an unforgettable exploration of what it feels like to be alive, and a daring act of rebellion against a society that is more comfortable with women’s silence.Praise for Notes to Self“Notes to Selfbegins as a deceptively simple catalogue of the injustices of modern female life and slyly emerges as a screaming treatise on just what it means to make your own rules, turning the hand you’ve been dealt into the coolest game in town. Emilie Pine is like your best friend—if your best friend was so sharp she drew blood.�—Lena Dunham, #1New York Timesbestselling author ofNot That Kind of Girl“To read these essays is to understand the human condition more clearly, to reassess one’s place in the world, and to reclaim one’s own experiences as real and valid.�—Sunday Independent “Harrowing, clear-eyed . . . Everyone should consider [this] priority reading.��Sunday Business Post “Incredible and insightful—an absolute must-read.�—The Skinny “Agonizing, uncompromising, starkly brilliant. . . . [A] short, gleamingly instructive book, both memoir and psychological exploration—a platform for that insistent internal voice that almost any woman . . . wishes they had ignored.�—Financial Times “Do not read this book in public. It will make you cry.�—Anne Enright]]> 192 Emilie Pine 1984855468 Melissa 0 to-read 4.06 2018 Notes to Self
author: Emilie Pine
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/05
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses: Part Two from What the Dog Saw]]> 8142406 128 Malcolm Gladwell Melissa 0 on-hold, to-read 4.24 2009 Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses: Part Two from What the Dog Saw
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/05
shelves: on-hold, to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction]]> 28671464 Honest and hopeful, BETWEEN BREATHS is an inspiring read.]]> 272 Elizabeth Vargas Melissa 0 on-hold, to-read 4.31 2016 Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction
author: Elizabeth Vargas
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/05
shelves: on-hold, to-read
review:

]]> Where the Crawdads Sing 42421761
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world–until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]> 370 Delia Owens Melissa 4 4.60 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
author: Delia Owens
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2020/04/12
date added: 2020/04/12
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review:

]]> Inside Out 45178362
A Best Book of the The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Daily Mail, Good Morning America, She Reads

Famed American actress Demi Moore at last tells her own story in a surprisingly intimate and emotionally charged memoir.

For decades, Demi Moore has been synonymous with celebrity. From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been far from the spotlight—or the headlines.

Even as Demi was becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood, however, she was always outrunning her past, just one step ahead of the doubts and insecurities that defined her childhood.Throughout her rise to fame and during some of the most pivotal moments of her life, Demi battled addiction, body image issues, and childhood trauma that would follow her for years—all while juggling a skyrocketing career and at times negative public perception. As her success grew, Demi found herself questioning if she belonged in Hollywood, if she was a good mother, a good actress—and, always, if she was simply good enough.

As much as her story is about adversity, it is also about tremendous resilience. In this deeply candid and reflective memoir, Demi pulls back the curtain and opens up about her career and personal life—laying bare her tumultuous relationship with her mother, her marriages, her struggles balancing stardom with raising a family, and her journey toward open heartedness. Inside Out is a story of survival, success, and surrender—a wrenchingly honest portrayal of one woman’s at once ordinary and iconic life.]]> 272 Demi Moore 0062049550 Melissa 0 to-read 4.09 2019 Inside Out
author: Demi Moore
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/04/12
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]]> Dark Matter 40004664 Alternate cover edition of ASIN B0180T0IUY

Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.

It starts with a man in a mask kidnapping him at gunpoint, for reasons Jason can’t begin to fathom—what would anyone want with an ordinary physics professor?—and grows even more terrifying from there, as Jason’s abductor injects him with some unknown drug and watches while he loses consciousness.

When Jason awakes, he’s in a lab, strapped to a gurney—and a man he’s never seen before is cheerily telling him “welcome back!�

Jason soon learns that in this world he’s woken up to, his house is not his house. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born.

And someone is hunting him.]]> 352 Blake Crouch Melissa 3 4.16 2016 Dark Matter
author: Blake Crouch
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2018/08/26
date added: 2020/02/23
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]]> Where'd You Go, Bernadette 49991116 A misanthropic matriarch leaves her eccentric family in crisis when she mysteriously disappears in this whip-smart and "divinely funny" novel that inspired the movie starring Cate Blanchett (New York Times).
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is her best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette vanishes. It all began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle--and people in general--has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, and secret correspondence--creating a compulsively readable and surprisingly touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.]]> 306 Maria Semple 0316204285 Melissa 4 3.97 2012 Where'd You Go, Bernadette
author: Maria Semple
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2020/01/04
date added: 2020/01/07
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]]> Call Me Zelda 18193186
From New York to Paris, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald reigned as king and queen of the Jazz Age, seeming to float on champagne bubbles above the mundane cares of the world. But to those who truly knew them, the endless parties were only a distraction from their inner turmoil, and from a love that united them with a scorching intensity.

When Zelda is committed to a Baltimore psychiatric clinic in 1932, vacillating between lucidity and madness in her struggle to forge an identity separate from her husband, the famous writer, she finds a sympathetic friend in her nurse, Anna Howard. Held captive by her own tragic past, Anna is increasingly drawn into the Fitzgeralds� tumultuous relationship. As she becomes privy to Zelda’s most intimate confessions, written in a secret memoir meant only for her, Anna begins to wonder which Fitzgerald is the true genius. But in taking ever greater emotional risks to save Zelda, Anna may end up paying a far higher price than she intended....]]> 345 Erika Robuck 1101614153 Melissa 3 3.92 2013 Call Me Zelda
author: Erika Robuck
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2019/09/22
date added: 2019/09/22
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review:

]]> Drinking: A Love Story 73965
Caroline Knapp describes how the distorted world of her well-to-do parents pushed her toward anorexia and alcoholism. Fittingly, it was literature that saved her: she found inspiration in Pete Hamill's 'A Drinking Life' and sobered up. Her tale is spiced up with the characters she has known along the way.

A journalist describes her twenty years as a functioning alcoholic, explaining how she used alcohol to escape personal relationships and the realities of life until a series of personal crises forced her to confront her problem.]]> 286 Caroline Knapp 0385315546 Melissa 0 to-read 4.08 1996 Drinking: A Love Story
author: Caroline Knapp
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/06/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine]]> 32503381 No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

The only way to survive is to open your heart. ]]> 336 Gail Honeyman Melissa 3 4.40 2017 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
author: Gail Honeyman
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2019/06/02
date added: 2019/06/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood]]> 29780253
Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents� indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.]]> 289 Trevor Noah 0385689225 Melissa 0 to-read 4.48 2016 Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
author: Trevor Noah
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/03/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Becoming 38746485
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.]]> 426 Michelle Obama 1524763136 Melissa 0 to-read 4.42 2018 Becoming
author: Michelle Obama
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/03/27
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]]> Girl on a Train 25108299 Everything points to suicide - but I saw her face...

Headstrong Journalist, Anna Rothman knows what suicide looks like - her own husband killed himself five years earlier. When Elly Swift, an agitated passenger beside her on a train, leaves a locket in Anna’s bag before jumping onto the tracks, Anna starts asking awkward questions. But everything points to suicide and the police close the case.

Anna, however, believes Elly’s fears for Toby, her young nephew, missing since being snatched from St Stephen’s church six months ago, fail to explain the true reason behind Elly’s distress. Through a series of cryptic clues Elly left behind, Anna starts asking awkward questions, embarking on a dangerous crusade to track down Toby and find Elly’s killer.

But nothing is as it seems and Anna opens a can of worms that throws into question the death of her husband, five years earlier - before the threads of the mystery converge in an astonishing conclusion.]]> 434 A.J. Waines 1508647941 Melissa 4 3.77 2013 Girl on a Train
author: A.J. Waines
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2019/03/06
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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 Melissa 4 4.05 2017 Little Fires Everywhere
author: Celeste Ng
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2019/03/06
date added: 2019/03/06
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]]> The Lovely Bones 6153812
So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.]]> 352 Alice Sebold Melissa 4 3.89 2002 The Lovely Bones
author: Alice Sebold
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2014/05/27
date added: 2018/06/02
shelves:
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]]> The Nightingale 22663563
As the war progresses, the sisters' relationship and strength are tested. With life changing in unbelievably horrific ways, Vianne and Isabelle will find themselves facing frightening situations and responding in ways they never thought possible as bravery and resistance take different forms in each of their actions.]]> 593 Kristin Hannah Melissa 4 4.65 2015 The Nightingale
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.65
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2018/03/31
date added: 2018/03/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wisdom of Sundays: Life-Changing Insights from Super Soul Conversations]]> 34930835
Now, for the first time, the aha moments of inspiration and soul-expanding insight that have enlightened millions on the three-time Emmy Award-winning Super Soul Sunday are collected in The Wisdom of Sundays, a beautiful, cherishable, deeply-affecting book.

Organized into ten chapters―each one representing a powerful step in Oprah’s own spiritual journey and introduced with an intimate, personal essay by Oprah herself―the Wisdom of Sundays features selections from the most meaningful conversations between Oprah and some of today’s most-admired thought-leaders. Visionaries like Tony Robbins, Arianna Huffington, and Shonda Rhimes share their lessons in finding purpose through mindfulness and intention. World renowned authors and teachers like Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hahn, Marianne Williamson and Wayne Dyer, explain our complex relationship with the ego and the healing powers of love and connection; and award-winning and bestselling writers like Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Elizabeth Lesser explore the beauty of forgiveness and spirituality.

Paired with beautiful photographs, including many from Oprah’s private property in California where each episode of Super Soul Sunday is filmed, The Wisdom of Sundays promises to be a timeless keepsake that will help readers awaken to life’s wondrous possibilities and discover a deeper connection to the natural world around them.]]> 240 Oprah Winfrey 125013806X Melissa 0 to-read 4.31 2017 The Wisdom of Sundays: Life-Changing Insights from Super Soul Conversations
author: Oprah Winfrey
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/12/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Heart's Invisible Furies 33253215 real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from � and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.]]> 582 John Boyne Melissa 0 to-read 4.51 2017 The Heart's Invisible Furies
author: John Boyne
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/11/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Glory over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House]]> 27284109 New York Times bestseller from the author of the beloved book club favorite The Kitchen House is a heart racing story about a man’s treacherous journey through the twists and turns of the Underground Railroad on a mission to save the boy he swore to protect. Glory Over Everything is “gripping…breathless until the end� (Kirkus Reviews).

The year is 1830 and Jamie Pyke, a celebrated silversmith and notorious ladies� man, is keeping a deadly secret. Passing as a wealthy white aristocrat in Philadelphian society, Jamie is now living a life he could never have imagined years before when he was a runaway slave, son of a southern black slave and her master. But Jamie’s carefully constructed world is threatened when he discovers that his married socialite lover, Caroline, is pregnant and his beloved servant Pan, to whose father Jamie owes his own freedom, has been captured and sold into slavery in the South.

Fleeing the consequences of his deceptions, Jamie embarks on a trip to a North Carolina plantation to save Pan from the life he himself barely escaped as a boy. With the help of a fearless slave, Sukey, who has taken the terrified young boy under her wing, Jamie navigates their way, racing against time and their ruthless pursuers through the Virginia backwoods, the Underground Railroad, and the treacherous Great Dismal Swamp.

“Kathleen Grissom is a first-rate storyteller…she observes with an unwavering but kind eye, and she bestows upon the reader, amid terrible secrets and sin, a gift of the belief that hope can triumph over hell� (Richmond Times Dispatch). Glory Over Everything is an emotionally rewarding and epic novel “filled with romance, villains, violence, courage, compassion…and suspense.� (Florida Courier).]]> 385 Kathleen Grissom Melissa 4 4.44 2016 Glory over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House
author: Kathleen Grissom
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2017/10/15
date added: 2017/10/15
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]]> The Alchemist 865 197 Paulo Coelho 0061122416 Melissa 0 to-read 3.85 1988 The Alchemist
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/09/10
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]]> What I Loved 125502 370 Siri Hustvedt Melissa 0 on-hold, to-read 4.10 2002 What I Loved
author: Siri Hustvedt
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/09/10
shelves: on-hold, to-read
review:

]]> Britt-Marie Was Here 28436716 The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry returns with an irresistible novel about finding love and second chances in the most unlikely of places.

Britt-Marie can’t stand mess. A disorganized cutlery drawer ranks high on her list of unforgivable sins. She begins her day at 6 a.m., because only lunatics wake up later than that. And she is not passive-aggressive. Not in the least. It's just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention. She is not one to judge others—no matter how ill-mannered, unkempt, or morally suspect they might be.

But hidden inside the socially awkward, fussy busybody is a woman who has more imagination,bigger dreams, and a warmer heart that anyone around her realizes.

When Britt-Marie walks out on her cheating husband and has to fend for herself in the miserable backwater town of Borg—of which the kindest thing one can say is that it has a road going through it—she is more than a little unprepared. Employed as the caretaker of a soon-to-be demolished recreation center, the fastidious Britt-Marie has to cope with muddy floors, unruly children, and a (literal) rat for a roommate. She finds herself being drawn into the daily doings of her fellow citizens, an odd assortment of miscreants, drunkards, layabouts—and a handsome local policeman whose romantic attentions to Britt-Marie are as unmistakable as they are unwanted. Most alarming of all, she’s given the impossible task of leading the supremely untalented children’s soccer team to victory. In this small town of big-hearted misfits, can Britt-Marie find a place where she truly belongs?

Funny and moving, observant and humane, Britt-Marie Was Here celebrates the unexpected friendships that change us forever, and the power of even the gentlest of spirits to make the world a better place.]]> 337 Fredrik Backman 1501142550 Melissa 0 to-read 4.21 2014 Britt-Marie Was Here
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/09/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Everyone Brave is Forgiven 28230461 New York Times bestselling Little Bee, a spellbinding novel about three unforgettable individuals thrown together by war, love, and their search for belonging in the ever-changing landscape of WWII London.

It’s 1939 and Mary, a young socialite, is determined to shock her blueblood political family by volunteering for the war effort. She is assigned as a teacher to children who were evacuated from London and have been rejected by the countryside because they are infirm, mentally disabled, or—like Mary’s favorite student, Zachary—have colored skin.

Tom, an education administrator, is distraught when his best friend, Alastair, enlists. Alastair, an art restorer, has always seemed far removed from the violent life to which he has now condemned himself. But Tom finds distraction in Mary, first as her employer and then as their relationship quickly develops in the emotionally charged times. When Mary meets Alastair, the three are drawn into a tragic love triangle and—while war escalates and bombs begin falling around them—further into a new world unlike any they’ve ever known.

A sweeping epic with the kind of unforgettable characters, cultural insights, and indelible scenes that made Little Bee so incredible, Chris Cleave’s latest novel explores the disenfranchised, the bereaved, the elite, the embattled. Everyone Brave Is Forgiven is a heartbreakingly beautiful story of love, loss, and incredible courage.]]> 352 Chris Cleave 1501124404 Melissa 0 to-read 3.99 2016 Everyone Brave is Forgiven
author: Chris Cleave
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/09/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Air He Breathes (Elements, #1)]]> 25564446
“Stay away from him,� people said.
“He’s cruel.�
“He’s cold.�
“He’s damaged.�

It’s easy to judge a man because of his past. To look at Tristan and see a monster.

But I couldn’t do that. I had to accept the wreckage that lived inside of him because it also lived inside of me.

We were both empty.
We were both looking for something else. Something more.
We both wanted to put together the shattered pieces of our yesterdays.

Then perhaps we could finally remember how to breathe.]]> 308 Brittainy C. Cherry Melissa 0 to-read 4.12 2015 The Air He Breathes (Elements, #1)
author: Brittainy C. Cherry
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/09/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Front Row Factor: Transform Your Life with the Art of Moment Making]]> 34395267 It helps readers cultivate an empowering mindset, create life-long relationships and design an environment where you can thrive regardless of life conditions. As the founder of Front Row Foundation, Jon has spent more than a decade helping children and adults with life threatening illnesses have a front row experience at the live event of their dreams. This book is everything you can learn about life from those fighting for it. More than anything, The Front Row Factor will challenge you to explore your values, establish priorities and reconnect you to a higher purpose and deeper meaning within your life. The author reveals timeless principles that help you Live Life In The Front Row� so you can make the most of every moment, starting now. Scroll up to the top and click the Buy Now button and start living your life in the Front Row!]]> 213 Jon Vroman Melissa 0 to-read 4.16 The Front Row Factor: Transform Your Life with the Art of Moment Making
author: Jon Vroman
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.16
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/09/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> A Thousand Splendid Suns 4906099 Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, the #1 New York Times bestseller A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.“Just as good, if not better, than Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling first book, The Kite Runner.”—Newsweek Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today.Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.]]> 379 Khaled Hosseini 1101010908 Melissa 4 4.60 2007 A Thousand Splendid Suns
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2017/09/01
date added: 2017/09/01
shelves:
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]]> Bossypants 30973351 In her acceptance speech for Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Tina Fey announced that she was proud to make her home in "the 'not-real America'". It is perhaps that healthy sense of incongruity that makes the head writer, executive producer, and star of NBC's Emmy Award-winning 30 Rock such a cogent observer of the contemporary scene.

Bossypants, her entertaining new memoir, shows that strangeness has been her constant companion. Fey's stories about her childhood in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania are only appetizers for LOL forays into her college disasters, honeymoon catastrophes, and Saturday Night Live shenanigans. Most funny read of the month; the best possible weekend update.

]]> 283 Tina Fey Melissa 5 4.06 2011 Bossypants
author: Tina Fey
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/09/01
shelves:
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]]> The Husband's Secret 19241689
Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive. . . .

Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all—she’s an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of her small community, and a devoted wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home. But that letter is about to change everything, and not just for her: Rachel and Tess barely know Cecilia—or each other—but they too are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband’s secret.]]> 418 Liane Moriarty Melissa 4 4.02 2013 The Husband's Secret
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/09/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges]]> 20001948 A debut collection of witty, biting essays laced with a surprising warmth, from Jen Mann, the writer behind the popular blog People I Want to Punch in the Throat

People I want to punch in the throat:
� anyone who feels the need to bling her washer and dryer
� humblebraggers
� people who treat their pets like children

Jen Mann doesn’t have a filter, which sometimes gets her in trouble with her neighbors, her fellow PTA moms, and that one woman who tried to sell her sex toys at a home shopping party. Known for her hilariously acerbic observations on her blog, People I Want to Punch in the Throat, Mann now brings her sharp wit to bear on suburban life, marriage, and motherhood in this laugh-out-loud collection of essays. From the politics of joining a play group, to the thrill of mothers� night out at the gun range, to the rewards of your most meaningful relationship (the one you have with your cleaning lady), nothing is sacred or off-limits. So the next time you find yourself wearing fuzzy bunny pajamas in the school carpool line or accidentally stuck at a co-worker’s swingers party, just think, What would Jen Mann do? Or better yet, buy her book.]]> 226 Jen Mann Melissa 3 3.78 2014 People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges
author: Jen Mann
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/09/01
shelves:
review:

]]> Big Little Lies 20510868 Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Her ex-husband and his yogi new wife have moved into her beloved beachside community, and their daughter is in the same kindergarten class as Madeline’s youngest (how is this possible?). And to top it all off, Madeline’s teenage daughter seems to be choosing Madeline’s ex-husband over her. (How. Is. This. Possible?).

Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn’t be, with those rambunctious twin boys? Now that the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grappling with how much more she is willing to pay.

New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbors secret doubts about her son. But why? While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realizes how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all.

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.




From the Hardcover edition.]]> 465 Liane Moriarty 0698138635 Melissa 4 4.36 2014 Big Little Lies
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/09/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald]]> 15994634
When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the "ungettable" Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn't wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame.

Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner's, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick's Cathedral and take the rest as it comes.]]> 464 Therese Anne Fowler 1250028647 Melissa 4 3.86 2013 Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
author: Therese Anne Fowler
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2017/05/01
date added: 2017/05/20
shelves:
review:
Love this story. I read A Paris Wife about Hemmingway and always thought Zelda to be "eccentric" and wild. Then I listened to pod cast that presented the Team Fitzgerald and Team Zelda ida. I really felt for Zelda as a small town girl wanting more, leaving home/security and finding a crazy world where you need to fit in....... This gave me a new perspective for all three (Zelda, Fitzgerald and Hemmingway). And poor Zelda with the treatment for depression/bipolar/manic. We've come along way but I can't imagine shock treatment or the zombie drugs that prevailed during that time.
]]> The Kitchen House 8092392 Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of the highly anticipated Glory Over Everything, established herself as a remarkable new talent with The Kitchen House, now a contemporary classic. In this gripping novel, a dark secret threatens to expose the best and worst in everyone tied to the estate at a thriving plantation in Virginia in the decades before the Civil War.Orphaned during her passage from Ireland, young, white Lavinia arrives on the steps of the kitchen house and is placed, as an indentured servant, under the care of Belle, the master’s illegitimate slave daughter. Lavinia learns to cook, clean, and serve food, while guided by the quiet strength and love of her new family. In time, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, caring for the master’s opium-addicted wife and befriending his dangerous yet protective son. She attempts to straddle the worlds of the kitchen and big house, but her skin color will forever set her apart from Belle and the other slaves. Through the unique eyes of Lavinia and Belle, Grissom’s debut novel unfolds in a heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of class, race, dignity, deep-buried secrets, and familial bonds.]]> 385 Kathleen Grissom Melissa 5 4.42 2010 The Kitchen House
author: Kathleen Grissom
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2017/01/16
date added: 2017/01/16
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry]]> 21445677 here.

In the spirit of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Gabrielle Zevin’s enchanting novel is a love letter to the world of books--and booksellers--that changes our lives by giving us the stories that open our hearts and enlighten our minds.

On the faded Island Books sign hanging over the porch of the Victorian cottage is the motto "No Man Is an Island; Every Book Is a World." A. J. Fikry, the irascible owner, is about to discover just what that truly means.

A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. Slowly but surely, he is isolating himself from all the people of Alice Island--from Lambiase, the well-intentioned police officer who’s always felt kindly toward Fikry; from Ismay, his sister-in-law who is hell-bent on saving him from his dreary self; from Amelia, the lovely and idealistic (if eccentric) Knightley Press sales rep who keeps on taking the ferry over to Alice Island, refusing to be deterred by A.J.’s bad attitude. Even the books in his store have stopped holding pleasure for him. These days, A.J. can only see them as a sign of a world that is changing too rapidly.

And then a mysterious package appears at the bookstore. It’s a small package, but large in weight. It’s that unexpected arrival that gives A. J. Fikry the opportunity to make his life over, the ability to see everything anew. It doesn’t take long for the locals to notice the change overcoming A.J.; or for that determined sales rep, Amelia, to see her curmudgeonly client in a new light; or for the wisdom of all those books to become again the lifeblood of A.J.’s world; or for everything to twist again into a version of his life that he didn’t see coming. As surprising as it is moving, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is an unforgettable tale of transformation and second chances, an irresistible affirmation of why we read, and why we love.

]]> 272 Gabrielle Zevin Melissa 4 4.14 2014 The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2016/11/20
date added: 2016/11/20
shelves:
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]]> The Silent Wife 16171291
Todd Gilbert and Jodie Brett are in a bad place in their relationship. They've been together for twenty-eight years, and with no children to worry about there has been little to disrupt their affluent Chicago lifestyle. But there has also been little to hold it together, and beneath the surface lie ever-widening cracks. HE is a committed cheater. SHE lives and breathes denial. HE exists in dual worlds. SHE likes to settle scores. HE decides to play for keeps. SHE has nothing left to lose. When it becomes clear that their precarious world could disintegrate at any moment, Jodie knows she stands to lose everything. It's only now she will discover just how much she's truly capable of...]]> 326 A.S.A. Harrison 0143123238 Melissa 3
Still looking for a real 4 or 5 star book. ]]> 3.24 2013 The Silent Wife
author: A.S.A. Harrison
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2016/10/30
shelves:
review:
It is NOT a psychological thriller. It's a story..... I wanted to mark this as 3.5 stars because it originally kept me reading...... but then came the rambling or what felt like throwing the story together to begin to wrap the storyline up so I started to check out. And I had grown attached to Todd's character as a man that recognized his mistakes. Even though I was 3/4 of the way through the book, I was looking for the evolution of his character.

Still looking for a real 4 or 5 star book.
]]> Our Souls at Night 23602562
In the familiar setting of Holt, Colorado, home to all of Kent Haruf's inimitable fiction, Addie Moore pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor, Louis Waters. Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have known of each other for decades; in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis's wife. His daughter lives hours away in Colorado Springs, her son even farther away in Grand Junction, and Addie and Louis have long been living alone in houses now empty of family, the nights so terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk with.

Their brave adventures - their pleasures and their difficulties - are hugely involving and truly resonant, making Our Souls at Night the perfect final installment to this beloved writer's enduring contribution to American literature.]]> 179 Kent Haruf 1101875895 Melissa 2 3.91 2015 Our Souls at Night
author: Kent Haruf
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2016/10/08
date added: 2016/10/08
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]]> Where You Once Belonged 126861
Nearly a decade later, no one has forgiven or forgotten, and when Jack reappears, resentment runs high. Once again though, it is Jack whose presence - even more than his eight-year absence - proves the most devastating.]]> 187 Kent Haruf 033049046X Melissa 0 to-read 3.88 1990 Where You Once Belonged
author: Kent Haruf
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/10/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Love Warrior 29215173 The Newest Oprah Book Club 2016 Selection

The highly anticipated new memoir by bestselling author Glennon Doyle Melton tells the story of her journey of self-discovery after the implosion of her marriage.

Just when Glennon Doyle Melton was beginning to feel she had it all figured out―three happy children, a doting spouse, and a writing career so successful that her first book catapulted to the top of the New York Times bestseller list―her husband revealed his infidelity and she was forced to realize that nothing was as it seemed. A recovering alcoholic and bulimic, Glennon found that rock bottom was a familiar place. In the midst of crisis, she knew to hold on to what she discovered in recovery: that her deepest pain has always held within it an invitation to a richer life.

Love Warrioris the story of one marriage, but it is also the story of the healing that is possible for any of us when we refuse to settle for good enough and begin to face pain and love head-on. This astonishing memoir reveals how our ideals of masculinity and femininity can make it impossible for a man and a woman to truly know one another—and it captures the beauty that unfolds when one couple commits to unlearning everything they've been taught so that they can finally, after thirteen years of marriage, commit to living true—true to themselves and to each other.

Love Warrioris a gorgeous and inspiring account of how we are born to be warriors: strong, powerful, and brave; able to confront the pain and claim the love that exists for us all. This chronicle of a beautiful, brutal journey speaks to anyone who yearns for deeper, truer relationships and a more abundant, authentic life.

]]> 192 Glennon Doyle 1250075742 Melissa 3 4.20 2016 Love Warrior
author: Glennon Doyle
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2016/10/01
date added: 2016/10/01
shelves:
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]]> The Sound of Glass 24377148 The New York Times bestselling author of the Tradd Street novels explores a Southern family’s buried history, which will change the life of the woman who unearths it, secret by shattering secret. Two years after the death of her husband, Merritt Heyward receives unexpected news—Cal’s family home in Beaufort, South Carolina, bequeathed by his reclusive grandmother, now belongs to Merritt. In Beaufort, the secrets of Cal’s unspoken-of past reside among the pluff mud and jasmine of the ancestral Heyward home on the Bluff. This unknown legacy, now Merritt’s, will change and define her as she navigates her new life—a life complicated by the arrival of her too young stepmother and ten-year-old half brother. Soon, in this house of strangers, Merritt is forced into unraveling the Heyward family past as she faces her own fears and finds the healing she needs in the salt air of the Lowcountry.]]> 426 Karen White 0698165853 Melissa 3 4.27 2015 The Sound of Glass
author: Karen White
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2016/09/04
date added: 2016/09/04
shelves:
review:

]]> The Girl on the Train 22754100 326 Paula Hawkins Melissa 4 4.07 2015 The Girl on the Train
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2016/08/14
date added: 2016/08/14
shelves:
review:

]]> The Paris Wife 8683812
Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.

A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.]]> 314 Paula McLain 0345521307 Melissa 3 3.81 2011 The Paris Wife
author: Paula McLain
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2016/07/13
date added: 2016/07/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Me Before You (Me Before You, #1)]]> 17557750 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Giver of Stars, discover the love story that captured over 20 million hearts in Me Before You, After You, and Still Me.

They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose . . .

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has barely been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.

A Love Story for this generation and perfect for fans of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?]]> 385 Jojo Moyes Melissa 4 4.39 2012 Me Before You (Me Before You, #1)
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2016/07/11
date added: 2016/07/11
shelves:
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]]> I Am the Messenger 6563006
Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary), until only one question remains: Who’s behind Ed’s mission?]]> 357 Markus Zusak 030743348X Melissa 3 4.02 2002 I Am the Messenger
author: Markus Zusak
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2016/05/16
date added: 2016/05/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead]]> 16089813 Researcher and thought leader Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision that encourages us to dare greatly: to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly, and to courageously engage in our lives.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.� —Theodore Roosevelt

Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable, or to dare greatly. Whether the arena is a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation, we must find the courage to walk into vulnerability and engage with our whole hearts.

In Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability. Based on twelve years of research, she argues that vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our clearest path to courage, engagement, and meaningful connection. The book that Dr. Brown’s many fans have been waiting for, Daring Greatly will spark a new spirit of truth—and trust—in our organizations, families, schools, and communities.]]> 290 Brené Brown 1101594993 Melissa 0 to-read 4.37 2012 Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
author: Brené Brown
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/04/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Drums of Autumn (Outlander, #4)]]> 10988 The New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon continues the story of Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser that began with the now-classic novel Outlander and continued in Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager. Once again spanning continents and centuries, Diana Gabaldon has created a work of sheer passion and brilliance....

It began at an ancient Scottish stone circle. There, a doorway, open to a select few, leads into the past—or the grave. Dr. Claire Randall survived the extraordinary passage, not once but twice.

Her first trip swept her into the arms of Jamie Fraser, an eighteenth-century Scot whose love for her became a legend—a tale of tragic passion that ended with her return to the present to bear his child. Her second journey, two decades later, brought them together again in the American colonies. But Claire had left someone behind in the twentieth century—their daughter, Brianna....

Now Brianna has made a disturbing discovery that sends her to the circle of stones and a terrifying leap into the unknown. In search of her mother and the father she has never met, she is risking her own future to try to change history ... and to save their lives. But as Brianna plunges into an uncharted wilderness, a heartbreaking encounter may strand her forever in the past ... or root her in the place she should be, where her heart and soul belong....]]> 880 Diana Gabaldon 0385335989 Melissa 3 lost-interest 4.33 1996 Drums of Autumn (Outlander, #4)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2016/02/20
shelves: lost-interest
review:
I'm just not a fan of cowboys/indians.......
]]> A Man Called Ove 18774964
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.]]> 337 Fredrik Backman 1476738017 Melissa 4 4.35 2012 A Man Called Ove
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2016/02/18
date added: 2016/02/18
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry]]> 23604559 A charming, warmhearted novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller A Man Called Ove.

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as Fredrik Backman’s bestselling debut novel, A Man Called Ove. It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights: the right to be different.]]> 372 Fredrik Backman 1501115065 Melissa 4 4.04 2013 My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/02/05
shelves:
review:

]]> Me Talk Pretty One Day 4137 272 David Sedaris 0349113912 Melissa 0 on-hold, to-read 4.01 2000 Me Talk Pretty One Day
author: David Sedaris
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/02
shelves: on-hold, to-read
review:

]]> The Book Thief 19063 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

(Note: this title was not published as YA fiction)]]> 592 Markus Zusak Melissa 5 favorites 4.38 2005 The Book Thief
author: Markus Zusak
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2015/07/09
date added: 2015/08/27
shelves: favorites
review:
I can't begin to adequately describe how this book made my heart melt. I fell in love with the words, the rhythm and the characters. Although I felt that the end of the book was wrapping up characters left and right as if it were tying up of loose ends and closing the loop, I also felt it satisfied me.... it helped me part with the characters and gave me closure on another book finished. I finished the book on a 4 hour drive home where I sat in the front seat reading, crying, reading, crying some more. I was compelled to read and to absorb every word with all my heart. I was a complete mess. I intended not to cry or to at least stop reading when I began to cry. (let's face it, I knew I was going to cry) At some point I said screw it, I'm already a complete mess, lets finish this thing...... Did I say how it melted my heart and I fell in love? I love it when a book does that to me. Makes me feel emotion.....
]]> This is Where I Leave You 8129768 International bestseller Jonathan Tropper joins Dutton with the book his fans in the trade have been waiting for him to write: an uproarious, sophisticated, and deeply moving breakout novel.

Those who have already discovered Jonathan Tropper have called his novels “hilarious, but emotion-packed,�1 “fantastically funny,�2 “surprisingly moving,�3 and “utterly magnificent.�4 With his Dutton debut, Tropper has delivered a novel of true sophistication, at once light of touch and with a real sense of humor, without sacrificing a depth of character and raw emotion reminiscent of the early work of John Irving and Michael Chabon.

This Is Where I Leave You opens with the death of Judd Foxman’s father, an event that marks the first time in a decade that the entire Foxman family—including Judd’s mother, brothers, and sister have been together in the same house for an extended period. Conspicuously absent: Judd’s wife, Jen, whose fourteen-month affair with Judd’s radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public.

The typical Foxman family gathering ends with car doors slamming and tires screeching as various factions scatter to nurse their resentments in private. But this time around, the Foxmans reluctantly submit to their father’s dying request: to spend the seven days following the funeral together. In the same house. Like a real family. For Judd it’s a week-long opportunity to come to terms with his father’s death, his failed marriage, and to explain the mess his life has become to a never-ending parade of people he thought he might never see again. Which would be bad enough without the bomb Jen dropped the day Judd’s father died: She’s pregnant.]]> 404 Jonathan Tropper 1101108983 Melissa 5 4.01 2003 This is Where I Leave You
author: Jonathan Tropper
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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date added: 2015/08/27
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I loved this book simply because I could see myself and my family so clearly in the characters. Often it hit a little too close to heart (home).
]]> <![CDATA[Mennonite in a Little Black Dress]]> 8175988
Not long after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her world turned upside down. It was bad enough that her brilliant husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her with serious injuries. What was a gal to do? Rhoda packed her bags and went home. This wasn't just any home, though. This was a Mennonite home. While Rhoda had long ventured out on her own spiritual path, the conservative community welcomed her back with open arms and offbeat advice. (Rhoda's good-natured mother suggested she date her first cousin—he owned a tractor, see.) It is in this safe place that Rhoda can come to terms with her failed marriage; her desire, as a young woman, to leave her sheltered world behind; and the choices that both freed and entrapped her.

Written with wry humor and huge personality—and tackling faith, love, family, and aging� Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is an immensely moving memoir of healing, certain to touch anyone who has ever had to look homeward in order to move ahead.]]> 256 Rhoda Janzen Melissa 4 3.26 2009 Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
author: Rhoda Janzen
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2009
rating: 4
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date added: 2015/08/27
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review:
This book made me out loud. Very fun little read. I might have to re-read it.
]]> <![CDATA[Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune]]> 18513970
Dedman has collaborated with Huguette Clark’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few relatives to have frequent conversations with her. Dedman and Newell tell a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter, born into a family of extreme wealth and privilege, who secrets herself away from the outside world.

Huguette was the daughter of self-made copper industrialist W. A. Clark, nearly as rich as Rockefeller in his day, a controversial senator, railroad builder, and founder of Las Vegas. She grew up in the largest house in New York City, a remarkable dwelling with 121 rooms for a family of four. She owned paintings by Degas and Renoir, a world-renowned Stradivarius violin, a vast collection of antique dolls. But wanting more than treasures, she devoted her wealth to buying gifts for friends and strangers alike, to quietly pursuing her own work as an artist, and to guarding the privacy she valued above all else.

The Clark family story spans nearly all of American history in three generations, from a log cabin in Pennsylvania to mining camps in the Montana gold rush, from backdoor politics in Washington to a distress call from an elegant Fifth Avenue apartment. The same Huguette who was touched by the terror attacks of 9/11 held a ticket nine decades earlier for a first-class stateroom on the second voyage of the Titanic.

Empty Mansions reveals a complex portrait of the mysterious Huguette and her intimate circle. We meet her extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her French boyfriend, her nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives fighting to inherit Huguette’s copper fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, Empty Mansions is an enthralling story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms.]]> 496 Bill Dedman Melissa 4 3.93 2013 Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
author: Bill Dedman
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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date added: 2015/08/27
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This is a very interesting story of one of the richest families in history and I love every opportunity I get to share tidbits of it with other people (both readers and nonreaders).
]]> One Day 6280118
So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that?

And every year that follows?
--back cover]]> 435 David Nicholls 0340896965 Melissa 2
EDIT - 8/27/2015 I'm still angry at this book...... end of story.]]> 3.86 2009 One Day
author: David Nicholls
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2009
rating: 2
read at: 2012/12/10
date added: 2015/08/27
shelves:
review:
I was all into this book.... loving the characters..... loving the descriptions..... loving the Dex/Em relationship......then BAM! at some point I felt Nicholls felt the need to cram a whole bunch of "stuff" together trying to rush the end of the book. It's as if he was told the book could only be so many pages. At that same point I felt the rhythm of the words change. I was so frustrated then transitioned to flatly disappointed. I just read the book so I could say I read it. I hate it when authors rush to wrap up all the pieces they feel they need to in order to end it a certain way. Skipping details, conversations and moments to throw in the big picture trying to circle back with big broad strokes to complete it. I'm sorry. I know a lot of people loved this book. I was just flatly disappointed in the last 1/3 of the book. And I always remember how I feel at the end of a book

EDIT - 8/27/2015 I'm still angry at this book...... end of story.
]]> <![CDATA[The Best Guide to Movie Quotes]]> 21374931 785 Nigel Rees Melissa 0 reference-for-fun 0.0 2011 The Best Guide to Movie Quotes
author: Nigel Rees
name: Melissa
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/27
shelves: reference-for-fun
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Movie Quotes To Get You Through Life]]> 21096063 296 Jim Silverstein Melissa 0 reference-for-fun 3.00 2010 Movie Quotes To Get You Through Life
author: Jim Silverstein
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/08/27
shelves: reference-for-fun
review:

]]> Into the Free 13485901 Just a girl. The only one strong enough to break the cycle. In Depression-era Mississippi, Millie Reynolds longs to escape the madness that marks her world. With an abusive father and a “nothing mama,� she struggles to find a place where she really belongs.For answers, Millie turns to the Gypsies who caravan through town each spring. The travelers lead Millie to a key which unlocks generations of shocking family secrets. When tragedy strikes, the mysterious contents of the box give Millie the tools she needs to break her family’s longstanding cycle of madness and abuse. Through it all, Millie experiences the thrill of first love while fighting to trust the God she believes has abandoned her. With the power of forgiveness, can Millie finally make her way into the free?]]> 370 Julie Cantrell Melissa 4 3.96 2012 Into the Free
author: Julie Cantrell
name: Melissa
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2015/08/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Race for Relevance: 5 Radical Changes for Associations]]> 18894178 168 Harrison Coerver 0880345144 Melissa 0 lost-interest 4.09 2011 Race for Relevance: 5 Radical Changes for Associations
author: Harrison Coerver
name: Melissa
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/08/27
shelves: lost-interest
review:

]]>