Courtney's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 18 Mar 2025 14:10:32 -0700 60 Courtney's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing]]> 64631561 New York Times bestselling author Lara Love Hardin recounts her slide from soccer mom to opioid addict to jailhouse shot-caller and her unlikely comeback as a highly successful ghostwriter in this harrowing, hilarious, no-holds-barred memoir.

No one expects the police to knock on the million-dollar, two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors� credit cards.

Lara is convicted of thirty-two felonies and becomes inmate S32179. She learns that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the Flies. Furniture is made from tampon boxes and Snickers bars are currency. But Lara quickly finds the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates as she climbs the social ladder to become the “shot caller,� showing that jailhouse politics aren’t that different from the PTA meetings she used to attend.

When she’s released, she reinvents herself as a ghostwriter. Now, she’s legally co-opting other people’s identities and getting to meet Oprah, meditate with The Dalai Lama, and have dinner with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But the shadow of her past follows her. Shame is a poison worse than heroin—there is no way to detox. Lara must learn how to forgive herself and others, navigate life as a felon on probation, prove to herself that she is more good than bad, and much more.

The Many Lives of Mama Love is a heartbreaking and tender journey from shame to redemption, despite a system that makes it almost impossible for us to move beyond the worst thing we have ever done.]]> 319 Lara Love Hardin 1982197668 Courtney 0 currently-reading 4.46 2023 The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing
author: Lara Love Hardin
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> My Dear Hamilton 41014257 New York Times bestselling authors of America’s First Daughter comes the epic story of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton—a revolutionary woman who, like her new nation, struggled to define herself in the wake of war, betrayal, and tragedy. Haunting, moving, and beautifully written, Dray and Kamoie used thousands of letters and original sources to tell Eliza’s story as it’s never been told before—not just as the wronged wife at the center of a political sex scandal—but also as a founding mother who shaped an American legacy in her own right.

A general’s daughter�

Coming of age on the perilous frontier of revolutionary New York, Elizabeth Schuyler champions the fight for independence. And when she meets Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s penniless but passionate aide-de-camp, she’s captivated by the young officer’s charisma and brilliance. They fall in love, despite Hamilton’s bastard birth and the uncertainties of war.

A founding father’s wife...

But the union they create—in their marriage and the new nation—is far from perfect. From glittering inaugural balls to bloody street riots, the Hamiltons are at the center of it all—including the political treachery of America’s first sex scandal, which forces Eliza to struggle through heartbreak and betrayal to find forgiveness.

The last surviving light of the Revolution�

When a duel destroys Eliza’s hard-won peace, the grieving widow fights her husband’s enemies to preserve Alexander’s legacy. But long-buried secrets threaten everything Eliza believes about her marriage and her own legacy. Questioning her tireless devotion to the man and country that have broken her heart, she’s left with one last battle—to understand the flawed man she married and the imperfect union he could never have created without her…]]> 652 Stephanie Dray Courtney 5 4.32 2018 My Dear Hamilton
author: Stephanie Dray
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/13
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]]> James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Courtney 5 4.47 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Out of My Mind (Out of My Mind, #1)]]> 6609765 295 Sharon M. Draper 141697170X Courtney 5 4.34 2010 Out of My Mind (Out of My Mind, #1)
author: Sharon M. Draper
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2021/05/22
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves:
review:
This book is like a preteen version of The Diving Bell & The Butterfly. Riveting story of a little girl with cerebral palsy who cannot walk or talk - yet she is the narrator. I learn so much from books written from the perspective of kids with extreme challenges...we can get some insight into how they might perceive the world and how they feel the world perceives them. This is a great book for teachers or kids 4th and up, and would be a powerful read-aloud. Reminds me of the Curious Incident of the Dog in the nighttime too.
]]> Wish You Were Here 57701764 New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things and The Book of Two Ways comes comes a deeply moving novel about the resilience of the human spirit in a moment of crisis.

Jodi Picoult once again proves she is the master of wading through the darkness to find the light. Wish You Were Here is a powerfully evocative story of resilience and the triumph of the human spirit.
--Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Malibu Rising

Synopsis
Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s an associate specialist at Sotheby’s now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she can close a deal with a high-profile client. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galapagos—days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time.

But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes.

Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry. Her luggage is lost, the Wi-Fi is nearly nonexistent, and the hotel they’d booked is shut down due to the pandemic. In fact, the whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen. Completely isolated, she must venture beyond her comfort zone. Slowly, she carves out a connection with a local family when a teenager with a secret opens up to Diana, despite her father’s suspicion of outsiders.

In the Galapagos Islands, where Darwin’s theory of natural selection was formed, Diana finds herself examining her relationships, her choices, and herself—and wondering if when she goes home, she too will have evolved into someone completely different.]]> 310 Jodi Picoult 1984818414 Courtney 0 to-read 3.86 2021 Wish You Were Here
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Storyteller 15753740
Sage Singer is a baker. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship. Despite their differences, they see in each other the hidden scars that others can’t, and they become companions.

Everything changes on the day that Josef confesses a long-buried and shameful secret—one that nobody else in town would ever suspect—and asks Sage for an extraordinary favor. If she says yes, she faces not only moral repercussions, but potentially legal ones as well. With her own identity suddenly challenged, and the integrity of the closest friend she’s ever had clouded, Sage begins to question the assumptions and expectations she’s made about her life and her family. When does a moral choice become a moral imperative? And where does one draw the line between punishment and justice, forgiveness and mercy?

In this searingly honest novel, Jodi Picoult gracefully explores the lengths we will go in order to protect our families and to keep the past from dictating the future]]> 461 Jodi Picoult 1439102767 Courtney 5 4.28 2013 The Storyteller
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol]]> 45434420 The founder of a female-focused recovery program offers a radical new path to sobriety.

“You don’t know how much you need this book, or maybe you do. Either way, it will save your life.”—Melissa Hartwig Urban, Whole30 co-founder and CEO

We live in a world obsessed with drinking. We drink at baby showers and work events, brunch and book club, graduations and funerals. Yet no one ever questions alcohol’s ubiquity—in fact, the only thing ever questioned is why someone doesn’t drink. It is a qualifier for belonging and if you don’t imbibe, you are considered an anomaly. As a society, we are obsessed with health and wellness, yet we uphold alcohol as some kind of magic elixir, though it is anything but.

When Holly Whitaker decided to seek help after one too many benders, she embarked on a journey that led not only to her own sobriety, but revealed the insidious role alcohol plays in our society and in the lives of women in particular. What’s more, she could not ignore the ways that alcohol companies were targeting women, just as the tobacco industry had successfully done generations before. Fueled by her own emerging feminism, she also realized that the predominant systems of recovery are archaic, patriarchal, and ineffective for the unique needs of women and other historically oppressed people—who don’t need to lose their egos and surrender to a male concept of God, as the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous state, but who need to cultivate a deeper understanding of their own identities and take control of their lives. When Holly found an alternate way out of her own addiction, she felt a calling to create a sober community with resources for anyone questioning their relationship with drinking, so that they might find their way as well. Her resultant feminine-centric recovery program focuses on getting at the root causes that lead people to overindulge and provides the tools necessary to break the cycle of addiction, showing us what is possible when we remove alcohol and destroy our belief system around it.

Written in a relatable voice that is honest and witty, Quit Like a Woman is at once a groundbreaking look at drinking culture and a road map to cutting out alcohol in order to live our best lives without the crutch of intoxication. You will never look at drinking the same way again.]]> 368 Holly Whitaker 1984825054 Courtney 0 to-read 3.97 2019 Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol
author: Holly Whitaker
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> All Fours 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]> 336 Miranda July 0593190262 Courtney 0 to-read 3.53 2024 All Fours
author: Miranda July
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/25
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]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Courtney 5 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/19
date added: 2024/11/19
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]]> The Silent Patient 40097951
Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....

The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.]]> 336 Alex Michaelides 1250301696 Courtney 5 4.18 2019 The Silent Patient
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/14
date added: 2024/11/14
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]]> Night Watch 62951865
The omnipresent vagaries of war and race rise to the surface as we learn their their flight to the highest mountain ridges of western Virginia; the disappearance of ConaLee’s father, who left for the War and never returned. Meanwhile, in the asylum, they begin to find a new path. ConaLee pretends to be her mother’s maid; Eliza responds slowly to treatment. They get swept up in the life of the facility—the mysterious man they call the Night Watch; the orphan child called Weed; the fearsome woman who runs the kitchen; the remarkable doctor at the head of the institution.]]> 276 Jayne Anne Phillips 0451493338 Courtney 0 currently-reading 3.56 2023 Night Watch
author: Jayne Anne Phillips
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/04
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Mary Jane 54870208
The house may look respectable on the outside, but inside it’s a literal and figurative mess: clutter on every surface, IMPEACHMENT: Now More Than Ever bumper stickers on the doors, cereal and takeout for dinner. And even more troublesome (were Mary Jane’s mother to know, which she does not): The doctor is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer for one important job—helping a famous rock star dry out. A week after Mary Jane starts, the rock star and his movie star wife move in.

Over the course of the summer, Mary Jane introduces her new household to crisply ironed clothes and a family dinner schedule, and has a front-row seat to a liberal world of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll (not to mention group therapy). Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive at September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be.Ěý]]> 320 Jessica Anya Blau 0063052296 Courtney 5 4.09 2021 Mary Jane
author: Jessica Anya Blau
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/03
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]]> Nineteen Minutes 14866
Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens -- until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy. For them, the lines between truth and fiction, right and wrong, insider and outsider have been obscured forever. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, could be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. And as the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show, destroying the closest of friendships and families.

Nineteen Minutes is New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult's most raw, honest, and important novel yet. Told with the straightforward style for which she has become known, it asks simple questions that have no easy answers: Can your own child become a mystery to you? What does it mean to be different in our society? Is it ever okay for a victim to strike back? And who -- if anyone -- has the right to judge someone else?]]> 440 Jodi Picoult 0743496728 Courtney 0 4.16 2007 Nineteen Minutes
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/10/23
shelves:
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]]> Did I Ever Tell You? 176443541 Based on her "Modern Love" piece ("She Put Her Unspent Love in a Cardboard Box"), this extraordinary memoir tells the astonishing story of a mother's last gifts to her daughter, and the wisdom and love she bestowed upon her from beyond the grave.

Genevieve (Gwen) Kingston's mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer when Gwen was just three years old. Defying the odds, she lived another eight years—during which time she filled a chest with gifts and letters to Gwen and her brother, Jamie, for every major milestone and birthday through age thirty. The day Gwen got her driver's license. The day she graduated from high school. Gwen is now in her thirties and, when Did I Ever Tell You? begins, three unopened boxes remain: engagement, marriage, and first baby. Two decades after her passing, Gwen's mother's extraordinary efforts created a lifelong conversation beyond the grave.

Did I Ever Tell You? is Crying in H Mart meets The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs. This is not just a gorgeously written mother-daughter story. It's also the story of a family riven by grief and mental illness, and a story of a young woman's navigation through both. It's a book about family and legacy; and it's one that emphatically declares, as Gwen's mother does in a particularly powerful letter, that "Love is stronger than death."]]> 288 Genevieve Kingston 1668006294 Courtney 5 4.29 2024 Did I Ever Tell You?
author: Genevieve Kingston
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/06
date added: 2024/09/06
shelves:
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To have such a personal glimpse into the life of someone I’ve never met is so intimate that it almost makes me uncomfortable. And yet as a woman myself, and a mother who also was once a young girl who adored her own mother, there’s so much here that seems my own. I found myself weeping and frustrated and then feeling resolved, healed. It’s a beautiful memoir and such a gift to her mother, to have captured her heart in this way. I’m grateful to Gwenny Kingston for opening her cardboard box for all of us to read. Thank you.
]]> These Precious Days: Essays 56922687 The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays.ĚýĚý

“Any story that starts will also end.â€� As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.Ěý

At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a suprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.â€� When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanksâ€� short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both.Ěý

A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be.Ěý

From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.]]> 320 Ann Patchett 0063092786 Courtney 3 4.40 2021 These Precious Days: Essays
author: Ann Patchett
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/29
date added: 2024/08/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety]]> 551520 152 Alan W. Watts 0394704681 Courtney 0 to-read 4.14 1951 The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
author: Alan W. Watts
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1951
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/29
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]]> The Essential Alan Watts 60575
Just before his death he completed the project most dear to his heart. In the secluded and relaxed atmosphere aboard his ferryboat SS Vallejo and at his mountain retreat in Druid Heights he recorded the basic tenets of his philosophy.

Revised by his son Mark here is the last original work of Alan Watts now combined with several classic pieces previously not available in book form, including the favorites "Work As Play" and "The Trickster Guru."

This final volume is an outstanding introduction to Watts for those who do not know him and a valuable legacy for all." - from the back cover]]> 142 Alan W. Watts 0890874034 Courtney 0 to-read 4.49 1977 The Essential Alan Watts
author: Alan W. Watts
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.49
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/29
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]]> Mad Honey 59912428 A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind.

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father's beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can she trust him completely . . .

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in him, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.]]> 464 Jodi Picoult 1984818384 Courtney 5 4.05 2022 Mad Honey
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/15
date added: 2024/08/27
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]]> The Martian 18007564
Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error� are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills � and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit � he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

]]> 384 Andy Weir 0804139024 Courtney 0 currently-reading 4.41 2011 The Martian
author: Andy Weir
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/27
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> When Breath Becomes Air 25899336
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a naĂŻve medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. "I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything," he wrote. "Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: 'I can't go on. I'll go on.'" When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.]]> 208 Paul Kalanithi 0812988418 Courtney 0 currently-reading 4.41 2016 When Breath Becomes Air
author: Paul Kalanithi
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/10
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Probably Someday Cancer (Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Series) (Volume 9)]]> 43121668
After learning that she inherited a BRCA2 genetic mutation that put her at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer, Kim Horner’s doctors urged her to consider having a double mastectomy. But how do you decide whether to have a surgery to remove your breasts to reduce your risk for a disease you don’t have and may never get?

Horner shares her struggle to answer that question in Probably Someday Cancer . The mother of a one-year-old boy, she wanted to do whatever would give her the best odds of being around for her son and protect her from breast cancer, which killed her grandmother and great-grandmother in their 40s. Which would give her the best chance at a long healthy a double mastectomy or frequent screenings to try to catch any cancer early? The answers weren’t that simple.

Based on extensive research, interviews, and personal experience, Horner writes about how and why she ultimately opted for a double mastectomy—the same decision actress Angelina Jolie made for a similar genetic mutation—and the surprising diagnosis that followed. The book explores difficult truths that get overshadowed by upbeat messages about early detection and survivorship—the fact that screenings can miss cancers and that even early-stage breast cancers can spread and become fatal.

Probably Someday Cancer Ěýis about the author’s efforts to push past her fear and anxiety. This book can help anyone facing hereditary risk of breast and ovarian cancer feel less alone and make informed decisions to protect their health and end the devastation that hereditary cancer has caused for generations in so many families.

Number Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Series]]> 208 Kim Horner 1574417517 Courtney 0 4.43 Probably Someday Cancer (Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Series) (Volume 9)
author: Kim Horner
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/25
date added: 2024/07/25
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]]> Small Great Things 41021501
Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy's counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other's trust, and come to see that what they've been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn't offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.]]> 510 Jodi Picoult 034554496X Courtney 5 4.38 2016 Small Great Things
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/25
date added: 2024/07/25
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere]]> 112093865 From “weird, scary, ingenious� (The New York Times) stand-up comedian Maria Bamford, a brutally honest and hilariously frenetic memoir about show business, mental health, and the comfort of rigid belief systems—from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, to Suzuki violin training, to Richard Simmons, to 12-step programs.

Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it.

In Bamford’s signature voice, Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult, brings us on a quest to participate in something. With sincerity and transparency, she recounts every anonymous fellowship she has joined (including but not limited Debtors Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, and Overeaters Anonymous), every hypomanic episode (from worrying about selling out under capitalism to enforcing union rules on her Netflix TV show set to protect her health), and every easy 1-to-3-step recipe for fudge in between.

Singular and inimitable, Bamford’s memoir explores what it means to keep going, and to be a member of society (or any group she’s invited to) despite not being very good at it. In turn, she hopes to transform isolating experiences into comedy that will make you feel less alone (without turning into a cult following).]]> 276 Maria Bamford 1982168560 Courtney 4 3.71 2023 Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere
author: Maria Bamford
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/07
date added: 2024/07/17
shelves:
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I love Maria Bamford, and pretty much everything she shares with the world. I realize not everyone feels that way, so I’m giving the book 4 out of 5 stars on behalf of the “love her or don’t� segment of the population. If you’re not fascinated and interested by her brilliant, open, creative mind, you won’t appreciate this honest glimpse inside of it.
]]> <![CDATA[This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl by Earl, Esther, Earl, Lori, Earl, Wayne (January 28, 2014) Hardcover]]> 160149531 Excellent condition! 0 Esther Earl Courtney 0 0.0 2014 This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl by Earl, Esther, Earl, Lori, Earl, Wayne (January 28, 2014) Hardcover
author: Esther Earl
name: Courtney
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/10
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]]> Dear Edward 45294613
Edward's story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place for himself in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a piece of him has been left in the sky, forever tied to the plane and all of his fellow passengers. But then he makes an unexpected discovery--one that will lead him to the answers of some of life's most profound questions: When you've lost everything, how do find yourself? How do you discover your purpose? What does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live?

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 340 Ann Napolitano 198485478X Courtney 5 4.03 2020 Dear Edward
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/03
date added: 2024/07/03
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]]> Burning Bright 6646042 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Ron Rash is "a storyteller of the highest rank" (Jeffrey Lent) and has won comparisons to John Steinbeck, Cormac McCarthy, and Gabriel García Márquez. It is rare that an author can capture the complexities of a place as though it were a person, and rarer still that one can reveal a land as dichotomous and fractious as Appalachia—a muse; a siren; a rugged, brutal landscape of exceptional beauty, promise, and suffering—with the honesty and precision of a photograph. "If you haven't heard of the Southern writer Ron Rash, it is time you should" (The Plain Dealer).

In Burning Bright, the stories span the years from the Civil War to the present day, and Rash's historical and modern settings are sewn together in a hauntingly beautiful patchwork of suspense and myth, populated by raw and unforgettable characters mined from the landscape of Appalachia. In "Back of Beyond," a pawnshop owner who profits from the stolen goods of local meth addicts—including his own nephew—comes to the aid of his brother and sister-in-law when they are threatened by their son. The pregnant wife of a Lincoln sympathizer alone in Confederate territory takes revenge to protect her family in "Lincolnites." And in the title story, a woman from a small town marries an outsider; when an unknown arsonist starts fires in the Smoky Mountains, her husband becomes the key suspect.

In these stories, Rash brings to light a previously unexplored territory, hidden in plain sight—first a landscape, and then the dark yet lyrical heart and the alluringly melancholy soul of his characters and their home.]]> 205 Ron Rash 0061804118 Courtney 3 4.11 2010 Burning Bright
author: Ron Rash
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/07
date added: 2024/06/07
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]]> Louder Than Hunger 177721395
But another voice inside me says,
We need help.
We’re going to die.

Jake volunteers at a nursing home because he likes helping people. He likes skating and singing, playing Bingo and Name That Tune, and reading mysteries and comics aloud to his teachers. He also likes avoiding people his own age . . . and the cruelty of mirrors . . . and food. Jake has read about kids like him in books—the weird one, the outsider—and would do anything not to be that kid, including shrink himself down to nothing. But the less he eats, the bigger he feels. How long can Jake punish himself before he truly disappears? A fictionalized account of the author’s experiences and emotions living in residential treatment facilities as a young teen with an eating disorder, Louder than Hunger is a triumph of raw honesty. With a deeply personal afterword for context, this much-anticipated verse novel is a powerful model for muffling the destructive voices inside, managing and articulating pain, and embracing self-acceptance, support, and love.]]> 528 John Schu 1536229091 Courtney 0 to-read 4.46 2024 Louder Than Hunger
author: John Schu
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> Tom Lake 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Courtney 0 currently-reading 3.92 2023 Tom Lake
author: Ann Patchett
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/18
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family]]> 3364462
In the mid-1700s the English captain of a trading ship that made runs between England and the Virginia colony fathered a child by an enslaved woman living near Williamsburg. The woman, whose name is unknown and who is believed to have been born in Africa, was owned by the Eppeses, a prominent Virginia family. The captain, whose surname was Hemings, and the woman had a daughter. They named her Elizabeth.

So begins The Hemingses of Monticello, Annette Gordon-Reed’s “riveting history� of the Hemings family, whose story comes to vivid life in this brilliantly researched and deeply moving work. Gordon-Reed, author of the highly acclaimed historiography Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, unearths startling new information about the Hemingses, Jefferson, and his white family. Although the book presents the most detailed and richly drawn portrait ever written of Sarah Hemings, better known by her nickname Sally, who bore seven children by Jefferson over the course of their thirty-eight-year liaison, The Hemingses of Monticello tells more than the story of her life with Jefferson and their children. The Hemingses as a whole take their rightful place in the narrative of the family’s extraordinary engagement with one of history’s most important figures.

Not only do we meet Elizabeth Hemings—the family matriarch and mother to twelve children, six by John Wayles, a poor English immigrant who rose to great wealth in the Virginia colony—but we follow the Hemings family as they become the property of Jefferson through his marriage to Martha Wayles. The Hemings-Wayles children, siblings to Martha, played pivotal roles in the life at Jefferson’s estate.

We follow the Hemingses to Paris, where James Hemings trained as a chef in one of the most prestigious kitchens in France and where Sally arrived as a fourteen-year-old chaperone for Jefferson’s daughter Polly; to Philadelphia, where James Hemings acted as the major domo to the newly appointed secretary of state; to Charlottesville, where Mary Hemings lived with her partner, a prosperous white merchant who left her and their children a home and property; to Richmond, where Robert Hemings engineered a plan for his freedom; and finally to Monticello, that iconic home on the mountain, from where most of Jefferson’s slaves, many of them Hemings family members, were sold at auction six months after his death in 1826.

As The Hemingses of Monticello makes vividly clear, Monticello can no longer be known only as the home of a remarkable American leader, the author of the Declaration of Independence; nor can the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president have been expunged from history until very recently, be left out of the telling of America’s story. With its empathetic and insightful consideration of human beings acting in almost unimaginably difficult and complicated family circumstances, The Hemingses of Monticello is history as great literature. It is a remarkable achievement.]]> 798 Annette Gordon-Reed 0393064778 Courtney 0 currently-reading 4.01 2008 The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
author: Annette Gordon-Reed
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/08
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Glory Over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House]]> 25813937 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 mercy: 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).]]> 365 Kathleen Grissom 1476748446 Courtney 5 I was glued to the story, and the black characters� resilience and devastation broke my heart over and over again. The main (white) character was often disappointing in his treatment of others, but he was a product of his time and his own fear of being enslaved, so this is most likely a very authentic portrayal.]]> 4.26 2016 Glory Over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House
author: Kathleen Grissom
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2024/04/08
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review:
Riveting 1830s story of the free and enslaved black men, women, and even children whose lives intertwined with the life of Jamie Pyke/Burton, who lived as a privileged white man, all the while knowing that his mother was a mixed-race slave. At the time this meant that Jamie too was considered black, and therefore not free.
I was glued to the story, and the black characters� resilience and devastation broke my heart over and over again. The main (white) character was often disappointing in his treatment of others, but he was a product of his time and his own fear of being enslaved, so this is most likely a very authentic portrayal.
]]> <![CDATA[Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir]]> 30267916 Before Carrie Brownstein became a music icon, she was a young girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest just as it was becoming the setting for one the most important movements in rock history. Seeking a sense of home and identity, she would discover both while moving from spectator to creator in experiencing the power and mystery of a live performance. With Sleater-Kinney, Brownstein and her bandmates rose to prominence in the burgeoning underground feminist punk-rock movement that would define music and pop culture in the 1990s. They would be cited as America s best rock band by legendary music critic Greil Marcus for their defiant, exuberant brand of punk that resisted labels and limitations, and redefined notions of gender in rock.
HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL is an intimate and revealing narrative of her escape from a turbulent family life into a world where music was the means toward self-invention, community, and rescue. Along the way, Brownstein chronicles the excitement and contradictions within the era s flourishing and fiercely independent music subculture, including experiences that sowed the seeds for the observational satire of the popular television series "Portlandia" years later.
With deft, lucid prose Brownstein proves herself as formidable on the page as on the stage. Accessibly raw, honest and heartfelt, this book captures the experience of being a young woman, a born performer and an outsider, and ultimately finding one s true calling through hard work, courage and the intoxicating power of rock and roll.

"From the Hardcover edition.""]]> 244 Carrie Brownstein 0399184767 Courtney 5 3.96 2015 Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir
author: Carrie Brownstein
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2016/10/27
date added: 2024/03/11
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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 Courtney 0 currently-reading 4.34 2023 The Covenant of Water
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/24
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Hello Beautiful 61771675
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters� unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?]]> 416 Ann Napolitano Courtney 5 4.14 2023 Hello Beautiful
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/21
date added: 2024/02/21
shelves:
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I will miss the Padavano sisters, William, Kent, Charlie, and the Chicago world they inhabit - and am thankful for the time I spent with them.
]]> <![CDATA[Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson, #5)]]> 6587387 Booklist). But she is about to learn that while some secrets are dangerous whose who seek them are just plain deadly...

Mercy is smart enough to realize that when it comes to the magical fae, the less you know, the better. But you can't always get what you want. When she attempts to return a powerful fae she previously borrowed in an act of desperation, she finds the bookstore locked up and closed down.

It seems the book contains secrets - and the fae will do just about anything to keep it out of the wrong hands. And if that doesn't take enough of Mercy's attention, her friend Samuel is struggling with his wolf side - leaving Mercy to cover for him lest his own father declare Samuel's life forfeit.

All in all, Mercy has had better days. And if she isn't careful, she may not have many more...]]> 352 Patricia Briggs 044101819X Courtney 0 4.37 2010 Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson, #5)
author: Patricia Briggs
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson, #3)]]> 1412138 I could smell her fear, and it satisfied something deep inside me that had been writhing under her cool, superior gaze. I curled my upper lip so she could get a good look at my sharp teeth. I might only weigh thirty or so pounds in my coyote shape, but I was a predator...

Mechanic Mercy Thompson can shift her shape - but not her loyalty. When her former boss and mentor is arrested for murder and left to rot behind bars by his own kind, it's up to Mercy to clear his name, whether he wants her to or not.

Mercy's loyalty is under pressure from other directions, too. Werewolves are not known for their patience, and if Mercy can't decide between the two she cares for, Sam and Adam may make the choice for her...]]> 287 Patricia Briggs 0441015662 Courtney 0 4.34 2008 Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson, #3)
author: Patricia Briggs
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Blood Bound (Mercy Thompson, #2)]]> 285205 Under the rule of science, there are no witch burnings allowed, no water trials or public lynchings. In return, the average law-abiding, solid citizen has little to worry about from the things that go bump in the night. Sometimes I wish I was an average citizen...

Mechanic Mercy Thompson has friends in low places-and in dark ones. And now she owes one of them a favor. Since she can shapeshift at will, she agrees to act as some extra muscle when her vampire friend Stefan goes to deliver a message to another of his kind.

But this new vampire is hardly ordinary-and neither is the demon inside of him.]]> 292 Patricia Briggs 0441014739 Courtney 0 4.30 2007 Blood Bound (Mercy Thompson, #2)
author: Patricia Briggs
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Moon Called (Mercy Thompson, #1)]]> 71811 289 Patricia Briggs 0441013813 Courtney 0 4.14 2006 Moon Called (Mercy Thompson, #1)
author: Patricia Briggs
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/21
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]]> None of This Is True 62334530 Lisa Jewell returns with a scintillating new psychological thriller about a woman who finds herself the subject of her own popular true crime podcast.

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.

A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?]]> 390 Lisa Jewell 1982179007 Courtney 0 to-read 4.08 2023 None of This Is True
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> This Time Tomorrow 59089704 What if you could take a vacation to your past?

With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, beloved New York Times bestseller Emma Straub offers her own twist on traditional time travel tropes, and a different kind of love story.

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice's life isn't terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn't exactly the one she expected. She's happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn't just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it's her dad: the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?]]> 310 Emma Straub 052553900X Courtney 4 3.78 2022 This Time Tomorrow
author: Emma Straub
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/21
date added: 2024/01/21
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I enjoyed this book for the likable characters, the fun details about the teenage bedroom in the 90s (yes! We all loved that one Drew Barrymore picture! Sassy magazine shout out, thank you!) and Alice’s love of the aliveness of NYC. I could feel the comfort & love between the father & daughter, and the plot was different from anything I’ve read before.
]]> <![CDATA[The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music]]> 57648017
Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities ("It's a piece of cake! Just do 4 hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!") I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I've recorded and can't wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child.

This certainly doesn't mean that I'm quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it's like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.]]> 384 Dave Grohl 0063076098 Courtney 0 currently-reading 4.45 2021 The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
author: Dave Grohl
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/19
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> North Woods 71872930
When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become home to an extraordinary succession of inhabitants . An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins survive war and famine, only to succumb to envy and desire.ĚýA crime reporter unearths a mass grave, but finds the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a conman, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle; as each one confronts the mysteries of the north woods, they come to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

Traversing cycles of history, nature, and even literature, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment and to one another, across time, language and space. Written along with the seasons and divided into the twelve months of the year, it is an unforgettable novel about secrets and fates that asks the timeless how do we live on, even after we’re gone?]]> 372 Daniel Mason 0593597036 Courtney 5 4.12 2023 North Woods
author: Daniel Mason
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/19
date added: 2024/01/19
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This is an exquisite collection of unique pieces of writing - love letters, botanical essays, doctor’s notes, short stories - that each on their own are worthy of the reader pausing, rereading, and returning to later, to absorb the beautiful writing and detailed descriptions of the land itself and the human emotions of the people sharing these woods. Combined, these disparate texts weave together a riveting tale that I will remember and reflect on for many years. The life that surrounds us, the history absorbed into our shelters and our surroundings. It makes me think of what it means to be truly alive, what KEEPS us alive, and what of us will remain after we are gone. I was so blown away by Daniel Mason’s exquisite style, and his in-depth knowledge of botany and biology, that I had to stop midway through the book to read about the author himself. Daniel Mason has a degree in Botany from Harvard, as well as a medical degree, and is a practicing psychiatrist while also teaching literature at Stanford. So yeah, absolutely gifted and knows his stuff.
]]> The Vanishing Half 51791252
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.]]> 343 Brit Bennett 0525536299 Courtney 0 to-read 4.11 2020 The Vanishing Half
author: Brit Bennett
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Piano Tuner 55096 AĚý San Francisco Chronicle ,Ěý San Jose Mercury News , andĚý Los Angeles Times ĚýBest Book of the Year

“A gripping and resonant novel. . . . It immerses the reader in a distant world with startling immediacy and ardor. . . . Riveting.â€� —Michiko Kakutani,Ěý The New York Times

In 1886 a shy, middle-aged piano tuner named Edgar Drake receives an unusual commission from the British War Office to travel to the remote jungles of northeast Burma and there repair a rare piano belonging to an eccentric army surgeon who has proven mysteriously indispensable to the imperial design. From this irresistible beginning, The Piano Tuner launches readers into a world of seductive, vibrantly rendered characters, and enmeshes them in an unbreakable spell of storytelling.]]> 312 Daniel Mason 1400030382 Courtney 0 to-read 3.59 2002 The Piano Tuner
author: Daniel Mason
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Winter Soldier 37946436
But Lucius has never lifted a surgeon's scalpel. And as the war rages across the winter landscape, he finds himself falling in love with the woman from whom he must learn a brutal, makeshift medicine. Then one day, an unconscious soldier is brought in from the snow, his uniform stuffed with strange drawings. He seems beyond rescue until Lucius makes a fateful decision that will change the lives of doctor, patient, and nurse forever.

From the gilded ballrooms of Imperial Vienna to the frozen forests of the Eastern Front; from hardscrabble operating rooms to battlefields thundering with Cossack cavalry, The Winter Soldier is the story of war and medicine, of family, of finding love in the sweeping tides of history, and finally, of the mistakes we make, and the precious opportunities to atone.]]> 323 Daniel Mason 0316477605 Courtney 0 to-read 3.89 2018 The Winter Soldier
author: Daniel Mason
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/07
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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 Courtney 0 to-read 4.03 2023 Weyward
author: Emilia Hart
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/26
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]]> Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Courtney 0 to-read 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> Lilac Girls (Lilac Girls, #1) 25893693
On the eve of a fateful war, New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline’s world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on France.

An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she sinks deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement. In a tense atmosphere of watchful eyes and suspect neighbors, one false move can have dire consequences.

For ambitious young German doctor, Herta Oberheuser, an ad for a government medical position seems her ticket out of a desolate life. But, once hired, she finds herself trapped in a male-dominated realm of Nazi secrets and power.

The lives of these three women are set on a collision course when the unthinkable happens and Kasia is sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious female-only Nazi concentration camp. The tragedy and triumph of their stories cross continents—from New York to Paris, and Germany to Poland—capturing the indomitable pull of compassion to bring justice to those whom history has forgotten.

In Lilac Girls, Martha Hall Kelly has crafted a remarkable novel of unsung women and their quest for love, happiness, and second chances. It is a story that will keep readers bonded with the characters, searching for the truth, until the final pages.]]> 487 Martha Hall Kelly 1101883073 Courtney 0 4.27 2016 Lilac Girls (Lilac Girls, #1)
author: Martha Hall Kelly
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom]]> 55978006
This concise and practical guide integrates effective reading strategies from each perspective. Every chapter of Shifting the Balance focuses on one of the six simple and scientifically sound shifts reading teachers can make to strengthen their approach to early reading instruction in these areas: Practical Instruction for Primary Grades: Whether your students are just learning to read or building more advanced reading comprehensive skills, Shifting the Balance is designed to help teachers meet the instructional needs of K-2 students.

Six Manageable Shifts: Each chapter focuses on a key shift that helps educators understand common misconceptions and adjust their thinking around some common instructional practices that teachers have been using for decades.

Evidence-Based Instruction: Burkins and Yates offer busy educators a blueprint for integrating finding from brain research, cognitive science, and child development into their daily instruction, while keeping meaningful experiences with books a priority.

Classroom Applications: Shifting the Balance is full of sample activities and classroom vignettes that paint a picture of what these shifts look like in action with roomful of learners.

The book has already helped countless educators by taking the guesswork out of how to blend best practices with the latest research while keeping students at the forefront of reading instruction. "We've written this book to support you in making sound decisions anchored in the best of science, the truth of responsiveness, and a relentless focus on providing all children learning experiences saturated with meaning, " the authors write.]]> 203 Jan Burkins 1625315104 Courtney 0 4.38 Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom
author: Jan Burkins
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.38
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]]> <![CDATA[Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened]]> 17571564
Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*

*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!]]> 371 Allie Brosh 1451666179 Courtney 5 4.16 2013 Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
author: Allie Brosh
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/12/26
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How can a book this heavy also be this hysterical? If you know depression or love dogs, read this.
]]> <![CDATA[You Are Only Just Beginning: Lessons for the Journey Ahead (Morgan Harper Nichols Poetry Collection)]]> 61349293 208 Morgan Harper Nichols 0310460743 Courtney 0 4.15 2023 You Are Only Just Beginning: Lessons for the Journey Ahead (Morgan Harper Nichols Poetry Collection)
author: Morgan Harper Nichols
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[All Along You Were Blooming: Thoughts for Boundless Living]]> 44441884 A celebration of hope. An encounter with grace. A restoration of the heart. A healing of wounds. An anthem of freedom. All Along You Were Blooming is the ultimate love letter from the pen of popular Instagram poet Morgan Harper Nichols to your mind, heart, soul, and body.

On Instagram @morganharpernicols, Morgan has over a million followers. Fans can add Morgan's beautiful artwork and thoughts for boundless living to their library.

All Along You Were Blooming is a striking collection of illustrated poetry and prose, inviting you to "stumble into the sunlight" and delight in the wild and boundless grace you've been given. Morgan reminds you:


There is a purpose in every season
No matter how you want to race through this day or run away from this place, you are invited to live fully--right here, right now
Light will always find you, even when the sun sets and you sit awaiting the dawn
That you are always blooming in the way youĚýwere meant to
All Along You Were Blooming is perfect:


For men and women of all ages
For teachers to share with classrooms during poetry focused lessons
Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, National Best Friend Day, birthdays, and holiday gifting
In each small moment, whether in the light or the dark, you can make room for becoming, for breathing, for stumbling, and for simply being--for there is grace, today and every day.]]> 192 Morgan Harper Nichols 0310454077 Courtney 4 4.22 2020 All Along You Were Blooming: Thoughts for Boundless Living
author: Morgan Harper Nichols
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[You Could Make This Place Beautiful]]> 61273812 You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work, and patriarchy.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful, like the work of Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Gina Frangello, is an unflinching look at what it means to live and write our own lives. It is a story about a mother’s fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman’s love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is an argument for possibility. With a poet’s attention to language and an innovative approach to the genre, Smith reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new. Something beautiful.]]> 320 Maggie Smith 1982185856 Courtney 4 4.03 2023 You Could Make This Place Beautiful
author: Maggie Smith
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Things to Look Forward To: 52 Large and Small Joys for Today and Every Day]]> 58739623
In these pages, beloved author and illustrator Sophie Blackall has gathered a collection of joys for all of us—reminders of everyday magic, like the sun coming up and new babies being born. With wisdom, whimsy, and compassion, the 52 illustrated ideas in this book offer moments of uplift and serendipity for yourself and your loved ones. Suggestions range from baking muffins for a friend to drawing a face on an egg and putting it in the fridge where it will smile at you each time you open the door.

A message of hope and solace in hard times and of joyful anticipation at times of new beginnings—whether you're grieving a loss or starting a new chapter, and for all the days in betweenâ€� Things to Look Forward To Ěýis full of gentle reminders of the objects, occasions, gestures, and ideas that warm our hearts. There is always something bright on the horizon, and sometimes that horizon can be a lot closer than we think.

BELOVED Sophie Blackall is a world-renowned, two-time Caldecott Award-winning children's book author and illustrator. Whether your kids grew up with Ivy & Bean andĚý If You Come to Earth , or you're discovering Blackall's empathetic voice and gorgeous artwork for the first time, you're sure to fall in love with her new book for adults and folks of all ages.

UPLIFTING AND Sometimes in life we all need a little reassurance that things will get better—this book offers just that, and so much more. It reminds us that while looking forward is important, sometimes we can take matters into our own hands and create our own joy when we need it most.

THE PERFECT More than just a promise of solace in tough times, Things to Look Forward T o is also a celebration of joyful new beginnings—after all, who has more to look forward to than parents of new babies, or recent grads? You'll want to give this book to the grieving and the embarking alike. Perfect for new moms, new graduates, those going through breakups or suffering a loss, and anyone who could use a little extra joy in life just because.

Perfect ]]> 120 Sophie Blackall 1797214489 Courtney 5 4.20 Things to Look Forward To: 52 Large and Small Joys for Today and Every Day
author: Sophie Blackall
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.20
book published:
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]]> <![CDATA[I Could Pee on This: and Other Poems by Cats]]> 14553840
In this hilarious book of tongue-in-cheek poetry, the author of the internationally syndicated comic strip Sally Forth helps cats unlock their creative potential and explain their odd behaviour to ignorant humans.

With titles like Who Is That on Your Lap?, This Is My Chair, Kneel Before Me, Nudge, and Some of My Best Friends Are Dogs, the poems collected in I Could Pee on This perfectly capture the inner workings of the cat psyche.

With photos of the cat authors throughout, this whimsical volume reveals kitties at their wackiest, and most exasperating (but always lovable).]]> 112 Francesco Marciuliano 1452110581 Courtney 5 3.93 2012 I Could Pee on This: and Other Poems by Cats
author: Francesco Marciuliano
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2012
rating: 5
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]]> The Elegance of the Hedgehog 2967752
We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building's tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence.

Then there's Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma's trust and to see through Renée's timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.]]> 325 Muriel Barbery 1933372605 Courtney 0 to-read 3.76 2006 The Elegance of the Hedgehog
author: Muriel Barbery
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Autism in Heels: The Untold Story of a Female Life on the Spectrum]]> 35756912 The face of autism is changing. And more often than we realize, that face is wearing lipstick.

Autism in Heels , an intimate memoir, reveals the woman inside one of autism's most prominent figures, Jennifer O'Toole. At the age of thirty-five, Jennifer was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, and for the first time in her life, things made sense. Now, Jennifer exposes the constant struggle between carefully crafted persona and authentic existence, editing the autism script with wit, candor, passion, and power. Her journey is one of reverse-self-discovery not only as an Aspie but--more importantly--as a thoroughly modern woman.

Beyond being a memoir, Autism in Heels is a love letter to all women. It's a conversation starter. A game changer. And a firsthand account of what it is to walk in Jennifer's shoes (especially those iconic red stilettos).

Whether it's bad perms or body image, sexuality or self-esteem, Jennifer's is as much a human journey as one on the spectrum. Because autism "looks a bit different in pink," most girls and women who fit the profile are not identified, facing years of avoidable anxiety, eating disorders, volatile relationships, self-harm, and stunted independence. Jennifer has been there, too. Autism in Heels takes that message to the mainstream.

From her own struggles and self-discovery, she has built an empire of empowerment, inspiring women the world over to realize they aren't mistakes. They are misunderstood miracles.]]> 248 Jennifer O'Toole 1510732845 Courtney 3 3.83 2018 Autism in Heels: The Untold Story of a Female Life on the Spectrum
author: Jennifer O'Toole
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/12/26
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Need to wave the white flag on this one.
]]> Hollywood Park 49235526 HOLLYWOOD PARK is a remarkable memoir of a tumultuous life. Mikel Jollett was born into one of the country’s most infamous cults, and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Yet, ultimately, his is a story of fierce love and family loyalty told in a raw, poetic voice that signals the emergence of a uniquely gifted writer.

We were never young. We were just too afraid of ourselves. No one told us who we were or what we were or where all our parents went. They would arrive like ghosts, visiting us for a morning, an afternoon. They would sit with us or walk around the grounds, to laugh or cry or toss us in the air while we screamed. Then they’d disappear again, for weeks, for months, for years, leaving us alone with our memories and dreams, our questions and confusion. �

So begins Hollywood Park, Mikel Jollett’s remarkable memoir. His story opens in an experimental commune in California, which later morphed into the Church of Synanon, one of the country’s most infamous and dangerous cults. Per the leader’s mandate, all children, including Jollett and his older brother, were separated from their parents when they were six months old, and handed over to the cult’s “School.� After spending years in what was essentially an orphanage, Mikel escaped the cult one morning with his mother and older brother. But in many ways, life outside Synanon was even harder and more erratic.

In his raw, poetic and powerful voice, Jollett portrays a childhood filled with abject poverty, trauma, emotional abuse, delinquency and the lure of drugs and alcohol. Raised by a clinically depressed mother, tormented by his angry older brother, subjected to the unpredictability of troubled step-fathers and longing for contact with his father, a former heroin addict and ex-con, Jollett slowly, often painfully, builds a life that leads him to Stanford University and, eventually, to finding his voice as a writer and musician.

Hollywood Park is told at first through the limited perspective of a child, and then broadens as Jollett begins to understand the world around him. Although Mikel Jollett’s story is filled with heartbreak, it is ultimately an unforgettable portrayal of love at its fiercest and most loyal.]]> 384 Mikel Jollett 1250621569 Courtney 5 Mikel Jollett ❤️ 4.28 2020 Hollywood Park
author: Mikel Jollett
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/04/26
date added: 2023/12/26
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Mikel Jollett ❤️
]]> <![CDATA[Volume Control: Hearing in a Deafening World]]> 43970125 The surprising science of hearing and the remarkable technologies that can help us hear better

Our sense of hearing makes it easy to connect with the world and the people around us. The human system for processing sound is a biological marvel, an intricate assembly of delicate membranes, bones, receptor cells, and neurons. Yet many people take their ears for granted, abusing them with loud restaurants, rock concerts, and Q-tips. And then, eventually, most of us start to go deaf.

Millions of Americans suffer from hearing loss. Faced with the cost and stigma of hearing aids, the natural human tendency is to do nothing and hope for the best, usually while pretending that nothing is wrong. In Volume Control, David Owen argues this inaction comes with a huge social cost. He demystifies the science of hearing while encouraging readers to get the treatment they need for hearing loss and protect the hearing they still have.

Hearing aids are rapidly improving and becoming more versatile. Inexpensive high-tech substitutes are increasingly available, making it possible for more of us to boost our weakening ears without bankrupting ourselves. Relatively soon, physicians may be able to reverse losses that have always been considered irreversible. Even the insistent buzz of tinnitus may soon yield to relatively simple treatments and techniques. With wit and clarity, Owen explores the incredible possibilities of technologically assisted hearing. And he proves that ears, whether they're working or not, are endlessly interesting.]]> 304 David Owen 0525534229 Courtney 0 4.05 Volume Control: Hearing in a Deafening World
author: David Owen
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.05
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]]> <![CDATA[Couldn't Keep it to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution]]> 5226 368 Wally Lamb 006059537X Courtney 0 4.11 2003 Couldn't Keep it to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution
author: Wally Lamb
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> The Language of Flowers 10032672 Ěý
Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more.]]> 323 Vanessa Diffenbaugh 034552554X Courtney 5 4.09 2011 The Language of Flowers
author: Vanessa Diffenbaugh
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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One of the books I hold closest to my heart
]]> Fingersmith 8913370
One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naĂŻve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and madeĚýto live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum.

With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.]]> 592 Sarah Waters 1101057025 Courtney 0 to-read 4.05 2002 Fingersmith
author: Sarah Waters
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/26
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]]> The Paying Guests 20821087
With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,� the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances’s life—or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be.]]> 564 Sarah Waters 1594633118 Courtney 4 3.42 2014 The Paying Guests
author: Sarah Waters
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2014
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Decide Whether to Stay In or Get Out of Your Relationship]]> 46681 I Love You, But I Don't Trust You), an international bestselling author and world-renowned therapist, draws on years of counseling experience to lead readers through relationship ambivalence. A careful line of 36 questions and self-analysis techniques designed to get to the heart of relationship and marriage problems.Ěý This straightforward and practical advice is designed for newer and older relationships, and presents a plethora of information and experience in a clear, concise manner.]]> 304 Mira Kirshenbaum 0452275350 Courtney 5 This book saved my life 4.14 1996 Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Decide Whether to Stay In or Get Out of Your Relationship
author: Mira Kirshenbaum
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 2014/10/05
date added: 2023/12/26
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This book saved my life
]]> When You Reach Me 5310515 199 Rebecca Stead 0385737424 Courtney 4 Wonderful children’s book 4.08 2009 When You Reach Me
author: Rebecca Stead
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/12/26
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Wonderful children’s book
]]> Little Bee 6948436
Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it so we will just say this:

This is the story of two women.

Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice.

Two years later, they meet again - the story starts there...

Once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds.]]> 271 Chris Cleave 1416589643 Courtney 3 3.76 2008 Little Bee
author: Chris Cleave
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2018/04/22
date added: 2023/12/26
shelves:
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Challenging content; memorable
]]> Portnoy’s Complaint 43945 Portnoy’s Complaint was an immediate bestseller upon its publication in 1969, and is perhaps Roth’s best-known book.

Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933-)] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Spielvogel says: 'Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient's "morality," however, neither fantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, particularly in the form of castration.' (Spielvogel, O. 'The Puzzled Penis', Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalyse, Vol. XXIV, p. 909.) it is believed by Spielvogel that many of the symptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-child relationship.]]> 274 Philip Roth Courtney 0 3.71 1969 Portnoy’s Complaint
author: Philip Roth
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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]]> A Little Life 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride.ĚýYet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Courtney 3 4.28 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2019/12/23
date added: 2023/12/26
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners]]> 29467289
Ladies, welcome to the 19th century, where there's arsenic in your face cream, a pot of cold pee sits under your bed, and all of your underwear is crotchless. (Why? Shush, dear. A lady doesn't question.)

UNMENTIONABLE is your hilarious, illustrated, scandalously honest (yet never crass) guide to the secrets of Victorian womanhood, giving you detailed advice on:

~ What to wear
~ Where to relieve yourself
~ How to conceal your loathsome addiction to menstruating
~ What to expect on your wedding night
~ How to be the perfect Victorian wife
~ Why masturbating will kill you
~ And more

Irresistibly charming, laugh-out-loud funny, and featuring nearly 200 images from Victorian publications, UNMENTIONABLE will inspire a whole new level of respect for Elizabeth Bennett, Scarlet O'Hara, Jane Eyre, and all of our great, great grandmothers.

(And it just might leave you feeling ecstatically grateful to live in an age of pants, super absorbency tampons, epidurals, anti-depressants, and not-dying-of-the-syphilis-your-husband-brought-home.)

]]> 307 Therese Oneill 031635791X Courtney 4 Very much enjoyed 3.81 2016 Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners
author: Therese Oneill
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/12/26
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Very much enjoyed
]]> <![CDATA[My Year of Rest and Relaxation]]> 44279110
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.]]> 289 Ottessa Moshfegh 0525522131 Courtney 5 3.62 2018 My Year of Rest and Relaxation
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/16
date added: 2023/12/26
shelves:
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Certainly not for everyone. Maybe not for most. But I’ll read this one again because it was a hell of a good time, for me.
]]> Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1) 6149 Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.

Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.]]> 325 Toni Morrison Courtney 4 3.96 1987 Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1)
author: Toni Morrison
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1987
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/22
date added: 2023/12/26
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Waiting some months after rereading this, to post a review. This deserves all the awards and, in my opinion, also all the controversy surrounding its inclusion as a high school required read. As an adult and a K-12 Reading Specialist I struggled to hold myself together while reading this, and found myself completely broken by my own emotions, needing to put the book down & take deep calming breaths when completely overcome. It is…a book that grips your heart and will keep its nails in you for always. I know my teenage children couldn’t grasp the messages yet, nor would I want them to.
]]> Seven Perfect Things 55016981
To grieving widower Elliot Colvin, life has lost meaning. Looking for solace, he retreats to the hunting cabin he last visited years ago, before his wife’s illness. What he discovers is not at all what he expected: seven puppies and one determined girl with an indomitable heart.

As Abby and Elliot’s friendship deepens, Abby imagines how much better her life—and the puppies� lives—would be if her mother were married to Elliot instead of her father. But when Abby’s father moves the family hundreds of miles away, Abby and her mother must decide how long they’re willing to defer happiness.

Seven Perfect Things is a story about joy, where to find it, how to know it when you see it, and the courage it takes to hang on to it once you have it.]]> 318 Catherine Ryan Hyde Courtney 0 to-read 4.35 2021 Seven Perfect Things
author: Catherine Ryan Hyde
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/26
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]]> Have You Seen Luis Velez? 42632584 An Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestseller.

New York Times bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde brings heartwarming authenticity to the story of two strangers who find that kindness is a powerful antidote to fear.

Raymond Jaffe feels like he doesn’t belong. Not with his mother’s new family. Not as a weekend guest with his father and his father’s wife. Not at school, where he’s an outcast. After his best friend moves away, Raymond has only two real to the feral cat he’s tamed and to a blind ninety-two-year-old woman in his building who’s introduced herself with a curious Have you seen Luis Velez?

Mildred Gutermann, a German Jew who narrowly escaped the Holocaust, has been alone since her caretaker disappeared. She turns to Raymond for help, and as he tries to track Luis down, a deep and unexpected friendship blossoms between the two.

Despondent at the loss of Luis, Mildred isolates herself further from a neighborhood devolving into bigotry and fear. Determined not to let her give up, Raymond helps her see that for every terrible act the world delivers, there is a mirror image of deep kindness, and Mildred helps Raymond see that there’s hope if you have someone to hold on to.]]> 315 Catherine Ryan Hyde 1542042356 Courtney 0 to-read 4.39 2019 Have You Seen Luis Velez?
author: Catherine Ryan Hyde
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/26
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]]> Take Me with You 19355355
What none of them could have known was how transformative both the trip and the bonds that develop between them would prove, driving each to create a new destiny together.]]> 362 Catherine Ryan Hyde 1477820019 Courtney 0 to-read 4.04 2014 Take Me with You
author: Catherine Ryan Hyde
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/26
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]]> True Biz 58395049 TRUE BIZ (adj./exclamation; American Sign Language): really, seriously, definitely, real-talk

True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history finals, and have politicians, doctors, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they'll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who's never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school's golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the headmistress, who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin, and February find their lives inextricable from one another's—and changed forever.

This is a story of sign language and lip-reading, disability and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. Absorbing and assured, idiosyncratic and relatable, this is an unforgettable journey into the Deaf community and a universal celebration of human connection.]]> 386 Sara Nović 0593241509 Courtney 4 4.06 2022 True Biz
author: Sara Nović
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/07
date added: 2023/12/26
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I was engrossed in each of the characters and anxious to escape into this world each day. The book includes educational pieces about ASL and the deaf community, which was fascinating and heartbreaking and beautifully done. I found myself looking up ASL videos and learning a few words each time that I closed the book. Thoroughly enjoyed and hope for more books by Sara Novic.
]]> An Abundance of Katherines 49750 Katherine X just wanted to be friends
Katherine XVIII dumped him in an e-mail
K-19 broke his heart

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact.

On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun--but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.

Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.]]> 229 John Green 0525476881 Courtney 3 3.54 2006 An Abundance of Katherines
author: John Green
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2006
rating: 3
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]]> Golden Boy 15803173 347 Abigail Tarttelin 1476705801 Courtney 5 4.07 2013 Golden Boy
author: Abigail Tarttelin
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2013
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/12/26
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This is a book that I think of and recommend, years after reading.
]]> The Dutch House 44318414
The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.]]> 337 Ann Patchett 0062963678 Courtney 5 4.08 2019 The Dutch House
author: Ann Patchett
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2021/03/01
date added: 2023/12/26
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I listened to this narrated by Tom Hanks (Audible) and it was riveting and unforgettable.
]]> <![CDATA[The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System--and How to Fix it]]> 42983955
It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge . In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars , Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware.

But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.]]> 336 Natalie Wexler 0735213550 Courtney 0 4.13 2019 The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System--and How to Fix it
author: Natalie Wexler
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2020/11/15
date added: 2023/12/26
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]]> American Dirt 45046527
Lydia lives in Acapulco. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while cracks are beginning to show in Acapulco because of the cartels, Lydia’s life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. But after her husband’s tell-all profile of the newest drug lord is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.

Forced to flee, Lydia and Luca find themselves joining the countless people trying to reach the United States. Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?]]> 459 Jeanine Cummins Courtney 0 4.32 2020 American Dirt
author: Jeanine Cummins
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> The Collected Poems 2078076 384 Sylvia Plath Courtney 0 to-read 4.45 1981 The Collected Poems
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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]]> Ariel 395090 Sylvia Plath's celebrated collection.

When Sylvia Plath died, she not only left behind a prolific life but also her unpublished literary masterpiece, Ariel. Her husband, Ted Hughes, brought the collection to life in 1966, and its publication garnered worldwide acclaim. This collection showcases the beloved poet’s brilliant, provoking, and always moving poems, including "Ariel" and once again shows why readers have fallen in love with her work throughout the generations.]]> 128 Sylvia Plath 0060931728 Courtney 0 to-read 4.22 1965 Ariel
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1965
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Decoding Boys: New Science Behind the Subtle Art of Raising Sons]]> 52389660
What is my son doing behind his constantly closed door? What’s with his curt responses, impulsiveness, newfound obsession with gaming, and . . . that funky smell? As pediatrician and mother of two teenagers Cara Natterson explains, puberty starts in boys long before any visible signs appear, which causes confusion about their changing temperaments for boys and their parents alike. Often, they also grow quieter as they grow taller, which leads to less parent-child communication. But, as Natterson warns in Decoding Boys, we respect their increasing “need� for privacy, monosyllabic conversations, and alone time at their peril. Explaining how modern culture mixes badly with male adolescent biology, Natterson offers science, strategies, scripts, and tips for getting it right:

� Recognizing the first signs of puberty and talking to our sons about the wide range of “normal� through the whole developmental process
� Why teenagers make irrational decisions even though they look mature—and how to steer them toward better choices
� Managing video game and screen time, including discussing the unrealistic and dangerous nature of pornography
� Why boys need emotional and physical contact with parents—and how to give it in ways they’ll accept
� How to prepare boys to resist both old and new social pressures—drugs, alcohol, vaping, and sexting
� Teaching consent and sensitivity in the #metoo culture

Decoding Boys is a powerful and validating lifeline, a book that will help today’s parents keep their sons safe, healthy, and resilient, as well as ensure they become emotionally secure young men.]]> 288 Cara Natterson 1984819038 Courtney 0 3.91 2020 Decoding Boys: New Science Behind the Subtle Art of Raising Sons
author: Cara Natterson
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/11/14
date added: 2023/12/26
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]]> The Poisonwood Bible 7244 The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.]]> 546 Barbara Kingsolver 0060786507 Courtney 0 to-read 4.10 1998 The Poisonwood Bible
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/26
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]]> Greenlights 52838315 From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges - how to get relative with the inevitable - you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.�

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights - and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck.]]> 289 Matthew McConaughey 0593139135 Courtney 0 4.21 2020 Greenlights
author: Matthew McConaughey
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/26
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]]> The Learning Brain 40775319
These 24 half-hour lectures offer in-depth and surprising lessons about how the brain learns and how we can optimize that learning. Begin your journey by focusing on which parts of the brain are responsible for different kinds of memory, from personal experiences and memorized facts to short-term memory, and how these systems work on a psychological and biological level. Then, discover how to better absorb and retain all kinds of memories in all stages of life. This course is chock-full of valuable information, whether you're learning a new language at 60 or discovering calculus at 16. If you need better study habits, struggle with learning a new skill, or just worry about memories fading with age, The Learning Brain will provide illuminating insights.

Take this journey with Thad Polk, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, whose well-organized curriculum and relaxed teaching style ease you into intricate aspects of learning science, including the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms involved. Professor Polk's credentials in psychology and over 20 years' experience in education shine through every lecture of The Learning Brain as he firmly supports this rigorous exploration with scientific studies conducted over the last several decades of neuroscientific research.

Listening Length: 12 hours and 23 minutes]]> 13 Thad A. Polk Courtney 0 to-read 4.38 2018 The Learning Brain
author: Thad A. Polk
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Who’s Raising the Kids?: Big Tech, Big Business, and the Lives of Children]]> 60199834
“Engrossing and insightful . . . rich with details that paint a full portrait of contemporary child-corporate relations.� —Zephyr Teachout, The New York Times Book Review

Even before COVID-19, digital technologies had become deeply embedded in children’s lives, despite a growing body of research detailing the harms of excessive immersion in the unregulated, powerfully seductive world of the “kid-tech� industry. In the “must read� ( Library Journal , starred review) Who’s Raising the Kids? , Susan Linn—one of the world’s leading experts on the impact of Big Tech and big business on children—weaves an “eye-opening and disturbing exploration of how marketing tech to children is creating a passive, dysfunctional generation� ( Kirkus Reviews , starred review). From birth, kids have become lucrative fodder for tech, media, and toy companies, from producers of exploitative games and social media platforms to “educational� technology and branded school curricula of dubious efficacy. Written with humor and compassion, Who’s Raising the Kids? is a unique and highly readable social critique and guide to protecting kids from exploitation by the tech, toy, and entertainment industries. Two hopeful chapters—“Resistance Parenting� and “Making a Difference for Everybody’s Kids”—chart a path to allowing kids to be the children they need to be.]]> 320 Susan Linn 1620972271 Courtney 0 to-read 3.97 2022 Who’s Raising the Kids?: Big Tech, Big Business, and the Lives of Children
author: Susan Linn
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/21
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]]> The Whalebone Theatre 59900661
With her step-parents blithely distracted by their endless party guests, Cristabel and her siblings, Flossie and Digby, scratch together an education from the plays they read in their freezing attic, drunken conversations eavesdropped through oak-panelled doors, and the esoteric lessons of Maudie their maid.

But as the children grow to adulthood and war approaches, jolting their lives on to very different tracks, it becomes clear that the roles they are expected to play are no longer those they want. As they find themselves drawn into the conflict, they must each find a way to write their own story...

This is the story of an old English manor house by the sea, with crumbling chimneys, draping ivy and a library full of dusty hardbacks. It's the story of the three children who grow up there, and the adventures they create for themselves while the grown-ups entertain endless party guests: the worlds they imagine from books they aren't supposed to read, and the lessons they learn from eavesdropping through oak-panelled doors.

This is the story of a whale that washes up on a beach, whose bones are claimed by a twelve-year-old girl with big ambitions and an even bigger imagination. An unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, chafing under the confines of her traditional upbringing and fiercely determined to do things differently.]]> 558 Joanna Quinn 0593321707 Courtney 0 to-read 3.98 2022 The Whalebone Theatre
author: Joanna Quinn
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/26
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]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

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

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 Courtney 5 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/25
date added: 2023/11/25
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]]> <![CDATA[The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires]]> 44074800 Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.]]> 410 Grady Hendrix Courtney 4 3.78 2020 The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/23
date added: 2023/10/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Good Earth (House of Earth, #1)]]> 1078
Hard times come upon Wang Lung and his family when flood and drought force them to seek work in the city. The working people riot, breaking into the homes of the rich and forcing them to flee. When Wang Lung shows mercy to one noble and is rewarded, he begins to rise in the world, even as the House of Hwang falls.]]> 418 Pearl S. Buck 1416500189 Courtney 0 4.00 1931 The Good Earth (House of Earth, #1)
author: Pearl S. Buck
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1931
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/14
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]]> The Painted Drum 52528 “Haunted and haunting. . . . With fearlessness and humility, in a narrative that flows more artfully than ever between destruction and rebirth, Erdrich has opened herself to possibilities beyond what we merely see—to the dead alive and busy, to the breath of trees and the souls of wolves—and inspires readers to open their hearts to these mysteries as well.”—�Washington Post Book World


From the author of the National Book Award WinnerĚýThe Round House,ĚýLouise Erdrich'sĚýbreathtaking, lyrical novel of a priceless Ojibwe artifact and the effect it has had on those who have come into contact with it over the years.


While appraising the estate of a New Hampshire family descended from a North Dakota Indian agent, Faye Travers is startled to discover a rare moose skin and cedar drum fashioned long ago by an Ojibwe artisan. And so begins an illuminating journey both backward and forward in time, following the strange passage of a powerful yet delicate instrument, and revealing the extraordinary lives it has touched and defined.

Compelling and unforgettable, Louise Erdrich's Painted Drum explores the often-fraught relationship between mothers and daughters, the strength of family, and the intricate rhythms of grief with all the grace, wit, and startling beauty that characterizes this acclaimed author's finest work.]]> 277 Louise Erdrich 0060515112 Courtney 0 to-read 3.90 2005 The Painted Drum
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community: Eight Essays]]> 146150 "Read [him] with pencil in hand, make notes, and hope that somehow our country and the world will soon come to see the truth that is told here." �The New York Times Book Review

In this collection of essays, first published in 1993, Wendell Berry continues his work as one of America's most necessary social commentators. With wisdom and clear, ringing prose, he tackles head-on some of the most difficult problems confronting us near the end of the twentieth century––problems we still face today.

Berry elucidates connections between sexual brutality and economic brutality, and the role of art and free speech. He forcefully addresses America's unabashed pursuit of self-liberation, which he says is "still the strongest force now operating in our society." As individuals turn away from their community, they conform to a "rootless and placeless monoculture of commercial expectations and products," buying into the very economic system that is destroying the earth, our communities, and all they represent.]]> 208 Wendell Berry Courtney 0 to-read 4.26 1993 Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community: Eight Essays
author: Wendell Berry
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/14
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]]> <![CDATA[The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Creative Short Stories)]]> 3120995 32 James Thurber 1583415866 Courtney 0 to-read 3.64 1939 The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Creative Short Stories)
author: James Thurber
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1939
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Art of Hearing Heartbeats (The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, #1)]]> 11331421
When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be…until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the reader’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.]]> 325 Jan-Philipp Sendker 1590514637 Courtney 0 to-read 4.01 2002 The Art of Hearing Heartbeats (The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, #1)
author: Jan-Philipp Sendker
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Remarkably Bright Creatures 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing 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.]]> 368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 Courtney 5 4.35 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/26
date added: 2023/09/26
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I listened to this on audible, and finished it within a week which is very fast for me. I knew how it would end halfway through; all signs pointed in that direction. And yet the storytelling was so riveting, the performers so heartwarming, that I couldn’t stop listening and just loved every moment. All characters were well-developed and so lovable, even the nonhuman ones.
]]> <![CDATA[Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving and Thriving with the Self-Absorbed]]> 15842953
Disarming the Narcissist, Second Edition, will show you how to move past the narcissist's defenses using compassionate, empathetic communication. You'll learn how narcissists view the world, how to navigate their coping styles, and why, oftentimes, it's sad and lonely being a narcissist. By learning to anticipate and avoid certain hot-button issues, you'll be able to relate to narcissists without triggering aggression. By validating some common narcissistic concerns, you'll also find out how to be heard in conversation with a narcissist.

This book will help you learn to meet your own needs while side-stepping unproductive power struggles and senseless arguments with someone who is at the center of his or her own universe. This new edition also includes new chapters on dealing with narcissistic women, aggressive and abusive narcissists, strategies for safety, and the link between narcissism and sex addiction.

Finally, you'll learn how to set limits with your narcissist and when it's time to draw the line on unacceptable behavior.]]> 224 Wendy T. Behary 1608827607 Courtney 4 3.65 2008 Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving and Thriving with the Self-Absorbed
author: Wendy T. Behary
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/22
date added: 2023/09/22
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]]> LaRose 26116430 The Round HouseĚýand the Pulitzer PrizeĚýnomineeĚýThe Plague of DovesĚýwields her breathtaking narrative magic in an emotionally haunting contemporary tale of a tragic accident, a demand for justice, and a profound act of atonement with ancient roots in Native American culture.

North Dakota, late summer, 1999. Landreaux Iron stalks a deer along the edge of the property bordering his own. He shoots with easy confidence—but when the buck springs away, Landreaux realizes he’s hit something else, a blur he saw as he squeezed the trigger. When he staggers closer, he realizes he has killed his neighbor’s five-year-old son, Dusty Ravich.

The youngest child of his friend and neighbor, Peter Ravich, Dusty was best friends with Landreaux’s five-year-old son, LaRose. The two families have always been close, sharing food, clothing, and rides into town; their children played together despite going to different schools; and Landreaux’s wife, Emmaline, is half sister to Dusty’s mother, Nola. Horrified at what he’s done, the recovered alcoholic turns to an Ojibwe tribe tradition—the sweat lodge—for guidance, and finds a way forward. Following an ancient means of retribution, he and Emmaline will give LaRose to the grieving Peter and Nola. “Our son will be your son now,� they tell them.

LaRose is quickly absorbed into his new family. Plagued by thoughts of suicide, Nola dotes on him, keeping her darkness at bay. His fierce, rebellious new “sister,� Maggie, welcomes him as a coconspirator who can ease her volatile mother’s terrifying moods. Gradually he’s allowed shared visits with his birth family, whose sorrow mirrors the Raviches� own. As the years pass, LaRose becomes the linchpin linking the Irons and the Raviches, and eventually their mutual pain begins to heal.

But when a vengeful man with a long-standing grudge against Landreaux begins raising trouble, hurling accusations of a cover-up the day Dusty died, he threatens the tenuous peace that has kept these two fragile families whole.

Inspiring and affecting,ĚýLaRoseĚýis a powerful exploration of loss, justice, and the reparation of the human heart, and an unforgettable, dazzling tour de force from one of America’s most distinguished literary masters.]]> 372 Louise Erdrich 0062277022 Courtney 0 to-read 3.89 2016 LaRose
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Courtney
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Researches to Establish the Truth of the Linnæan Doctrine of Animate Contagions; Wherein the Origin, Causes, Mode of Diffusion: Cure of Epidemic Diseases, Spasmodic Cholera, Dysentery, Plague &c.]]> 131596048 268 Adam Neale Courtney 0 to-read 0.0 2015 Researches to Establish the Truth of the Linnæan Doctrine of Animate Contagions; Wherein the Origin, Causes, Mode of Diffusion: Cure of Epidemic Diseases, Spasmodic Cholera, Dysentery, Plague &c.
author: Adam Neale
name: Courtney
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/21
shelves: to-read
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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 Courtney 5 4.39 2017 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/19
date added: 2023/09/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Haunting at Hawke's Moor (Gothics)]]> 29486804 Before long, Anne discovers that the warnings given to her by the people in the area may be more than the superstitious nonsense. As the brutal history of the house and its founder, Richard Hawke, reveals itself, Anne discovers that there may be more entities in the house than just herself and her maid.]]> 371 Camille Oster Courtney 0 to-read 4.08 The Haunting at Hawke's Moor (Gothics)
author: Camille Oster
name: Courtney
average rating: 4.08
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rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/09
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]]>