William's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 18 Apr 2025 05:00:02 -0700 60 William's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present]]> 2767 Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen as the exploitation and manipulation of the majority by rigged systems that hugely favor a small aggregate of elite rulers from across the orthodox political parties.
A People's History has been assigned as reading in many high schools and colleges across the United States. It has also resulted in a change in the focus of historical work, which now includes stories that previously were ignored

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s book “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those…whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.”]]> 729 Howard Zinn 0060838655 William 0 history, currently-reading 4.07 1980 A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present
author: Howard Zinn
name: William
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: history, currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource]]> 217869789 From the New York Times bestselling author and television and podcast host, a powerful, wide-angle reckoning with how the assault from attention capitalism on our minds and our hearts has reordered our politics and the very fabric of our society.

We all feel it � the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, ‘With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.� Hayes argues that we are in the midst of an epoch-defining attention has become a commodified resource extracted from us, and from which we are increasingly alienated.

Because there is a breaking point. Sirens are designed to compel us, and now they are going off in our bedrooms and kitchens at all hours of the day and night, doing the bidding of vast empires, the most valuable companies in history, built on harvesting human attention. The Sirens� Call is the big book we all need to wrest back control of our lives, our politics, and our future.]]> 336 Christopher L. Hayes 0593653114 William 3 non-fiction 4.05 2025 The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
author: Christopher L. Hayes
name: William
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/18
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: non-fiction
review:

]]> The Thicket 20706257
Jack Parker thought he'd already seen his fair share of tragedy. His grandmother was killed in a farm accident when he was barely five years old. His parents have just succumbed to the smallpox epidemic sweeping turn-of-the-century East Texas -- orphaning him and his younger sister, Lula.

Then catastrophe strikes on the way to their uncle's farm, when a traveling group of bank-robbing bandits murder Jack's grandfather and kidnap his sister. With no elders left for miles, Jack must grow up fast and enlist a band of heroes the likes of which has never been seen if his sister stands any chance at survival. But the best he can come up with is a charismatic, bounty-hunting dwarf named Shorty, a grave-digging son of an ex-slave named Eustace, and a street-smart woman-for-hire named Jimmie Sue who's come into some very intimate knowledge about the bandits (and a few members of Jack's extended family to boot).

In the throes of being civilized, East Texas is still a wild, feral place. Oil wells spurt liquid money from the ground. But as Jack's about to find out, blood and redemption rule supreme.

In The Thicket , award-winning novelist Joe R. Lansdale lets loose like never before, in a rip-roaring adventure equal parts True Grit and Stand by Me - - the perfect introduction to an acclaimed writer whose work has been called "as funny and frightening as anything that could have been dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm -- or Mark Twain" ( New York Times Book Review ).]]> 340 Joe R. Lansdale 0316188441 William 5 fiction 4.13 2013 The Thicket
author: Joe R. Lansdale
name: William
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Darkness At Sethanon (The Riftwar Saga, #4)]]> 13813
Here be dragons and sorcery, swordplay, quests, pursuits, intrigues, stratagems, journeys to the darkest realms of the dead and titanic battles between the forces of good and darkest evil.

Here is the final dramatic confrontation between Arutha and Murmandamus - and the perilous quest of Pug the magician and Tomas the warrior for Macros the Black. A Darkness at Sethanon is heroic fantasy of the highest excitement and on the grandest scale, a magnificent conclusion to one of the great fantasy sagas of our time.]]> 527 Raymond E. Feist 0586066888 William 0 fantasy, currently-reading 4.19 1986 A Darkness At Sethanon (The Riftwar Saga, #4)
author: Raymond E. Feist
name: William
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: fantasy, currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women]]> 195791053 An up-close and striking look at modern beauty culture―from Botox and Instagram filters to lip flips and editing apps―and the realities of coming of age online

We live in a new age of beauty. With advancements in cosmetic surgery, walk-in treatments, augmented-reality face filters, photo-editing apps, and exposure to more images than ever, we have the ability to craft the image we want everyone to see. We pinch, pull, squeeze, tweeze, smooth, and slice ourselves beyond recognition. But is modern beauty culture truly empowering? Are we really in control?

In Pixel Flesh, Ellen Atlanta holds a mirror up to our modern beauty ideal and the pressure to present a perfect image, to live in an age of constant comparison and curated feeds. She weaves in her personal story with others� to reconfigure our obsession with the cult of beauty and to explore the reality of living in a world of paradoxes: We know our standards are unhealthy, but following them helps us succeed. We resent social media but continue to scroll. We know digital beauty is artificial, yet we strive for it.

From Love Island to lip filler, "blackfishing" to the "beauty tax," Pixel Flesh exposes what young women face under a dominant industry. Nuanced, unflinching, and razor sharp, it unmasks the absurdities of the standards we suddenly find ourselves upholding and acts as a rallying cry and a refusal to suffer in silence.]]> 384 Ellen Atlanta 1250286220 William 4 non-fiction 4.14 2024 Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women
author: Ellen Atlanta
name: William
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Silverthorn (The Riftwar Saga, #3)]]> 149302
To save his beloved, Arutha sets out in search of the mystic herb called Silverthorn that only grows in the dark and forbidding land of the Spellweavers.

Accompanied by a mercenary, a minstrel, and a clever young thief, he will confront an ancient evil and do battle with the dark powers that threaten the enchanted realm of Midkemia.]]> 432 Raymond E. Feist 0586064176 William 4 fantasy 4.11 1985 Silverthorn (The Riftwar Saga, #3)
author: Raymond E. Feist
name: William
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/13
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> 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 William 5 fiction 4.47 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: William
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/11
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors]]> 20821029
With vivid descriptions of the battle of Towton, where 28,000 men died in a single morning, to Bosworth, where the last Plantagenet king was hacked down, this is the real story behind Shakespeare's famous history plays.]]> 392 Dan Jones 0670026670 William 4 history 4.26 2014 The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors
author: Dan Jones
name: William
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/10
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse, #8)]]> 28335698
In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.

At the heart of the empire, Teresa Duarte prepares to take on the burden of her father's godlike ambition. The sociopathic scientist Paolo Cortázar and the Mephistophelian prisoner James Holden are only two of the dangers in a palace thick with intrigue, but Teresa has a mind of her own and secrets even her father the emperor doesn't guess.

And throughout the wide human empire, the scattered crew of the Rocinante fights a brave rear-guard action against Duarte's authoritarian regime. Memory of the old order falls away, and a future under Laconia's eternal rule -- and with it, a battle that humanity can only lose - seems more and more certain. Because against the terrors that lie between worlds, courage and ambition will not be enough...]]> 534 James S.A. Corey 0316332879 William 0 sci-fi, currently-reading 4.54 2019 Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse, #8)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: William
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: sci-fi, currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lords of Uncreation (The Final Architecture, #3)]]> 62315578 The Arthur C. Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us the third and final novel in an extraordinary space opera trilogy about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all.


Lords of Uncreation is the final high-octane installment in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Final Architecture space opera trilogy.


The Final Architecture
Shards of Earth
Eyes of the Void
Lords of Uncreation ]]> 608 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1668628104 William 4 sci-fi 4.22 2023 Lords of Uncreation (The Final Architecture, #3)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: William
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Eyes of the Void (The Final Architecture, #2)]]> 58950674 The Arthur C. Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us the second novel in an extraordinary space opera trilogy about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all.

After eighty years of fragile peace, the Architects are back, wreaking havoc as they consume entire planets. In the past, Originator artefacts � vestiges of a long-vanished civilization � could save a world from annihilation. This time, the Architects have discovered a way to circumvent these protective relics. Suddenly, no planet is safe.

Facing impending extinction, the Human Colonies are in turmoil. While some believe a unified front is the only way to stop the Architects, others insist humanity should fight alone. And there are those who would seek to benefit from the fractured politics of war � even as the Architects loom ever closer.

Idris, who has spent decades running from the horrors of his past, finds himself thrust back onto the battlefront. As an Intermediary, he could be one of the few to turn the tide of war. With a handful of allies, he searches for a weapon that could push back the Architects and save the galaxy. But to do so, he must return to the nightmarish unspace, where his mind was broken and remade.

What Idris discovers there will change everything.]]> 596 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1668604906 William 4 sci-fi 4.12 2022 Eyes of the Void (The Final Architecture, #2)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: William
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> The Other Valley 176450755
Sixteen-year-old Odile is an awkward, quiet girl vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she’ll decide who may cross her town’s heavily guarded borders. On the other side, it’s the same valley, the same town--except to the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it’s twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness.

When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn’t supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he’s still alive in Odile’s present. Edme––who is brilliant, funny, and the only person to truly see Odile––is about to die. Sworn to secrecy in order to preserve the timeline, Odile now becomes the Conseil’s top candidate, yet she finds herself drawing closer to the doomed boy, imperiling her entire future.]]> 290 Scott Alexander Howard 1668015471 William 4 fantasy 3.86 2024 The Other Valley
author: Scott Alexander Howard
name: William
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs, #1)]]> 40792913
But some things never change. So when ex-envoy, now-convict Takeshi Kovacs has his consciousness and skills downloaded into the body of a nicotine-addicted ex-thug and presented with a catch-22 offer, he really shouldn't be surprised. Contracted by a billionaire to discover who murdered his last body, Kovacs is drawn into a terrifying conspiracy that stretches across known space and to the very top of society.]]> 544 Richard K. Morgan William 3 sci-fi 4.02 2002 Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs, #1)
author: Richard K. Morgan
name: William
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> The Voided Man 213774146 average it balances out in all directions, but some regions are not average.

For every dense cluster of galaxies in one place, there is a tremendous void somewhere else. These voids are not black holes. They are areas of normal space that just happen to contain…nothing much. There are no galaxies within them, no stars, no planets, and no moons.

They can stretch tens or even hundreds of millions of light years across. Scientists have theorized that, if a man found himself at the center of such an empty space and looked around, he would see only darkness in every direction. Even the brightest galaxies, they say, would be too far distant to be visible to the naked eye.

I got a chance to test that theory firsthand.

I am the most distant exile in human history.

My name is Prisoner Number One.

This is my story.]]> 329 Anthony Dean William 4 sci-fi 4.31 The Voided Man
author: Anthony Dean
name: William
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Scarab Path (Shadows of the Apt, #5)]]> 7684939
The Empress Seda is regaining control over those imperial cities that refused to bow the knee to her, but she draws her power from something more sinister than mere armies and war machines. Only her consort, the former spymaster Thalric, knows the truth, and now the assassins are coming and he finds his life and his loyalties under threat once again.

Out beyond the desert of the Nem the ancient city of Khanaphes awaits them both, with a terrible secret entombed beneath its stones.]]> 692 Adrian Tchaikovsky 0330511459 William 5 fantasy 4.04 2010 The Scarab Path (Shadows of the Apt, #5)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: William
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> Annie Bot 156023123
She’s learning, too.

Doug says he loves that Annie’s artificial intelligence makes her seem more like a real woman, but the more human Annie becomes, the less perfectly she behaves. As Annie's relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder whether Doug truly desires what he says he does. In such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?]]> 231 Sierra Greer 0063312697 William 5 sci-fi 3.81 2024 Annie Bot
author: Sierra Greer
name: William
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> Beacon 23 (Beacon 23, #1-5) 26771521 247 Hugh Howey 1516865871 William 4 sci-fi 3.78 2015 Beacon 23 (Beacon 23, #1-5)
author: Hugh Howey
name: William
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> The Abolitionists 228476220
While most of us are familiar with the Underground Railroad, there was much more to the movement than helping individuals escape their bondage. In the eight lectures of The Abolitionists, Professor Kellie Carter Jackson of Wellesley College will bring you along as she traces the history of the fight to end slavery in America, from its relatively quiet origins to the turning point at Harper’s Ferry to the Civil War. Along the way, you’ll meet many of the leaders, activists, and agitators that created and sustained the cause of abolition and see how they used everything from political clout to storytelling to physical force to achieve their goals.

The Civil War may have ended the legal right to own slaves on US soil, but it was only the start of the battle for true freedom and equality in the decades to come. By understanding the full story of the movement and its aftermath, you’ll see why the constitutional, economic, and moral questions that arose in the era of abolition are still very much alive today.

©2025 Audible Originals, LLC (P)2025 Audible Originals, LLC.]]> Kellie Carter Jackson William 4 history 4.00 The Abolitionists
author: Kellie Carter Jackson
name: William
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)]]> 28335696 In the vast space between Earth and Jupiter, the inner planets and the Belt have formed a tentative and uncertain alliance, still haunted by a history of wars and prejudices. On the lost colony world of Laconia, a hidden enemy has a new vision for all of humanity � and the power to enforce it.
New technologies clash with old, as the history of human conflict returns to its ancient pattern of war and subjugation. But human nature is not the only enemy, and the forces being unleashed have their own price. A price that will change the shape of humanity � and of the Rocinante � unexpectedly and for ever �

The seventh novel in James S. A. Corey's New York Times bestselling Expanse series--now a major television series.
The Expanse Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, Abaddon's Gate, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon's Ashes, Persepolis Rising,
The Expanse Short Fiction The Butcher of Anderson Station, Gods of Risk, The Churn, The Vital Abyss, Strange Dogs.]]> 608 James S.A. Corey 0316332828 William 4 sci-fi 4.34 2017 Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: William
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/26
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism]]> 223436601 An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them.

From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite.

Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.�

Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.]]> 400 Sarah Wynn-Williams 1250391237 William 5 non-fiction 4.33 2025 Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
author: Sarah Wynn-Williams
name: William
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: non-fiction
review:

]]> I Hope This Finds You Well 200987323 In this wildly funny and heartwarming office comedy, an admin worker accidentally gains access to her colleagues� private emails and DMs and decides to use this intel to save her job—a laugh-till-you-cry debut novel you’ll be eager to share with your entire list of contacts, perfect for fans of Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text colour to white so no one can see. That is, until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.

When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department’s private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it, but who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this might just be the key to saving her job. The plan is simple: gain her boss’s favour, convince HR she’s Supershops material and beat out the competition.

But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworker’s private worlds and secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble—especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Soon she will need to decide if she’s ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if it means coming clean to her colleagues.

Crackling with laugh-out-loud dialogue and relatable observations, I Hope This Finds You Well is a fresh and surprisingly tender comedy about loneliness and love beyond our computer screens. This sparkling debut novel will open your heart to the everyday eccentricities of work culture and the undeniable human connection that comes with it.]]> 338 Natalie Sue 0063320363 William 3 fiction 3.74 2024 I Hope This Finds You Well
author: Natalie Sue
name: William
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Salute the Dark (Shadows of the Apt, #4)]]> 6917081
The massed Wasp armies are on the march, and the spymaster Stenwold must see which of his allies will stand now that the war has finally arrived. This time the Empire will not stop until a black and gold flag waves over Stenwold's own home city of Collegium.

Tisamon the Weaponsmaster is faced with a terrible choice: a path that could lead him to abandon his friends and his daughter and to face degradation and loss. Yet it might bring him before the Wasp Emperor with a blade in his hand. But is he being driven by Mantis-kinden honour, or manipulated by something more sinister?]]> 459 Adrian Tchaikovsky 0330511440 William 5 fantasy 4.06 2010 Salute the Dark (Shadows of the Apt, #4)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: William
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Blood of the Mantis (Shadows of the Apt, #3)]]> 6255895 429 Adrian Tchaikovsky 0230704166 William 5 fantasy 3.92 2009 Blood of the Mantis (Shadows of the Apt, #3)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: William
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> The Frontiersmen 697650
Driven from their homeland, the Indians fought bitterly to keep a final stronghold east of the Mississippi. Savage cunning, strength, skill and knowledge of the wilderness were their weapons, and the Indians used them mercilessly. But they couldn't foresee the white men who would come later, men who loved the land as much as they did, who wanted it for their own. Men who learned the Indian tricks and matched brutality for brutality.

From Eckert's acclaimed The Winning of America series, this book continues the tale of westward expansion, focusing on the history of the Northwest Territories & the Louisiana Purchase & relating the dramatic events of the Black Hawk War of 1832.]]> 626 Allan W. Eckert 0553205137 William 5 history 4.43 1967 The Frontiersmen
author: Allan W. Eckert
name: William
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1967
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: history
review:

]]> Dark Matter 27833670 A mindbending, relentlessly surprising thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy.

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

"Are you happy with your life?"

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend."

In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that's the dream?

And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could've imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human--a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of.]]> 342 Blake Crouch 1101904224 William 4 sci-fi 4.13 2016 Dark Matter
author: Blake Crouch
name: William
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse, #6)]]> 25877663 The sixth book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series.

NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES

A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood.

The Free Navy - a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships - has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets. The colony ships heading for the thousand new worlds on the far side of the alien ring gates are easy prey, and no single navy remains strong enough to protect them.

James Holden and his crew know the strengths and weaknesses of this new force better than anyone. Outnumbered and outgunned, the embattled remnants of the old political powers call on the Rocinante for a desperate mission to reach Medina Station at the heart of the gate network.

But the new alliances are as flawed as the old, and the struggle for power has only just begun. As the chaos grows, an alien mystery deepens. Pirate fleets, mutiny and betrayal may be the least of the Rocinante's problems. And in the uncanny spaces past the ring gates, the choices of a few damaged and desperate people may determine the fate of more than just humanity.

]]> 532 James S.A. Corey 0356504263 William 5 sci-fi 4.22 2016 Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse, #6)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: William
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)]]> 17934530 Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.

The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.]]> 195 Jeff VanderMeer 0374104093 William 4 sci-fi 3.79 2014 Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: William
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> Babel 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 William 5 fantasy 4.17 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: William
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tales from the Café (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #2)]]> 54373691 In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time...

From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold comes a story of four new customers each of whom is hoping to take advantage of Cafe Funiculi Funicula's time-travelling offer.

Among some faces that will be familiar to readers of Kawaguchi's previous novel, we will be introduced to:

The man who goes back to see his best friend who died 22 years ago
The son who was unable to attend his own mother’s funeral
The man who travelled to see the girl who he could not marry
The old detective who never gave his wife that gift...

This beautiful, simple tale tells the story of people who must face up to their past, in order to move on with their lives. Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?]]> 192 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529050863 William 4 fiction 3.98 2017 Tales from the Café (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #2)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: William
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dungeon Crawler Carl (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #1)]]> 56791389 Alternate cover edition of ASIN B08BKGYQXW


The apocalypse will be televised!

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.]]> 446 Matt Dinniman William 3 sci-fi 4.49 2020 Dungeon Crawler Carl (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #1)
author: Matt Dinniman
name: William
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> Human Acts 30091914 A riveting, poetic, and fearless portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice by the acclaimed author of The Vegetarian.

In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed.

The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho’s best friend, who meets his own fateful end, to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, both suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother, their collective heartbreak and acts of hope tell the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice.

An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of a historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.]]> 218 Han Kang 1101906723 William 5 fiction 4.26 2014 Human Acts
author: Han Kang
name: William
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> Untold Night and Day 50157589
A startling and boundary-pushing novel, Untold Night and Day tells the story of a young woman’s journey through Seoul over the course of a night and a day. It’s 28-year-old Ayami’s final day at her box-office job in Seoul’s audio theater. Her night is spent walking the sweltering streets of the city with her former boss in search of Yeoni, their missing elderly friend, and her day is spent looking after a mysterious, visiting poet. Their conversations take in art, love, food, and the inaccessible country to the north.

Almost immediately, in the heat of Seoul at the height of the summer, order gives way to chaos as the edges of reality start to fray, with Ayami becoming an unwitting escort into a fever-dream of increasingly tangled threads, all the while images of the characters� overlapping realities repeat, collide, change, and reassert themselves in this masterful work that upends the very structure of fiction and narrative storytelling and burns itself upon the soul of the reader.

By one of the boldest and most innovative voices in contemporary Korean literature, and brilliantly realized in English by International Man Booker­–winning translator Deborah Smith, Bae Suah’s hypnotic and wholly original novel asks whether more than one version of ourselves can exist at once, demonstrating the malleable nature of reality as we know it.]]> 160 Bae Suah 1419744380 William 3 fiction 3.51 2013 Untold Night and Day
author: Bae Suah
name: William
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> b, Book, and Me 52322846 Best friends b and Rang are all each other have. Their parents are absent, their teachers avert their eyes when they walk by. Everyone else in town acts like they live in Seoul even though it's painfully obvious they don't. When Rang begins to be bullied horribly by the boys in baseball hats, b fends them off. But one day Rang unintentionally tells the whole class about b's dying sister and how her family is poor, and each of them finds herself desperately alone. The only place they can reclaim themselves, and perhaps each other, is beyond the part of town where lunatics live--the End.]]> 160 Kim Sagwa 1931883963 William 4 fiction 3.38 2011 b, Book, and Me
author: Kim Sagwa
name: William
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5)]]> 22886612
A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle.

Ships are disappearing without a trace. Private armies are being secretly formed. The sole remaining protomolecule sample is stolen. Terrorist attacks previously considered impossible bring the inner planets to their knees. The sins of the past are returning to exact a terrible price.

And as a new human order is struggling to be born in blood and fire, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante must struggle to survive and get back to the only home they have left.]]> 536 James S.A. Corey 031621759X William 5 sci-fi 4.44 2015 Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: William
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/27
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Medieval Myths & Mysteries (The Great Courses)]]> 48611870
Was King Arthur a real person? What about Robin Hood? Is the Holy Grail a cup, or something else, altogether? Did Europeans really burn millions of people at the stake for witchcraft, in the past? These are just a few of the questions you will explore with the help of medieval scholar Dorsey Armstrong as she reveals the truth about the stories we continue to tell about the medieval period. Some contain nuggets of truth, others are wholly fabricated, but all of them can tell us something about the past.

From films like Braveheart and Excalibur to literature such as Ivanhoe and Morte d'Arthur, the years between 500 and 1500 have generated amazing stories of knights and damsels, superstitions and magic; some of these stories even made it into our grade school history curriculum. But what were those years really like? Known, somewhat inaccurately, as the "Middle Ages," this period was not merely a transition from Roman antiquity to the Renaissance, but a vibrant time full of people just as curious, innovative, malicious, joyful, confused, ambitious, complex - in other words, just as human - as in any other period of history.

The 10 enlightening (and often humorous) lectures of Medieval Myths and Mysteries will show you how far from the "dark" times of legend these centuries were. Uncover the facts about the Knights Templar. Reveal the truth behind the tales of legendary creatures like the Questing Beast and the unicorn. Trace the events of the Black Death and the ways it altered the world in its wake, and much more.

With Professor Armstrong, you will dig deep into the ways that later generations reshaped the narrative of the medieval years and perpetuated the myths of a simpler and less civilized age, which was, in fact, much richer and more complex than many of us have been led to believe.]]> 6 Dorsey Armstrong William 5 history 4.14 2019 Medieval Myths & Mysteries (The Great Courses)
author: Dorsey Armstrong
name: William
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/27
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction]]> 8352512
Smart, whimsical, and often scathing, the fiction of Kurt Vonnegut influenced a generation of American writers—including Dave Eggers, author of this volume’s Foreword. In these previously unpublished gems, Vonnegut’s originality infuses a unique landscape of factories, trailers, and bars—and characters who pit their dreams and fears against a cruel and sometimes comically indifferent world.

Here are stories of men and machines, art and artifice, and how ideals of fortune, fame, and love take curious twists in ordinary lives. An ambitious builder of roads, commanding an army of bulldozers, graders, and asphalt spreaders, fritters away his free time with miniature trains—until the women in his life crash his fantasy land. Trapped in a stenography pool, a young dreamer receives a call from a robber on the run, who presents her with a strange proposition. A crusty newspaperman is forced onto a committee to judge Christmas displays—a job that leads him to a suspiciously ostentatious ex-con and then a miracle. A hog farmer’s widow receives cryptic, unsolicited letters from a man in Schenectady about “the indefinable sweet aches of the spirit.� But what will she find when she goes to meet him in the flesh?

These beautifully rendered works are a testament to Vonnegut’s unique blend of observation and imagination. Like a present left behind by a departed loved one, While Mortals Sleep bestows upon us a shimmering Kurt Vonnegut gift: a poignant reflection of our world as it is and as it could be.]]> 272 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385343736 William 3 fiction, short-stories 3.82 2011 While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: William
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: fiction, short-stories
review:

]]> Men Who Hate Women 48635408
Men Who Hate Women examines the rise of secretive extremist communities who despise women and traces the roots of misogyny across a complex spider web of groups. It includes eye-opening interviews with former members of these communities, the academics studying this movement, and the men fighting back.

Women's rights activist Laura Bates wrote this book as someone who has been the target of many hate-fueled misogynistic attacks online. At first, the vitriol seemed to be the work of a small handful of individual men... but over time, the volume and consistency of the attacks hinted at something bigger and more ominous. As Bates went undercover into the corners of the internet, she found an unseen, organized movement of thousands of anonymous men wishing violence (and worse) upon women.
In the book, Bates explores:

Extreme communities like incels, pick-up artists, MGTOW, Men's Rights Activists and more
The hateful, toxic rhetoric used by these groups
How this movement connects to other extremist movements like white supremacy
How young boys are targeted and slowly drawn in
Where this ideology shows up in our everyday lives in mainstream media, our playgrounds, and our government

By turns fascinating and horrifying, Men Who Hate Women is a broad, unflinching account of the deep current of loathing toward women and anti-feminism that underpins our society and is a must-read for parents, educators, and anyone who believes in equality for women.]]> 366 Laura Bates William 4 non-fiction 4.34 2020 Men Who Hate Women
author: Laura Bates
name: William
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: non-fiction
review:

]]> The One 40670312 How far would you go to find The One?

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner the one you are genetically made for.

That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.

Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.� They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after� isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others�

A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.]]> 418 John Marrs William 4 fiction 4.09 2016 The One
author: John Marrs
name: William
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness]]> 171681821
A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

“With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.� —Shannon Carlin, ,i>TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood� began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood� in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood� has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems� that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.]]> 400 Jonathan Haidt 0593655036 William 5 non-fiction 4.36 2024 The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: William
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shards of Earth (The Final Architecture, #1)]]> 55437088 The Arthur C. Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us an extraordinary space opera about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all.

The war is over. Its heroes forgotten. Until one chance discovery . . .

Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity's heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers.

After earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared—and Idris and his kind became obsolete.

Now, fifty years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space. It's clearly the work of the Architects—but are they returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, that many would kill to obtain.]]> 549 Adrian Tchaikovsky 0316705829 William 5 sci-fi 4.37 2021 Shards of Earth (The Final Architecture, #1)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: William
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> How 1954 Changed History 57143835 Michael Flamm William 5 history 3.92 How 1954 Changed History
author: Michael Flamm
name: William
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century]]> 33917107
On November 9th, millions of Americans woke up to the impossible: the election of Donald Trump as president. Against all predictions, one of the most-disliked presidential candidates in history had swept the electoral college, elevating a man with open contempt for democratic norms and institutions to the height of power.

Timothy Snyder is one of the most celebrated historians of the Holocaust. In his books Bloodlands and Black Earth, he has carefully dissected the events and values that enabled the rise of Hitler and Stalin and the execution of their catastrophic policies. With Twenty Lessons, Snyder draws from the darkest hours of the twentieth century to provide hope for the twenty-first. As he writes, “Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism and communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.�

Twenty Lessons is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.]]> 127 Timothy Snyder 0804190119 William 4 politics 4.24 2017 On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
author: Timothy Snyder
name: William
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: politics
review:

]]> War 217217007

War is an intimate and sweeping account of one of the most tumultuous periods in presidential politics and American history.

We see President Joe Biden and his top advisers in tense conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. We also see Donald Trump, conducting a shadow presidency and seeking to regain political power.

With unrivaled, inside-the-room reporting, Woodward shows President Biden’s approach to managing the war in Ukraine, the most significant land war in Europe since World War II, and his tortured path to contain the bloody Middle East conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.

Woodward reveals the extraordinary complexity and consequence of wartime back-channel diplomacy and decision-making to deter the use of nuclear weapons and a rapid slide into World War III.

The raw cage-fight of politics accelerates as Americans prepare to vote in 2024, starting between President Biden and Trump, and ending with the unexpected elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president.

War provides an unvarnished examination of the vice president as she tries to embrace the Biden legacy and policies while beginning to chart a path of her own as a presidential candidate.

Woodward’s reporting once again sets the standard for journalism at its most authoritative and illuminating.]]> 441 Bob Woodward William 5 politics 4.25 2024 War
author: Bob Woodward
name: William
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: politics
review:

]]> Seven Years in Tibet 270032 330 Heinrich Harrer 0874778883 William 4 4.08 1953 Seven Years in Tibet
author: Heinrich Harrer
name: William
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1953
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Down and Out in Paris and London]]> 393199 213 George Orwell 015626224X William 5 history 4.10 1933 Down and Out in Paris and London
author: George Orwell
name: William
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1933
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/12
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: history
review:

]]> The Puppet Masters 7171856
Except that two agents of the most secret intelligence agency in the U.S. government were on the scene and disappeared without reporting back. Then four more follow up agents also disappeared. So the head of the agency and his two top agents went in and managed to get out with their discovery: an invasion is underway by slug-like aliens who can touch a human and completely control his or her mind. What the humans know, they know. What the slugs want, no matter what, the human will do. And most of Iowa is already under their control.

Sam Cavanaugh was one of the agents who discovered the truth. Unfortunately, that was just before he was taken over by one of the aliens and began working for the invaders, with no will of his own. And he has just learned that a high official in the Treasury Department is now under control of the aliens. Since the Treasury Department includes the Secret Service, which safeguards the President of the United States, control of the entire nation is near at hand.]]> 416 Robert A. Heinlein 143913376X William 4 sci-fi 3.89 1951 The Puppet Masters
author: Robert A. Heinlein
name: William
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1951
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/15
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> The Old Man and the Sea 386299 128 Ernest Hemingway William 4 fiction 3.56 1952 The Old Man and the Sea
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: William
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1952
rating: 4
read at: 2008/06/18
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> The Castle 333538 Translated and with a preface by Mark Harman

Left unfinished by Kafka in 1922 and not published until 1926, two years after his death, The Castle is the haunting tale of K.’s relentless, unavailing struggle with an inscrutable authority in order to gain access to the Castle. Scrupulously following the fluidity and breathlessness of the sparsely punctuated original manuscript, Mark Harman’s new translation reveals levels of comedy, energy, and visual power, previously unknown to English language readers.]]> 328 Franz Kafka 0805211063 William 0 classics 3.97 1926 The Castle
author: Franz Kafka
name: William
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1926
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: classics
review:

]]> Brokeback Mountain 35428553 I denne kritikerroste samling findes fortællingen bag den prisbelønnede storfilm Brokeback Mountain. Som det sker her, oplever vi i flere af historierne humor og skønhed i et møde med smerte og desperation, der vidner om en dyb og elementær menneskelighed.

"Proulx skriver, så man formeligt mærker vinden, kulden i knoglerne, volden i kroppen, tømmermænd og skægstubbene på hagen � hun kan virkelig skrive sig ind i de her mandekroppe."

Berlingske Tidende]]> 335 Annie Proulx William 5 fiction 4.29 1997 Brokeback Mountain
author: Annie Proulx
name: William
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lettres du Danemark: (1931-1962)]]> 5930924 448 Karen Blixen 2070750418 William 3 fiction 3.00 1996 Lettres du Danemark: (1931-1962)
author: Karen Blixen
name: William
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 1989/11/18
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> The White Dove 21297134
Born into an aristocratic family, beautiful Amy Lovell leads a whirlwind life of extravagant parties and debutante balls.

But Amy, curious about the world beyond the narrow confines of her class, is ill-suited to a life of indulgence. Eagerly embracing a nursing career, she is drawn into the radical politics of the day.

As the spectre of war looms, Amy's bittersweet love for the proud miner Nick Penry � a love which defies the differences between them � leads them to the conflict in Spain, where love and pain become inseparable agonies.]]> 786 Rosie Thomas 0007560621 William 1 fiction 4.18 1986 The White Dove
author: Rosie Thomas
name: William
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1986
rating: 1
read at: 1989/08/16
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> S.O.S. 8171422 390 Joseph Connolly 0571204449 William 2 fiction 3.60 2002 S.O.S.
author: Joseph Connolly
name: William
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2002
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> The Cider House Rules 176000
First published in 1985, The Cider House Rules is set in rural Maine in the first half of the twentieth century. The novel tells the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch—saint and obstetrician, founder and director of the orphanage in the town of St. Cloud’s, ether addict and abortionist. This is also the story of Dr. Larch’s favorite orphan, Homer Wells, who is never adopted.

Praise for The Cider House Rules

� [Irving] is among the very best storytellers at work today. At the base of Irving’s own moral concerns is a rare and lasting regard for human kindness.� � The Philadelphia Inquirer

� Superb in scope and originality, a novel as good as one could hope to find from any author, anywhere, anytime. Engrossing, moving, thoroughly satisfying.� —Joseph Heller

� An old-fashioned, big-hearted novel . . . with its epic yearning caught in the nineteenth century, somewhere between Trollope and Twain.� � Boston Sunday Globe]]> 640 John Irving 0345417941 William 5 fiction 4.11 1985 The Cider House Rules
author: John Irving
name: William
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> State of Fear 881253 603 Michael Crichton 0007181590 William 4 fiction 3.75 2004 State of Fear
author: Michael Crichton
name: William
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> Moby-Dick or, The Whale 153747 "It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."

So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.

This edition of Moby-Dick, which reproduces the definitive text of the novel, includes invaluable explanatory notes, along with maps, illustrations, and a glossary of nautical terms.]]> 720 Herman Melville 0142437247 William 4 classics 3.53 1851 Moby-Dick or, The Whale
author: Herman Melville
name: William
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1851
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/08
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: classics
review:

]]> 1984 5470 328 George Orwell William 5 sci-fi Read 3 times: 1983,2002,2011 4.15 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: William
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/18
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: sci-fi
review:
Read 3 times: 1983,2002,2011
]]> Mediums Rare 12592987 The celebrated author of Stir of Echoes and Hell House offers a fascinating exploration of parapsychology and its history.

In Mediums Rare, horror and science fiction novelist Richard Matheson shares a personal project inspired by his lifelong interest in all things paranormal. Here is a brief account of psychic beginnings, covering subjects like telepathy, ESP, paranormal activity, and more.

Parapsychology, today, utilizes highly advanced methodology. It has, long since, left behind the era of dim-lit parlors and spiritual melodramatics. It is, now, a completely legitimate field of study based upon precise and sophisticated test procedures. But it began quite differently.

Matheson takes readers on a journey through paranormal history, beginning in Greek antiquity and making his way toward renowned American psychic Edgar Cayce. Along the way, he recounts episodes like the Margaret and Kate Fox, young sisters who, in 1848, convinced others they were in touch with ghosts in a haunted house. There’s also Civil War-era medium Nettie Colburn who aided President Lincoln and may have channeled Daniel Webster. Other episodes include New England mediums “Mrs. Leonard and Mrs. Piper� and the great magician Harry Houdini.

“Fans of parapsychology or of Matheson’s other works should enjoy this lively exploration of great topics that inform the genre and have become legendary.”—Publishers Weekly]]> 107 Richard Matheson 0795316941 William 3 history 4.25 2000 Mediums Rare
author: Richard Matheson
name: William
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 2011/10/02
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction November/December 2016 (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Book 131)]]> 33781296 The Cat Bell Esther M. Friesner
The Farmboy Albert E. Cowdrey
The Vindicator Matthew Hughes
Passelande Robert Reed

SHORT STORIES
Between Going and Staying Lilliam Rivera
The Place of Bones Gardner Dozois
Lord Elgin at the Acropolis Minsoo Kang
Special Collections Kurt Fawver
A Fine Balance Charlotte Ashley
The Rhythm Man James Beamon
Merry Christmas from All of Us to All of You Sandra Mcdonald

DEPARTMENTS
Books to Look For Charles de Lint
Books Chris Moriarty
Films: Getting High David J. Skal
Competition #92
Coming Attractions
Index to Volumes 130 & 131
Curiosities Graham Andrews


CARTOONS: Arthur Masear, Arthur Masear, Arthur Masear,
Bill Long, Bill Long, Nick Downes,
Nick Downes, Nick Downes, S. Harris.
COVER by Kristin Kest for "The Cat Bell"]]> 260 C.C. Finlay William 4 sci-fi, short-stories 3.83 2016 The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction November/December 2016 (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Book 131)
author: C.C. Finlay
name: William
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2017/10/29
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: sci-fi, short-stories
review:

]]> <![CDATA[PUTIN: The life story of a cunning psycho.: What will be the next mask of Vladimir Putin?]]> 72072205 521 Color Monopoly William 5 politics 5.00 PUTIN: The life story of a cunning psycho.: What will be the next mask of Vladimir Putin?
author: Color Monopoly
name: William
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/12
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: politics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Out of the Silent Planet (The Space Trilogy, #1)]]> 25350 160 C.S. Lewis 0007157150 William 4 sci-fi 3.93 1938 Out of the Silent Planet (The Space Trilogy, #1)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: William
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1938
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/02
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> The Bird Eater 20420591
Like Aaron, Holbrook House is but a shell of what it once was, a target for vandals and ghost hunters who have nicknamed it “the devil’s den.� Aaron doesn’t believe in the paranormal—at least, not until a strange boy begins following him wherever he goes. Plagued by violent dreams and disturbing visions, Aaron begins to wonder if he’s losing his mind. But a festering darkness lurks at the heart of Holbrook House…a darkness that grins from within the shadows, delighting in Aaron’s sorrow, biding its time.]]> 290 Ania Ahlborn 1477867600 William 3 horror 3.60 2014 The Bird Eater
author: Ania Ahlborn
name: William
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/15
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: horror
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Valley of Fear (Sherlock Holmes, #7)]]> 18934742 195 Arthur Conan Doyle William 3 classics 4.06 1914 The Valley of Fear (Sherlock Holmes, #7)
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: William
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1914
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: classics
review:

]]> Earthside (Quantum Earth #2) 164785581
Then, a garbled plea for help from Omaha sends most of the security forces back Earthside to investigate, leaving Outland’s police force understaffed just as a large group of refugees arrives with its own ideas and power structure. With threats from both inside and outside, will the colony even survive until spring?]]> 350 Dennis E. Taylor 1680683241 William 3 sci-fi 4.24 2023 Earthside (Quantum Earth #2)
author: Dennis E. Taylor
name: William
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> Mickey7 (Mickey7, #1) 57693457 After several deaths punctuating a series of all-too-brief life spans, a clone reassesses his purpose � and his humanity � in Edward Ashton’s Mickey7, “a unique blend of thought-provoking sci-fi concepts, farcical relationship drama, and exotic body horror� (New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin).

EXPENDABLE \ik’spen-d�-b’l\ n. A human clone utilized for dangerous work on space exploration missions. An Expendable’s personality and memories may be transferred intact to a new body if and when the current host dies.

Mickey Barnes is an Expendable, now on his seventh iteration, living � and dying � among his fellow colonists on the near-uninhabitable ice world of Niflheim. Some consider him immortal. Others believe he’s a soulless monstrosity. For the past nine years, he has been deployed for hazardous assignments and subjected to experiments that test the limits of human endurance, his humanity sacrificed for the greater good.

While on reconnaissance, Mickey7 is injured and left for dead, only to be saved by Niflheim’s native species, thought to be insentient by the colonists. Returning to base, Mickey7 meets his next generation, Mickey8. Neither clone is willing to recycle himself, but if anyone discovers multiple Mickeys exist, they’ll both be executed � and there won’t ever be a Mickey9.

But Mickey7’s premature twin isn’t his only secret. He hasn’t uploaded his memories in a month, leaving his clone in the dark about his near death and close encounter with the planet’s inhabitants. Mickey7 also doesn’t know how all of his previous selves died, and those he remembers have left him traumatized and mistrustful of the colony’s mission. A mission that has Mickey Barnes questioning his moral and mortal existence...again...and again....]]> 296 Edward Ashton 1250275032 William 4 sci-fi 3.74 2022 Mickey7 (Mickey7, #1)
author: Edward Ashton
name: William
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey]]> 22285 320 Chuck Palahniuk 0385517874 William 3 fiction 3.85 2007 Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: William
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)]]> 35068705
When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .

Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.]]> 545 R.F. Kuang 0062662597 William 4 fantasy 4.16 2018 The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)
author: R.F. Kuang
name: William
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Hole in the Sky (Arkship #1)]]> 56905437 From New York Times bestselling author Peter F. Hamilton comes his first audio original, A Hole in the Sky, Book 1 in the Arkship Trilogy.

Sixteen-year old Hazel lives in the Daedalus, a starship that is flying in search of a new world. The ship has been traveling for five hundred years, searching for a world to settle in after having to abandon its last world. Everyone on board Daedalus lives a very simple existence in farming villages. The age of machines supplying their needs was lost during a mutiny five hundred years ago. The captain regained control of the ship after a huge struggle. Now, with finite resources, everything in the habitat is Cycled, including humans, who essentially are suicided at sixty-five so they don't deplete the biosphere's resources.

Hazel encounters the Cheaters, people who refused to Cycle, who tell her the Daedalus has been damaged and its atmosphere is leaking away. When her brother has a paralyzing accident which condemns him to be Cycled since he can no longer be productive, Hazel runs off with him to join the Cheaters. While with the Cheaters, she discovers that much of what has been told to the people living on Daedalus for the last five hundred years is untrue, and that the ship is under the control of Aliens called the Yi. Soon, Hazel is in a thrilling race to help repair the ship and help the people of the Daedalus escape the Yi.]]> 10 Peter F. Hamilton 1705245293 William 3 sci-fi 3.57 2021 A Hole in the Sky (Arkship #1)
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: William
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop]]> 215079493
For the first few months all Yeongju does is cry, but the long hours in the shop also give her time to mull over what makes a good bookseller and store. As she starts to read hungrily, host author events, and develop her own bookselling philosophy, she eases into her new setting. Surrounded by friends, writers, and the books that connect them all, she finds her new story as the Hyunam-dong Bookshop transforms into an inviting space for lost souls to rest, heal, and remember it's never too late to scrap the plot and start again.]]> 303 Hwang Bo-Reum 1526662280 William 5 fiction 3.98 2022 Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop
author: Hwang Bo-Reum
name: William
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1)]]> 47212 HARRY DRESDEN � WIZARD

Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment.

Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he's the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the "everyday" world is actually full of strange and magical things—and most don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a—well, whatever. There's just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks.

So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry's name. And that's when things start to get interesting.

Magic - it can get a guy killed.]]> 372 Jim Butcher 0451457811 William 3 fantasy 3.99 2000 Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1)
author: Jim Butcher
name: William
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> True Grit 257845 224 Charles Portis 1585673692 William 3 fiction 4.15 1968 True Grit
author: Charles Portis
name: William
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1968
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> Cibola Burn (The Expanse, #4) 18656030 The fourth novel in James S.A. Corey’s New York Times bestselling Expanse series

The gates have opened the way to thousands of habitable planets, and the land rush has begun. Settlers stream out from humanity's home planets in a vast, poorly controlled flood, landing on a new world. Among them, the Rocinante, haunted by the vast, posthuman network of the protomolecule as they investigate what destroyed the great intergalactic society that built the gates and the protomolecule.

But Holden and his crew must also contend with the growing tensions between the settlers and the company which owns the official claim to the planet. Both sides will stop at nothing to defend what's theirs, but soon a terrible disease strikes and only Holden - with help from the ghostly Detective Miller - can find the cure.]]> 581 James S.A. Corey William 5 sci-fi 4.18 2014 Cibola Burn (The Expanse, #4)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: William
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> The History of Rum 54105365
Nothing makes a vacation like one of these delightful rum drinks, right? But whether blended with ice and fruit or sipped neatly from a glass tumbler, this sweet and fiery spirit brings with it a fascinating, complicated history that stretches back to colonial times of the 17th century in the Caribbean.

"The history of rum is a tale of both sweetness and sorrow", says historian John Donoghue of Loyola University Chicago. And, as he puts it, "If told correctly, much like a good bottle of Jamaican overproof, it burns while it inspires."

Professor Donoghue does just that in the Audible Original The History of Rum. Blending politics and economics with culture and beverage appreciation, these 10 lessons reveal how the history of rum not only shaped the drinking culture of the early modern and modern worlds, but how it also helped determine the wider histories of piracy, slavery, abolition, and global capitalism.

Explore the invention of rum as a liquor so strong it was called "kill-devil." Discover classic Colonial drinks like flip and stone fence. Meet the real Captain Morgan, who pillaged the Spanish Main for capital to build Jamaica’s rum industry, and learn how rum played a crucial role in the early campaigns of George Washington. Chart rum’s growing profitability in international markets, which spurred everything from the transatlantic African slave trade to the American Revolution.

Above all, enjoy a 10-lesson toast to 400 years of rum—in all its tragic glory.]]> John Donoghue William 5 history 3.64 The History of Rum
author: John Donoghue
name: William
average rating: 3.64
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: history
review:

]]> Adjustment Day 41817499
Adjustment Day, the author’s first novel in four years, is an ingeniously comic work in which Chuck Palahniuk does what he does best: skewer the absurdities in our society. Smug, geriatric politicians bring the nation to the brink of a third world war in an effort to control the burgeoning population of young males; working-class men dream of burying the elites; and professors propound theories that offer students only the bleakest future.

Into this dyspeptic time a blue-black book is launched carrying such wisdom as:

Imagine there’s no God. There is no Heaven or Hell. There is only your son and his son and his son and the world you leave for them.

The weak want you to forgo your destiny just as they’ve shirked theirs.

A smile is your best bulletproof vest.

When Adjustment Day arrives, it fearlessly makes real the logical conclusion of every separatist fantasy, alternative fact, and conspiracy theory lurking in the American psyche.]]> 336 Chuck Palahniuk 0393357074 William 3 fiction 3.18 2018 Adjustment Day
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: William
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)]]> 58416952 At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

The Catenan Republic � the Hierarchy � may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus � what they call Will � to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.]]> 639 James Islington 1982141190 William 3 fantasy 4.60 2023 The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)
author: James Islington
name: William
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/30
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> Klara and the Sun 54120408
In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?]]> 340 Kazuo Ishiguro 059331817X William 5 sci-fi 3.71 2021 Klara and the Sun
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: William
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> The Parole Room 220916593
The Parole Room is an intimate journey with Johnnie, a deep dive into the criminal legal system, and a parole-room drama—taking listeners behind the curtain to hear tense deliberations as they unfold. The series is vivid, emotional, and complex, bringing new questions and insights about the US justice system and the country as a whole.

From the writer of the critically acclaimed book Correction and the producer behind the Pulitzer Prize- and Peabody Award-winning podcast You Didn’t See Nothin, The Parole Room is necessary storytelling for our time.]]> Ben Austen William 4 non-fiction 3.92 The Parole Room
author: Ben Austen
name: William
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1)]]> 15839976 "I live for the dream that my children will be born free," she says. "That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them."

"I live for you," I say sadly.

Eo kisses my cheek. "Then you must live for more."

Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations.

Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.

But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.

Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity's overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society's ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies... even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.]]> 382 Pierce Brown 0345539788 William 2 sci-fi, fantasy 4.26 2014 Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1)
author: Pierce Brown
name: William
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: sci-fi, fantasy
review:

]]> The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all:

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats� from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge�: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as �1847� or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,� “Spotify,� and “the collapse of the British Empire.� But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 William 3 sci-fi 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: William
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries, #7)]]> 65211701 Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.

Everyone's favorite lethal SecUnit is back.

Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.

But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast.

Yeah, this plan is... not going to work.]]> 245 Martha Wells 1250826977 William 3 sci-fi 4.19 2023 System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries, #7)
author: Martha Wells
name: William
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread]]> 22822857
Representing work that spans several years, Make Something Up is a compilation of 21 stories and one novella (some previously published, some not) that will disturb and delight. The absurdity of both life and death are on full display; in "Zombies," the best and brightest of a high school prep school become tragically addicted to the latest drug craze: electric shocks from cardiac defibrillators. In "Knock, Knock," a son hopes to tell one last off-color joke to a father in his final moments, while in "Tunnel of Love," a massage therapist runs the curious practice of providing 'relief' to dying clients. And in "Expedition," fans will be thrilled to find to see a side of Tyler Durden never seen before in a precursor story to Fight Club.

Funny, caustic, bizarre, poignant; these stories represent everything readers have come to love and expect from Chuck Palahniuk. They have all the impact of a sharp blow to the solar plexus, with considerable collateral damage to the funny bone.]]> 318 Chuck Palahniuk 0385538057 William 5 fiction, short-stories 3.51 2015 Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: William
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: fiction, short-stories
review:

]]> Yellowface 62047984
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 319 R.F. Kuang 000853277X William 5 fiction 3.69 2023 Yellowface
author: R.F. Kuang
name: William
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hope of Elantris (Elantris, #1.5)]]> 10852065 The following is a short story I wrote in the Elantris world back in January of 2006. At that point, Elantris had only been out in stores for about seven or eight months, but I actually hadn't written anything new on the story or world since 2000, when I'd finished the first draft of the original book. This story was originally posted for sale on Amazon.com; once the contract with them ran out, I posted it on my website.

There were always a few holes in the manuscript where I decided not to include viewpoints or sections of explanation in the name of streamlining, particularly at the end. In the back of my mind, I knew what happened. This story talks about one of those holes; it is meant to be read after you've finished the novel and takes place during the events of the climax. In the , I've written a further explanation of why I wrote this piece. Some of you may find it interesting to read this ahead of time; I put it in the annotation, however, as I know others would rather enjoy the story without bias beforehand, then read my thoughts afterward.

Either way, if you haven't read the novel Elantris, this contains major spoilers. Might I suggest reading the book first? This story won't work at all for you if you haven't.

As always, thanks for reading!]]> 25 Brandon Sanderson William 4 fantasy 3.62 2006 The Hope of Elantris (Elantris, #1.5)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: William
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Colony One Mars (Colony Mars #1)]]> 44073117 An alternative cover edition for this ASIN can be found here.

All contact is lost with the first human colony on Mars during a long and destructive sandstorm. Satellite imagery of the aftermath shows extensive damage to the facility. The fifty-four colonists who called it home are presumed dead.

Three years later, a new mission sets down on the planet surface to investigate what remains of the derelict site. But, it’s not long before they realise the colony is not as lifeless as everyone thought. Someone is still alive -- hiding out somewhere.

Yet, before they can find the elusive colonist a strange illness starts to affect the crew. Pressure now mounts on Biologist, Dr. Jann Malbec, to locate the source and find a way to fight it. However, as she investigates she begins to suspect a dark and deadly secret lurking within the colony. A secret that threatens not just the crew but the entire population of Earth.

With limited resources and time running out, she must find some answers and find them fast. Because if she doesn't, none of them will be going home.

]]> 242 Gerald M. Kilby William 2 sci-fi 3.97 2016 Colony One Mars (Colony Mars #1)
author: Gerald M. Kilby
name: William
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> Elantris (Elantris, #1) 68427
Arelon's new capital, Kae, crouches in the shadow of Elantris. Princess Sarene of Teod arrives for a marriage of state with Crown Prince Raoden, hoping—based on their correspondence—to also find love. She finds instead that Raoden has died and she is considered his widow. Both Teod and Arelon are under threat as the last remaining holdouts against the imperial ambitions of the ruthless religious fanatics of Fjordell. So Sarene decides to use her new status to counter the machinations of Hrathen, a Fjordell high priest who has come to Kae to convert Arelon and claim it for his emperor and his god.

But neither Sarene nor Hrathen suspect the truth about Prince Raoden. Stricken by the same curse that ruined Elantris, Raoden was secretly exiled by his father to the dark city. His struggle to help the wretches trapped there begins a series of events that will bring hope to Arelon, and perhaps reveal the secret of Elantris itself.

A rare epic fantasy that doesn't recycle the classics and that is a complete and satisfying story in one volume, Elantris is fleet and fun, full of surprises and characters to care about. It's also the wonderful debut of a welcome new star in the constellation of fantasy.]]> 638 Brandon Sanderson 0765350378 William 5 fantasy 4.16 2005 Elantris (Elantris, #1)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: William
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> The Haunted Forest Tour 34339545
Howl with a werewolf! Gaze into the glowing eyes of a giant spider! Look right through a spooky ghost! See horrific monsters you couldn't even imagine, only inches away from you! Things with fangs, things with claws, things with dripping red jaws -- you'll see them all!

Not thrilling enough? Well, it's Halloween, and so we're offering a very special tour through the Haunted Forest. The new route goes deeper into the woods than any civilians have ventured before, and you're guaranteed to get a good scare! Rest assured that every possible security precaution has been taken. The Haunted Forest Tour has a 100% safety record, and technical difficulties are unheard of. You will be in no danger whatsoever.

We promise.

Bram Stoker Award-nominated authors James A. Moore and Jeff Strand have teamed up to take you on an action-packed, monster-laden adventure that will make you laugh, scream, and think twice before going near ghastly oversized beasts that want to devour you.

"[An] absolute gem of a read...What comes next is over two hundred pages of non stop, in your face, gore drenched action...You will be exhausted by the time you reach the satisfying last page...Think Jurassic Park with bloodthirsty demons on an adrenaline rush and you have The Haunted Forest Tour." - GoreZone magazine

"James A. Moore and Jeff Strand are a literary dream team. Devout readers of the genre are in for a real treat as these two horror heavyweights combine forces and battle their characters to the bloody death...Remember how it felt to inventory and consume your candy on Halloween night? That's the atmosphere in the forest. You feel like a glutton, like you couldn't possibly stomach one more gooey demise, but you turn the page and unwrap another nightmare anyway." - Horror-Web

"Moore and Strand heap scares upon plot twists in one of the freshest and most entertaining novels in recent years. The authors offer a frightening and high-octane tale, presented as an apocalyptic disaster movie." - Horror World]]> 375 James A. Moore William 4 3.66 2007 The Haunted Forest Tour
author: James A. Moore
name: William
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves:
review:

]]> If We Were Villains 30319086
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.]]> 354 M.L. Rio 125009528X William 3 fiction 4.11 2017 If We Were Villains
author: M.L. Rio
name: William
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> American Gods 30165203
Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what - and who - it finds there...]]> 635 Neil Gaiman William 5 horror 4.11 2001 American Gods
author: Neil Gaiman
name: William
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: horror
review:

]]> The Lost Bookshop 65137920 The Keeper of Stories meets The Lost Apothecary in this evocative and charming novel full of mystery and secrets.

‘The thing about books,� she said ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.�

On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found�

For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives.

But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder� where nothing is as it seems.]]> 432 Evie Woods 0008609209 William 4 fantasy 4.03 2023 The Lost Bookshop
author: Evie Woods
name: William
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Slow Horses (Slough House, #1)]]> 56534999 Welcome to the thrilling and unnervingly prescient world of the slow horses. This team of MI5 agents is united by one common bond: They've screwed up royally and will do anything to redeem themselves.

This special tenth-anniversary deluxe edition of a modern classic includes a foreword by the author, discussion questions for book clubs, and an exclusive short story featuring the slow horses.

London, England: Slough House is where washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers. The “slow horses,� as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated there. Maybe they botched an Op so badly they can’t be trusted anymore. Maybe they got in the way of an ambitious colleague and had the rug yanked out from under them. Maybe they just got too dependent on the bottle—not unusual in this line of work. One thing they have in common, though, is they want to be back in the action. And most of them would do anything to get there─even if it means having to collaborate with one another.

When a young man is abducted and his kidnappers threaten to broadcast his beheading live on the Internet, the slow horses see an opportunity to redeem themselves. But is the victim really who he appears to be?]]> 334 Mick Herron 1641292970 William 4 fiction 4.05 2010 Slow Horses (Slough House, #1)
author: Mick Herron
name: William
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> Lullaby 22206 Lullaby is a comedy/drama/tragedy. In that order. It may also be Chuck Palahniuk's best book yet.]]> 260 Chuck Palahniuk 0099437961 William 4 fiction 3.76 2002 Lullaby
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: William
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Wish (The Witcher, #0.5)]]> 40603587
But not everything monstrous-looking is evil and not everything fair is good... and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth.

Librarian's Note: Alternate cover edition of ASIN B0010SIPT4]]> 400 Andrzej Sapkowski William 4 fantasy 4.12 1993 The Last Wish (The Witcher, #0.5)
author: Andrzej Sapkowski
name: William
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> The Cretaceous Past 57444560 192 Liu Cixin 1645240150 William 5 sci-fi 3.79 2003 The Cretaceous Past
author: Liu Cixin
name: William
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Magician: Master (The Riftwar Saga, #2)]]> 13810
Once he was an orphan called Pug, apprenticed to a sorcerer of the enchanted land of Midkemia.. Then he was captured and enslaved by the Tsurani, a strange, warlike race of invaders from another world.

There, in the exotic Empire of Kelewan, he earned a new name--Milamber. He learned to tame the unnimagined powers that lay withing him. And he took his place in an ancient struggle against an evil Enemy older than time itself.]]> 499 Raymond E. Feist 0553564935 William 4 fantasy 4.25 1982 Magician: Master (The Riftwar Saga, #2)
author: Raymond E. Feist
name: William
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Misspent Youth (Commonwealth Universe #0.5)]]> 45248 439 Peter F. Hamilton 0330480227 William 3 sci-fi 3.38 2002 Misspent Youth (Commonwealth Universe #0.5)
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: William
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Children of Ruin (Children of Time, #2)]]> 40376072
Long ago, Earth's terraforming program sent ships out to build new homes for humanity among the stars and made an unexpected discovery: a planet with life. But the scientists were unaware that the alien ecosystem was more developed than the primitive life forms originally discovered.

Now, thousands of years later, the Portiids and their humans have sent an exploration vessel following fragmentary radio signals. They discover a system in crisis, warring factions trying to recover from an apocalyptic catastrophe arising from what the early terraformers awoke all those years before.]]> 597 Adrian Tchaikovsky William 4 sci-fi 4.02 2019 Children of Ruin (Children of Time, #2)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: William
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> Kafka on the Shore 4929 Kafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle—yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.]]> 467 Haruki Murakami 1400079276 William 4 fiction 4.14 2002 Kafka on the Shore
author: Haruki Murakami
name: William
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pandora's Star (Commonwealth Saga #1)]]> 45252 Second Chance, is dispatched to learn what has occurred and whether it represents a threat. In command is Wilson Kime, a five-time rejuvenated ex-NASA pilot whose glory days are centuries behind him.

Opposed to the mission are the Guardians of Selfhood, a cult that believes the human race is being manipulated by an alien entity they call the Starflyer. Bradley Johansson, leader of the Guardians, warns of sabotage, fearing the Starflyer means to use the starship's mission for its own ends.

Pursued by a Commonwealth special agent convinced the Guardians are crazy but dangerous, Johansson flees. But the danger is not averted. Aboard the Second Chance, Kime wonders if his crew has been infiltrated. Soon enough, he will have other worries. A thousand light-years away, something truly incredible is waiting: a deadly discovery whose unleashing will threaten to destroy the Commonwealth... and humanity itself. Could it be that Johansson was right?]]> 768 Peter F. Hamilton 0345461622 William 4 sci-fi 4.24 2004 Pandora's Star (Commonwealth Saga #1)
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: William
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Constituent Service: A Third District Story]]> 219359162 The aliens are here . . . and they want municipal services!

Ashley Perrin is fresh out of college and starting a job as a community liaison for the Third District—the city’s only sector with more alien residents than humans. Ashley’s barely found where the paper clips are kept when she’s beset with constituent complaints–from too much noise at the Annual Lupidian Celebration Parade to a trip-and-fall chicken to a very particular type of alien hornet that threatens the very city itself.

And if that’s not terrifying enough, Ashley is next up at the office karaoke night.

It's Parks and Recreation meets the Federation of Planets in this fast and funny audio exclusive by Hugo Award winner and Audible best seller John Scalzi.]]> 3 John Scalzi William 3 sci-fi 3.85 2024 Constituent Service: A Third District Story
author: John Scalzi
name: William
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor]]> 2891600 Lecture 1: Introduction to Anatolia
Lecture 2: First Civilizations in Anatolia
Lecture 3: The Hittite Empire
Lecture 4: Hattusas and Imperial Hittite Culture
Lecture 5: Origins of Greek Civilization
Lecture 6: The Legend of Troy
Lecture 7: Iron Age Kingdoms of Asia Minor Lecture 8: Emergence of the Polis
Lecture 9: Ionia and Early Greek Civilization
Lecture 10: The Persian Conquest
Lecture 11: Athenian Empire and Spartan Hegemony
Lecture 12: Alexander the Great and the Diadochoi


Part 2 of 2, 12 Lectures/30 minutes per lecture, 2 DVD's:

Lecture 13: The Hellenization of Asia Minor
Lecture 14: Rome versus the Kings of the East
Lecture 15: Prosperity and Roman Patronage
Lecture 16: Gods and Sanctuaries of Roman Asia Minor
Lecture 17: Jews and Early Christians
Lecture 18: From Rome to Byzantium
Lecture 19: Constantinople, Queen of Cities
Lecture 20: The Byzantine Dark Ages
Lecture 21: Byzantine Cultural Revival
Lecture 22: Crusaders and Seljuk Turks
Lecture 23: Muslim Transformation
Lecture 24: The Ottoman Empire

Perhaps no other region of the world has played so many different roles in culture, religion, and politics, for so long a period of time, as the peninsula of Asian Turkey, known to the Greeks as Anatolia and to the Romans as Asia Minor. Though today we call it Turkey, that name dates back only to the Middle Ages.

9,000 Years of History
From 7000 B.C., when Neolithic hunters began the transition to a pastoral and agricultural lifestyle, to the founding of modern Turkey in the 20th century, this varied geographical area about the size of Texas has been a crossroads of history.

Homer composed the Iliad and Odyssey on the shores of Asia Minor. All seven of the great ecumenical councils that defined Christian theology in the centuries after the conversion of Constantine took place within the boundaries of modern Turkey. To study the region is to study a land that has nurtured successive civilizations that have defined the Western and Muslim traditions that embrace so many of the modern world's inhabitants.

A Hands-On Professor
Professor Kenneth W. Harl bases these lectures on both a lifetime of academic study and decades of his own firsthand fieldwork at sites throughout Turkey. He is Professor of History at Tulane University, where he has taught since 1978, after receiving his Ph.D. in History from Yale University. At Tulane, he has received the annual Student Award for Excellence in Teaching eight times. In Fall 2001, he was the national winner of the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teachers.

Conquest and Culture
The history of the region includes these milestones:

the rise of the Hittites, a chariot-borne warrior people who struck out from their Anatolian heartland to overrun the Babylonian Empire and fight the armies of Egypt's Ramses II to a standstill
the Trojan War, a legend created from historical events of the late Bronze Age, when Achaean merchant princes and adventurers clashed swords with Hittite emperors in Asia Minor
the birth of Western philosophy in the search for a rational account of all things by thinkers such as Thales, Anaximander, and Heraclitus—all Greek-speaking sages from what is now the Aegean coast of Turkey
the fiery revolt of the Ionian Greek cities that led to the Persian Wars (499-479 B.C.) and the rise of Periclean Athens as both the world's first democracy and the leader of a maritime empire wealthy enough to build the Parthenon
the great early victories of Alexander the Great that paved the way for the period of brilliant cultural and spiritual creativity we call the Hellenistic Age
the spread of early Christianity under the guidance of St. Paul, a native of Tarsus on the southern coast of Asia Minor
the golden age of the Byzantine Empire, which preserved the Greek classics and repeatedly saved Europe from nomadic invasion
the Muslim transformation of Asia Minor culminating in the Ottoman Empire, which at its height in the 16th century threatened to take over Europe itself.
Change and Continuity

Cultural change and continuity, says Professor Harl, are the main themes of this course. Each successive civilization inherited and modified the political, social, religious, and economic institutions of its predecessor.

The scope of Anatolian history can be best understood as a series of transformations in the religious landscape of the peninsula. Anatolia has experienced a number of major cultural and religious rewrites: first by the Hittite emperors; then by the elites of Hellenic cities; next by their Hellenized descendants in the Roman age; then by Christian emperors and bishops in the Byzantine age; and, finally, by Turkish rulers and Muslim mystics.

The final chapter, the transformation of Muslim Turkey into a modern secular nation-state, is still in progress. In looking at cultural changes, certain archaeological sites and important monuments will be featured as examples of wider changes.

Cultural Components
The course can be divided into five cultural components:

Early Anatolia (6000�500 B.C.)
The first lectures deal with the earliest civilizations of Anatolia, emerging at the dawn of agriculture in Neolithic villages on the Konya plain (in central Turkey); through the Hittite Empire, the apex of civilization in the late Bronze Age (1400�1180 B.C.); to the emergence of Phrygia, Lydia, and Persia, heirs to the Hittite traditions in the early Iron Age (1100�500 B.C.).

The Hellenization of Anatolia (750�31 B.C.)
The shores of western Anatolia came under the influence of the earliest Greeks, the Achaeans or Mycenaeans, during the late Bronze Age. Although this contact inspired the epic poems of Homer, it was only from 750 B.C. that Hellenic influence spread into the peninsula. Alexander the Great (336�323 B.C.) conquered Anatolia, and his successors transformed the region into a center of Greek cities that played a major role in the civilization of the Hellenistic Age (323�31 B.C.).

Roman Asia Minor (200 B.C.�395 A.D.)
The Romans built on the Hellenistic cities and institutions, and Anatolia was transformed into one of the most prosperous regions of the Roman world and homeland of the future Byzantine Empire. The Hellenic cities of Anatolia not only adapted Roman institutions and culture but also influenced the Roman monarchy, known as the Principate.

Byzantine Civilization (395�1453)
Imperial crisis in 235�305, and Christianization after 324, produced a new Byzantine civilization on Anatolian soil by 600, the basis of Orthodox Eastern Europe today. The Byzantine Empire, reduced to its Anatolian core, weathered two and one-half centuries of invasions and emerged as the leading civilization of medieval Christendom in the 10th and 11th centuries.

Islamic Turkey (since 1071)
The Anatolian peninsula was transformed from a Christian to a Muslim land in the wake of Byzantine decline and the arrival of crusaders from Western Europe. Ottoman sultans then built the last great Muslim empire in the Middle East and Mediterranean world, an empire that fragmented in the 20th century into a series of nation-states. In 1922-1939, Anatolia became the core of the Turkish Republic, a Muslim society that has successfully met the challenges of modernization.]]> 281 Kenneth W. Harl 1565853377 William 3 history 4.08 Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor
author: Kenneth W. Harl
name: William
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[White Trash Warlock (Adam Binder, #1)]]> 53255694 Guthrie was a good place to be from, but it wasn’t a great place to live, not when you were like Adam, in all the ways Adam was like Adam.

Adam Binder hasn’t spoken to his brother in years, not since Bobby had him committed to a psych ward for hearing voices. When a murderous spirit possesses Bobby’s wife and disrupts the perfect life he’s built away from Oklahoma, he’s forced to ask for his little brother’s help. Adam is happy to escape the trailer park and get the chance to say I told you so, but he arrives in Denver to find the local magicians dead.

It isn’t long before Adam is the spirit’s next target. To survive the confrontation, he’ll have to risk bargaining with powers he’d rather avoid, including his first love, the elf who broke his heart.

The Binder brothers don’t realize that they’re unwitting pawns in a game played by immortals. Death herself wants the spirit’s head, and she’s willing to destroy their family to reap it.]]> 320 David R. Slayton 1094067962 William 2 horror 3.87 2020 White Trash Warlock (Adam Binder, #1)
author: David R. Slayton
name: William
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: horror
review:

]]>