en-US Fri, 13 Sep 2024 06:16:43 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 12700353
Until Greg's mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel.

Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia—cue extreme adolescent awkwardness—but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed. When Rachel stops treatment, Greg and Earl decide the thing to do is to make a film for her, which turns into the Worst Film Ever Made and becomes a turning point in each of their lives.

And all at once Greg must abandon invisibility and stand in the spotlight.]]> 295 Jesse Andrews 1419701762 Scott 3 3.53 2012
author: Jesse Andrews
name: Scott
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves:
review:
Maybe 3.5 stars. Laughed several times. It's a bombardment. I liked it but it is a lot
]]> 32109569 Alternate Cover Edition can be found here.

Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street.

Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets. The stakes are high: no less than the first claim to entire worlds. If he declines the honor, he'll be switched off, and they'll try again with someone else. If he accepts, he becomes a prime target. There are at least three other countries trying to get their own probes launched first, and they play dirty.

The safest place for Bob is in space, heading away from Earth at top speed. Or so he thinks. Because the universe is full of nasties, and trespassers make them mad - very mad.]]> 383 Dennis E. Taylor Scott 1 4.29 2016
author: Dennis E. Taylor
name: Scott
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2016
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2024/09/04
shelves:
review:
10 chapters in. I'm going to tell James of today's workout session that I don't like this book. At all. Same level as scythe. I do not like the writing at all
]]> 10847
A multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. This is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.

Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this "divinely inspired" crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. Along the way, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest-growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some forty-thousand Mormon Fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five "plural wives," several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamentalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers, and preach that any day now the world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents.

Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism’s violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.]]> 400 Jon Krakauer 0330419129 Scott 5 Well written. Well researched 4.01 2003
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Scott
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves:
review:
Well written. Well researched
]]> 28954189 Thou shalt kill.

A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.

Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art�� of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

An alternate cover edition of ISBN: 9781442472426]]> 435 Neal Shusterman Scott 1 4.32 2016
author: Neal Shusterman
name: Scott
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2016
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2024/08/22
shelves:
review:
I'm at the gym right now listening to this book. There are still 3 hours left. I would've stopped listening to it 2 hours ago but I'm listening to it because James likes it. I'm too scared to tell him I really don't like it. This book is boring as hell. Characters are arche types. The writing sucks. It's all focused on plot and the plot isn't interesting
]]> 9850443
With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters - losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life - and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West, and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.]]> 328 Patrick deWitt 0062041266 Scott 4
First read-I did not want to stop reading this, did not want it to end and always looked forward to it. The audiobook version was amazing. I laughed out loud a few times and found the humor and story witty, sarcastic, and dark. Loved it.]]> 3.84 2011
author: Patrick deWitt
name: Scott
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/16
shelves:
review:
Second read -not as good as the first time. Stil, I liked the simplicity and directness of the writing. It felt of its time. Also, liked the characters

First read-I did not want to stop reading this, did not want it to end and always looked forward to it. The audiobook version was amazing. I laughed out loud a few times and found the humor and story witty, sarcastic, and dark. Loved it.
]]> 9533378
Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he’s hounded Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down, and Atticus will need all his power—plus the help of a seductive goddess of death, his vampire and werewolf team of attorneys, a bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good old-fashioned luck of the Irish—to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil.]]> 304 Kevin Hearne 0345522478 Scott 2 4.09 2011
author: Kevin Hearne
name: Scott
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/08/15
shelves:
review:
It was fine. Some funny moments. Writing was easy to follow and kinda funny
]]> 545936 330 Lloyd C. Douglas 0395957745 Scott 2 3.84
author: Lloyd C. Douglas
name: Scott
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:
kind of a weird subject for a book. it was okay but i couldn't really figure out what the author was trying to say. he seemed to be pushy about the subject of doing good to others in a weird way. i wouldn't read it again. i just now found out that the author was type of minister or something so it makes more sense to me now
]]> 437049
"If you care for journeys there and back, out of the comfortable Western world, over the edge of the Wild, and home again, and can take an interest in a humble hero (blessed with a little wisdom and a little courage and considerable good luck), here is a record of such a journey and such a traveler. The period is the ancient time between the age of Faerie and the dominion of men, when the famous forest of Mirkwood was still standing, and the mountains were full of danger. In following the path of this humble adventurer, you will learn by the way (as he did) - if you do not already know all about these things - much about trolls, goblins, dwarves, and elves, and get some glimpses into the history and politics of a neglected but important period."

"For Mr. Bilbo Baggins visited various notable persons; conversed with the dragon, Smaug the Magnificent; and was present, rather unwillingly, at the Battle of the Five Armies. This is all the more remarkable, since he was a hobbit. Hobbits have hitherto been passed over in history and legend, perhaps because they as a rule preferred comfort to excitement. But this account, based on his personal memoirs, of the one exciting year in the otherwise quiet life of Mr. Baggins will give you a fair idea of the estimable people now (it is said) becoming rather rare. They do not like noise."

Description from back cover]]> 275 J.R.R. Tolkien 0618002219 Scott 4
2012:
The book moved fast and was entertaining but I felt like it was lacking. I felt like it could have been more. I really liked certain parts of the book like when they meet the three trolls and when they go through the Misty Mountains. Actually, I really liked the whole first half. The second half (after they reach Lake Town) felt too rushed and I felt that was the part of the book that was lacking. I wanted more details.

Also, I wasnt not a huge fan of it being written in third person.]]> 4.36 1937
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Scott
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1937
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves:
review:
Caren and I took turns reading this book out loud to each other. How romantic. She's a better reader than I am even though I sung the songs when I was reading and Caren just skipped right over them. I enjoyed this book more than the first time I read it but I still have some of those same feelings I had when I read it the first time. I like the humor of J.R. Tolkien. I like how action packed it is. I like how it moves at a pretty good pace. I like how Bilbo is just an ordinary hobbit who ends up doing incredible things. But, I also thought the battle at the very end could have been so epic but instead it only lasted like 2 pages. Also, sometimes I felt like the writing centered too much on unimportant things and less time on the things I was more interested in. Overall, it's entertaining and had me chuckling.

2012:
The book moved fast and was entertaining but I felt like it was lacking. I felt like it could have been more. I really liked certain parts of the book like when they meet the three trolls and when they go through the Misty Mountains. Actually, I really liked the whole first half. The second half (after they reach Lake Town) felt too rushed and I felt that was the part of the book that was lacking. I wanted more details.

Also, I wasnt not a huge fan of it being written in third person.
]]> 41941681 A coming-of-age story about grief, guilt, and the risks a Filipino-American teenager takes to uncover the truth about his cousin's murder.

Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story.

Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth -- and the part he played in it.]]> 323 Randy Ribay 0525554912 Scott 3 4.21 2019
author: Randy Ribay
name: Scott
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves:
review:
So unrealistic for a book trying to be realistic. The story unfolds like it would in a YA book
]]> 44776662 275 Lauren Groff 1594634521 Scott 3 3.77 2018
author: Lauren Groff
name: Scott
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves:
review:
Some great prose with each short story but overall it was pretty boring
]]> 21792828 An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.]]> 354 Emily St. John Mandel Scott 2 4.13 2014
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Scott
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2020/12/23
shelves:
review:
I was pretty disappointed with this book after reading all of the great reviews about it. It wasn’t that special. It had an interesting premise but it jumped back and forth too much between stories. It didn’t focus on the story I wanted to read. The first 100 hundred or so pages were pretty slow and the reader doesn’t exactly know what to expect. I was hoping that everything was going to tie together quickly after the first hundred pages but it took until the end of the book to connect all the separate stories. Yes, there were some good parts but the majority of the book focused on one of the stories that I didn’t care too much about. I won’t read it again.
]]> 5685 "Pevear and Volokhonsky are at once scrupulous translators and vivid stylists of English, and their superb rendering allows us, as perhaps never before, to grasp the palpability of Tolstoy's 'characters, acts, situations.'" (James Wood, "The New Yorker")]]> 838 Leo Tolstoy 0142000272 Scott 5 4.16 1878
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Scott
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1878
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/11/29
shelves:
review:
Not only is this book long, but it is packed full of detail and content. Tolstoy writes about each characters life, and does not just write to follow a plot line. It feels like you are watching the real lives of these people through a window in the sky without them knowing it. Tolstoy's writing style is very straightforward but it does not spell out the meaning of the passages; the reader figures it out on his or her own. This book portrays human life at its best and worst. Overall, this was a remarkable read and very true to life. I recommend to anyone who likes realist fiction and has the patience to fully engage themselves in a 700+ page book.
]]> 10518145 214 Oscar Wilde 143512975X Scott 4 4.20 1890
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Scott
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1890
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/12/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 2647293 132 Lewis Carroll 1904808166 Scott 1 3.83 1865
author: Lewis Carroll
name: Scott
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1865
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2018/12/05
shelves:
review:
Just not my kind of book. It's just flat out random. Tim Burton's movie was random too, but at least it was entertaining. This book wasn't. But now I can say I have read it.
]]> 176108 Librarian note: See this edition record for the Laurel-Leaf Books/Dell edition that may have been published with ISBN 014240733X.

No one ever said life was easy. But Ponyboy is pretty sure that he's got things figured out. He knows that he can count on his brothers, Darry and Sodapop. And he knows that he can count on his friends - true friends who would do anything for him, like Johnny and Two-Bit. And when it comes to the beating up on "greasers" like him and his friends - he knows that he can count on them for trouble. But one night someone takes things too far, and Ponyboy's world is turned upside down...

~from inside flap]]> 198 S.E. Hinton Scott 5
People are people so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

So we're different colours
And we're different creeds
And different people have different needs
It's obvious you hate me
Though I've done nothing wrong
I never even met you
So what could I have done

I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand

I related to this book and I related to the characters. I liked how close the greasers were to each other and how they were like a family and would do anything for each other.

I would read this book again. ]]> 4.32 1967
author: S.E. Hinton
name: Scott
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1967
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/12/03
shelves:
review:
First time reading this book. I loved it. Simple and straightforward but it also has a good moral. Depeche Mode's lyrics sum up this song perfectly:

People are people so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

So we're different colours
And we're different creeds
And different people have different needs
It's obvious you hate me
Though I've done nothing wrong
I never even met you
So what could I have done

I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand

I related to this book and I related to the characters. I liked how close the greasers were to each other and how they were like a family and would do anything for each other.

I would read this book again.
]]> 105760 356 Robert Graysmith 0425098087 Scott 4 3.92 1986
author: Robert Graysmith
name: Scott
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/10/10
shelves:
review:
Lots of facts and lots of mysteries. This book attempts to merge and explain them.
]]> 15793186 A funny, poignant and revealing novel that’s become a huge word-of-mouth hit in the US.

How do you prove you're not an alcoholic?

Hildy Good has reached that dangerous time in a woman's life - middle-aged and divorced, she is an oddity in her small but privileged town. But Hildy isn't one for self-pity and instead meets the world with a wry smile, a dark wit and a glass or two of Pinot Noir. When her two earnest grown-up children stage 'an intervention' and pack Hildy off to an addiction centre, she thinks all this fuss is ridiculous. After all, why shouldn't Hildy enjoy a drink now and then?

But as the story progresses, we start to see another side to Hildy Good, and to her life's greatest passion - the lies and self deceptions needed to support her drinking, and the damage she causes to those she loves. When a cluster of secrets become dangerously entwined, the reckless behaviour of one threatens to expose the other, with devastating consequences.]]> 292 Ann Leary 1250015545 Scott 4 3.67 2013
author: Ann Leary
name: Scott
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/10/10
shelves:
review:
Somebody asked "when is this movie with Meryl Streep going to be made?" and I thought to myself that is exactly what this book is...A Meryl Streep movie.
]]> 99208 The Monkey Wrench Gang, his 1975 novel, a "comic extravaganza." Some readers have remarked that the book is more a comic book than a real novel, and it's true that reading this incendiary call to protect the American wilderness requires more than a little of the old willing suspension of disbelief.

The story centers on Vietnam veteran George Washington Hayduke III, who returns to the desert to find his beloved canyons and rivers threatened by industrial development. On a rafting trip down the Colorado River, Hayduke joins forces with feminist saboteur Bonnie Abbzug, wilderness guide Seldom Seen Smith, and billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., and together they wander off to wage war on the big yellow machines, on dam builders and road builders and strip miners. As they do, his characters voice Abbey's concerns about wilderness preservation ("Hell of a place to lose a cow," Smith thinks to himself while roaming through the canyonlands of southern Utah. "Hell of a place to lose your heart. Hell of a place... to lose. Period").

Moving from one improbable situation to the next, packing more adventure into the space of a few weeks than most real people do in a lifetime, the motley gang puts fear into the hearts of their enemies, laughing all the while. It's comic, yes, and required reading for anyone who has come to love the desert.]]> 421 Edward Abbey 0061129763 Scott 4 A liberal western 4.09 1975
author: Edward Abbey
name: Scott
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1975
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/10/10
shelves:
review:
A liberal western
]]> 22838934
When the body of a girl is found, cut into three, Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is reminded of a magic trick, the Zig Zag Girl.

The inventor of the trick, Max Mephisto, is an old friend of Edgar’s. They served together in the war as part of a shadowy unit called the Magic Men.

Max is still on the circuit, touring seaside towns in the company of ventriloquists, sword-swallowers and dancing girls. Changing times mean that variety is not what it once was, yet Max is reluctant to leave this world to help Edgar investigate. But when the dead girl turns out to be known to him, Max changes his mind.

Another death, another magic trick: Edgar and Max become convinced that the answer to the murders lies in their army days. When Edgar receives a letter warning of another ‘trick��, the Wolf Trap, he knows that they are all in danger…]]> 328 Elly Griffiths 1848669852 Scott 2 3.56 2014
author: Elly Griffiths
name: Scott
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/05/21
shelves:
review:
Definitely not bad but just kinda like, "so what." The whole meat of the book is in the mystery and once you know the mystery it loses its value. I did like the setting of the book.
]]> 32145 Stiff an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. In this fascinating account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.]]> 304 Mary Roach 0393324826 Scott 2 4.06 2003
author: Mary Roach
name: Scott
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/05/21
shelves:
review:
ehhh. Some interesting chapters but also some super boring chapters.
]]> 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 Scott 3 4.13 2016
author: Blake Crouch
name: Scott
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/05/21
shelves:
review:
A light 3 star rating. Starts off great but slowly kinda goes downhill. This could be made into an awesome movie though.
]]> 13526165
When her daughter Bee claims a family trip to Antarctica as a reward for perfect grades, Bernadette, a fiercely intelligent shut-in, throws herself into preparations for the trip. But worn down by years of trying to live the Seattle life she never wanted, Ms. Fox is on the brink of a meltdown. And after a school fundraiser goes disastrously awry at her hands, she disappears, leaving her family to pick up the pieces--which is exactly what Bee does, weaving together an elaborate web of emails, invoices, and school memos that reveals a secret past Bernadette has been hiding for decades. Where'd You Go Bernadette is an ingenious and unabashedly entertaining novel about a family coming to terms with who they are and the power of a daughter's love for her mother.]]> 330 Maria Semple 0316204277 Scott 4 3.87 2012
author: Maria Semple
name: Scott
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/05/21
shelves:
review:
I mostly liked how light-hearted this book was. I mostly liked the comedy. I mostly liked the story. I mostly did not like the concluding chapters.
]]> 26025588 A compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream—the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy

Named one of BuzzFeed’s “Incredible New Books You Need to Read This Summer��

Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty—and Jende is eager to please. Clark’s wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses�� summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future.

However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers�� façades.

When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende’s job—even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.]]> 385 Imbolo Mbue 0812998480 Scott 4 3.90 2016
author: Imbolo Mbue
name: Scott
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/05/21
shelves:
review:
Well written. The audio book voice acting was great. This book gets the job done and does it well.
]]> 9684523 A richly imagined new novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller, People of the Book.

Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.

The narrator of Caleb's Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island's glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe's shaman, against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb's crossing of cultures.

Like Brooks's beloved narrator Anna in Year of Wonders, Bethia proves an emotionally irresistible guide to the wilds of Martha's Vineyard and the intimate spaces of the human heart. Evocative and utterly absorbing, Caleb's Crossing further establishes Brooks's place as one of our most acclaimed novelists.

Watch a Video]]> 306 Geraldine Brooks 0670021040 Scott 2 3.83 2011
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Scott
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/05/21
shelves:
review:
I don't know why I finished reading this. Not bad but so generic.
]]> 20675 The American is a novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly in 1876-77 and then as a book in 1877.
Christopher Newman, a ‘self-made�� American millionaire in France, falls in love with the beautiful aristocratic Claire de Bellegarde. Her family, however, taken aback by his brash American manner, rejects his proposal of marriage. When Newman discovers a guilty secret in the Bellegardes�� past, he confronts a moral dilemma: Should he expose them and thus gain his revenge? James’s masterly early work is at once a social comedy, a melodramatic romance and a realistic novel of manners.]]> 400 Henry James 0451529669 Scott 2 3.68 1877
author: Henry James
name: Scott
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1877
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/04/03
shelves:
review:
The first half kept my interest but the second half totally lost it. The plot fell apart and all of the good things of the first half disappeared. The plot changes from revolving around a courtship between a man and a woman to revolving around a humorous revenge/19th century victorian era suspense novel, that never resolves itself. The first half had such great potential and I enjoyed the relationships that were forming between the characters, but that all became lost in the fog of the second half. I enjoyed James' writing to a certain extent. The dialogue was very much character driven and was the best part of his writing. His prose was lengthy, cumbersome, and at times overwhelming. Too many semi colons and run on sentences that ruins any positive descriptive quality that the novel would have otherwise possessed. I probably won't read again.
]]> 25810398
When brothers Tushar and Nakul Khurana, two Delhi schoolboys, go to pick up their family’s television set at a repair shop with their friend Mansoor Ahmed one day in 1996, disaster strikes without warning. A bomb—one of the many “small�� bombs that go off seemingly unheralded across the world—detonates in the Delhi marketplace, instantly claiming the lives of the Khurana boys to the devastation of their parents.

Mansoor survives, bearing the physical and psychological effects of the bomb. After a brief stint at university in America, Mansoor returns to Delhi, where his life becomes entangled with the mysterious and charismatic Ayub, a fearless young activist whose own allegiances and beliefs are more malleable than Mansoor could imagine. Woven among the story of the Khuranas and the Ahmeds is the tale of Shockie, a Kashmiri bomb maker who has forsaken his own life for the independence of his homeland.]]> 288 Karan Mahajan 0525429638 Scott 2 3.55 2016
author: Karan Mahajan
name: Scott
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/03/26
shelves:
review:
Didn't not like it but it didn't feel fully fleshed out. Felt more like an outline than an actual novel.
]]> 21423525
The timing couldn’t be worse. Hoping to encourage her son’s artistic interests, Connie has planned a month-long tour of European capitals, a chance to experience the world’s greatest works of art as a family, and she can’t bring herself to cancel. And maybe going ahead with the original plan is for the best anyway. Douglas is privately convinced that this landmark trip will rekindle the romance in the marriage and might even help him bond with Albie.

Narrated from Douglas’s endearingly honest, slyly witty, and at times achingly optimistic point of view, Us is the story of a man trying to rescue his relationship with the woman he loves and learning how to get closer to a son who’s always felt like a stranger.]]> 400 David Nicholls 034089699X Scott 4 3.69 2014
author: David Nicholls
name: Scott
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/03/26
shelves:
review:
It dragged on but luckily the writing was good enough. I really liked it but would've liked it more if it was shorter. 100 pages could have been cut.
]]> 2051755 New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award��for Fiction.

In the days before the Civil War, a runaway slave named Liz Spocott breaks free from her captors and escapes into the labyrinthine swamps of Maryland’s eastern shore, setting loose a drama of violence and hope among slave catchers, plantation owners, watermen, runaway slaves, and free blacks. Liz is near death, wracked by disturbing visions of the future, and armed with “the Code,�� a fiercely guarded cryptic means of communication for slaves on the run. Liz’s flight and her dreams of tomorrow will thrust all those near her toward a mysterious, redemptive fate.

Filled with rich, true details—much of the story is drawn from historical events—and told in McBride’s signature lyrical style, Song Yet Sung is a story of tragic triumph, violent decisions, and unexpected kindness.
���ձ�> 368 James McBride 1594489726 Scott 2 3.98 2008
author: James McBride
name: Scott
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/03/15
shelves:
review:
It was okay. It got kind of dumb towards the end of the book. Really disappointed by this because I loved The Good Lord Bird and the Color of Water.
]]> 29092928 Ananke, an experimental military spacecraft launched by the ruthless organization that rules Earth and its solar system, computer scientist Althea has established an intense emotional bond—not with any of her crewmates, but with the ship’s electronic systems, which speak more deeply to her analytical mind than human feelings do. But when a pair of fugitive terrorists gain access to the Ananke, Althea must draw upon her heart and soul for the strength to defend her beloved ship.
��
While one of the saboteurs remains at large somewhere on board, his captured partner—the enigmatic Ivan—may prove to be more dangerous. The perversely fascinating criminal whose silver tongue is his most effective weapon has long evaded the authorities�� most relentless surveillance—and kept the truth about his methods and motives well hidden.
��
As the ship’s systems begin to malfunction and the claustrophobic atmosphere is increasingly poisoned by distrust and suspicion, it falls to Althea to penetrate the prisoner’s layers of intrigue and deception before all is lost. But when the true nature of Ivan’s mission is exposed, it will change Althea forever—if it doesn’t kill her first.
]]> 320 C.A. Higgins 0553394444 Scott 5 3.44 2015
author: C.A. Higgins
name: Scott
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/02/16
shelves:
review:
I liked this book a lot and I can't quite pin point why. I think some of the reasons are: I like how it all takes place in the same place and that it is not super actiony/adventury/epicy. It seems like a lot of fantasy/sci fi novels are so heavily plot drive that it's kind of annoying. I like how this book gives you room to breathe. I liked the pacing. I liked how the author let scenes play out and didn't cut them too quickly. I was fascinated by the story and curious to see what was going to happen. I really enjoyed it.
]]> 25241317 Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Joby Warrick reveals how the strain of militant Islam now raising its banner across Iraq and Syria spread from a remote Jordanian prison with the unwitting aid of American military intervention.

����������When he succeeded his father in 1999, King Abdullah of Jordan released a batch of political prisoners in the hopes of smoothing his transition to power. Little did he know that among those released was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a man who would go on to become a terrorist mastermind too dangerous even for al-Qaeda and give rise to an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East.
�������� Zarqawi began by directing hotel bombings and assassinations in Jordan from a base in northern Iraq, but it was the American invasion of that country in 2003 that catapulted him to the head of a vast insurgency. By identifying him as the link between Saddam and bin Laden, the CIA inadvertently created a monster. Like-minded radicals saw him as a hero resisting the infidel occupiers and rallied to his cause. Their wave of brutal beheadings and suicide bombings continued for years until Jordanian intelligence provided the Americans with the crucial intelligence needed to eliminate Zarqawi in a 2006 airstrike.
�������� But his movement endured, first called al-Qaeda in Iraq, then renamed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, seeking refuge in unstable, ungoverned pockets on the Iraq-Syria border. And as the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, ISIS seized its chance to pursue Zarqawi's dream of a sweeping, ultra-conservative Islamic caliphate.��
�������� Drawing on unique access to CIA and Jordanian sources, Joby Warrick weaves together heart-pounding, moment-by-moment operational details with overarching historical perspectives to reveal the long trajectory of today's most dangerous Islamic extremist threat.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 368 Joby Warrick 0385538227 Scott 5 4.29 2016
author: Joby Warrick
name: Scott
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/02/11
shelves:
review:
Learned a ton. Didn't want it to end. Can't believe I didn't know most of this stuff. I've been living through it and haven't known. It's a good history lesson and introduction to the middle east since the early 2000's. Loved it.
]]> 25817143 288 Bob Boilen 0062344447 Scott 3 3.45 2016
author: Bob Boilen
name: Scott
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/02/11
shelves:
review:
I liked the book the most when Bob Boilen educated the reader on music and music history. I also liked how he also had a kind of memoir going on. I liked some of the authors interviews but found that sometimes he seemed to be stretching quite a bit in relating it back to the main purpose of the book. It was good.
]]> 24724627
But freedom is a poor match against a lifetime of psychological damage. As Cassie plumbs the depths of her new surroundings, the startling truths she uncovers about her own family narrative make it impossible to cut the tethers of a tumultuous past. And when the unhealthy mother-daughter relationship that defined Cassie’s childhood and adolescence threatens to pull her under once again, Cassie must decide: whose version of history is real? And more important, whose life must she save?]]> 352 Kerry Kletter 0399171037 Scott 2 3.98 2016
author: Kerry Kletter
name: Scott
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/02/11
shelves:
review:
I give it a heavy 2 stars. I liked the internal dialogue, thought process and inner descriptions of the main character. I didn't like the outward behaviors and dialogue of the characters though. I wasn't a big fan of the narrative structure either, going back and forth in time. I thought it was a pretty ambitious book but that it couldn't pull it off.
]]> 23129410 Welcome to Night Vale podcast comes an imaginative mystery of appearances and disappearances that is also a poignant look at the ways in which we all struggle to find ourselves...no matter where we live.

Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.

Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked "King City" by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can't seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels.

Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton's son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane's started to see her son's father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.

Diane's search to reconnect with her son and Jackie's search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: "King City". It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures...if they can ever find it.]]> 401 Joseph Fink 0062351427 Scott 2 3.84 2015
author: Joseph Fink
name: Scott
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/02/11
shelves:
review:
ehhh. I liked how it was unusual and bizarre but I didn't think it was that great of a book.
]]> 30555488
In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor--engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]> 320 Colson Whitehead 0385542364 Scott 3 4.04 2016
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Scott
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/02/11
shelves:
review:
There was good and bad with this book. I really liked about the first half but the second half slowed down and it didn't go places that I thought it would. I was disappointed by how it concluded. It was pretty good but not great.
]]> 21965079
A gripping day-by-day account of the 1978 Camp David conference, when President Jimmy Carter persuaded Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to sign the first peace treaty in the modern Middle East, one which endures to this day.

With his hallmark insight into the forces at play in the Middle East and his acclaimed journalistic skill, Lawrence Wright takes us through each of the thirteen days of the Camp David conference, illuminating the issues that have made the problems of the region so intractable, as well as exploring the scriptural narratives that continue to frame the conflict. In addition to his in-depth accounts of the lives of the three leaders, Wright draws vivid portraits of other fiery personalities who were present at Camp David––including Moshe Dayan, Osama el-Baz, and Zbigniew Brzezinski––as they work furiously behind the scenes. Wright also explores the significant role played by Rosalynn Carter.
What emerges is a riveting view of the making of this unexpected and so far unprecedented peace. Wright exhibits the full extent of Carter’s persistence in pushing an agreement forward, the extraordinary way in which the participants at the conference—many of them lifelong enemies—attained it, and the profound difficulties inherent in the process and its outcome, not the least of which has been the still unsettled struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

In Thirteen Days in September , Wright gives us a resonant work of history and reportage that provides both a timely revisiting of this important diplomatic triumph and an inside look at how peace is made.]]> 368 Lawrence Wright 0385352034 Scott 5 4.16 2014
author: Lawrence Wright
name: Scott
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/02/11
shelves:
review:
Well written. Learned a lot about the middle east and stuff I didn't know anything about. Really a fantastic book and I was highly impressed.
]]> 119324
Each is searching—Lyra for the meaning of Dark Matter, Will for his missing father—but what they find instead is a deadly secret, a knife of untold power. And neither Lyra nor Will suspects how tightly their lives, their loves, and their destinies are bound together... until they are split apart.]]> 326 Philip Pullman 0679879250 Scott 4 4.12 1997
author: Philip Pullman
name: Scott
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/12/24
shelves:
review:
I like this guy's writing style. He doesn't dumb things too down for kids. I really loved the first half to three quarters of this book. The last part of the book was pretty generic. I will finish this trilogy. I may have liked this book better than first one. They are comparable at least.
]]> 25899336
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a naïve medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

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

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. "I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything," he wrote. "Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: 'I can't go on. I'll go on.'" When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.]]> 208 Paul Kalanithi 0812988418 Scott 4 4.41 2016
author: Paul Kalanithi
name: Scott
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/12/10
shelves:
review:
An honest look at life and death without trying to inspire or depress. Life is what it is and that's beautiful.
]]> 16065004
Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is now on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds.

When family obligations forced Waxillium Ladrian to forsake the frontier lands and return to the metropolis of his birth to take his place as head of a noble House, he little imagined that the crime-fighting skills acquired during twenty years in the dusty plains would be just as applicable in the big city. He soon learned that there too, just being a talented Twinborn �� one who can use both Allomancy and Feruchemy, the dominant magical modes on Scadrial �� would not suffice.

This bustling, optimistic, but still shaky society will now face its first test by terrorism and assassination, crimes intended to stir up labor strife and religious conflict. Wax, his eccentric sidekick Wayne, and brilliant, beautiful young Marasi, now officially part of the constabulary, must unravel the conspiracy before civil strife can stop Scadrial’s progress in its tracks.]]> 376 Brandon Sanderson 0765378558 Scott 2 4.27 2015
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Scott
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2016/12/10
shelves:
review:
You can't get too much more boring/"same old, same old" than this book. I'm not going to continue with the series.
]]> 22501028 From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author--now in the fiftieth year of her remarkable career--a brilliantly observed, joyful and wrenching, funny and true new novel that reveals, as only she can, the very nature of a family's life.
����������"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon." This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The whole family--their two daughters and two sons, their grandchildren, even their faithful old dog--is on the porch, listening contentedly as Abby tells the tale they have heard so many times before. And yet this gathering is different too: Abby and Red are growing older, and decisions must be made about how best to look after them, and the fate of the house so lovingly built by Red's father. Brimming with the luminous insight, humor, and compassion that are Anne Tyler's hallmarks, this capacious novel takes us across three generations of the Whitshanks, their shared stories and long-held secrets, all the unguarded and richly lived moments that combine to define who and what they are as a family.]]> 358 Anne Tyler 0385683421 Scott 4 3.39 2015
author: Anne Tyler
name: Scott
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/11/30
shelves:
review:
I liked the writing. The story was okay. The son character in the book was super super annoying. I didn't like how the author wrote his story. I also didn't like how whenever something was about to hit a climax, she would stop writing about that and move onto another section. But, the writing is great. The second half of the book I liked more than the first half.
]]> 8931789
Bridge of Spies is the true story of three extraordinary characters �� William Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, a British born KGB agent arrested by the FBI in New York City and jailed as a Soviet superspy for trying to steal America’s most precious nuclear secrets; Gary Powers, the American U-2 pilot who was captured when his plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over the closed cities of central Russia; and Frederic Pryor, a young American graduate student in Berlin mistakenly identified as a spy, arrested and held without charge by the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police.��
��
By weaving the three strands of this story together for the first time, Giles Whittell masterfully portrays the intense political tensions and nuclear brinkmanship that brought the United States and Soviet Union so close to a hot war in the early 1960s. He reveals the dramatic lives of men drawn into the nadir of the Cold War by duty and curiosity, and the tragicomedy of errors that eventually induced Khrushchev to send missiles to Castro. Two of his subjects��—��the spy and the pilot��—��were the original seekers of weapons of mass destruction. The third, an intellectual, fluent in German, unencumbered by dependents, and researching a Ph.D. thesis on the foreign trade system of the Soviet bloc, seemed to the Stasi precisely the sort of person the CIA should have been recruiting. He was not. In over his head in the world capital of spying, he was wrongly charged with espionage and thus came to the Agency’s notice by a more roundabout route. The three men were rescued against daunting odds by fate and by their families, and then all but forgotten. Yet they laid bare the pathological mistrust that fueled the arms race for the next 30 years.
��
Drawing on new interviews conducted in the United States, Europe and Russia with key players in the exchange and the events leading to it, among them Frederic Pryor himself and the man who shot down Gary Powers, Bridge of Spies captures a time when the fate of the world really did depend on coded messages on microdots and brave young men in pressure suits. The exchange that frigid day at two of the most sensitive points along the Iron Curtain represented the first step back from where the superpowers had stood since the building of the Berlin Wall the previous summer �� on the brink of World War III.]]> 304 Giles Whittell 0767931076 Scott 2 3.74 2010
author: Giles Whittell
name: Scott
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2010
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2016/11/22
shelves:
review:
I thought it was alright, not great. There was some interesting information. There was also some boring stuff. Some of his tangents were alright. Some of them were unnecessary.
]]> 7613
The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.

One night, all the animals at Mr. Jones' Manor Farm assemble in a barn to hear old Major, a pig, describe a dream he had about a world where all animals live free from the tyranny of their human masters. Old Major dies soon after the meeting, but the animals �� inspired by his philosophy of Animalism �� plot a rebellion against Jones.

Two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, prove themselves important figures and planners of this dangerous enterprise. When Jones forgets to feed the animals, the revolution occurs, and Jones and his men are chased off the farm. Manor Farm is renamed Animal Farm, and the Seven Commandments of Animalism are painted on the barn wall...]]> 129 George Orwell Scott 5 3.90 1945
author: George Orwell
name: Scott
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1945
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/11/20
shelves:
review:
I read this as a class in High School. That doesn't really count though. This book is great. Loved it. Loved the allegory.
]]> 5470 328 George Orwell Scott 5 4.15 1949
author: George Orwell
name: Scott
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/11/20
shelves:
review:
It's my third time reading it and still just as fantastic. One of my favorite books. This time around I was surprised by how long the section is on the text of Goldstein's forbidden book.
]]> 10569 (back cover)]]> 320 Stephen King 0743455967 Scott 4 4.33 2000
author: Stephen King
name: Scott
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/11/02
shelves:
review:
I didn't know what to expect from this book and was pleasantly surprised. Most of the book didn't apply to me (I'm not an aspiring author) but still found his practical advice on how to write interesting. He pointed out differences between good writing and bad writing and I find that interesting. This is the first Stephen King book I've ever read. I really liked the memoir pars of the book where he writes about growing up and life events that he had that pointed him towards writing. I enjoyed his writing and enjoyed the memoir for sure.
]]> 18114322
First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.]]> 496 John Steinbeck 067001690X Scott 5 4.06 1939
author: John Steinbeck
name: Scott
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1939
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/11/02
shelves:
review:
Great characters and great story. Like all of Steinbecks books I loved the humanity of the characters and the story. He is such a great writer and is able to express so much with simple language. Steinbeck really has a hold on his characters where they feel so real and the world feels so lived in. Fantastic book. One of my favorite of his.
]]> 4865
Since its release in 1936, How to Win Friends and Influence People has sold more than 30 million copies. Dale Carnegie's first book is a timeless bestseller, packed with rock-solid advice that has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives.

As relevant as ever before, Dale Carnegie's principles endure, and will help you achieve your maximum potential in the complex and competitive modern age.

Learn the six ways to make people like you, the twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking, and the nine ways to change people without arousing resentment.]]> 288 Dale Carnegie Scott 3 4.22 1936
author: Dale Carnegie
name: Scott
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1936
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2016/11/02
shelves:
review:
It's cool I guess. I just kind of read it just to read it. I don't know what I was expecting. He makes good points and has good advice obviously and thats why it's famous and has stuck around for so long. It's obvious its a self help book and I knew it was a self help book but I was disappointed in it because it was a self help book.
]]> 11220 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the awesome powers that keep them all imprisoned.

This edition includes a new forward by Kesey, a new text introduction by Robert Faggan, and line drawings the author made when writing the book, many never before published.

Cover illustration by Paul Wearing

--back cover]]> 281 Ken Kesey 0141181222 Scott 5 Superb<br /> 4.11 1962
author: Ken Kesey
name: Scott
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/10/11
shelves:
review:
Superb

]]> 18869967 From her first glimpse on that raw November eve, she could sense the inn's dark power. But never did Mary dream that she would become hopelessly ensnared in the vile, villainous schemes being hatched within its crumbling walls—or that a handsome, mysterious stranger would so incite her passions... tempting her to love a man whom she dares not trust.]]> 307 Daphne du Maurier 0316252905 Scott 2 3.92 1936
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Scott
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1936
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2016/09/13
shelves:
review:
I just couldn't get into it. It just felt so generic to me. A couple of interesting parts but not many.
]]> 22318513 558 Ethan Canin 1400068266 Scott 0 3.64 2016
author: Ethan Canin
name: Scott
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/09/01
shelves:
review:
I read around 60 pages of it before kinda giving up. I just couldn't get into it. It wasn't bad but it wasn't good. It's just a long book and I didn't want to waste my time reading an "ehhh" type book.
]]> 310612
His mother thinks he needs to go to work. He does, in a succession of jobs. Each job rapidly escalates into a lunatic adventure, a full-blown disaster; yet each has, like Don Quixote's, its own eerie logic.

His girlfriend, Myrna Minkoff of the Bronx, thinks he needs sex.

Ignatius is an intellectual, ideologue, deadbeat, goof-off, glutton, who should repel the reader with his gargantuan bloats, his thunderous contempt, and one-man war against everybody: Freud, homosexuals, heterosexuals, Protestants, and the assorted excesses of modern times.

A tragicomedy, set in New Orleans.]]> 394 John Kennedy Toole 0802130208 Scott 5 3.89 1980
author: John Kennedy Toole
name: Scott
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/08/22
shelves:
review:
One of the funniest books I've read. I laughed out loud several times. Ignatius is hilarious. I really enjoyed reading it. The characters are so quirky and cartoonish. It's just a fun read. I would read it again.
]]> 25489625 “This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.��
��
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,�� a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
��
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.]]> 152 Ta-Nehisi Coates Scott 5 4.40 2015
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Scott
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/08/21
shelves:
review:
Outstanding, personal writing. Loved the experiences he shares. Loved his perspective. Like Toni Morrison has said, "this is required reading." It's so human. At times, it is just so beautiful. Loved it
]]> 23437156 Alternate cover of ISBN 9781627792127

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone...

A convict with a thirst for revenge

A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager

A runaway with a privileged past

A spy known as the Wraith

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.]]> 480 Leigh Bardugo 1627792120 Scott 4 4.47 2015
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Scott
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/08/12
shelves:
review:
Fun, fast paced read. I liked how the characters were developed through series of flashbacks. I liked how it jumped into the story and didn't spend pages upon pages unnecessarily trying to develop the plot and characters. In fact, this was unlike most other fantasy books in that regard. Also, it was unlike other fantasy books in that I didn't feel like 100-200 pages could needed to be trimmed. The characters dialogue kinda got on my nerves because everything anybody said had to be a witty remark. Overall, I liked it and will read the second book in the series. The characters were cool, the world is cool, the magic is fine, the action sequences were cool for the most part. Not bad at all
]]> 109487 A Magnificent History of How the West Was Really Won - a Sweeping Tale of Shame and Glory

In the fall of 1846 the venerable Navajo warrior Narbona, greatest of his people’s chieftains, looked down upon the small town of Santa Fe, the stronghold of the Mexican settlers he had been fighting his whole long life. He had come to see if the rumors were true—if an army of blue-suited soldiers had swept in from the East and utterly defeated his ancestral enemies. As Narbona gazed down on the battlements and cannons of a mighty fort the invaders had built, he realized his foes had been vanquished—but what did the arrival of these “New Men�� portend for the Navajo?

Narbona could not have known that “The Army of the West,�� in the midst of the longest march in American military history, was merely the vanguard of an inexorable tide fueled by a self-righteous ideology now known as “Manifest Destiny.�� For twenty years the Navajo, elusive lords of a huge swath of mountainous desert and pasturelands, would ferociously resist the flood of soldiers and settlers who wished to change their ancient way of life or destroy them.]]> 460 Hampton Sides 0385507771 Scott 5 4.25 2006
author: Hampton Sides
name: Scott
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/08/12
shelves:
review:
The research in this book seems to be solid. The author tells a few different interweaving narratives and converges them into the topic of the exploration of the American West. It was really fantastic how the book was presented in this fashion. I loved his broad picture of the exploration of the west but also the time he takes to present details and tell side stories. It is a great, informative read.
]]> 119322
Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want--but what Lyra doesn't know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other.]]> 399 Philip Pullman 0679879242 Scott 4 4.02 1995
author: Philip Pullman
name: Scott
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/08/12
shelves:
review:
It was cool. I thought it was well written. I liked the characters for the most part. I thought the first several chapters of the book were amazing. As the book progressed, it lost some of its vibrancy. It became more dull. I still liked it quite a bit. I will probably read the second book in the series.
]]> 27161964 —Oliver Sacks

No writer has succeeded in capturing the medical and human drama of illness as honestly and as eloquently as Oliver Sacks.

During the last few months of his life, he wrote a set of essays in which he movingly explored his feelings about completing a life and coming to terms with his own death.

“It is the fate of every human being,�� Sacks writes, “to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.��

Together, these four essays form an ode to the uniqueness of each human being and to gratitude for the gift of life.]]> 49 Oliver Sacks 0345811364 Scott 2 4.15 2015
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Scott
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2016/08/12
shelves:
review:
A couple of really short essays make up this book. It's Sacks musing on life. It was fine but nothing special to me.
]]> 242472
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.

Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.��

For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. In this revelatory book, Taleb will change the way you look at the world, and this second edition features a new philosophical and empirical essay, “On Robustness and Fragility,�� which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world.

Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan is a landmark book—itself a black swan.]]> 480 Nassim Nicholas Taleb 1400063515 Scott 0 3.96 2007
author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
name: Scott
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/12
shelves:
review:
I only read around 30 pages before I couldn't read it anymore. His writing was so annoying and I didn't like the way he presented his arguments. Disappointing because I heard such great things about this. Whatever
]]> 3428935 416 Peter V. Brett 0345503805 Scott 2 4.25 2008
author: Peter V. Brett
name: Scott
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2016/07/25
shelves:
review:
It wasn't that good of a book. It was very generic and cliche. There were some interesting moments but there was so much filler in the book that it was pretty much a waste of time. It spent a lot of time trying to build the characters but so much of it was just boring. I was real disappointed because someone had recommended this book to me and talked about how great of a fantasy book it is. Ya, right.
]]> 25152052
Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco's charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.]]> 322 Isabel Allende 1501116975 Scott 3 3.79 2015
author: Isabel Allende
name: Scott
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2016/07/25
shelves:
review:
I really loved this book in the beginning. It got worse as it went on. I can't really say why except that I became less interested in it as time went on. I do know that Isabel Allende is a good author and I do like her writing.
]]> 3419808
Told through their respective journals, the story that emerges is at once shocking and deeply beautiful. Refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne's story becomes an alternative, secret history of Ireland's changing character and the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and ignorance, and yet marked still by love and passion and hope.]]> 300 Sebastian Barry 0571215289 Scott 4 3.82 2008
author: Sebastian Barry
name: Scott
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/07/04
shelves:
review:
I'm not quite sure how to describe this novel or describe the reasons why I liked it and some reasons why I didn't. Overall, I can say I enjoyed it mostly due to the writing. I did like some of the mini stories within the overall story. There were times when the writing was over my head and I didn't understand it, as well. The ending was a little too clean cut when the rest of the novel is jumbled.
]]> 545951 297 Willa Cather 0679728899 Scott 5 3.93 1927
author: Willa Cather
name: Scott
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1927
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/06/06
shelves:
review:
I love Willa Cathers writing. It is so complete. Every word that is in this book needs to be there. The writing isn't too much, and it isn't too little. It is the perfect balance. The simplicity of the writing is so beautiful. This novel is lovely because of the writing. She wrote the characters so well and wrote their stories so well. I really enjoyed reading this book. I would read it again.
]]> 11869272
In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human.

Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter - Annawadi's "most-everything girl" - will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call "the full enjoy."

But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.

With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century's hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.]]> 278 Katherine Boo 1400067553 Scott 5 3.97 2012
author: Katherine Boo
name: Scott
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/05/31
shelves:
review:
Wow. What a book. It is one of the best books I have read. This is up there with the best of them. Boo is an incredible journalist and author. Every sentence and paragraph had me hooked and several times I just had to sit back in wonder and awe. I absolutely loved it. The story is so personal and intimate and Boo gives all the characters depth and understanding. I truly got to know the characters and got to see motives and their life story. She interweaves this with a knowledge of India and it's political and economic structure. This book has so many depths: the characters, India, Anawandi undercity, the underclass, and some of the psychology of why systems of people (particularly poor in Anawandi) act the way they do. I would definitely read this again. The writing is beautiful, elegant and powerful. Wow am I glad I read this book. I would recommend this book to anyone regardless of their personal tastes or interests.
]]> 21853621 In love we find out who we want to be.
In war we find out who we are.

FRANCE, 1939

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.]]> 564 Kristin Hannah 0312577222 Scott 3 4.63 2015
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Scott
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2016/05/30
shelves:
review:
This book isn't special or extraordinary. It's average. The characters were pretty flat and boring. The book was too long. There was too much build up and not enough story. It was fairly predictable. The novel covered breadth and not depth. Kristin Hannah seemed to try really hard to write a "beautiful", "inspiring" story and there were some really lame quotes where she tried to make inspirational. It was a pretty fast read, which was good. There were some good moments in the story and some good scenes. The story was decent. It was a fine book, nothing else.
]]> 15790842
On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.

Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can - will she?]]> 544 Kate Atkinson 0316176486 Scott 4 3.76 2013
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Scott
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/05/12
shelves:
review:
It has its moments. Kate Atkinson is a good writer. But, it was really long for me. Sometimes I didn't want to pick up and continue reading it. Sometimes I felt the book was trying to be too fancy and quite honestly, I probably didn't pick up on most of the themes and symbolism. I enjoyed reading it because of the writing but it could also be a bit hard to follow at times. This book is not an everyman type of book.
]]> 12067
People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it’s only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. This time though, the armies of Good and Evil really do appear to be massing. The four Bikers of the Apocalypse are hitting the road. But both the angels and demons �� well, one fast-living demon and a somewhat fussy angel �� would quite like the Rapture not to happen.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist…]]> 491 Terry Pratchett Scott 5 4.27 1990
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Scott
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/05/12
shelves:
review:
Just such a fun read recommended to me by one of our librarians. I laughed several times. Good wit and satire and humor. I would read this again.
]]> 23363874 I want life. I want to read it and write it and feel it and live it. I want, for as much of the time as possible in this blink-of-an-eye existence we have, to feel all that can be felt. I hate depression. I am scared of it. Terrified, in fact. But at the same time, it has made me who I am. And if - for me - it is the price of feeling life, it's a price always worth paying.

Reasons to Stay Alive is about making the most of your time on earth. In the western world the suicide rate is highest amongst men under the age of 35. Matt Haig could have added to that statistic when, aged 24, he found himself staring at a cliff-edge about to jump off. This is the story of why he didn't, how he recovered and learned to live with anxiety and depression. It's also an upbeat, joyous and very funny exploration of how to live better, love better, read better and feel more.]]> 266 Matt Haig 1782115080 Scott 5 4.14 2015
author: Matt Haig
name: Scott
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/05/12
shelves:
review:
Informative, beautiful, powerful. These words describe this book. Very easy and fast to read. Matt Haig knew how to write part memoir, part non fiction and how to write it with a unique style. It shows the seriousness of depression but he writes with such love, humor and the ability to look back on some of his worst days. Love it.
]]> 18693763
Lydia is the favourite child of Marilyn and James Lee; a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue - in Marilyn's case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James's case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the centre of every party. But Lydia is under pressures that have nothing to do with growing up in 1970s small town Ohio. Her father is an American born of first-generation Chinese immigrants, and his ethnicity, and hers, make them conspicuous in any setting.

When Lydia's body is found in the local lake, James is consumed by guilt and sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to make someone accountable, no matter what the cost. Lydia's older brother, Nathan, is convinced that local bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it's the youngest in the family - Hannah - who observes far more than anyone realises and who may be the only one who knows what really happened.

Everything I Never Told You is a gripping page-turner, about secrets, love, longing, lies and race.

Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.]]> 297 Celeste Ng 159420571X Scott 3 3.81 2014
author: Celeste Ng
name: Scott
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2016/04/28
shelves:
review:
Its definitely not a bad book. I quite enjoyed it. I'm giving it 3 stars because I was expecting it to be something that it wasn't. I thought the focus would be more on the thriller side but it wasn't. She is a good writer. I found the underlying theme of people not telling each other things as an incredible theme.
]]> 13158800 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Australia, 1926. After four harrowing years fighting on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns home to take a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day's journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby's cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom's judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

M. L. Stedman's mesmerizing, beautifully written debut novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel's decision to keep this "gift from God." And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another's tragic loss.]]> 362 M.L. Stedman 1451681739 Scott 4 4.02 2012
author: M.L. Stedman
name: Scott
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/04/22
shelves:
review:
This is a book that hinges on the fence of a 3 or 4 star rating. It was good but not great. I liked how it was easy to read but also well written. I liked the story for the most part. It's set up like a typical novel in that every little thing matters and everything fits together like a nice little puzzle. That got on my nerves a little bit. I also didn't like how Stedman seemed to be trying to manipulate my emotions. Also, I found it hard to believe some of what happened. I didn't think Stedman did a good enough job writing in depth characters for some of the things to be believable. Some of the things that happened in the book just seemed out of character for the characters. This was a book focused on trying to further the plot, rather than focus on the characters. The characters served the plot instead of the other way around. I liked some of the ethical and moral dilemmas that were raised. Overall, it was a pretty good book and I can see how it would have a mass appeal.
]]> 24819449 Cleopatra, provides an electrifying, fresh view of the Salem witch trials.

The panic began early in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's niece began to writhe and roar. It spread quickly, confounding the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, husbands accused wives, parents and children one another. It ended less than a year later, but not before nineteen men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death.

Speaking loudly and emphatically, adolescent girls stood at the center of the crisis. Along with suffrage and Prohibition, the Salem witch trials represent one of the few moments when women played the central role in American history. Drawing masterfully on the archives, Stacy Schiff introduces us to the strains on a Puritan adolescent's life and to the authorities whose delicate agendas were at risk. She illuminates the demands of a rigorous faith, the vulnerability of settlements adrift from the mother country, perched--at a politically tumultuous time--on the edge of what a visitor termed a "remote, rocky, barren, bushy, wild-woody wilderness." With devastating clarity, the textures and tension of colonial life emerge; hidden patterns subtly, startlingly detach themselves from the darkness. Schiff brings early American anxieties to the fore to align them brilliantly with our own. In an era of religious provocations, crowdsourcing, and invisible enemies, this enthralling story makes more sense than ever.

The Witches is Schiff's riveting account of a seminal episode, a primal American mystery unveiled--in crackling detail and lyrical prose--by one of our most acclaimed historians.]]> 498 Stacy Schiff 0316200603 Scott 2 3.27 2015
author: Stacy Schiff
name: Scott
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2016/04/14
shelves:
review:
Interesting subject matter for sure but the writing was way too distracting. It was too conversational in tone, which made it very difficult to read and comprehend. The subject matter is interesting enough as it is that the author didn't need to try to generate more interest by continually making her own comments. I would not recommend the book.
]]> 342103 185 Robert F. Kennedy 0393318346 Scott 5 4.09 1968
author: Robert F. Kennedy
name: Scott
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1968
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/04/07
shelves:
review:
Straightforward and to the point, this book accounts for what happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Good read for those interested in our history. Also a very fast read.
]]> 15195
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust�� (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.]]> 296 Art Spiegelman 0141014083 Scott 5 4.57 1980
author: Art Spiegelman
name: Scott
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/04/01
shelves:
review:
This is worthy of all the praise and hype it has received. An incredible book. It's the first graphic novel I have ever read and it was amazing. I loved the writing and loved the pictures. I loved the narrative. Everything about this book is fantastic. I would read it again.
]]> 7144 671 Fyodor Dostoevsky Scott 4 4.26 1866
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Scott
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1866
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/04/01
shelves:
review:
Some interesting stuff in this book. I liked the psychological aspects. I liked some of the ethical questions. I also liked some of philosophical debates. I liked the main story but I did get bored when I felt like it got off track. There were many times when it deviates from the main plot and goes into sub plots, which I didn't like.
]]> 24911006 From bestselling author Jon Krakauer, a stark, powerful, meticulously reported narrative about a series of sexual assaults at the University of Montana ­�� stories that illuminate the human drama behind the national plague of campus rape.

Missoula, Montana, is a typical college town, with a highly regarded state university, bucolic surroundings, a lively social scene, and an excellent football team �� the Grizzlies �� with a rabid fan base.

The Department of Justice investigated 350 sexual assaults reported to the Missoula police between January 2008 and May 2012. Few of these assaults were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In this, Missoula is also typical.

A DOJ report released in December of 2014 estimates 110,000 women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four are raped each year. Krakauer’s devastating narrative of what happened in Missoula makes clear why rape is so prevalent on American campuses, and why rape victims are so reluctant to report assault.

Acquaintance rape is a crime like no other. Unlike burglary or embezzlement or any other felony, the victim often comes under more suspicion than the alleged perpetrator. This is especially true if the victim is sexually active; if she had been drinking prior to the assault �� and if the man she accuses plays on a popular sports team. The vanishingly small but highly publicized incidents of false accusations are often used to dismiss her claims in the press. If the case goes to trial, the woman’s entire personal life becomes fair game for defense attorneys.

This brutal reality goes a long way towards explaining why acquaintance rape is the most underreported crime in America. In addition to physical trauma, its victims often suffer devastating psychological damage that leads to feelings of shame, emotional paralysis and stigmatization. PTSD rates for rape victims are estimated to be 50%, higher than soldiers returning from war.

In Missoula, Krakauer chronicles the searing experiences of several women in Missoula �� the nights when they were raped; their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the way they were treated by the police, prosecutors, defense attorneys; the public vilification and private anguish; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them.

Some of them went to the police. Some declined to go to the police, or to press charges, but sought redress from the university, which has its own, non-criminal judicial process when a student is accused of rape. In two cases the police agreed to press charges and the district attorney agreed to prosecute. One case led to a conviction; one to an acquittal. Those women courageous enough to press charges or to speak publicly about their experiences were attacked in the media, on Grizzly football fan sites, and/or to their faces. The university expelled three of the accused rapists, but one was reinstated by state officials in a secret proceeding. One district attorney testified for an alleged rapist at his university hearing. She later left the prosecutor’s office and successfully defended the Grizzlies�� star quarterback in his rape trial. The horror of being raped, in each woman’s case, was magnified by the mechanics of the justice system and the reaction of the community.

Krakauer’s dispassionate, carefully documented account of what these women endured cuts through the abstract ideological debate about campus rape. College-age women are not raped because they are promiscuous, or drunk, or send mixed signals, or feel guilty about casual sex, or seek attention. They are the victims of a terrible crime and deserving of compassion from society and fairness from a justice system that is clearly broken.]]> 368 Jon Krakauer 0385538731 Scott 5 4.11 2015
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Scott
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/03/20
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review:
Fantastic read. Very eye opening. It really gives you a perspective on rape and all the myths in our culture about rape. I thought the book was going to be a more broad picture of rape and that there was going to be chapters on research and chapters on facts and statistics. It wasn't like that but I still loved it. Instead, Krakauer highlights and goes into minute detail of 4 or 5 rape cases in Missoula. He gives the back story, shows how the victim dealt with it, shows the interaction with law enforcement, shows the interaction with the college, and shows the outcome of the cases. Of course, Krakauer mingles in facts and statistics and his own interpretation. I was impressed with the book. Even though a lengthy section of it was pretty much a transcription of the court proceeding of one of the cases, I still found it fascinating how it played out. I did find myself really frustrated and upset and certain moments and couldn't believe what I was reading.
]]> 20312462 “Miss Rook, I am not an occultist,�� Jackaby said. “I have a gift that allows me to see truth where others see the illusion--and there are many illusions. All the world’s a stage, as they say, and I seem to have the only seat in the house with a view behind the curtain.��

Newly arrived in New Fiddleham, New England, 1892, and in need of a job, Abigail Rook meets R. F. Jackaby, an investigator of the unexplained with a keen eye for the extraordinary--including the ability to see supernatural beings. Abigail has a gift for noticing ordinary but important details, which makes her perfect for the position of Jackaby’s assistant. On her first day, Abigail finds herself in the midst of a thrilling case: A serial killer is on the loose. The police are convinced it’s an ordinary villain, but Jackaby is certain it’s a nonhuman creature, whose existence the police--with the exception of a handsome young detective named Charlie Cane--deny.

Doctor Who meets Sherlock in William Ritter’s debut novel, which features a detective of the paranormal as seen through the eyes of his adventurous and intelligent assistant in a tale brimming with cheeky humor and a dose of the macabre.]]> 299 William Ritter 1616203536 Scott 2 3.83 2014
author: William Ritter
name: Scott
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2016/03/20
shelves:
review:
This book was fine. Nothing special. It had some interesting moments but it also had moments that were just like every other young adult book. It borrowed many of its elements from other books so that became annoying. I probably won't continue with the series.
]]> 18222723 A tour of the world’s hidden geographies—from disappearing islands to forbidden deserts—and a stunning testament to how mysterious the world remains today

At a time when Google Maps Street View can take you on a virtual tour of Yosemite’s remotest trails and cell phones double as navigational systems, it’s hard to imagine there’s any uncharted ground left on the planet. In Unruly Places, Alastair Bonnett goes to some of the most unexpected, offbeat places in the world to reinspire our geographical imagination.

Bonnett’s remarkable tour includes moving villages, secret cities, no man’s lands, and floating islands. He explores places as disorienting as Sandy Island, an island included on maps until just two years ago despite the fact that it never existed. Or Sealand, an abandoned gun platform off the English coast that a British citizen claimed as his own sovereign nation, issuing passports and crowning his wife as a princess. Or Baarle, a patchwork of Dutch and Flemish enclaves where walking from the grocery store’s produce section to the meat counter can involve crossing national borders.

An intrepid guide down the road much less traveled, Bonnett reveals that the most extraordinary places on earth might be hidden in plain sight, just around the corner from your apartment or underfoot on a wooded path. Perfect for urban explorers, wilderness ramblers, and armchair travelers struck by wanderlust, Unruly Places will change the way you see the places you inhabit.]]> 270 Alastair Bonnett 054410157X Scott 3 3.51 2014
author: Alastair Bonnett
name: Scott
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2016/03/04
shelves:
review:
There is some interesting trivia facts in this book. There are some interesting points made about the importance of places and how humans connect to places. Overall, it was a pretty good read. What made it interesting were the places I never heard of before and the things I learned.
]]> 18143977
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

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

An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here]]> 544 Anthony Doerr 1476746583 Scott 5 4.31 2014
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Scott
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/03/03
shelves:
review:
Such beautiful writing. Very impactful, emotional, touching. Great story with great characters. Loved it. Would read again.
]]> 18712886
Young Kelsea Raleigh was raised in hiding after the death of her mother, Queen Elyssa, far from the intrigues of the royal Keep and in the care of two devoted servants who pledged their lives to protect her. Growing up in a cottage deep in the woods, Kelsea knows little of her kingdom's haunted past . . . or that its fate will soon rest in her hands.

Long ago, Kelsea's forefathers sailed away from a decaying world to establish a new land free of modern technology. Three hundred years later, this feudal society has divided into three fearful nations who pay duties to a fourth: the powerful Mortmesne, ruled by the cunning Red Queen. Now, on Kelsea's nineteenth birthday, the tattered remnants of the Queen's Guard—loyal soldiers who protect the throne—have appeared to escort the princess on a perilous journey to the capital to ascend to her rightful place as the new Queen of the Tearling.

Though born of royal blood and in possession of the Tear sapphire, a jewel of immense power and magic, Kelsea has never felt more uncertain of her ability to rule. But the shocking evil she discovers in the heart of her realm will precipitate an act of immense daring, throwing the entire kingdom into turmoil—and unleashing the Red Queen's vengeance. A cabal of enemies with an array of deadly weapons, from crimson-caped assassins to the darkest blood magic, plots to destroy her. But Kelsea is growing in strength and stealth, her steely resolve earning her loyal allies, including the Queen's Guard, led by the enigmatic Lazarus, and the intriguing outlaw known simply as "the Fetch."

Kelsea's quest to save her kingdom and meet her destiny has only just begun. Riddled with mysteries, betrayals, and treacherous battles, Kelsea's journey is a trial by fire that will either forge a legend . . . or destroy her.]]> 434 Erika Johansen 0062290363 Scott 0 4.00 2014
author: Erika Johansen
name: Scott
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/02/26
shelves:
review:
I got 200 pages in and stopped reading it. I liked it and thought Johansen was a good writer but I didn't like the sexual situations and sex related dialogue. It wasn't excessive but it was enough to make me not want to read it anymore.
]]> 18718848 I am a collection of oddities, a circus of neurons and electrons: my heart is the ringmaster, my soul is the trapeze artist, and the world is my audience. It sounds strange because it is, and it is, because I am strange.

After the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in northern Ohio to the "wastelands" of Mississippi, where she lives in a medicated milieu with her dad and new stepmom. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland.

So she ditches her new life and hops aboard a northbound Greyhound bus to her real home and her real mother, meeting a quirky cast of fellow travelers along the way. But when her thousand-mile journey takes a few turns she could never see coming, Mim must confront her own demons, redefining her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane.

Told in an unforgettable, kaleidoscopic voice, Mosquitoland is a modern American odyssey, as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.]]> 336 David Arnold Scott 4 3.87 2015
author: David Arnold
name: Scott
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/02/19
shelves:
review:
I liked how unique the writing and story was. It didn't seem like most young adult novels I have read. There was a lot of substance to this book. I liked the adventure. I didn't like the language in the book (which was quite a bit). I liked the message of enjoying life and making the most of it, no matter the circumstances. I liked the message that people have both good and bad in them but that humanity is a miracle.
]]> 14201
Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange.

Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very antithesis of Norrell. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms that between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.]]> 1006 Susanna Clarke Scott 5 3.84 2004
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Scott
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/02/19
shelves:
review:
Really enjoyed the writing and the story. There was lots of humor mixed in and lots of interesting adventures and characters. This definitely deserves 5 stars. One of the best fantasy books I have read. I really got into the story and never really had any idea what to expect.
]]> 13262783 Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.
There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.

It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone A wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.]]> 322 David Levithan 0307931889 Scott 4 3.91 2012
author: David Levithan
name: Scott
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/02/12
shelves:
review:
The book probably deserves a 3 but I'm being generous giving it a 4. I'm giving it a 4 because of the idea behind the book and how fast paced it was. I did find myself turning the pages rather quickly wanting to know what was going to happen. But, at the same time after finishing it, it felt somewhat empty. There was really nothing too substantial about this book, even with its interesting plot. The book could have delved into so much more and explored so many areas and I'm not quite sure why the author didn't do this. I also really didn't like the plot line about the main character being the devil. So cheesy. I was not impressed with the writing either. Some of the conversations and situations were way too contrived and hoaky. But, I still can't ignore the fact that this was fun to read and it had an interesting premise that delivered on the surface level, which means that this was a great book for me to read on way to and from school.
]]> 7664041 Eragon... It ends with Inheritance.

Not so very long ago, Eragon �� Shadeslayer, Dragon Rider �� was nothing more than a poor farm boy, and his dragon, Saphira, only a blue stone in the forest. Now the fate of an entire civilization rests on their shoulders.

Long months of training and battle have brought victories and hope, but they have also brought heartbreaking loss. And still, the real battle lies ahead: they must confront Galbatorix. When they do, they will have to be strong enough to defeat him. And if they cannot, no one can. There will be no second chance.

The Rider and his dragon have come further than anyone dared to hope. But can they topple the evil king and restore justice to Alagaësia? And if so, at what cost?

This is the spellbinding conclusion to Christopher Paolini's worldwide bestselling Inheritance cycle.

]]> 849 Christopher Paolini 0375856110 Scott 2 4.14 2011
author: Christopher Paolini
name: Scott
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2016/02/12
shelves:
review:
There is no excuse for making this book 850 pages long. The bulk of the story/plot could have made a 300 page book. This book was so long and so boring. I skimmed a lot of it and just focused on the parts that I wanted to, which was about pages 400-600. Really disappointed with how he ended this book and ended the series.
]]> 2248573
It's been only months since Eragon first uttered "brisingr", an ancient language term for fire. Since then, he's not only learned to create magic with words �� he's been challenged to his very core. Following the colossal battle against the Empires warriors on the Burning Plains, Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives. Still, there is more adventure at hand for the Rider and his dragon, as Eragon finds himself bound by a tangle of promises he may not be able to keep.

First is Eragon's oath to his cousin, Roran: to help rescue Roran's beloved from King Galbatorix's clutches. But Eragon owes his loyalty to others, too. The Varden are in desperate need of his talents and strength �� as are the elves and dwarves. When unrest claims the rebels and danger strikes from every corner, Eragon must make choices �� choices that will take him across the Empire and beyond, choices that may lead to unimagined sacrifice.

Eragon is the greatest hope to rid the land of tyranny. Can this once simple farm boy unite the rebel forces and defeat the king?

]]> 748 Christopher Paolini 0375826726 Scott 4 4.10 2008
author: Christopher Paolini
name: Scott
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/02/12
shelves:
review:
Better than the second book but still too incredibly long. A lot of filler stuff that just needed to be edited out. In the case of books, usually less is better. I did enjoy this book when I started skimming over the unnecessary details and read the plot and the stuff I was interested in.
]]> 45978
Darkness falls…despair abounds…evil reigns��

Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have just saved the rebel state from destruction by the mighty forces of King Galbatorix, cruel ruler of the Empire. Now Eragon must travel to Ellesmera, land of the elves, for further training in the skills of the Dragon Rider: magic and swordsmanship. Soon he is on the journey of a lifetime, his eyes open to awe-inspring new places and people, his days filled with fresh adventure. But chaos and betrayal plague him at every turn, and nothing is what it seems. Before long, Eragon doesn't know whom he can trust.

Meanwhile, his cousin Roran must fight a new battle–one that might put Eragon in even graver danger.

Will the king's dark hand strangle all resistance? Eragon may not escape with even his life. . . .]]> 704 Christopher Paolini 0375840400 Scott 3 4.04 2005
author: Christopher Paolini
name: Scott
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2016/02/12
shelves:
review:
This book could have been 100-200 pages shorter and it wouldve been better. I didnt like so much how it followed the story of Eragons brother. I liked the part of the book that was focused on Eragons training with the elves. I wish it wouldve focused more on Saphira, the dragon, and her training though. This book has a lot of flaws but overall it was enjoyable.
]]> 11797365 A New York Times bestseller, the shocking story of one of the few people born in a North Korean political prison to have escaped and survived.

North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It is also armed with nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held in its political prison camps, which have existed twice as long as Stalin's Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. Very few born and raised in these camps have escaped. But Shin Donghyuk did.

In Escape from Camp 14, acclaimed journalist Blaine Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through the lens of Shin's life unlocks the secrets of the world's most repressive totalitarian state. Shin knew nothing of civilized existence-he saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his own family. Through Harden's harrowing narrative of Shin's life and remarkable escape, he offers an unequaled inside account of one of the world's darkest nations and a riveting tale of endurance, courage, and survival.]]> 205 Blaine Harden 0670023329 Scott 3 3.99 2012
author: Blaine Harden
name: Scott
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2016/02/12
shelves:
review:
This book was fine, nothing special. Yes, it was eye opening and yes I learned quite a bit and yes the story was inspirational. But, that could also be said of reading a wikipedia article about the same subject. The parts of the book I found most interesting was when the author stopped telling the main guy's story and expounded on North Korean politics, way of life, and facts. The actual story telling itself was average, which is not a reflection on the guy's story, but a reflection on the actual writing.
]]> 4981 Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.��

An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it.

Fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut's portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.]]> 275 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Scott 3 4.10 1969
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Scott
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1969
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2015/12/27
shelves:
review:
I liked it but didnt love it. I loved certain aspects of it but didn't like other aspects. Parts of it stood out to me as genius while other parts didn't make sense. I liked but didn't like how it wasn't totally coherent. I'm not sure if I will read it again.
]]> 113436 An alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780375826696 can be found here.

One boy...
One dragon...
A world of adventure.

When Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy; perhaps it will buy his family meat for the winter. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself.

Overnight his simple life is shattered, and he is thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, magic, and power. With only an ancient sword and the advice of an old storyteller for guidance, Eragon and the fledgling dragon must navigate the dangerous terrain and dark enemies of an Empire ruled by a king whose evil knows no bounds.

Can Eragon take up the mantle of the legendary Dragon Riders? The fate of the Empire may rest in his hands.]]> 503 Christopher Paolini 0375826696 Scott 5 3.96 2002
author: Christopher Paolini
name: Scott
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/11/25
shelves:
review:
This is a fun fantasy book that I didn't want to stop reading. I enjoyed the plot and I enjoyed how fast paced it was. I liked the action and adventure. I really didn't have any complaints. The only thing I noticed and maybe kind of annoyed me was that this is HUGELY influenced by Lord of the Rings. I mean the dwarves and the elves are almost identical in both books. There is also these creatures that resemble the Ring Wraiths and creatures that resemble Orcs. It kind of felt like just an updated and newer version of Lord of the Rings. But like I said, that didn't bother me too much. It was very fun to read and was a lot easier to keep track of then LOTR.
]]> 45181 psammead, in a gravel pit. Every day 'It' will grant each of them a wish that lasts until sunset, often with disastrous consequences.

Never out of print since 1902. The Introduction to this edition examines Nesbit's life and her reading, showing the change in childrens' literature from Victorian times.]]> 237 E. Nesbit 0140367357 Scott 5 3.85 1902
author: E. Nesbit
name: Scott
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1902
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/11/25
shelves:
review:
Very fun, funny, and entertaining read. The book follows 4 kids on many adventures with a creature that can grant them wishes. Each chapter is broken up into a min-story of their adventures. Each little adventure of theirs is so fun to read. It reminds me of being a kid again. I'm surprised I had never read anything by E. Nesbit and had never really heard of her before.
]]> 18209437 So concluded the National Football League in a December 2005 scientific paper on concussions in America’s most popular sport. That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new A chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players -- including some of the all-time greats -- to madness.
League of Denial reveals how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, sought to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage.
Comprehensively, and for the first time, award-winning ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru tell the story of a public health crisis that emerged from the playing fields of our 21st century pastime. Everyone knew that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn’t know �� and what the league sought to shield from them �� is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football; that the very essence of the game could be exposing these players to brain damage.
In a fast-paced narrative that moves between the NFL trenches, America’s research labs and the boardrooms where the NFL went to war against science, League of Denial examines how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research -- a campaign with echoes of Big Tobacco’s fight to deny the connection between smoking and lung cancer. It chronicles the tragic fates of players like Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was so disturbed at the time of his death he fantasized about shooting NFL executives; and former Chargers great Junior Seau, whose diseased brain became the target of an unseemly scientific battle between researchers and the NFL. Based on exclusive interviews, previously undisclosed documents and private emails, this is the story of what the NFL knew and when it knew it �� questions at the heart of crisis that threatens football, from the highest levels all the way down to Pop Warner.]]> 399 Mark Fainaru-Wada 0770437540 Scott 5 4.16 2013
author: Mark Fainaru-Wada
name: Scott
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/11/25
shelves:
review:
Fantastic journalism and great book. Loved the details and the parallel stories of the NFL denying concussions and Mike Websters life. The book starts back just far enough to get the whole picture of the NFL and their turning an eye to concussions. I don't think I can ever watch football the same again.
]]> 17830123
Born in 1941, Eileen Tumulty is raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Woodside, Queens, in an apartment where the mood swings between heartbreak and hilarity, depending on whether guests are over and how much alcohol has been consumed.

When Eileen meets Ed Leary, a scientist whose bearing is nothing like those of the men she grew up with, she thinks she's found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit. They marry, and Eileen quickly discovers Ed doesn't aspire to the same, ever bigger, stakes in the American Dream.

Eileen encourages her husband to want more: a better job, better friends, a better house, but as years pass it becomes clear that his growing reluctance is part of a deeper psychological shift. An inescapable darkness enters their lives, and Eileen and Ed and their son Connell try desperately to hold together a semblance of the reality they have known, and to preserve, against long odds, an idea they have cherished of the future.

Through the Learys, novelist Matthew Thomas charts the story of the American Century, particularly the promise of domestic bliss and economic prosperity that captured hearts and minds after WWII. The result is a riveting and affecting work of art; one that reminds us that life is more than a tally of victories and defeats, that we live to love and be loved, and that we should tell each other so before the moment slips away.

Epic in scope, heroic in character, masterful in prose, We Are Not Ourselves heralds the arrival of a major new talent in contemporary fiction.]]> 620 Matthew Thomas 147675666X Scott 5 3.69 2014
author: Matthew Thomas
name: Scott
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/11/20
shelves:
review:
Brilliant writing. I can't believe this is Thomas' first book. It was fantastic. He is a very honest writer and his writing portrays the human experience. This is one of my favorite books that I've read this year. The characters are real and deep and you really get to know them. They are full fleshed out human beings living in a real world. There is an emotional truth to the writing and it helps all the more because the plot isn't this fantastical plot. The plot is centered around normal, every day, ordinary people and the writing gets to the heart of the characters. Will read this again.
]]> 6837103
Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.]]> 369 Kathleen Grissom 1439153663 Scott 4 4.21 2010
author: Kathleen Grissom
name: Scott
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/11/12
shelves:
review:
This book moves along quickly and kept my interest. I liked it. I liked the story and I liked the writing. There wasn't anything spectacular about it but it did the job and did the job well. I found this book to be a lot better than the Invention of Wings but I can't quite pin point why. It may be that I liked the characters more and this book and I found this book to be less predictable.
]]> 817791 339 Michael Lewis 0393330478 Scott 5 4.20 2006
author: Michael Lewis
name: Scott
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/11/12
shelves:
review:
Great book that follows 2 stories. One is the story of Oher. The other is the story of the evolution of the game of football and of the offensive line. Both stories were engrossing and interesting. Both stories balanced each other and added to the overall weight of Oher's story.
]]> 3227063 New York Times Bestselling author Brent Weeks...
For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city's most accomplished artist.

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly - and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.

But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics - and cultivate a flair for death.]]> 645 Brent Weeks 0316033677 Scott 1 4.15 2008
author: Brent Weeks
name: Scott
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2008
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2015/11/12
shelves:
review:
I thought I would give this a try since I've enjoyed other fantasy books. Very disappointing. Besides the plot being generic and the characters being generic and the magic having no weight and the action scenes doing absolutely nothing, this book also had a lot of language and sexuality that wasn't needed. I shouldn't have finished the book. There was no point.
]]> 18079776
Sarah Grimké is the middle daughter. The one her mother calls difficult and her father calls remarkable. On Sarah's eleventh birthday, Hetty 'Handful' Grimké is taken from the slave quarters she shares with her mother, wrapped in lavender ribbons, and presented to Sarah as a gift. Sarah knows what she does next will unleash a world of trouble. She also knows that she cannot accept. And so, indeed, the trouble begins ...

A powerful, sweeping novel, inspired by real events, and set in the American Deep South in the nineteenth century, The Invention of Wings evokes a world of shocking contrasts, of beauty and ugliness, of righteous people living daily with cruelty they fail to recognize; and celebrates the power of friendship and sisterhood against all the odds.]]> 384 Sue Monk Kidd 0670024783 Scott 2 4.24 2014
author: Sue Monk Kidd
name: Scott
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2015/11/12
shelves:
review:
It's definitely not a must read. I found it pretty boring and generic. Nothing new was brought to the table. It was predictable and pretty bland. One can skip entire paragraphs and still get the gist of what was happening. It was the complete opposite of the great book, The Known World. The Invention of Wings is so plot driven that the characters felt so fake. They weren't real people, just characters fitting the mold of the plot. Luckily, the book was fast paced and I did like some of Kidd's writing, such as the use of metaphors.
]]> 67 The Known World is a daring and ambitious work by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones.

The Known World tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave who falls under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in Manchester County, Virginia. Making certain he never circumvents the law, Townsend runs his affairs with unusual discipline. But when death takes him unexpectedly, his widow, Caldonia, can't uphold the estate's order, and chaos ensues. Jones has woven a footnote of history into an epic that takes an unflinching look at slavery in all its moral complexities.]]> 388 Edward P. Jones 0061159174 Scott 5 3.83 2003
author: Edward P. Jones
name: Scott
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/11/12
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review:
Fantastic writing and storytelling. It felt very real. It's not a plot driven story but character driven. I loved it. The plot plays out through stories and experiences of the characters rather than the plot dictating the characters. I liked how some of the characters and their stories went off on sort of tangents that just made the world feel all the more real. I also liked how it showed the evils of slavery but also showed life how it was then. The narration came from an unbiased point of view, almost like it was a historian or a history book. Great book
]]> 30043 "A River Runs Through It" that he is "haunted by waters," so have readers been haunted by his novella. A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1976, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories now celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary, marked by this new edition that includes a foreword by Annie Proulx.

Maclean grew up in the western Rocky Mountains in the first decades of the twentieth century. As a young man he worked many summers in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service. The two novellas and short story in this collection are based on his own experiences—the experiences of a young man who found that life was only a step from art in its structures and beauty. The beauty he found was in reality, and so he leaves a careful record of what it was like to work in the woods when it was still a world of horse and hand and foot, without power saws, "cats," or four-wheel drives. Populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, and set in the small towns and surrounding trout streams and mountains of western Montana, the stories concern themselves with the complexities of fly fishing, logging, fighting forest fires, playing cribbage, and being a husband, a son, and a father.]]> 217 Norman Maclean 0226500667 Scott 2 4.18 1976
author: Norman Maclean
name: Scott
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1976
rating: 2
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date added: 2015/09/25
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review:
I only read A River Runs Through It. I did not read the other stories. It was fine. Nothing special. The biggest detractor for me was the pages and pages on fishing technique and where to fish, etc. I thought I would be able to read this book even though I'm not a fisher and that didn't really work for me. I found myself skimming or skipping those parts to get to the story and that is probably why I didn't rate this book so highly. I honestly liked the movie better
]]> 20575411
Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church - the only available shelter from the rain - and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the life that preceded her newfound security.

Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood. Together they crafted a life on the run, living hand to mouth with nothing but their sisterly bond and a ragged blade to protect them. Despite bouts of petty violence and moments of desperation, their shared life was laced with moments of joy and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to reconcile the life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle Christian worldview of her husband which paradoxically judges those she loves.

Revisiting the beloved characters and setting of Robinson's Pulitzer Prize–winning Gilead and Home, a National Book Award finalist, Lila is a moving expression of the mysteries of existence that is destined to become an American classic.]]> 261 Marilynne Robinson 0374187614 Scott 4 3.95 2014
author: Marilynne Robinson
name: Scott
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2014
rating: 4
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date added: 2015/09/25
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I liked Home better but that in no way means this book is bad. Her writing is just as beautiful, simple and direct. But, this time I did not find it as remarkable as Home. That is probably because I read them right next to each other. I think I was just wanting a change of pace. But, this book is great and I love Marilynne Robinson.
]]> 2924318 Home parallels the story told in Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead. It is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith.

Hundreds of thousands were enthralled by the luminous voice of John Ames in Gilead, Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel. Home is an entirely independent, deeply affecting novel that takes place concurrently in the same locale, this time in the household of Reverend Robert Boughton, Ames’s closest friend.

Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack—the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years—comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain.

Jack is one of the great characters in recent literature. A bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, he is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton’s most beloved child. Brilliant, lovable, and wayward, Jack forges an intense bond with Glory and engages painfully with Ames, his godfather and namesake.

Home is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith. It is Robinson’s greatest work, an unforgettable embodiment of the deepest and most universal emotions.]]> 325 Marilynne Robinson 0374299102 Scott 5 4.04 2008
author: Marilynne Robinson
name: Scott
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2008
rating: 5
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date added: 2015/09/25
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review:
So great and lovely. Characters in this book feel like real people in a real situation. Such great themes of forgiveness and responsibility. I liked this better than her first Gilead, even though that was great. Robinson surely knows how to write in a way that makes you appreciate and enjoy life. It's a book that got me connected to all of my senses.
]]> 11870085
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.]]> 313 John Green Scott 5 4.13 2012
author: John Green
name: Scott
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 5
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date added: 2015/09/18
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review:
Can a book about kids with cancer be fun? John Green answers that question with this book and the answer is YES. This book was the perfect mixture of joy, fun and lightheartedness and sorrow and pain. The combination is through the story but is mainly achieved by Greens writing. His writing achieves a grace and teenagerness that is so fulfilling. There were some things that bugged me about the book but they didn't detract too much from the overall feel and message of the book. The things that did bug me was some of the dialogue. Some of the dialogue between the teenagers were so artificial and contrived. It felt like Green was trying really hard to make his characters likable. Overall, this was a quick read and I would recommend. There is some language in it.
]]> 7815
From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

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

This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."]]> 227 Joan Didion 1400078431 Scott 4 3.94 2005
author: Joan Didion
name: Scott
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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date added: 2015/09/18
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There were some really great aspects in this book but also some boring parts. I liked how honest and stripped down the writing and the memories were. The parts that bored me were the very technical parts of her daughters illness. Overall, it was an emotional and enlightening read and brought to the surface the importance of life and its enjoyment even with sorrow.
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Considering himself "a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world," Jun Do becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress "so pure, she didn't know what starving people looked like."

Part breathless thriller, part story of innocence lost, part story of romantic love, The Orphan Master's Son is also a riveting portrait of a world heretofore hidden from view: a North Korea rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love. A towering literary achievement, The Orphan Master's Son ushers Adam Johnson into the small group of today's greatest writers.

An epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, The Orphan Master's Son follows a young man's journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world's most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea.]]> 443 Adam Johnson 0812992792 Scott 4 4.05 2012
author: Adam Johnson
name: Scott
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2015/08/28
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review:
There was much that I liked about this novel. I liked the writing, the adventure and the characters. I liked the humor and the drama. What was distracting for me was that the adventure at times seemed thrown together by the author and not complete. It seemed random at times and not congruent with the rest of the story. There were parts in the story that I could just not make out why it was included. All together it was fun to read and it was a sort of page turner. There was some language in it (f word was used) but there were large portions of the book that contained no language. I may or may not read again.
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Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.

First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.]]> 601 John Steinbeck 0142000655 Scott 4 4.41 1952
author: John Steinbeck
name: Scott
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1952
rating: 4
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date added: 2015/08/28
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I liked the book. I thought there was some really great moments in it but it was weighed down. It was a heavy book (not literally). It was long and had a very big story plot. It's not like any other Steinbeck novel I have read. This one is more intense and more novelish. I think I enjoy Steinbecks other books better because they are lighter and definitely not as serious. I enjoyed this but dont know if I will read it again.
]]> 33507 269 Jules Verne 076072850X Scott 2 3.92 1869
author: Jules Verne
name: Scott
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1869
rating: 2
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date added: 2015/07/04
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review:
It was okay. Some good parts of the story but also some really boring parts. I just kept wanting to watch the movie as I was reading it because that is so much more faster paced. this book was just so slow moving
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