Sergio's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 06 Apr 2025 01:54:50 -0700 60 Sergio's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Hard Times 22364136 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780141439679.

'Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root everything else'

Coketown is dominated by the figure of Mr Thomas Gradgrind, school owner and model of Utilitarian success. Feeding both his pupils and his family with facts, he bans fancy and wonder from young minds. As a consequence his obedient daughter Louisa marries the loveless businessman and 'bully of humility' Mr Bounderby, and his son Tom rebels to become embroiled in gambling and robbery. And, as their fortunes cross with those of free-spirited circus girl Sissy Jupe and victimised weaver Stephen Blackpool, Gradgrind is eventually forced to recognise the value of the human heart in an age of materialism and machinery.

This edition of Hard Times is based on the text of the first volume publication of 1854. Kate Flint's introduction sheds light on the frequently overlooked character interplay in Dickens' great critique of Victorian industrial society.]]> 321 Charles Dickens Sergio 0 to-read 3.42 1854 Hard Times
author: Charles Dickens
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1854
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Vicomte de Bragelonne (The d'Artagnan Romances, #3.1)]]> 6329048
The Vicomte de Bragelonne opens an epic adventure which continues with Louise de la Valliere and reaches its climax in The Man in the Iron Mask. This new edition is the only one in print and is fully annotated with an introduction that sets Dumas's saga in its historical and cultural context.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.]]> 658 Alexandre Dumas 0199538476 Sergio 0 to-read 4.02 The Vicomte de Bragelonne (The d'Artagnan Romances, #3.1)
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Love and Friendship and Other Early Works]]> 1025271 128 Jane Austen 0704346672 Sergio 0 to-read 3.33 1790 Love and Friendship and Other Early Works
author: Jane Austen
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1790
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/03
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]]> От полудня до полуночи 58572592
Сборник менее известных произведений Эриха Марии Ремарка "От полудня до полуночи" познакомит читателя с ранними романтическими рассказами и публицистическими работами автора.]]> 317 Erich Maria Remarque Sergio 4 4.00 1961 От полудня до полуночи
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1961
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/25
date added: 2025/01/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories]]> 20212075
Contents:
-Introduction by S.T. Joshi,

-From The Sketch Book: 'Rip Van Winkle', 'The Spectre Bridegroom', 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'.

-From Bracebridge Hall: 'The Historian', 'The Haunted House', 'Dolph Heyliger', 'The Storm-Ship'.

-From Tales of a Traveller: Strange Stories by a Nervous Gentleman: 'The Great Unknown' (a preface), 'The Hunting-Dinner', 'The Adventure of My Uncle', 'The Adventure of My Aunt, 'The Bold Dragoon; or, The Adventure of My Grandfather', 'The Adventure of the German Student', 'The Adventure of the Mysterious Picture', 'The Adventure of the Mysterious Stranger', 'The Story of the Young Italian'. The Money-Diggers: 'Hell Gate', 'Kidd the Pirate', 'The Devil and Tom Walker', 'Wolfert Webber; or, Golden Dreams', 'Adventure of the Black Fisherman'. Legends of The Alhambra: 'The Mysterious Chambers' 'The Adventure of the Mason', 'Legend of the Arabian Astrologer', 'Legend of Prince Ahmed Al Kamel', 'Legend of the Moor's Legacy', 'Legend of the Rose of the Alhambra', 'Governor Manco and the Soldier', 'Legend of the Two Discreet Statues', 'Legend of Don Munio Sancho de Hinojosa', 'The Legend of the Enchanted Soldier'.

-From Heath's Book of Beauty: 'The Haunted Ship'. Wolfert's Roost: 'Wolfert's Roost', 'The Grand Prior of Minorca', 'Guests from Gibbet Island', 'Don Juan: A Spectral Research', 'Legend of the Engulphed Convent', 'The Phantom Island'.

-'Bibliography' by Richard Dalby

This volume is the first to assemble all of Washington Irving's short stories in the supernatural genre, and the impressive array of work on offer makes Irving a worthy pioneer of the American weird tradition.

Perhaps best known for two tales steeped in early American legendry, 'Rip Van Winkle' and 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow', Washington Irving emerges as the most distinguished American writer in the genre of the period following the early Gothic novels of 1764-1820 to Edgar Allan Poe in the 1840s.

Born in New York in 1783, the young Irving practiced law and travelled widely in Europe, where many of his stories are set. Taking up journalism and then fiction, Irving remained devoted to his own country and was knowledgeable about the legends of the early Dutch settlers and Native Americans of the New York area. He was thus able to imbue the American weird story with its own supernatural milieu. The scope of Irving's weird writing is thus impressively wide-ranging, and it is, until now, only its scattered nature that has robbed him of the credit he deserves.]]> 23 Washington Irving 0486131009 Sergio 5 3.50 1820 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories
author: Washington Irving
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1820
rating: 5
read at: 2016/11/09
date added: 2025/01/25
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It is the third time I read this, enchanting!
]]> <![CDATA[Азазель (Приключения Эраста Фандорина #1)]]> 6549881 Издание дополнено великолепными иллюстрациями Игоря Сакурова.]]> 240 Boris Akunin 5815908118 Sergio 4 4.26 1998 Азазель (Приключения Эраста Фандорина #1)
author: Boris Akunin
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/22
date added: 2025/01/16
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]]> The Cricket on the Hearth 18622427
The title creature is a sort of barometer of life at the home of John Peerybingle and his much younger wife Dot. When things go well, the cricket on the hearth chirps; it is silent when there is sorrow. Tackleton, a jealous old man, poisons John's mind about Dot, but the cricket through its supernatural powers restores John's confidence and all ends happily.]]> 168 Charles Dickens Sergio 0 to-read 3.71 1845 The Cricket on the Hearth
author: Charles Dickens
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1845
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The Red and the Black (Modern Library Classics)]]> 14664
The Red and the Black , Stendhal’s masterpiece, is the story of Julien Sorel, a young dreamer from the provinces, fueled by Napoleonic ideals, whose desire to make his fortune sets in motion events both mesmerizing and tragic. Sorel’s quest to find himself, and the doomed love he encounters along the way, are delineated with an unprecedented psychological depth and realism. At the same time, Stendhal weaves together the social life and fraught political intrigues of post–Napoleonic France, bringing that world to unforgettable, full-color life. His portrait of Julien and early-nineteenth-century France remains an unsurpassed creation, one that brilliantly anticipates modern literature.

Neglected during its time, The Red and the Black has assumed its rightful place as one of the world’s great books, and Burton Raffel’s extraordinary new translation, coupled with an enlightening Introduction by Diane Johnson, helps it shine more brightly than ever before.]]> 560 Stendhal 0812972074 Sergio 0 currently-reading 3.87 1830 The Red and the Black (Modern Library Classics)
author: Stendhal
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1830
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/22
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.]]> 24070992 526 Geoffrey Crayon Sergio 0 to-read 3.43 1819 The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
author: Geoffrey Crayon
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1819
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Twenty Years After (The D'Artagnan Romances, #2)]]> 6380015 The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas produced a sequel worthy in every respect of the original. In Twenty Years After the much beloved D'Artaganan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis reunite to fight the forces of evil. In the original novel they defeated Milady, a formidable foe; now they need to face her vengeful son Mordaunt, as well as countering the machinations of the sinister Cardinal Mazarin. Their adventures also take them to England, where Cromwell is about to topple Charles I. Meanwhile, they must overcome the obstacles which the passing of time has placed between them. Rediscovering strength in unity, they fight for Queen and country.

The Musketeer novels were a huge success in Dumas' own lifetime, and have lost none of their original appeal. Translated into many languages and adapted for cinema and television, they have helped to make Dumas arguably the most successful exporter of French culture to the wider world.]]> 686 Alexandre Dumas 1840221631 Sergio 4 4.18 1845 Twenty Years After (The D'Artagnan Romances, #2)
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1845
rating: 4
read at: 2016/10/25
date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Around the World in Eighty Days]]> 54479 252 Jules Verne 014044906X Sergio 4 3.95 1872 Around the World in Eighty Days
author: Jules Verne
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1872
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories]]> 721012 Sketch Book first appeared in 1819, readers in America and abroad greeted it with enthusiasm, and Irving emerged as America's first successful professional author. The pieces about life in England are gently ironic, reflecting the author's interest in the traditions of the Old World and his longings for his home in the New. But it is in "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" that Irving exhibits his true strength—the ability to depict American landscapes and culture so vividly that readers feel themselves a part of them. And it is on the basis of these two classic tales that Irving is generally credited with inventing the short story as a distinct literary genre.

Originally published as The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.]]> 368 Washington Irving 014043769X Sergio 0 to-read 3.96 1820 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories
author: Washington Irving
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1820
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3)]]> 2548559
Washington DC: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned at the last minute to deliver an evening lecture in the Capitol Building. Within moments of his arrival, however, a disturbing object - gruesomely encoded with five symbols - is discovered at the epicenter of the Rotunda. It is, he recognizes, an ancient invitation, meant to beckon its recipient towards a long-lost world of hidden esoteric wisdom.

When Langdon's revered mentor, Peter Solomon - philanthropist and prominent mason - is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes that his only hope of saving his friend's life is to accept this mysterious summons and follow wherever it leads him.

Langdon finds himself quickly swept behind the facade of America's most historic city into the unseen chambers, temples and tunnels which exist there. All that was familiar is transformed into a shadowy, clandestine world of an artfully concealed past in which Masonic secrets and never-before-seen revelations seem to be leading him to a single impossible and inconceivable truth.

A brilliantly composed tapestry of veiled histories, arcane icons and enigmatic codes, The Lost Symbol is an intelligent, lightning-paced thriller that offers surprises at every turn. For, as Robert Langdon will discover, there is nothing more extraordinary or shocking than the secret which hides in plain sight...]]> 509 Dan Brown 059305427X Sergio 0 to-read 3.50 2009 The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3)
author: Dan Brown
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/27
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]]> Robinson Crusoe 2932 320 Daniel Defoe Sergio 4 3.69 1719 Robinson Crusoe
author: Daniel Defoe
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1719
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/21
date added: 2024/07/21
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]]> Inferno (Robert Langdon, #4) 18622124 Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown masterfully fused history, art, codes, and symbols. In this riveting new thriller, Brown returns to his element and has crafted his highest-stakes novel to date.

In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces . . . Dante’s Inferno.

Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust . . . before the world is irrevocably altered.]]> 620 Dan Brown 0552169587 Sergio 2 3.81 2013 Inferno (Robert Langdon, #4)
author: Dan Brown
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2020/02/27
date added: 2024/07/04
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]]> The Confession 9566233 Travis Boyette is a murderer. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high-school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found,then watched and waited as police and prosecutors arrested Donte Drumm, a local football star with no connection to the crime. Tried, convicted and sentenced, Drumm was sent to death row: his fate had been decided.
Nine years later, Donte Drumm is four days from execution. Over 400 miles away in Kansas, Travis faces a fate of his own: an inoperable brain tumour will soon deliver the end. Reflecting on his miserable life, he decides to do what's right. After years of silence he is ready to confess.
But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges and politicians that they're about to execute an innocent man?]]> 457 John Grisham 0099545829 Sergio 4 3.51 2010 The Confession
author: John Grisham
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2020/10/31
date added: 2024/06/06
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]]> Everything's Eventual 68949
Nothing is quite as it seems. Expect the unexpected in this veritable treasure trove of enthralling, witty, dark tales that could only come from the imagination of the greatest storyteller of our time.]]> 538 Stephen King 0340770740 Sergio 4 And these I liked the most:

Autopsy Room Four
The Man in the Black Suit (a horrific tale, convincing in every detail)
Everything's Eventual
1408
Riding the Bullet
]]> 3.86 2002 Everything's Eventual
author: Stephen King
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2015/06/29
date added: 2024/05/20
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We all know, S.King has a rich imagination, and he is a master. He knows how to tell stories. This collection is captivating. Not that I liked every story, naturally, that's why I gave it 4 stars.
And these I liked the most:

Autopsy Room Four
The Man in the Black Suit (a horrific tale, convincing in every detail)
Everything's Eventual
1408
Riding the Bullet

]]> Poems (Vintage Classics) 29663073 Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, to give a singular picture of this unique genius, whom she calls in her moving introduction "the spiritual ancestor" of generations of poets.]]> 172 William Blake 1101973145 Sergio 0 to-read 4.10 1893 Poems (Vintage Classics)
author: William Blake
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1893
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/01
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]]> Наследник из Калькутты 7930075 Robert Shtilmark Sergio 4 4.37 1958 Наследник из Калькутты
author: Robert Shtilmark
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1958
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/21
date added: 2024/02/21
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]]> The Tartar Steppe 83017 198 Dino Buzzati 1567923046 Sergio 0 to-read 4.24 1940 The Tartar Steppe
author: Dino Buzzati
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1940
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> Heresy (Giordano Bruno, #1) 6611809
Giordano Bruno was a monk, poet, scientist, and magician on the run from the Roman Inquisition on charges of heresy for his belief that the Earth orbits the sun and that the universe is infinite. This alone could have got him burned at the stake, but he was also a student of occult philosophies and magic.

In S.J. Parris's gripping novel, Bruno's pursuit of this rare knowledge brings him to London, where he is unexpectedly recruited by Queen Elizabeth I and is sent undercover to Oxford University on the pretext of a royal visitation. Officially Bruno is to take part in a debate on the Copernican theory of the universe; unofficially, he is to find out whatever he can about a Catholic plot to overthrow the queen.

His mission is dramatically thrown off course by a series of grisly murders and a spirited and beautiful young woman. As Bruno begins to discover a pattern in these killings, he realizes that no one at Oxford is who he seems to be. Bruno must attempt to outwit a killer who appears obsessed with the boundary between truth and heresy.

Like The Dante Club and The Alienist, this clever, sophisticated, exceptionally enjoyable novel is written with the unstoppable narrative propulsion and stylistic flair of the very best historical thrillers.]]> 435 S.J. Parris 0385531281 Sergio 0 to-read 3.74 2010 Heresy (Giordano Bruno, #1)
author: S.J. Parris
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Три товарища (Russian Edition)]]> 86091529 475 Эрих Мария Ремарк 5457491668 Sergio 4 4.69 Три товарища (Russian Edition)
author: Эрих Мария Ремарк
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.69
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/11
date added: 2023/12/11
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]]> Oblomov 254308 586 Ivan Goncharov 1933480092 Sergio 4 4.09 1859 Oblomov
author: Ivan Goncharov
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1859
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/08/01
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]]> Lives of the Artists 509031 480 Giorgio Vasari 0140441646 Sergio 0 currently-reading 3.85 1568 Lives of the Artists
author: Giorgio Vasari
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1568
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/01
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Ward Number Six and Other Stories]]> 81886 Ward Number Six, the lunatic ward of a provincial Russian hospital, Doctor Ragin discovers the only intelligent man in town, to whom he can air his theory that 'Man finds peace and contentment within him, not in the world outside.'

Writing towards the close of the nineteenth century, Chekhov recorded the symptoms of a society in crisis. Tolstoy's moral certainties, Dostoevsky passion, Turgenev's civilized idealism--all these have left their mark on the world that Chekhov depicts, yet there seems little to show for it. Relations between the sexes are characterized by cynical exploitation; an elderly professor, after a lifetime of service to medicine, can find no remedy for his own atrophied sensibilities, and even an aspirant revolutionary assassin finds that he cannot deliver the fatal stroke. In these seven stories Chekhov demonstrates a compassionate but wryly unsentimental view of a society whose ills the Chekhovian protagonist can neither kill nor cure.

The text of this edition is taken from The Oxford Chekhov.

Table of Contents
The butterfly
Ward number six
Ariadne
A dreary story
Neighbours
An anonymous story
Doctor Startsev.]]> 249 Anton Chekhov 0192837338 Sergio 0 to-read 4.18 1892 Ward Number Six and Other Stories
author: Anton Chekhov
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1892
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Country Doctor 17972613
Sometimes translated as "A Country Doctor."]]> 12 Franz Kafka Sergio 0 to-read 3.50 1918 The Country Doctor
author: Franz Kafka
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1918
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/25
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]]> Гранатовый браслет 22610358
Повесть «Гранатовый браслет» занимает особое место в творчестве Куприна. В ней автор рассказывает о возвышенной и бескорыстной, по-настоящему неземной любви. О чувстве, которое повезло испытать герою «Гранатового браслета», Желткову, бедному и застенчивому чиновнику. Любовью, «которая повторяется только раз в тысячу лет», он возводит в ранг богини Веру Шеину, величественную и недоступную для него красавицу. Несмотря на трагизм, все произведение пропитано светлой печалью и осознанием величия всепобеждающей любви.]]> 77 Aleksandr Kuprin Sergio 0 to-read 3.78 1911 Гранатовый браслет
author: Aleksandr Kuprin
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1911
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> Цитадель 43862934 Поскольку "Цитадель" не была завершена (Сент-Экзюпери всегда повторял, что не закончит ее никогда), а сама книга оказалась слишком объемной и сложной для прочтения, французский литератор Мишель Кенель по просьбе семьи наследников сделал попытку ее отредактировать, проведя некоторые сокращения и изъяв повторы, тем самым ярче выделив все художественные достоинства. Новый вариант получился более доступным и популярным, помог приблизить читателей к этому неподражаемому шедевру великого писателя-зодчего, строящего в сердце каждого собственную цитадель.]]> Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 5699997695 Sergio 3 3.86 1948 Цитадель
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1948
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/13
date added: 2023/02/13
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The mind of Antoine, a great one... I do appreciate it. Although the book is quite difficult to read.
]]> Gem 40660317 320 Erich Maria Remarque 5179829194 Sergio 4 2.83 1998 Gem
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Sergio
average rating: 2.83
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2022/10/22
date added: 2022/10/22
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]]> Ночь в Лиссабоне 24659019 Тянется ночь в Лиссабоне, ждут своего часа эмигранты, чудом бежавшие из нацистской Германии, чтобы отправится в Америку на корабле.
В эту ночь человек, потерявший последнее, что осталось от его жизни, в осколки разбитой войной, отчаянно исповедуется перед случайным встречным. Ночь, когда за бутылкой дешевого вина раскрывается кровоточащая душа � и рассказывается рвущая душу история о страсти, нежности и жестокости, о странной верности и странной отваге…]]> 320 Erich Maria Remarque 517086776X Sergio 4 4.47 1961 Ночь в Лиссабоне
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1961
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/25
date added: 2022/09/25
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Звездные дневники Ийона Тихого]]> 35149002 352 Stanisław Lem 5170687281 Sergio 4 4.50 1971 Звездные дневники Ийона Тихого
author: Stanisław Lem
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1971
rating: 4
read at: 2022/08/18
date added: 2022/08/18
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]]> A Tale of Two Cities 4025238
Those are the famous lines of Dickens's stirring tale of two cities, London and Paris, at the time of the French Revolution. Suspense gathers from the opening scene, the dramatic coach journey to Dover and the rescue of Dr Manette from incarceration in the Bastille. At the centre of the novel are the figures of Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay, both men in love with the doctor's beautiful daughter Lucie, linked together by fate and by the engulfing terrors of revolution.

A Tale of Two Cities was written at a time of crisis in Dickens's life. It is a wonderful love story and, aside from The Pickwick Papers, the most popular of all Dickens's novels.]]> 367 Charles Dickens 0140623582 Sergio 4 3.87 1859 A Tale of Two Cities
author: Charles Dickens
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1859
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/18
date added: 2022/05/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052 374 Suzanne Collins Sergio 4 4.34 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/13
date added: 2022/04/13
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]]> The Coffee Trader 23725148 A Conspiracy of Paper was one of the most acclaimed debuts of 2000. In his richly suspenseful second novel, author David Liss once again travels back in time to a crucial moment in cultural and financial history. His destination: Amsterdam, 1659 � a mysterious world of trade populated by schemers and rogues, where deception rules the day.

On the world’s first commodities exchange, fortunes are won and lost in an instant. Miguel Lienzo, a sharp-witted trader in the city's close-knit community of Portuguese Jews, knows this only too well. Once among the city’s most envied merchants, Miguel has lost everything in a sudden shift in the sugar markets. Now, impoverished and humiliated, living on the charity of his petty younger brother, Miguel must find a way to restore his wealth and reputation.

Miguel enters into a partnership with a seductive Dutchwoman who offers him one last chance at success � a daring plot to corner the market of an astonishing new commodity called "coffee." To succeed, Miguel must risk everything he values and test the limits of his commercial guile, facing not only the chaos of the markets and the greed of his competitors, but also a powerful enemy who will stop at nothing to see him ruined. Miguel will learn that among Amsterdam’s ruthless businessmen, betrayal lurks everywhere, and even friends hide secret agendas.

With humor, imagination, and mystery, David Liss depicts a world of subterfuge, danger, and repressed longing, where religious and cultural traditions clash with the demands of a new and exciting way of doing business. Readers of historical suspense and lovers of coffee (even decaf) will be up all night with this beguiling novel.]]> 389 David Liss 0812970322 Sergio 3 4.00 2003 The Coffee Trader
author: David Liss
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2021/12/05
date added: 2021/12/05
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sources of the West, Volume 1: From the Beginning to 1715]]> 12468577 384 Mark A. Kishlansky 0205053769 Sergio 0 to-read 3.57 1997 Sources of the West, Volume 1: From the Beginning to 1715
author: Mark A. Kishlansky
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/11/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> Love in the Time of Cholera 9712 348 Gabriel García Márquez 140003468X Sergio 5 3.92 1985 Love in the Time of Cholera
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at: 2021/10/25
date added: 2021/10/25
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review:
The masterpiece of all times! Romantic and realistic, wise, admirable.
]]> Moby Dick 3267441 544 Herman Melville 0140623175 Sergio 4 3.49 1851 Moby Dick
author: Herman Melville
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1851
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/09
date added: 2021/09/09
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review:

]]> The Lost Estate 983730 The Lost Estate is Robin Buss's translation of Henri Alain-Fournier's poignant study of lost love, Le Grand Meaulnes. This Penguin Classics edition also contains an introduction by Adam Gopnik.

When Meaulnes first arrives at the local school in Sologne, everyone is captivated by his good looks, daring and charisma. But when Meaulnes disappears for several days, and returns with tales of a strange party at a mysterious house - and his love for the beautiful girl hidden within it, Yvonne de Galais - his life has been changed forever. In his restless search for his Lost Estate and the happiness he found there, Meaulnes, observed by his loyal friend Francois, may risk losing everything he ever had. Poised between youthful admiration and adult resignation, Alain-Fournier's compelling narrator carries the reader through this evocative and unbearably poignant portrayal of desperate friendship and vanished adolescence.

Robin Buss's translation of Le Grand Meaulnes sensitively and accurately renders Alain-Fournier's poetically charged, expressive and deceptively simple style. In his introduction, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik discusses the life of Alain-Fournier, who was killed in the First World War after writing this, his only novel.

I read it for the first time when I was seventeen and loved every page. I find its depiction of a golden time and place just as poignant now as I did then
Nick Hornby]]> 227 Henri Alain-Fournier 0141441895 Sergio 0 to-read 3.72 1913 The Lost Estate
author: Henri Alain-Fournier
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1913
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/08/16
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review:

]]> Captain Blood 772474 331 Rafael Sabatini 0142180106 Sergio 5 4.10 1922 Captain Blood
author: Rafael Sabatini
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1922
rating: 5
read at: 2021/05/26
date added: 2021/05/26
shelves:
review:
One of the most beautiful novels of all times, for all ages!
]]> Bleak House 25344632
At the novel's core is long-running litigation in England's Court of Chancery, Jarndyce v Jarndyce, which has far-reaching consequences for all involved. The litigation, which already has taken many years and consumed between £60,000 and £70,000 in court costs, is emblematic of the failure of Chancery.

Though Chancery lawyers and judges criticised Dickens's portrait of Chancery as exaggerated and unmerited, his novel helped to spur an ongoing movement that culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s.]]> 800 Charles Dickens Sergio 5 3.89 1853 Bleak House
author: Charles Dickens
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1853
rating: 5
read at: 2021/05/08
date added: 2021/05/08
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]]> Rashomon and Other Stories 672376 Rashomon, tells the chilling story of the killing of a samurai through the testimony of witnesses, including the spirit of the murdered man. The fable-like "Yam Gruel" is an account of desire and humiliation, but one in which the reader's sympathy is thoroughly unsettled. And in "The Martyr," a beloved orphan raised by Jesuit priests is exiled when he refuses to admit that he made a local girl pregnant. He regains their love and respect only at the price of his life. All six tales in the collection show Akutagawa as a master storyteller and an exciting voice of modern Japanese literature.]]> 110 Ryūnosuke Akutagawa 0871401738 Sergio 0 to-read 4.04 1915 Rashomon and Other Stories
author: Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1915
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Castle Dor 34871933 288 Daphne du Maurier Sergio 0 to-read 2.90 1961 Castle Dor
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Sergio
average rating: 2.90
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Nicholas Nickleby 26038072 735 Charles Dickens Sergio 5 4.27 1839 Nicholas Nickleby
author: Charles Dickens
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1839
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/06
date added: 2021/01/06
shelves:
review:

]]> A Doll's House 37793

A Doll's House (1879), is a masterpiece of theatrical craft which, for the first time portrayed the tragic hypocrisy of Victorian middle class marriage on the stage. The play ushered in a new social era and "exploded like a bomb into contemporary life".

The Student Edition contains these exclusive features:

· A chronology of the playwright's life and work

· An introduction giving the background of the play

· Commentary on themes, characters. language and style

· Notes on individual words and phrases in the text

· Questions for further study

· Bibliography for further reading.

]]> 122 Henrik Ibsen 1406914835 Sergio 0 to-read 3.76 1879 A Doll's House
author: Henrik Ibsen
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1879
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio]]> 98374 A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

As vividly and unflinchingly presented herein with "blood and bone and sinew" (Times Literary Supplement) by Peter Robb, Caravaggio's wild and tempestuous life was a provocation to a culture in a state of siege. The end of the sixteenth century was marked by the Inquisition and Counter-Reformation, a background of ideological war against which, despite all odds, brilliant feats of art and science were achieved. No artist captured the dark, violent spirit of the time better than Caravaggio, variously known as Marisi, Moriggia, Merigi, and sometimes, simply M. As art critic Robert Hughes has said, "There was art before him and art after him, and they were not the same." Robb's masterful biography "re-creates the mirror Cravaggio held up to nature," as Hilary Spurling wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "with singular delicacy as well as passion and panache."]]> 570 Peter Robb 0312274742 Sergio 0 to-read 3.94 1998 M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio
author: Peter Robb
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Death and Life of Miguel De Cervantes]]> 3179033 512 Stephen Marlowe 1559704039 Sergio 4 But all right, it is fiction, no damage to his image done, let’s suppose these events really happened in his life. The more, I would rather believe such troubles and sufferings and adventures could have added sufficiently to the conception of Don Quixote.
So, this book is a treat in its own way.
]]> 4.17 1991 The Death and Life of Miguel De Cervantes
author: Stephen Marlowe
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at: 2020/10/18
date added: 2020/10/18
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review:
A novel well written, intriguing from the very beginning. But soon my interest began to fade. Why? I met quite a few minor characters along the way there I wouldn’t choose to care about. I wanted first and foremost to follow the thoughts and opinions of Cervantes.
But all right, it is fiction, no damage to his image done, let’s suppose these events really happened in his life. The more, I would rather believe such troubles and sufferings and adventures could have added sufficiently to the conception of Don Quixote.
So, this book is a treat in its own way.

]]> The Plague 15708
The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame and revenge, and a few, like the unheroic hero Dr Rieux, join forces to resist the terror. In part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, The Plague is a compelling depiction of bravery and determination pitted against the precariousness of human existence.]]> 255 Albert Camus Sergio 0 to-read 3.93 1947 The Plague
author: Albert Camus
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1947
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Olalla (Penguin Little Black Classics, #19)]]> 24874334
A gothic novella about love, torment and doomed aristocracy, set in the remote mountains of Spain.

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). Stevenson's works available in Penguin Classics are An Apology for Idlers, The Black Arrow, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, In the South Seas, Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae, Treasure Island and Selected Poems.]]> 57 Robert Louis Stevenson 0141397969 Sergio 0 to-read 3.13 1885 Olalla (Penguin Little Black Classics, #19)
author: Robert Louis Stevenson
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.13
book published: 1885
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories]]> 1026429 404 Thomas Mann 0394700031 Sergio 0 to-read 3.76 1936 Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories
author: Thomas Mann
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1936
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/12
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review:

]]> Camino Island 38532778 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER � “A delightfully lighthearted caper ... [a] fast-moving, entertaining tale.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A gang of thieves stage a daring heist from a secure vault deep below Princeton University’s Firestone Library. Their loot is priceless, but Princeton has insured it for twenty-five million dollars.

Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts.

Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer’s block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious woman working for an even more mysterious company. A generous offer of money convinces Mercer to go undercover and infiltrate Bruce Cable’s circle of literary friends, ideally getting close enough to him to learn his secrets.

But eventually Mercer learns far too much, and there’s trouble in paradise as only John Grisham can deliver it.]]> 305 John Grisham 1524797146 Sergio 0 to-read 3.89 2017 Camino Island
author: John Grisham
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/07/11
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]]> Scottish Tales 24246421 198 Anna Blair Sergio 3 3.00 1987 Scottish Tales
author: Anna Blair
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1987
rating: 3
read at: 2015/01/23
date added: 2020/06/23
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]]> Night at the Crossroads 18774737 Georges Simenon's riveting tale of deception in an isolated community, part of Penguin's series of new Inspector Maigret translations

"She came forward, the outlines of her figure blurred in the half-light. She came forward like a film star, or rather like the ideal woman in an adolescent's dream. 'I gather you wish to talk to me, Inspector . . . but first of all please sit down . . .' Her accent was more pronounced than Carl's. Her voice sang, dropping on the last syllable of the longer words."

Maigret has been interrogating Carl Andersen for seventeen hours without a confession. He's either innocent or a very good liar. So why was the body of a diamond merchant found at his isolated mansion? Why is his sister always shut away in her room? And why does everyone at Three Widows Crossroads have something to hide?]]> 160 Georges Simenon 0141393483 Sergio 0 to-read 3.73 1931 Night at the Crossroads
author: Georges Simenon
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1931
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/19
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]]> Don Juan 52008523 Probably few subjects fitted Byron's particular talents better than Don Juan.

In this rambling, exuberant, conversational poem, the travels of Don Juan are used as a vehicle for some of the most lively and acute commentaries on human societies and behaviour in the language. The manner is what Goethe called 'a cultured comic language'-a genre which he regarded as not possible in Geman and which he felt Byron managed superbly.]]> 768 Lord Byron Sergio 0 to-read 4.20 1819 Don Juan
author: Lord Byron
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1819
rating: 0
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]]> Canzoniere 14623094 471 Francesco Petrarca 8806179497 Sergio 0 to-read 4.01 1372 Canzoniere
author: Francesco Petrarca
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1372
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/03/29
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]]> Selected Essays 12083555 Remarkably modern in their views, the essays continue to resonate with readers as their author bemoans his failing memory, criticizes his culture's obsession with celebrity, and attempts to pursue a more spiritual life. Abounding in aphorisms and anecdotes, enlivened by wordplay and a delightful folksiness, Montaigne's writings constitute a celebration of literacy, friendship, and joie de vivre. ]]> 224 Michel de Montaigne 0486486036 Sergio 0 to-read 3.94 2011 Selected Essays
author: Michel de Montaigne
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/03/04
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography]]> 497164 Camera Lucida was first published in 1979. Commenting on artists such as Avedon, Clifford, Mapplethorpe, and Nadar, Roland Barthes presents photography as being outside the codes of language or culture, acting on the body as much as on the mind, and rendering death and loss more acutely than any other medium. This groundbreaking approach established Camera Lucida as one of the most important books of theory on this subject, along with Susan Sontag's On Photography.]]> 119 Roland Barthes 0374521344 Sergio 0 to-read 3.99 1980 Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
author: Roland Barthes
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1980
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/02/24
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]]> Gargantua and Pantagruel 18268 Gargantua and Pantagruel are not just bywords for comedy of disproportion and bawdiness. They are a challenge to received taste and a new departure in prose fiction.

The World Literature series reproduces the greatest books the world over with only the highest production standards. History, philosophy, psychology, political theory, fiction, and ancient texts are now accessible to everyone at an extremely affordable price.]]> 832 François Rabelais 1840221070 Sergio 5 currently-reading 3.76 1532 Gargantua and Pantagruel
author: François Rabelais
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1532
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/02/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tom Jones (Wordsworth Classics)]]> 31204 An alternate cover for this isbn can be found here.

Tom Jones is widely regarded as one of the first and most influential English novels. It is certainly the funniest.

Tom Jones, the hero of the book, is introduced to the reader as the ward of a liberal Somerset squire. Tom is a generous but slightly wild and feckless country boy with a weakness for young women. Misfortune, followed by many spirited adventures as he travels to London to seek his fortune, teach him a sort of wisdom to go with his essential good-heartedness.

This 'comic, epic poem in prose' will make the modern reader laugh as much as it did his forbears. Its biting satire finds an echo in today's society, for as Doris Lessing recently remarked 'This country becomes every day more like the eighteenth century, full of thieves and adventurers, rogues and a robust, unhypocritical savagery side-by-side with people lecturing others on morality'.]]> 734 Henry Fielding 1853260215 Sergio 5 3.49 1749 Tom Jones (Wordsworth Classics)
author: Henry Fielding
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1749
rating: 5
read at: 2020/02/13
date added: 2020/02/13
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]]> The Death of Virgil 27426
Begun while Broch was imprisoned in a German concentration camp, The Death of Virgil is part historical novel and part prose poem - and always an intensely musical and immensely evocative meditation on the relation between life and death, the ancient and the modern.]]> 493 Hermann Broch 0679755489 Sergio 0 to-read 4.15 1945 The Death of Virgil
author: Hermann Broch
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1945
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/01/21
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sovereign (Matthew Shardlake, #3)]]> 138684
Already in the city are lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak. As well as legal work processing petitions to the King, Shardlake has reluctantly undertaken a secret mission for Archbishop Cranmer � to ensure the welfare of an important but dangerous conspirator who is to be returned to London for interrogation.

But the murder of a York glazier involves Shardlake in deeper mysteries, connected not only to the prisoner in York Castle but to the royal family itself. And when Shardlake and Barak stumble upon a cache of secret documents which could threaten the Tudor throne, a chain of events unfolds that will lead to Shardlake facing the most terrifying fate of the age . . .]]> 583 C.J. Sansom 0670038318 Sergio 0 to-read 4.21 2006 Sovereign (Matthew Shardlake, #3)
author: C.J. Sansom
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/01/20
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review:

]]> The Agony and the Ecstasy 321552 776 Irving Stone 0451171357 Sergio 0 to-read 4.08 1961 The Agony and the Ecstasy
author: Irving Stone
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Joseph and His Brothers 88076
Thomas Mann regarded his monumental retelling of the biblical story of Joseph as his magnum opus. He conceived of the four parts–The Stories of Jacob, Young Joseph, Joseph in Egypt, and Joseph the Provider–as a unified narrative, a “mythological novel� of Joseph’s fall into slavery and his rise to be lord over Egypt. Deploying lavish, persuasive detail, Mann conjures for us the world of patriarchs and pharaohs, the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine, and the universal force of human love in all its beauty, desperation, absurdity, and pain. The result is a brilliant amalgam of humor, emotion, psychological insight, and epic grandeur.

Now the award-winning translator John E. Woods gives us a definitive new English version of Joseph and His Brothers that is worthy of Mann’s achievement, revealing the novel’s exuberant polyphony of ancient and modern voices, a rich music that is by turns elegant, coarse, and sublime.
--front flap]]> 1492 Thomas Mann 1400040019 Sergio 0 to-read 4.43 1943 Joseph and His Brothers
author: Thomas Mann
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1943
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/01/14
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings]]> 203805 720 Ingo F. Walther 3822812153 Sergio 0 to-read 4.13 1988 Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings
author: Ingo F. Walther
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/01/12
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]]> The Penmaker's Wife 45034259 In Victorian England, a mother is on the run from her past—and the truth about what she did.

Birmingham, 1880. Angelica Chastain has fled from London with her young son, William. She promises him a better life, far away from the terrors they left behind.

Securing a job as a governess, Angelica captures the attention of wealthy widower Stanley Hampton. Soon they marry and the successful future Angelica envisaged for William starts to fall into place.

But the past will not let Angelica go. As the people in her husband’s circle, once captivated by her charm, begin to question her motives, it becomes clear that forgetting where she came from—and who she ran from—is impossible.

When tragedy threatens to expose her and destroy everything she’s built for herself and William, how far will she go to keep her secrets safe? And when does the love for one’s child tip over into dangerous obsession?

Alias Grace meets Peaky Blinders in this tale of obsession, ambition and murder in Victorian England.]]> 255 Steve Robinson 1542006252 Sergio 0 to-read 3.56 2019 The Penmaker's Wife
author: Steve Robinson
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/01/11
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]]> Caleb Williams 195548 384 William Godwin 0141441232 Sergio 0 to-read 3.49 1794 Caleb Williams
author: William Godwin
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1794
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/01/09
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]]> The Painter 2077484
In January, 1662, the artist Rembrandt, bankrupted in the great tulip crash, accidentally stows away on a boat for Hull.

To pay for his passage, he must paint the Captain’s portrait. For himself, he paints a portrait of the Captain’s beautiful wife. Rembrandt has seduced many a sitter before, and sets about doing so again. But he has a rival � none other than the MP for Hull after the Civil War, the poet Andrew Marvell! And the Captain’s wife is far from being a passive player in this triangular game of love, deceit and manipulation.

All this is discovered in the present day by another painter, Amy, who has returned to her old family home as a restorer. As she paints a portrait of the man she is becoming involved with, so she uncovers the secrets of the past.

This fine novel will appeal to fans of Girl with a Pearl Earring and Tulip Fever.]]> 410 Will Davenport 000651460X Sergio 4 3.45 2003 The Painter
author: Will Davenport
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2020/01/06
date added: 2020/01/06
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]]> Tender Is the Night 8596988 352 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0141194065 Sergio 0 to-read 3.72 1934 Tender Is the Night
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1934
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Roxana 332152 356 Daniel Defoe 0192834592 Sergio 0 to-read 3.46 1724 Roxana
author: Daniel Defoe
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1724
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/12/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> A Tale of a Tub 865879
'A Tale' was long regarded as a satire on religion itself, and has famously been attacked for that, starting with William Wotton. The "tale" presents a consistent satire of religious excess, while the digressions are a series of parodies of contemporary writing in literature, politics, theology, Biblical exegesis, and medicine. The overarching parody is of enthusiasm, pride, and credulity. At the time it was written, politics and religion were still linked very closely in England, and the religious and political aspects of the satire can often hardly be separated.

It was enormously popular, but Swift believed it damaged his prospect of advancement in the Church of England.]]> 208 Jonathan Swift 0141018879 Sergio 0 to-read 3.49 1704 A Tale of a Tub
author: Jonathan Swift
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1704
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/12/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling]]> 737957
Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling recounts the four extraordinary years Michelangelo spent laboring over the vast ceiling while the power politics and personal rivalries that abounded in Rome swirled around him. Battling against ill health, financial difficulties, domestic problems, the pope's impatience, and a bitter rivalry with the brilliant young painter Raphael, Michelangelo created scenes so beautiful that they are considered one of the greatest masterpieces of all time. A panorama of illustrious figures converged around the creation of this great work-from the great Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus to the young Martin Luther-and Ross King skillfully weaves them through his compelling historical narrative, offering uncommon insight into the intersection of art and history.]]> 373 Ross King 0142003697 Sergio 0 to-read 3.83 2002 Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
author: Ross King
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/12/29
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]]> Doctor Zhivago 130440
Dr. Yury Zhivago, Pasternak's alter ego, is a poet, philosopher, and physician whose life is disrupted by the war and by his love for Lara, the wife of a revolutionary. His artistic nature makes him vulnerable to the brutality and harshness of the Bolsheviks. The poems he writes constitute some of the most beautiful writing featured in the novel.]]> 592 Boris Pasternak 0679774386 Sergio 0 to-read 4.03 1957 Doctor Zhivago
author: Boris Pasternak
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1957
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/12/28
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]]> The Turn of the Screw 10882679 The Turn of the Screw, James's great masterpiece of haunting atmosphere and unbearable tension, tells of a young governess sent to a country house to take charge of two orphans, Miles and Flora. Unsettled by a dark foreboding of menace within the house, she soon comes to believe that something, or someone, malevolent is stalking the children in her care. Is the threat to her young charges really a malign and ghostly presence, or a manifestation of something else entirely?]]> 134 Henry James 0141441356 Sergio 3 3.19 1898 The Turn of the Screw
author: Henry James
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.19
book published: 1898
rating: 3
read at: 2019/12/23
date added: 2019/12/23
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]]> William Blake (World of Art) 443983 218 Kathleen Raine 0500201072 Sergio 0 to-read 4.00 1970 William Blake (World of Art)
author: Kathleen Raine
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/12/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> In the Tall Grass 15825932 Mile 81 meets N. in this e-book collaboration between Stephen King and Joe Hill.

In the Tall Grass begins with a sister and brother who pull off to the side of the road after hearing a young boy crying for help from beyond the tall grass. Within minutes they are disoriented, in deeper than seems possible, and they’ve lost one another. The boy’s cries are more and more desperate. What follows is a terrifying, entertaining, and masterfully told tale, as only Stephen King and Joe Hill can deliver.

In the Tall Grass was originally published in two parts in the June/July and August 2012 issues of Esquire magazine. This is their second collaboration since the novella Throttle, published in 2009.]]> 2 Stephen King 1442359889 Sergio 0 to-read 3.64 2012 In the Tall Grass
author: Stephen King
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/12/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Haunting of Hill House 89717 182 Shirley Jackson 0143039989 Sergio 0 to-read 3.85 1959 The Haunting of Hill House
author: Shirley Jackson
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1959
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/12/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Christmas Books 6430555 William Makepeace Thackeray Sergio 0 to-read 3.18 1868 Christmas Books
author: William Makepeace Thackeray
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.18
book published: 1868
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Journal of the Plague Year 46730 289 Daniel Defoe 0140437851 Sergio 0 to-read 3.52 1722 A Journal of the Plague Year
author: Daniel Defoe
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1722
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/12/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Dangerous Fortune 825508
From the exclusive men's club and brothels that cater to everydark desire of London's upper classes to the dazzlingballrooms and mahogany-paneled suites of the manipulators of the world's wealth, Ken Follettconjures up a stunning array of contrasts. Thisbreathtaking novel portrays a family splintered by lust,bound by a shared legacy... men and women swepttoward a perilous climax where greed, fed by theshocking truth of a boy's death, must be stopped, ornot just one man's dreams, but those of a nation, will die...]]> 596 Ken Follett 0440217490 Sergio 0 to-read 4.05 1993 A Dangerous Fortune
author: Ken Follett
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/12/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Professor and the Siren 18680918 The Leopard, also composed three shorter pieces of fiction that confirm and expand our picture of his brilliant late-blooming talent.

In the parable-like Joy and the Law, a mediocre clerk in receipt of an unexpected supplement to his Christmas bonus (an awkwardly outsize version of the traditional panettone) finds his visions of domestic bliss upset by unwritten rules of honor and obligation.

At the heart of the collection stands The Siren and its redoubtable hero, Professor La Ciura, the only Hellenist scholar to claim firsthand experience of ancient Greek—from the mouth of the beautiful half-human sea creature he loved in his youth.

The volume closes with the last piece of writing completed by the author, The Blind Kittens, a story originally conceived as the first chapter of a follow-up to The Leopard, a novel that would have traced the post-unification emergence of a new agrarian ruling class in Sicily, coarser than its predecessor but equally blind to the inexorable march of change.

This elegant new translation of Lampedusa’s complete short fiction, the first by a single hand, updates and corrects previously available English versions.]]> 96 Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1590177193 Sergio 0 to-read 4.00 1957 The Professor and the Siren
author: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1957
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Les Choses 215021 157 Georges Perec 2266131079 Sergio 4 to-read 3.77 1965 Les Choses
author: Georges Perec
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1965
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2019/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Vanity Fair 17973134 743 William Makepeace Thackeray Sergio 5 It’s a thick book, but the narration is masterly orchestrated.
Well, it’s a touching story. Either you are fond of British literature or just love novels and wish to compare Vanity Fair of the good old England to Vanity Fair of our days, this is a thing to pay attention to.
]]> 3.91 1847 Vanity Fair
author: William Makepeace Thackeray
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1847
rating: 5
read at: 2019/12/02
date added: 2019/12/02
shelves:
review:
The author warned us, this is A Novel without a Hero. Well, you’d say, nothing extraordinary, in this world around us it’s often quite hard to name a true hero. By the middle of the book though, I was almost sure who could be my hero there. I wouldn’t name that character (and I don’t tell what all this is about � the spoilers are in the air today), if you’ve read this novel you have decided for yourself.
It’s a thick book, but the narration is masterly orchestrated.
Well, it’s a touching story. Either you are fond of British literature or just love novels and wish to compare Vanity Fair of the good old England to Vanity Fair of our days, this is a thing to pay attention to.

]]> <![CDATA[A Hunger Artist (Short Prose of Franz Kafka)]]> 141352 A Hunger Artist (1924) explores many of the themes that were close to him: spiritual poverty, asceticism, futility, and the alienation of the modern artist.

He edited the manuscript just before his death, and these four stories are some of his best known and most powerful work, marking his maturity as a writer. In addition to "First Sorrow," "A Little Woman," and "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse People" is the title story, "A Hunger Artist," which has been called by the critic Heinz Politzer "a perfection, a fatal fulfillment that expresses Kafka's desire for permanence."

The three volumes Twisted Spoon Press has published: Contemplation, A Country Doctor, and A Hunger Artist are the collections of stories that Kafka had published during his lifetime. Though each volume has its own distinctive character, they have most often appeared in English in collected editions. They are presented here as separate editions, in new translations by Kevin Blahut, each with its own illustrator from the Prague community.]]> 84 Franz Kafka 8090217117 Sergio 0 to-read 4.15 1924 A Hunger Artist (Short Prose of Franz Kafka)
author: Franz Kafka
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1924
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/11/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Complete Short Stories 3688
This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Pico Iyer.]]> 594 Graham Greene 0143039105 Sergio 0 to-read 4.17 1990 Complete Short Stories
author: Graham Greene
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/11/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Phantom of the Opera 480204 The Phantom of the Opera is a riveting story that revolves around the young, Swedish Christine Daaé. Her father, a famous musician, dies, and she is raised in the Paris Opera House with his dying promise of a protective angel of music to guide her. After a time at the opera house, she begins hearing a voice, who eventually teaches her how to sing beautifully. All goes well until Christine's childhood friend Raoul comes to visit his parents, who are patrons of the opera, and he sees Christine when she begins successfully singing on the stage. The voice, who is the deformed, murderous 'ghost' of the opera house named Erik, however, grows violent in his terrible jealousy, until Christine suddenly disappears. The phantom is in love, but it can only spell disaster.

Leroux's work, with characters ranging from the spoiled prima donna Carlotta to the mysterious Persian from Erik's past, has been immortalized by memorable adaptations. Despite this, it remains a remarkable piece of Gothic horror literature in and of itself, deeper and darker than any version that follows.]]> 360 Gaston Leroux 0060809248 Sergio 0 to-read 3.98 1910 The Phantom of the Opera
author: Gaston Leroux
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1910
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Rose of Sebastopol 2402259 405 Katharine McMahon 0297851829 Sergio 0 to-read 3.57 2007 The Rose of Sebastopol
author: Katharine McMahon
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/11/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The D. Case or The Truth About the Mystery of Edwin Drood]]> 1301966 587 Carlo Fruttero 0151137323 Sergio 0 to-read 3.33 1993 The D. Case or The Truth About the Mystery of Edwin Drood
author: Carlo Fruttero
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/11/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Cemetery of Secrets 6952873 498 David Hewson 0330508768 Sergio 0 to-read 3.33 2001 Cemetery of Secrets
author: David Hewson
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/11/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Baltasar and Blimunda 2530
When King and Church exercise absolute power what happens to the dreams of ordinary people? In early eighteenth century Lisbon, Baltasar, a soldier who has lost a hand in battle, falls in love with Blimunda, a young girl with strange visionary powers. From the day that he follows her home from the auto-da-fé where her mother is condemned and sent into exile, the two are bound body and soul by a love of unassailable strength. A third party shares their supper that evening: Padre Bartolemeu Lourenço, whose fantasy is to invent a flying machine. As the inquisition rages and royalty and religion clash, they pursue his impossible, not to mention heretical, dream of flight.]]> 346 José Saramago 0156005204 Sergio 0 to-read 3.99 1982 Baltasar and Blimunda
author: José Saramago
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/11/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Miniaturist (The Miniaturist, #1)]]> 18498569
"There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed . . ."

On a brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt. But her new home, while splendorous, is not welcoming. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office--leaving Nella alone with his sister, the sharp-tongued and forbidding Marin.

But Nella's world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist--an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways . . .

Johannes' gift helps Nella to pierce the closed world of the Brandt household. But as she uncovers its unusual secrets, she begins to understand--and fear--the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society where gold is worshipped second only to God, to be different is a threat to the moral fabric of society, and not even a man as rich as Johannes is safe. Only one person seems to see the fate that awaits them. Is the miniaturist the key to their salvation . . . or the architect of their destruction?

Enchanting, beautiful, and exquisitely suspenseful, The Miniaturist is a magnificent story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth.]]> 400 Jessie Burton 0062306812 Sergio 0 to-read 3.59 2014 The Miniaturist (The Miniaturist, #1)
author: Jessie Burton
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/11/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Starless Sea 43575115 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Night Circus, a timeless love story set in a secret underground world—a place of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a starless sea.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues—a bee, a key, and a sword—that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians—it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose—in both the mysterious book and in his own life.]]> 498 Erin Morgenstern 038554121X Sergio 0 to-read 3.82 2019 The Starless Sea
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/11/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Daniel Deronda 304
The strange young man is Daniel Deronda, brought up with his own origins shrouded in mystery, searching for a compelling outlet for his singular talents and remarkable capacity for empathy. Deronda's destiny will change the lives of many.]]> 796 George Eliot 037576013X Sergio 0 to-read 3.85 1876 Daniel Deronda
author: George Eliot
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1876
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections]]> 13559016 939 James A. Michener 0449013219 Sergio 0 to-read 3.47 1968 Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections
author: James A. Michener
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.47
book published: 1968
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cue for Treason (Puffin Modern Classics)]]> 6452929 305 Geoffrey Trease 0141325704 Sergio 4 3.91 1940 Cue for Treason (Puffin Modern Classics)
author: Geoffrey Trease
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1940
rating: 4
read at: 2019/10/31
date added: 2019/10/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Poor Richard's Almanack for 1733 (Applewood Books)]]> 521814 28 Benjamin Franklin 1557095671 Sergio 0 to-read 4.28 1732 Poor Richard's Almanack for 1733 (Applewood Books)
author: Benjamin Franklin
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1732
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Introduction to the Devout Life]]> 398834 288 Francis de Sales 0375725628 Sergio 0 to-read 4.32 1609 Introduction to the Devout Life
author: Francis de Sales
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1609
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Crimes 12868841 Um amável e conceituado médico mata a mulher à machadada, após quarenta anos de casamento. Depois desmembra-a e entrega-se à polícia.
A sua confissão é tão espantosa como o castigo com que é punido.
Um homem assalta um banco e, por mais incrível que isso possa parecer, tem todas as razões para o fazer.
Contra toda e qualquer probabilidade, é a própria Justiça que o irá salvar.
Uma jovem mata o seu irmão. Por amor.
Histórias incríveis, que não deixam de ser verdadeiras.]]> 192 Ferdinand von Schirach 9722041320 Sergio 0 to-read 3.84 2009 Crimes
author: Ferdinand von Schirach
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Die Judge Die 42115790 151 Una Tiers Sergio 5 The story begins at a smart pace, with humor and funny portraits of people Fiona encounters. It develops with many turns, thrilling and surprising, and every time I wondered, would Fiona be able to manage it?
If you love to read court adventures and laugh, that's the book. Very entertaining.
]]> 5.00 2014 Die Judge Die
author: Una Tiers
name: Sergio
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2019/10/15
date added: 2019/10/15
shelves:
review:
This was an enjoyable read.
The story begins at a smart pace, with humor and funny portraits of people Fiona encounters. It develops with many turns, thrilling and surprising, and every time I wondered, would Fiona be able to manage it?
If you love to read court adventures and laugh, that's the book. Very entertaining.

]]> Fatherland 56842
The naked body of an old man floats in a lake on the outskirts of Berlin. In one week it will be Adolf Hitler’s 75th birthday. A terrible conspiracy is starting to unravel�

What if Hitler had won?

Fatherland is set in an alternative world where Hitler has won the Second World War. It is April 1964 and one week before Hitler's 75th birthday. Xavier March, a detective of the Kriminalpolizei, is called out to investigate the discovery of a dead body in a lake near Berlin's most prestigious suburb.

As March discovers the identity of the body, he uncovers signs of a conspiracy that could go to the very top of the German Reich. And, with the Gestapo just one step behind, March, together with an American journalist, is caught up in a race to discover and reveal the truth -- a truth that has already killed, a truth that could topple governments, a truth that will change history.]]> 380 Robert Harris 0061006629 Sergio 0 to-read 4.01 1992 Fatherland
author: Robert Harris
name: Sergio
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ivan, o Terrível: Ou a Rússia do Século XVI]]> 30354140 378 Sergio 0 to-read 3.83 1862 Ivan, o Terrível: Ou a Rússia do Século XVI
author: Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1862
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/09/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Bobok 1462282 22 Fyodor Dostoevsky 141911042X Sergio 0 to-read 3.35 1873 Bobok
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Sergio
average rating: 3.35
book published: 1873
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/08/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>