Colleen's bookshelf: read en-US Mon, 28 Apr 2025 10:21:13 -0700 60 Colleen's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Sunflower House 203579150 Family secrets come to light as a young woman fights to save herself, and others, in a Nazi-run baby factory—a real-life Handmaid's Tale—during World War II.

In a sleepy German village, Allina Strauss’s life seems idyllic: she works at her uncle’s bookshop, makes strudel with her aunt, and spends weekends with her friends and fiancé. But it's 1939, Adolf Hitler is Chancellor, and Allina’s family hides a terrifying secret—her birth mother was Jewish, making her a Mischling.

One fateful night after losing everyone she loves, Allina is forced into service as a nurse at a state-run baby factory called Hochland Home. There, she becomes both witness and participant to the horrors of Heinrich Himmler’s ruthless eugenics program.

The Sunflower House is a meticulously-researched debut historical novel that uncovers the notorious Lebensborn Program of Nazi Germany. Women of “pure� blood stayed in Lebensborn homes for the sole purpose of perpetuating the Aryan population, giving birth to thousands of babies who were adopted out to “good� Nazi families. Allina must keep her Jewish identity a secret in order to survive, but when she discovers the neglect occurring within the home, she’s determined not only to save herself, but also the children in her care.

A tale of one woman’s determination to resist and survive, The Sunflower House is also a love story. When Allina meets Karl, a high-ranking SS officer with secrets of his own, the two must decide how much they are willing to share with each other—and how much they can stand to risk as they join forces to save as many children as they can. The threads of this poignant and heartrending novel weave a tale of loss and love, friendship and betrayal, and the secrets we bury in order to save ourselves.]]> 336 Adriana Allegri 1250326524 Colleen 0 to-read 4.37 2024 The Sunflower House
author: Adriana Allegri
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/28
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]]> The Fallen Woman's Daughter 200079709
"A compelling, poignant story of mothers, sisters, and daughters"� Kate Quinn, New York Times best-selling author"An addictive read!"—Kirkus Reviews]]> 419 Michelle Cox Colleen 0 to-read 4.12 2024 The Fallen Woman's Daughter
author: Michelle Cox
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
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]]> The Invisible Woman 53398728 In the depths of war, she would defy the odds to help liberate a nation...a gripping historical novel based on a remarkable true story from the bestselling author of Hemingway's Girl

France, March 1944. Virginia Hall wasn't like the other young society women back home in Baltimore--she never wanted the debutante ball or silk gloves. Instead, she traded a safe life for adventure in Europe, and when her beloved second home is thrust into the dark days of war, she leaps in headfirst.

Once she's recruited as an Allied spy, subverting the Nazis becomes her calling. But even the most cunning agent can be bested, and in wartime trusting the wrong person can prove fatal. Virginia is haunted every day by the betrayal that ravaged her first operation, and will do everything in her power to avenge the brave people she lost.

While her future is anything but certain, this time more than ever Virginia knows that failure is not an option. Especially when she discovers what--and whom--she's truly protecting.

Listening length: 10 hours, 30 minutes]]> 353 Erika Robuck 0593102142 Colleen 0 currently-reading 4.15 2021 The Invisible Woman
author: Erika Robuck
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Three Days in June 213243949 A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life,ĚýThree Days in JuneĚýis a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers

]]> 165 Anne Tyler 0593803485 Colleen 3 3.61 2025 Three Days in June
author: Anne Tyler
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/20
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]]> Cloud Atlas 49628
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. . . .

Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. . . . From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. . . . And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.

But the story doesn't end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.

As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.]]> 509 David Mitchell 0375507256 Colleen 0 to-read 4.02 2004 Cloud Atlas
author: David Mitchell
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years #1)]]> 92141 When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

]]> 560 Gregory Maguire 0061350966 Colleen 0 to-read 3.43 1995 Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years #1)
author: Gregory Maguire
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History (Maus, #1)]]> 15196
A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma.]]> 159 Art Spiegelman 0394541553 Colleen 0 to-read 4.39 1986 Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History (Maus, #1)
author: Art Spiegelman
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/20
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]]> If Beale Street Could Talk 38463 197 James Baldwin 0307275930 Colleen 0 to-read 4.28 1974 If Beale Street Could Talk
author: James Baldwin
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1974
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/20
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]]> The Member of the Wedding 855233
With delicacy of perception and memory, humour and pathos, Carson McCullers spreads before us the three phases of a weekend crisis in the life of a motherless twelve-year-old girl. Within the span of a few hours, the irresistible, hoydenish Frankie passionately plays out her fantasies at her elder brother's wedding. Through a perilous skylight we look into the mind of a child torn between her yearning to belong and the urge to run away.]]> 240 Carson McCullers 0141182822 Colleen 0 3.94 1946 The Member of the Wedding
author: Carson McCullers
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1946
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Tina: The Dog Who Changed the World]]> 221361562 It's not every day you meet a golden retriever in Thailand.

Niall met Tina, a dog shackled on a short chain and minutes from death, one day in Thailand. Her story sparked a global movement, so Niall made a to build her hospital and treat every street dog who needs help.

When Niall came across a dog shackled to a short chain and in a poor state of health, something reminded him and his personal battle with addiction. He knew he had to rescue her immediately � golden retrievers are rare in Thailand but there was just something about this one in particular that told him she was special. He just didn't know how special she was going to be. He named her Tina and what she did next is an incredible tale of survival, hope and love.

Despite her terrible treatment at the hands of humans, she refused to distrust them and only opened her heart wider. She never once felt sorry for herself and instead made the most of every single second, showing everyone who met her how to just live in the moment. She taught Niall and everyone around her, how to be in this world, however confusing and hard we may find it. And always with her unique grin on her face � yes dogs can smile � and a reassuring wag of her shaggy yellow tail.

From the very minute Tina was freed of her chains, she got on with what needed to be done � changing the world and making it a better place for all the other dogs, whether they're street dogs from Thailand, or rescue pups in Montana. The movement behind Tina has not stopped.

It's only just began.

This is her story.]]> 320 Niall Harbison 0008725713 Colleen 0 to-read 4.33 Tina: The Dog Who Changed the World
author: Niall Harbison
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.33
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date added: 2025/04/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family]]> 25893681 The Washington Post

When Wayne and Kelly Maines adopted identical twin boys, they thought their lives were complete. But it wasn’t long before they noticed a marked difference between Jonas and his brother, Wyatt. Jonas preferred sports and trucks and many of the things little boys were “supposed� to like; but Wyatt liked princess dolls and dress-up and playing Little Mermaid. By the time the twins were toddlers, confusion over Wyatt’s insistence that he was female began to tear the family apart. In the years that followed, the Maineses came to question their long-held views on gender and identity, to accept and embrace Wyatt’s transition to Nicole, and to undergo an emotionally wrenching transformation of their own that would change all their lives forever.

Becoming Nicole chronicles a journey that could have destroyed a family but instead brought it closer together. It’s the story of a mother whose instincts told her that her child needed love and acceptance, not ostracism and disapproval; of a Republican, Air Force veteran father who overcame his deepest fears to become a vocal advocate for trans rights; of a loving brother who bravely stuck up for his twin sister; and of a town forced to confront its prejudices, a school compelled to rewrite its rules, and a courageous community of transgender activists determined to make their voices heard. Ultimately, Becoming Nicole is the story of an extraordinary girl who fought for the right to be herself.

Granted wide-ranging access to personal diaries, home videos, clinical journals, legal documents, medical records, and the Maineses themselves, Amy Ellis Nutt spent almost four years reporting this immersive account of an American family confronting an issue that is at the center of today’s cultural debate. Becoming Nicole will resonate with anyone who’s ever raised a child, felt at odds with society’s conventions and norms, or had to embrace life when it plays out unexpectedly. It’s a story of standing up for your beliefs and yourself—and it will inspire all of us to do the same.]]> 279 Amy Ellis Nutt Colleen 4 4.19 2015 Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family
author: Amy Ellis Nutt
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Finlay Donovan Is Killing It (Finlay Donovan, #1)]]> 53138099 Finlay Donovan is Killing It.

Finlay Donovan is killing it . . . except, she’s really not. She’s a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in chaos: the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors.

When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer, and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet . . . Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.

Fast-paced, deliciously witty, and wholeheartedly authentic in depicting the frustrations and triumphs of motherhood in all its messiness, hilarity, and heartfelt moment, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is the first in a brilliant new series from YA Edgar Award nominee Elle Cosimano.]]> 355 Elle Cosimano 1250241707 Colleen 0 to-read 3.99 2021 Finlay Donovan Is Killing It (Finlay Donovan, #1)
author: Elle Cosimano
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/16
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]]> The Mystery of Mrs. Christie 54221749 Marie Benedict, the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room, uncovers the untold story of Agatha Christie’s mysterious eleven day disappearance.

In December 1926, Agatha Christie goes missing. Investigators find her empty car on the edge of a deep, gloomy pond, the only clues some tire tracks nearby and a fur coat left in the car � strange for a frigid night. Her husband and daughter have no knowledge of her whereabouts, and England unleashes an unprecedented manhunt to find the up-and-coming mystery author. Eleven days later, she reappears, just as mysteriously as she disappeared, claiming amnesia and providing no explanations for her time away.

The puzzle of those missing eleven days has persisted. With her trademark exploration into the shadows of history, acclaimed author Marie Benedict brings us into the world of Agatha Christie, imagining why such a brilliant woman would find herself at the center of such a murky story.

What is real, and what is mystery? What role did her unfaithful husband play, and what was he not telling investigators?

A master storyteller whose clever mind may never be matched, Agatha Christie’s untold history offers perhaps her greatest mystery of all.]]> 272 Marie Benedict 1492682721 Colleen 0 to-read 3.66 2020 The Mystery of Mrs. Christie
author: Marie Benedict
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
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date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> The Queens of Crime 211003830 The Mystery of Mrs. Christie returns with a thrilling story of Christie’s legendary rival Dorothy Sayers, the race to solve a murder, and the power of friendship among women.

London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second-class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.

May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they’re stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.

Inspired by a true story in Sayers� own life, New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels.]]> 310 Marie Benedict 1250280753 Colleen 0 to-read 3.81 2025 The Queens of Crime
author: Marie Benedict
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2025
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]]> Sandwich 200028726 From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.]]> 240 Catherine Newman 0063345161 Colleen 4 3.55 2024 Sandwich
author: Catherine Newman
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus]]> 216247502
Arriving at the University of Edinburgh for her first term, Pen knows her divorced parents back in Canada are hiding something from her. She believes she’ll find the answer here in Scotland, where an old friend of her father’s—now a famous writer known as Lord Lennox—lives. When she is invited to spend the weekend at Lord Lennox’s centuries-old estate with his enveloping, fascinating family, Pen begins to unravel her parents� secret, just as she’s falling in love for the first time . . .

As Pen experiences the sharp shock of adulthood, she comes to rely on herself for the first time in her life. A rich and rewarding novel of campus life, of sexual awakening, and ultimately, of the many ways women can become mothers in this world, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus asks to what extent we need to look back in order to move forward.]]> 384 Emma Knight 0593830458 Colleen 4 3.40 The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus
author: Emma Knight
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.40
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> All the Colors of the Dark 203019740 From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that spans decades.

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Mohammed Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.

When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy with one eye, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.

Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession, and the blinding light of hope.]]> 608 Chris Whitaker 0593798872 Colleen 4 4.23 2024 All the Colors of the Dark
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
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]]> Show Don't Tell 213870083 A funny, fiercely intelligent, and moving collection exploring marriage, friendship, fame, and artistic ambition—including a story that revisits the main character from Curtis Sittenfeld’s iconic novel Prep—from the New York Times bestselling author of Eligible and Romantic Comedy

In her second story collection, Sittenfeld shows why she’s as beloved for her short fiction as she is for her novels. In these dazzling stories, she conjures up characters so real that they seem like old friends, laying bare the moments when their long held beliefs are overturned.

In “The Patron Saints of Middle Age,� a woman visits two friends she hasn’t seen since her divorce. In “A for Alone,� a married artist embarks on a creative project intended to disprove the so-called Mike Pence Rule, which suggests that women and men can’t spend time alone together without lusting after each other. And in “Lost but Not Forgotten,� Sittenfeld gives readers of her novel Prep a window into the world of her beloved character Lee Fiora, decades later, when Lee attends an alumni reunion at her boarding school.

Hilarious, thought-provoking, and full of tenderness for her characters, Sittenfeld’s stories peel back layer after layer of our inner lives, keeping us riveted to the page with her utterly distinctive voice.]]> 320 Curtis Sittenfeld 0593446739 Colleen 0 to-read 3.92 2025 Show Don't Tell
author: Curtis Sittenfeld
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/18
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]]> Conclave 40009848
Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election.

They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals.

Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.]]> 305 Robert Harris Colleen 0 to-read 4.43 2016 Conclave
author: Robert Harris
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/14
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]]> Chicago 25663660
A love letter to Chicago, the Great American City, and a wry account of a young man's coming-of-age during the one summer in White Sox history when they had the best outfield in baseball, Brian Doyle's Chicago is a novel that will plunge you into a city you will never forget, and may well wish to visit for the rest of your days.]]> 309 Brian Doyle 1250061997 Colleen 4 3.88 2016 Chicago
author: Brian Doyle
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
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]]> James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

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

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

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Colleen 5 4.46 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
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]]> I Have Some Questions for You 61053829
But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there? As she falls down the very rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn't as much of an outsider at Granby as she'd thought—if, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case.]]> 438 Rebecca Makkai 0593490142 Colleen 3 3.57 2023 I Have Some Questions for You
author: Rebecca Makkai
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[When the Day Comes (Timeless, #1)]]> 59627675
Libby has been given a powerful gift: to live one life in 1774 Colonial Williamsburg and the other in 1914 Gilded Age New York City. When she falls asleep in one life, she wakes up in the other. While she's the same person at her core in both times, she's leading two vastly different lives.

In Colonial Williamsburg, Libby is a public printer for the House of Burgesses and the Royal Governor, trying to provide for her family and support the Patriot cause. The man she loves, Henry Montgomery, has his own secrets. As the revolution draws near, both their lives--and any hope of love--are put in jeopardy.

Libby's life in 1914 New York is filled with wealth, drawing room conversations, and bachelors. But the only work she cares about--women's suffrage--is discouraged, and her mother is intent on marrying her off to an English marquess. The growing talk of war in Europe only complicates matters.

But Libby knows she's not destined to live two lives forever. On her twenty-first birthday, she must choose one path and forfeit the other--but how can she choose when she has so much to lose in each life?]]> 384 Gabrielle Meyer 0764239740 Colleen 0 to-read 4.37 2022 When the Day Comes (Timeless, #1)
author: Gabrielle Meyer
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/17
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]]> The Pilgrimage 1091986
When Julia begins receiving a series of obscene anonymous letters detailing her sexual infidelities with Jim, her suspicions fall on the 'sinister' Stephen. And what connection do Stephen and Michael have with the suicide of local boy Tommy Baggot, a well-known figure within Dublin's secretive homosexual community? Why does she find herself both attracted to and repelled by Stephen? As the day of departure to Lourdes approaches, John Broderick probes into the heart of an Irish small town that is 'as watchful as the jungle', stripping his characters of their 'respectable clothes' to reveal their true selves in all their selfishness and 'elemental sensuality'.

The Pilgrimage's depiction of sexual need and the 'petty vices' of 1950s Ireland led to its banning by the Irish Censorship Board on its original publication in 1961. Under the title The Chameleons it sold over 100,000 copies in America. This re-issue restores Broderick to his rightful place alongside John McGahern and Brinsley MacNamara, taking a new generation of readers on a unique 'pilgrimage of the body'.]]> 192 John Broderick 1843510480 Colleen 0 to-read 3.92 1961 The Pilgrimage
author: John Broderick
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1961
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> Breakfast at Tiffany's 22925739 Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote's most beloved work of fiction, introduced an independent and complex character who challenged audiences, revived Audrey Hepburn's flagging career in the 1961 film version, and whose name and style has remained in the national idiom since publication. Hall uses his diligent attention to character to bring our unnamed narrator’s emotional vulnerability to the forefront of this American classic.]]> 3 Truman Capote Colleen 0 to-read 3.76 1958 Breakfast at Tiffany's
author: Truman Capote
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1958
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/03
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]]> You Are Here 201465867
Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future . . . if they can survive the journey.]]> 368 David Nicholls 0063394057 Colleen 4 3.97 2024 You Are Here
author: David Nicholls
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> My Darling Boy 213395540 A brilliant and gut-wrenching novel about a father and son from a “generous and lyric storyteller� (San Francisco Chronicle).

Known for his tragicomic voice and unforgettable characters, John Dufresne tells the story of Olney, whose beloved son, Cully, collapses into addiction and vanishes into the chaotic netherworld of southern Florida. Aided by his terminally ill girlfriend and the colorful inhabitants of a local motel—including a doomsday prepper, an ex-nun, a pair of blind twins with an acute sense of smell, and a devoutly Catholic shelter worker—Olney sets out to save his son. Hilarious and devastating in equal measure, My Darling Boy is a hero’s quest for our time, a testament to families touched by the opioid crisis, and a remarkable achievement from one of our most talented authors.]]> 288 John Dufresne 1324035730 Colleen 0 to-read 3.29 2025 My Darling Boy
author: John Dufresne
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.29
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> <![CDATA[The Guncle Abroad (The Guncle, #2)]]> 197511201 Patrick O'Hara is called back to his guncle duties . . . This time for a big family wedding in Italy.

Patrick O’Hara is back. It’s been five years since his summer as his niece Maisie and nephew Grant’s caretaker after their mother’s passing. The kids are back in Connecticut with their dad, and Patrick has relocated to New York to remain close by and relaunch his dormant acting career. After the run of his second successful sit-com comes to a close, Patrick feels on top of the world . . . professionally. But some things have had to take a back seat. Looking down both barrels at fifty, Patrick is single again after breaking things off with Emory. But at least he has a family to lean on. Until that family needs to again lean on him.

When Patrick's brother, Greg, announces he’s getting remarried in Italy, Maisie and Grant are not thrilled. Patrick feels drawn to take the two back under his wing. As they travel through Europe on their way to the wedding, Patrick tries his best to help them understand love, much as he once helped them comprehend grief. But when they arrive in Italy, Patrick is overextended managing a groom with cold feet; his sister, Clara, flirting with guests left and right; a growing rivalry with the kids� charming soon-to-be-launt (lesbian aunt), and two moody young teens trying to adjust to a new normal, all culminating in a disastrous rehearsal dinner.

Can Patrick save the day? Will teaching the kids about love help him repair his own love life? Can the change of scenery help Patrick come to terms with finally growing up?

Gracing the work with his signature blend of humor and heart, Steven Rowley charms with a beloved story about the complicated bonds of family, love, and what it takes to rediscover yourself, even at the ripe age of fifty.]]> 320 Steven Rowley 0593540468 Colleen 3 3.90 2024 The Guncle Abroad (The Guncle, #2)
author: Steven Rowley
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
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]]> <![CDATA[A Boy Called Christmas (Christmas, #1)]]> 25882558 It is a story that proves that nothing is impossible.
If you are one of those people who believe that some things are impossible, you should put this book down right away. It is most certainly not for you.
Because this book is FULL of impossible things.

Are you still reading?

Good.

Then let us begin . . .

A Boy Called Christmas is a tale of adventure, snow, kidnapping, elves, more snow, and an eleven-year-old boy called Nikolas, who isn't afraid to believe in magic.]]> 247 Matt Haig 178211789X Colleen 0 to-read 4.12 2016 A Boy Called Christmas (Christmas, #1)
author: Matt Haig
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/30
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]]> All Fours 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]> 336 Miranda July 0593190262 Colleen 0 to-read 3.52 2024 All Fours
author: Miranda July
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The House at Pooh Corner (Winnie-the-Pooh, #2)]]> 776407 180 A.A. Milne 0525444440 Colleen 0 4.37 1928 The House at Pooh Corner (Winnie-the-Pooh, #2)
author: A.A. Milne
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1928
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: to-read, books-to-read-in-my-lifetime
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]]> <![CDATA[The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness]]> 171681821
A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

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

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

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

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

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.]]> 400 Jonathan Haidt 0593655036 Colleen 0 to-read 4.36 2024 The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.36
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rating: 0
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]]> Martyr! 139400713 A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Colleen 0 to-read 4.22 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> How to End a Love Story 212432167 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Two writers with a complicated history end up working on the same TV show... Can they write themselves a new ending? A sexy and emotional enemies-to-lovers romance guaranteed to pull on your heartstrings and give you a book hangover from brilliant new voice Yulin Kuang.

Helen Zhang hasn’t seen Grant Shepard once in the thirteen years since the tragic accident that bound their lives together forever.

Now a bestselling author, Helen pours everything into her career. She’s even scored a coveted spot in the writers� room of the TV adaptation of her popular young adult novels, and if she can hide her imposter syndrome and overcome her writer’s block, surely the rest of her life will fall into place too. LA is the fresh start she needs. After all, no one knows her there. Except�

Grant has done everything in his power to move on from the past, including building a life across the country. And while the panic attacks have never quite gone away, he’s well liked around town as a screenwriter. He knows he shouldn’t have taken the job on Helen’s show, but it will open doors to developing his own projects that he just can’t pass up.

Grant’s exactly as Helen remembers him—charming, funny, popular, and lovable in ways that she’s never been. And Helen’s exactly as Grant remembers too—brilliant, beautiful, closed off. But working together is messy, and electrifying, and Helen’s parents, who have never forgiven Grant, have no idea he’s in the picture at all.

When secrets come to light, they must reckon with the fact that theirs was never meant to be any kind of love story. And yet� the key to making peace with their past—and themselves—might just lie in holding on to each other in the present.]]> 384 Yulin Kuang 0063310686 Colleen 0 to-read 3.51 2024 How to End a Love Story
author: Yulin Kuang
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

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

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

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Colleen 0 to-read 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)]]> 199347538 Somewhere Beyond the Sea is the hugely anticipated sequel to TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, one of the best-loved and best-selling fantasy novels of the past decade. Featuring gorgeous orange sprayed edges!

A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.

Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one.

He’s the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there’s the island’s sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it.]]> 416 T.J. Klune 125088120X Colleen 0 to-read 4.17 2024 Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> The Husbands 193781998 An exuberant debut, The Husbands delights in how do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options?

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.

As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actuallyĚýliving?]]> 352 Holly Gramazio 0385550618 Colleen 3 3.50 2024 The Husbands
author: Holly Gramazio
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
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It’s just too long. Cute but too long.
]]> <![CDATA[American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony]]> 843682 320 Samuel P. Huntington 0674030206 Colleen 0 to-read 3.95 1981 American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony
author: Samuel P. Huntington
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/06
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]]> Havoc 209594864 In the vein of The Bad Seed comes a twisty, atmospheric psychological suspense about a meddlesome elderly guest at a decadent luxury hotel who believes she has left her problematic past behind, until she decides to interfere in the lives of a young mother and her eight-year-old son, and finally meets her wicked match.

The war between age and youth has never been so vicious.

Eighty-one-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt came to the Royal Karnak to escape. But not in quite the same way as most other guests who are relaxing at this threadbare luxury hotel on the banks of the Nile. Maggie, a compulsive fixer of other people’s lives, may have found herself in hot water at her last hotel in Switzerland and just might have needed to get out of there fast... But here at the Royal Karnak, under the hot Saharan sun, she has a comfortable suite, a loyal confidante in the hotel manager, Ahmed, and a handful of sympathetic friends, similar “long-termers� who understand her still-vivid grief for her late husband, Peter. Here, she is merely the sweet old lady in Room 309.

One morning, however, Maggie notices a new arrival at a mournful-looking young mother named Tess and her impish eight-year-old, Otto. Eager to help, Maggie invites them into her world. But it isn’t long before Maggie realizes that in her longing to be a part of their family, she has let in an enemy much stronger than she bargained for. In scrawny, homely Otto, Maggie Burkhardt has finally met her match.]]> 256 Christopher Bollen 0063378892 Colleen 0 to-read 3.58 2024 Havoc
author: Christopher Bollen
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/05
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]]> Salt to the Sea 25614492
Sepetys (writer of 'Between Shades of Gray') crafts four fictionalized but historically accurate voices to convey the real-life tragedy. Joana, a Lithuanian with nursing experience; Florian, a Prussian soldier fleeing the Nazis with stolen treasure; and Emilia, a Polish girl close to the end of her pregnancy, converge on their escape journeys as Russian troops advance; each will eventually meet Albert, a Nazi peon with delusions of grandeur, assigned to the Gustloff decks.]]> 391 Ruta Sepetys Colleen 4 4.35 2016 Salt to the Sea
author: Ruta Sepetys
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
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]]> Lilith 81069444 In the Garden of Eden, at the beginning of time, an outrageous lie is born: that women are inferior.

Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. Until Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and lie beneath him. She refuses - and is banished forever from Paradise.

Demonized and sidelined, Lilith watches in fury as God creates Eve, the woman who accepts her submission. But Lilith has a secret: she has already tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Endowed with Wisdom, she knows why Asherah - God's wife and equal, the Queen of Heaven - is missing. Lilith has a plan: she will rescue Eve, find Asherah, restore balance to the world and regain her rightful place in Paradise.

Lilith's quest for justice drives her throughout history, from the ziggurats of Ancient Sumer to the court of Israel's Queen Jezebel, and to the side of a radical preacher in Roman Judea. In the modern age, as she observes the catastrophic consequences of a world built on inequality, Lilith finally understands what must be done to correct the wrong done to women - and all humankind - at the beginning of time.

Inspired by ancient myths and suppressed scriptures, Lilith is a thought-provoking and ambitious novel with an evocative literary voice and a triumphantly engaging heroine.]]> 336 Nikki Marmery 1639105719 Colleen 0 to-read 3.63 2023 Lilith
author: Nikki Marmery
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> Husbands & Lovers 199223201 Two women—separated by decades and continents, and united by a mysterious family heirloom—discover second chances at love in this sweeping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Wives.

New England, 2022. Three years ago, single mother Mallory Dunne received the telephone call every parent dreads—her ten-year-old son, Sam, had been airlifted from summer camp with acute poisoning from a toxic death cap mushroom, leaving him fighting for his life. Now, searching for the donor kidney that will give her son a chance for a normal life, Mallory’s forced to confront two harrowing secrets from her past: her mother’s adoption from an infamous Irish orphanage in 1952, and her own all-consuming summer romance fourteen years earlier with her childhood best friend, Monk Adams� one of the world’s most beloved singer-songwriters—a fairy tale cut short by a devastating betrayal.

Cairo, 1951. After suffering tragedy beyond comprehension in the war, Hungarian refugee Hannah Ainsworth has forged a respectable new life for herself—marriage to a wealthy British diplomat with a coveted posting in glamorous Cairo. But a fateful encounter with the enigmatic manager of a hotel bristling with spies leads to a passionate affair that will reawaken Hannah’s longing for everything she once lost. As revolution simmers in the Egyptian streets, a pregnant Hannah finds herself snared in a game of intrigue between two men . . . and an act of sacrifice that will echo down the generations.

Timeless and bittersweet, Husbands & Lovers takes readers on an unforgettable journey of heartbreak and redemption, from the revolutionary fires of midcentury Egypt to the moneyed beaches of contemporary New England. Acclaimed author Beatriz Williams has written a poignant and beautifully voiced novel of deeply human characters entangled by morally complex issues—of privilege, class, and the female experience—inside worlds brought shimmeringly to life.]]> 384 Beatriz Williams 0593724224 Colleen 0 to-read 4.08 2024 Husbands & Lovers
author: Beatriz Williams
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/18
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]]> Behind Every Good Man 202257499 A wronged wife goes toe to toe with her cheating husband at the polls in this hilarious and heart-lifting novel by the bestselling author of Don’t Forget to Write.

It’s a doozy of a bad day for Beverly Diamond when she catches her husband, Larry, in a compromising position with his secretary. What’s a DC suburban wife to do with a soon-to-be ex, two young kids, and no degree or financial support in 1962? Beat the louse at his own game, that’s what.

Larry runs the Maryland senatorial campaign for the incumbent candidate projected to win against his younger underdog opponent, Michael Landau. But Beverly has the pluck, political savvy, and sheer drive to push Landau’s campaign in a successful new direction, even if he already has a campaign manager who is less than pleased she has inserted herself into the race.

Now it’s rival against rival. She and Michael do make a great team…maybe in more ways than one. But with the election heating up, she needs to focus on one thing at a time. If Bev can convince Michael to go modern, pay attention to women’s issues, and learn how to dress himself properly, maybe she can show Larry exactly how much he has underestimated her their entire marriage—and make her own dreams come true in the process.]]> 349 Sara Goodman Confino 1662517726 Colleen 0 to-read 4.26 2024 Behind Every Good Man
author: Sara Goodman Confino
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/18
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]]> Intermezzo 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 Colleen 0 currently-reading 3.87 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Only the Beautiful 56687771
California, 1938—When she loses her parents in an accident, sixteen-year-old Rosanne is taken in by the owners of the vineyard where she has lived her whole life as the vinedresser’s daughter. She moves into Celine and Truman Calvert’s spacious house with a secret, however—Rosie sees colors when she hears sound. She promised her mother she’d never reveal her little-understood ability to anyone, but the weight of her isolation and grief prove too much for her. Driven by her loneliness she not only breaks the vow to her mother, but in a desperate moment lets down her guard and ends up pregnant. Banished by the Calverts, Rosanne believes she is bound for a home for unwed mothers, and having lost her family she treasures her pregnancy as the chance for a future one. But she soon finds out she is not going to a home of any kind, but to a place far worse than anything she could have imagined.

Austria, 1947—After witnessing firsthand Adolf Hitler’s brutal pursuit of hereditary purity—especially with regard to “different children”—Helen Calvert, Truman's sister, is ready to return to America for good. But when she arrives at her brother’s peaceful vineyard after decades working abroad, she is shocked to learn what really happened nine years earlier to the vinedresser’s daughter, a girl whom Helen had long ago befriended. In her determination to find Rosanne, Helen discovers that while the war had been won in Europe, there are still terrifying battles to be fought at home.]]> 400 Susan Meissner 0593332830 Colleen 3 4.42 2023 Only the Beautiful
author: Susan Meissner
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/16
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]]> Don’t Forget to Write 75349380 334 Sara Goodman Confino 1662512236 Colleen 0 to-read 4.49 2023 Don’t Forget to Write
author: Sara Goodman Confino
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/06
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]]> <![CDATA[I Think We've Been Here Before]]> 198190462
In the same week, Marlen and Hilda’s family receives two significant pieces of news: One, Marlen has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Two, a cosmic blast is set to render humanity extinct within a matter of months. It seems the coming Christmas on their Saskatchewan farm could be everyone’s last.

Preparing for the inevitable, they navigate the time they have left together. Marlen and Hilda channel their energy into improbably prophetic works of art. Hilda’s elderly father receives a longed-for visitor from his past. Hilda’s preteen nephew goes missing, and his mother refuses to believe the world is ending. All the while, Hilda’s daughter struggles to find her way home from Berlin with the help of an oddly familiar stranger. For everyone, there’s an unsettling feeling that this unprecedented reality is somehow something they all remember.

As the planet holds its collective breath to see what happens next, the family—amid chaos, denial, acceptance, and hope—determines to live every moment as if it is their last. Because, well, it just might be.]]> 310 Suzy Krause 166251753X Colleen 0 to-read 4.03 2024 I Think We've Been Here Before
author: Suzy Krause
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting]]> 59836844
Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He’d have died were it not for the timely intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver.

This single event starts a chain reaction, and an eclectic group of people discovers that talking to strangers can teach you quite a bit about the world around you—and even more about yourself.]]> 342 Clare Pooley 1984878646 Colleen 3 4.16 2022 Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting
author: Clare Pooley
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/04
date added: 2024/11/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Hum If You Don't Know the Words]]> 28264701 Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy.

Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred...until the Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, and shatters their worlds when Robin’s parents are left dead and Beauty’s daughter goes missing.

After Robin is sent to live with her loving but irresponsible aunt, Beauty is hired to care for Robin while continuing the search for her daughter. In Beauty, Robin finds the security and family that she craves, and the two forge an inextricable bond through their deep personal losses. But Robin knows that if Beauty finds her daughter, Robin could lose her new caretaker forever, so she makes a desperate decision with devastating consequences. Her quest to make amends and find redemption is a journey of self-discovery in which she learns the harsh truths of the society that once promised her protection.

Told through Beauty and Robin's alternating perspectives, the interwoven narratives create a rich and complex tapestry of the emotions and tensions at the heart of Apartheid-era South Africa. Hum If You Don’t Know the Words is a beautifully rendered look at loss, racism, and the creation of family.]]> 432 Bianca Marais 0399575073 Colleen 0 to-read 4.24 2017 Hum If You Don't Know the Words
author: Bianca Marais
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/27
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]]> The Women 127305853 De la autora superventas de El Ruiseñor , una historia de mujeres valientes decididas a arriesgar su vida por los demás en uno de los momentos más peligrosos de la historia.

Inspiradas por el coraje. Ligadas por la amistad. Unidas por la esperanza.

«Las mujeres pueden ser heroínas». Cuando Frankie McGrath, estudiante de enfermería de veinte años, oye por primera vez estas inesperadas palabras, siente una revelación. Criada en el idílico y soleado sur de California y protegida por sus conservadores padres, siempre se ha enorgullecido de hacer lo que se espera de ella, de ser una buena chica. Pero en 1966 el mundo está cambiando y, de repente, su vida parece abrirse a nuevas posibilidades. Cuando su hermano parte para combatir en Vietnam, ella se une de manera impulsiva al Cuerpo de Enfermeras del Ejército para seguirle.

Allí, Frankie se siente igual de inmadura e inexperta que los jóvenes enviados para luchar, y se ve abrumada por el caos y la destrucción de la guerra. Además, un trauma inesperado la golpea al volver a casa, el de encontrar un país cambiado y dividido, un país que quiere olvidar. Frankie descubrirá el verdadero valor de la amistad y el dolor que puede causar un corazón roto.

***NĂşmero 1 en las listas de best sellers de The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, la AsociaciĂłn de LibrerĂ­as Independientes, Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Amazon, Audible y Los Angeles Daily News***

Sobre la novela han
«De nuevo, Hannah ilumina con su luz a mujeres que la historia ha ignorado».
People Magazine

«Hannah está en su mejor momento en esta novela».
The New York Times

«Conmovedora y excepcionalmente documentada».
Stephen King

«±Ę´Ç»ĺ±đ°ů´Ç˛ő˛ąÂ».
Matt Haig, autor de La biblioteca de la medianoche

«Kristin Hannah, una de las mejores narradoras de nuestro tiempo, aborda una de las más crueles y viles guerras del último Vietnam. Las mujeres de la guerra revela la enorme contribución y los horribles sacrificios de las enfermeras militares que sirvieron en ella... Nunca una novela de guerra se ha metamorfoseado tan profundamente en una historia sobre el corazón humano».
Delia Owen, autora de La chica salvaje

«Este libro es ficción histórica en su mejor versión. Tan conmovedor, tan desgarrador, y, sin embargo, en última instancia, optimista. ¡Bravo!».
Nicholas D. Kristof, ganador del Premio Pulitzer y coautor de La mitad del cielo

«Deslumbra con su sacrificio; y eleva el ánimo con su heroísmo... Un importante y largamente esperado tributo a las valientes enfermeras que sirvieron en Vietnam».
Bonnie Garmus, autora de Lecciones de quĂ­mica

«Los fans de los libros históricos protagonizados por mujeres van a disfrutar esta magnética novela».
Publishers Weekly

Please This audiobook is in Spanish.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Colleen 5 4.58 2024 The Women
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/26
date added: 2024/10/26
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]]> Looking for Jane 61273371
1971: As a teenager, Dr. Evelyn Taylor was sent to a home for “fallen� women where she was forced to give up her baby for adoption—a trauma she has never recovered from. Despite the constant threat of arrest, she joins the Jane Network as an abortion provider, determined to give other women the choice she never had.

1980: After discovering a shocking secret about her family, twenty-year-old Nancy Mitchell begins to question everything she has ever known. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she feels like she has no one to turn to for help. Grappling with her decision, she locates “Jane� and finds a place of her own alongside Dr. Taylor within the network’s ranks, but she can never escape the lies that haunt her.]]> 400 Heather Marshall 1668013681 Colleen 4 4.34 2022 Looking for Jane
author: Heather Marshall
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/21
date added: 2024/10/21
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]]> <![CDATA[A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy]]> 25937937 For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan s mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror? And how, as his mother, had she not known something was wrong? Were there subtle signs she had missed? What, if anything, could she have done differently?
These are questions that Klebold has grappled with every day since the Columbine tragedy. In"A Mother s Reckoning," she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and on countless interviews with mental health experts.
Filled with hard-won wisdom and compassion, "A Mother s Reckoning"is a powerful and haunting book that sheds light on one of the most pressing issues of our time. And with fresh wounds from the recent Newtown and Charleston shootings, never has the need for understanding been more urgent.
"All author profits from the book will be donated to research and to charitable organizations focusing on mental health issues."


"From the Hardcover edition.""]]> 305 Sue Klebold 1101902752 Colleen 0 to-read 4.18 2016 A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy
author: Sue Klebold
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Life Impossible 198281740
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…�

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.]]> 324 Matt Haig 0593489276 Colleen 4 3.45 2024 The Life Impossible
author: Matt Haig
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/14
date added: 2024/10/14
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]]> Bread Givers 3637 297 Anzia Yezierska 0892552905 Colleen 0 to-read 3.74 1925 Bread Givers
author: Anzia Yezierska
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1925
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> First Lie Wins 164444179 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593492918.

Evie Porter has everything a nice Southern girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence, a tight group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.

The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job.

Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job isn’t like the others. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes—especially after what happened last time.

Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there’s still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn’t be higher—but then, Evie has always liked a challenge. . . .]]> 340 Ashley Elston Colleen 0 to-read 3.97 2024 First Lie Wins
author: Ashley Elston
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/05
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]]> Heavy Hitter 202921631
Taylor and Travis. Jennifer and A-Rod. Marilyn and Joe. When a professional athlete and a megawatt star fall in love, the world is obsessed . . .

With four chart-topping albums, Lacey Logan is a superstar whose life no longer feels like her own. Her every move is photographed, videoed, and dissected online, and her carefully curated Instagram feed studied by fans worldwide. To maintain her privacy, Lacey skillfully controls her narrative, showing fans and paparazzi what she wants them to see.

But when Lacey discovers her boyfriend is hiding two devastating secrets—a bad cocaine habit and a pregnant girlfriend—she begins to lose confidence and control of her own story. Then big-shouldered baseball player Jimmy Hodges, a former Rookie of the Year when Lacey was in high school, walks into the bar where she’s venting to a friend. With his shaggy beard and unfashionable button-down, Jimmy is the opposite of the picture-perfect guy Lacey thinks she wants. Soon, sparks fly and inhibitions go out the window when Lacey dares to take some chances.

Lacey and Jimmy are polar opposites. But could this be the forever after they both need?]]> 240 Katie Cotugno 0063393956 Colleen 2 3.14 2024 Heavy Hitter
author: Katie Cotugno
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.14
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/05
date added: 2024/10/05
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]]> Long Island Compromise 55777544 “Were we gangsters? No. But did we know how to start a fire?�

In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety.

But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all. Carl has spent the ensuing years secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping, while his wife, Ruth, has spent her potential protecting her husband’s emotional health. Their three grown children aren’t doing much better: Nathan’s chronic fear won’t allow him to advance at his law firm; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything—substance, foodstuff, women—in order to numb his own perpetual terror; and Jenny has spent her life so bent on proving that she’s not a product of her family’s pathology that she has come to define it. As they hover at the delicate precipice of a different kind of survival, they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, and they must face desperate questions about how much their wealth has played a part in both their lives� successes and failures.

Long Island Compromise spans the entirety of one family’s history, winding through decades and generations, all the way to the outrageous present, and confronting the mainstays of American Jewish life: tradition, the pursuit of success, the terror of history, fear of the future, old wives� tales, evil eyes, ambition, achievement, boredom, dybbuks, inheritance, pyramid schemes, right-wing capitalists, beta-blockers, psychics, and the mostly unspoken love and shared experience that unite a family forever.]]> 464 Taffy Brodesser-Akner 0593133498 Colleen 4 3.72 2024 Long Island Compromise
author: Taffy Brodesser-Akner
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/04
date added: 2024/10/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books]]> 200987258
Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic� books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.

But Beverly’s daughter Lindsay sneaks in by night and secretly fills Lula Dean’s little free library with banned books wrapped in “wholesome� dust jackets. The Girl’s Guide to the Revolution is wrapped in the cover of The Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette. A jacket that belongs to Our Confederate Heroes ends up on Beloved. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.

That’s when all the townspeople who’ve been borrowing from Lula’s library begin to reveal themselves. It’s a diverse and surprising bunch—including the local postman, the prom queen, housewives, a farmer, and the former DA—all of whom have been changed by what they’ve read. When Lindsay is forced to own up to what she’s done, the showdown that’s been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town...and change it forever.]]> 298 Kirsten Miller 0063348691 Colleen 3 4.06 2024 Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books
author: Kirsten Miller
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/20
date added: 2024/09/20
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]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

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

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

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Colleen 4 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/14
date added: 2024/09/14
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]]> By Any Other Name 203337138 From the New York Times bestselling co-author of Mad Honey comes an “inspiring� (Elle) novel about two women, centuries apart—one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—who are both forced to hide behind another name.

Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn’t level for women. As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym.

In 1581, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her lessons on languages, history, and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but like most women of her day, she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees all theatre productions in England, Emilia sees firsthand how the words of playwrights can move an audience. She begins to form a plan to secretly bring a play of her own to the stage—by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.

Told in intertwining timelines, By Any Other Name, a sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire centers two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. Should a writer do whatever it takes to see her story live on . . . no matter the cost? This remarkable novel, rooted in primary historical sources, ensures the name Emilia Bassano will no longer be forgotten.]]> 528 Jodi Picoult 0593497228 Colleen 0 to-read 4.12 2024 By Any Other Name
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/14
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]]> The Briar Club 181110045 A haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears apart the house, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: Who is the true enemy in their midst?]]> 432 Kate Quinn 0063244748 Colleen 4 4.26 2024 The Briar Club
author: Kate Quinn
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/09
date added: 2024/09/08
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]]> Native Son 15622 Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.

Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.]]> 504 Richard Wright Colleen 0 to-read 4.03 1940 Native Son
author: Richard Wright
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1940
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/24
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]]> The Great Believers 45304101 A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister.

Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

The Great Believers has become a critically acclaimed, indelible piece of literature; it was selected as one of New York Times Best 10 Books of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, a Buzzfeed Book of the Year, a Skimm Reads pick, and a pick for the New York Public Library's Best Books of the year.]]> 421 Rebecca Makkai 073522353X Colleen 0 to-read 4.26 2018 The Great Believers
author: Rebecca Makkai
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/24
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]]> Absolution 101404407
In Saigon in 1963, two young American wives form a wary alliance. Tricia is a starry-eyed newlywed, married to a rising oil engineer “on loan� to US Navy Intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a talented hostess and determined altruist, on a mission to relieve the “wretchedness� she sees all around her.

When Tricia miscarries, Charlene sweeps her into a cabal of well-dressed do-gooder American wives. Armed with baskets filled with candy and toys, they descend on hospitals, orphanages, and a leper colony on the coast, determined to relieve suffering, no matter the cost.

Sixty years later, Charlene’s daughter reaches out to Tricia, now widowed and living in Washington. As the two relive their shared experience in Saigon, they are forced to come to terms with the ways their own lives have been shaped and stunted by Charlene’s pursuit of “inconsequential good.�

With a narrative impact that recalls Graham Greene’s The Quiet American , Alice McDermott confronts the unresolved mysteries and ironies of America’s tragic interference in Southeast Asia.]]> 324 Alice McDermott 0374610487 Colleen 0 to-read 3.69 2023 Absolution
author: Alice McDermott
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/16
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]]> This Is Happiness 42972008
For one thing, the rain is stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living. But now � just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity � the rain clouds are lifting. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets he needs to atone for. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.

As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world.

Harking back to a simpler time, This Is Happiness is a tender portrait of a community � its idiosyncrasies and traditions, its paradoxes and kindnesses, its failures and triumphs � and a coming-of-age tale like no other. Luminous and lyrical, yet anchored by roots running deep into the earthy and everyday, it is about the power of stories: their invisible currents that run through all we do, writing and rewriting us, and the transforming light that they throw onto our world.]]> 400 Niall Williams 163557420X Colleen 0 currently-reading 4.18 2019 This Is Happiness
author: Niall Williams
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/16
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Normal People 49833634
A year later, they're both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.]]> 305 Sally Rooney 1984822187 Colleen 4 3.75 2018 Normal People
author: Sally Rooney
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/16
date added: 2024/08/16
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]]> I Hope This Finds You Well 200987323 In this wildly funny and heartwarming office comedy, an admin worker accidentally gains access to her colleagues� private emails and DMs and decides to use this intel to save her job—a laugh-till-you-cry debut novel you’ll be eager to share with your entire list of contacts, perfect for fans of Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

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

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

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

Crackling with laugh-out-loud dialogue and relatable observations, I Hope This Finds You Well is a fresh and surprisingly tender comedy about loneliness and love beyond our computer screens. This sparkling debut novel will open your heart to the everyday eccentricities of work culture and the undeniable human connection that comes with it.]]> 338 Natalie Sue 0063320363 Colleen 4 3.74 2024 I Hope This Finds You Well
author: Natalie Sue
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2024/08/13
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]]> Lady in the Lake 41735375 New York Times bestselling author returns with a novel set in 1960s Baltimore that combines modern psychological insights with elements of classic noir, about a middle-aged housewife turned aspiring reporter who pursues the murder of a forgotten young woman.

In 1966, Baltimore is a city of secrets that everyone seems to know--everyone, that is, except Madeline "Maddie" Schwartz. Last year, she was a happy, even pampered housewife. This year, she's bolted from her marriage of almost twenty years, determined to make good on her youthful ambitions to live a passionate, meaningful life. Maddie wants to matter, to leave her mark on a swiftly changing world. Drawing on her own secrets, she helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl--assistance that leads to a job at the city's afternoon newspaper, the Star. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake. Cleo Sherwood was a young African-American woman who liked to have a good time. No one seems to know or care why she was killed except Maddie--and the dead woman herself. Maddie's going to find the truth about Cleo's life and death. Cleo's ghost, privy to Maddie's poking and prying, wants to be left alone. Maddie's investigation brings her into contact with people that used to be on the periphery of her life--a jewelery store clerk, a waitress, a rising star on the Baltimore Orioles, a patrol cop, a hardened female reporter, a lonely man in a movie theater. But for all her ambition and drive, Maddie often fails to see the people right in front of her. Her inability to look beyond her own needs will lead to tragedy and turmoil for all sorts of people--including the man who shares her bed, a black police officer who cares for Maddie more than she knows.']]> 352 Laura Lippman 0062390031 Colleen 3 3.46 2019 Lady in the Lake
author: Laura Lippman
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/08
date added: 2024/08/08
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]]> The Frozen River 112975658 A gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history.

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.]]> 432 Ariel Lawhon 0385546874 Colleen 0 currently-reading 4.37 2023 The Frozen River
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/01
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Prom Mom 63241079 New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman tells the story of Amber Glass, desperately trying to get away from her tabloid past but compulsively drawn back to the city of her youth and the prom date who destroyed everything she was reaching for.

Amber Glass has spent her entire adult life putting as much distance as possible between her and her hometown of Baltimore, where she fears she will forever be known as "Prom Mom"--the girl who allegedly killed her baby on the night of the prom after her date, Joe Simpson, abandoned her to pursue the girl he really liked. But when circumstances bring Amber back to the city, she realizes she can have a second chance--as long as she stays away from Joe, now a successful commercial real estate developer, married to a plastic surgeon, Meredith, to whom he is devoted.

The problem is, Amber can't stay away from Joe. And Joe finds that it's increasingly hard for him to ignore Amber, if only because she remembers the boy he was and the man he said he was going to be. Against the surreal backdrop of 2020 and early 2021, the two are slowly drawn to each other and eventually cross the line they've been trying not to cross.

And then Joe asks Amber to help him do the unthinkable...]]> 320 Laura Lippman Colleen 2 3.26 2023 Prom Mom
author: Laura Lippman
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/08/01
shelves:
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Sadly predictable and underwhelming
]]> Wellness 65650229 A witty and poignant novel about marriage, middle age, tech-obsessed health culture and the bonds that keep people together

When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the '90s, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in Chicago's thriving underground art scene with an appreciative kindred spirit.ĚýFast-forward twenty years to married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter cults disguised as mindfulness support groups, polyamorous would-be suitors, Facebook wars, and something called Love Potion Number Nine. For the first time Jack and Elizabeth struggle to recognize one another, and the no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons, from unfulfilled career ambitions to painful childhood memories of their own dysfunctional families. In the process Jack and Elizabeth must undertake separate, personal excavations, or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other.Ěý]]> 611 Nathan Hill 0593536118 Colleen 3 3.97 2023 Wellness
author: Nathan Hill
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/21
date added: 2024/07/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)]]> 2240092 An ingenious code hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci.
A desperate race through the cathedrals and castles of Europe.
An astonishing truth concealed for centuries...unveiled at last.

A fascinating and absorbing thriller -- perfect for history buffs, conspiracy nuts, puzzle lovers or anyone who appreciates a great, riveting story.

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.

The Da Vinci Code heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightning-paced, intelligent thriller utterly unpredictable right up to its stunning conclusion.]]> 18 Dan Brown 0739374664 Colleen 4 3.93 2003 The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)
author: Dan Brown
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/07/11
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]]> Glorious Exploits 127278133 An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history.

On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they’ve herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gelon, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians if, and only if, they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides. Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea. After all, you can hate the people but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship.

Told in a contemporary Irish voice and as riotously funny as it is deeply moving, Glorious Exploits is an unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity, and human will throughout the ages.]]> 304 Ferdia Lennon 1250893690 Colleen 0 to-read 4.15 2024 Glorious Exploits
author: Ferdia Lennon
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Colleen 0 to-read 4.15 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry]]> 18293427
A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. Slowly but surely, he is isolating himself from all the people of Alice Island—from Lambiase, the well-intentioned police officer who’s always felt kindly toward Fikry; from Ismay, his sister-in-law who is hell-bent on saving him from his dreary self; from Amelia, the lovely and idealistic (if eccentric) Knightley Press sales rep who keeps on taking the ferry over to Alice Island, refusing to be deterred by A.J.’s bad attitude. Even the books in his store have stopped holding pleasure for him. These days, A.J. can only see them as a sign of a world that is changing too rapidly.

And then a mysterious package appears at the bookstore. It’s a small package, but large in weight. It’s that unexpected arrival that gives A. J. Fikry the opportunity to make his life over, the ability to see everything anew. It doesn’t take long for the locals to notice the change overcoming A.J.; or for that determined sales rep, Amelia, to see her curmudgeonly client in a new light; or for the wisdom of all those books to become again the lifeblood of A.J.’s world; or for everything to twist again into a version of his life that he didn’t see coming. As surprising as it is moving, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is an unforgettable tale of transformation and second chances, an irresistible affirmation of why we read, and why we love.]]> 260 Gabrielle Zevin 1616203218 Colleen 0 to-read 4.00 2014 The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Hole We're In 122762717 Meet the Pomeroys: a church-going family living in a too-red house in a Texas college town. Roger, the patriarch, has impulsively gone back to school, only to find his true ambitions at odds with the temptations of the present. His wife, Georgia, tries to keep things in order at home, but she's been feeding the bill drawer with unopened envelopes for months and can never find the right moment to confront its swelling contents. In an attempt to climb out of the holes they've dug, Roger and Georgia make a series of choices that have catastrophic consequences for their three children--especially for Patsy, the youngest, who will spend most of her life fighting to overcome them.

The Hole We're In shines a spotlight on some of the most relevant issues of our day--over-reliance on credit, vexed gender and class politics, the war in Iraq--but it is Zevin's deft exploration of the fragile economy of family life that makes this a book for the ages.

]]> 304 Gabrielle Zevin 0802161308 Colleen 0 to-read 3.49 2010 The Hole We're In
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> All You Have to Do Is Call 212205155
Chicago, early 1970s: Who does a girl call when she needs help? Jane.

The best-known secret in the city, Jane is a women’s health organization composed entirely of women helping women, freeing them from the expectations of society and family. Veronica, Jane’s founder, prides herself on the services she has provided to thousands of women, yet the price of others� freedom is that she leads a double life—when she’s not at Jane, Veronica plays the role of a conventional housewife—which becomes even more difficult during her own high-risk pregnancy.

Two more women in Veronica’s neighborhood are grappling with similar disconnects. Margaret, a young professor at the University of Chicago, secretly volunteers at Jane as she falls in love with a man whose attitude toward his ex-wife increasingly disturbs her. Patty, who’s long been content as a devoted wife and mother, has begun to sense that something essential is missing from her life.ĚýWhen her runaway younger sister Eliza shows up unexpectedly, Patty is forced to come to terms with what it really means to love and support a sister.

In this historic moment when the personal was nothing if not political,Ěýwhen television, movies, and commercials told women they’d “come a long way, baby,â€� Veronica, Margaret, and Patty must make choices that will change the course of their lives forever.]]> 368 Kerri Maher 0593102223 Colleen 4 4.08 2023 All You Have to Do Is Call
author: Kerri Maher
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/03
date added: 2024/07/03
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]]> Same As It Ever Was 199344873
She’s unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razor’s edge.

Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life, —exploring new avenues of maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. Delving even deeper into the nature of relationships—how they grow, change, and sometimes end—Lombardo proves herself a true and definitive cartographer of the human heart and asserts herself among the finest novelists of her generation.]]> 498 Claire Lombardo 0385549555 Colleen 0 to-read 3.81 2024 Same As It Ever Was
author: Claire Lombardo
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> Biography of X 60784729 From one of our fiercest stylists, a roaring epic chronicling the life, times, and secrets of a notorious artist.

When X—an iconoclastic artist, writer, and polarizing shape-shifter—falls dead in her office, her widow, wild with grief and refusing everyone’s good advice, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. Though X was recognized as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. Not even CM, her wife, knew where X had been born, and in her quest to find out, she opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, betrayals, and destruction. All the while, she immerses herself in the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the country after World War II, as it is finally, in the present day, forced into an uneasy reunification.

A masterfully constructed literary adventure complete with original images assembled by X’s widow, Biography of X follows a grieving wife seeking to understand the woman who enthralled her. CM traces X’s peripatetic trajectory over decades, from Europe to the ruins of America's divided territories, and through her collaborations and feuds with everyone from Bowie and Waits to Sontag and Acker. And when she finally understands the scope of X’s defining artistic project, CM realizes her wife’s deceptions were far crueler than she imagined.

Pulsing with suspense and intellect while blending nonfiction and fiction, Biography of X is a roaring epic that plumbs the depths of grief, art, and love. In her most ambitious novel yet, Catherine Lacey, one of our most acclaimed literary innovators, pushes her craft to its highest level, introducing us to an unforgettable character who, in her tantalizing mystery, shows us the fallibility of the stories we craft for ourselves.]]> 416 Catherine Lacey Colleen 3
I give the novel 5 stars in its creativity and prose but 2 stars in its inability to allow the narrator to grow. She’s as tedious as her subject. It’s too bad. ]]> 3.83 2023 Biography of X
author: Catherine Lacey
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/25
date added: 2024/06/25
shelves:
review:
I struggle to review this. On the one hand, it’s an amazingly crafted work of fiction with mind boggling depth, rich in its dystopian story and “research�. On the other hand, it becomes tedious in its imbalanced view of the subject, the narrator. It’s misguided but unavoidable to cast the narrator’s subject, X, as the point of the story.

I give the novel 5 stars in its creativity and prose but 2 stars in its inability to allow the narrator to grow. She’s as tedious as her subject. It’s too bad.
]]> Funny Story 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

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

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

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

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Colleen 3 4.21 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/19
date added: 2024/06/19
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]]> Margo's Got Money Troubles 199534613
“[An] enormously entertaining and lovable book.� —Nick Hornby, New York Times Book Review

A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.

As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.

Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off.

“A wholly original novel. . . . Thorpe is both poetic and profound in the way she brings her remarkable story to an end.� —The Associated Press]]> 304 Rufi Thorpe 0063356589 Colleen 0 to-read 3.86 2024 Margo's Got Money Troubles
author: Rufi Thorpe
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> Brooklyn (Eilis Lacey, #1) 4954833 Hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking, Colm TĂłibĂ­n's sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.

Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the years following World War Two. Though skilled at bookkeeping, she cannot find a job in the miserable Irish economy. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America--to live and work in a Brooklyn neighborhood "just like Ireland"--she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.

Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, a blond Italian from a big family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. He takes Eilis to Coney Island and Ebbets Field, and home to dinner in the two-room apartment he shares with his brothers and parents. He talks of having children who are Dodgers fans. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love with Tony, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.]]> 262 Colm TĂłibĂ­n 1439138311 Colleen 4 3.71 2009 Brooklyn (Eilis Lacey, #1)
author: Colm TĂłibĂ­n
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/11
date added: 2024/06/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Library of Borrowed Hearts]]> 211133817
A.J. Fikry meets The Bookish Life of Nina Hill in this charming, hilarious, and moving novel about the way books bring lonely souls together.

Two young lovers. Sixty long years. One bookish mystery worth solving.

Librarian Chloe Sampson has been struggling: to take care of her three younger siblings, to find herself, to make ends meet. She's just about at the end of her rope when she stumbles across a rare edition of a book from the 1960s at the local flea market. Deciding it's a sign of her luck turning, she takes it home with her—only to be shocked when her cranky hermit of a neighbor swoops in and offers to buy it for an exorbitant price. Intrigued, Chloe takes a closer look at the book only to find notes scribbled in the margins between two young lovers back when the book was new…one of whom is almost definitely Jasper Holmes, the curmudgeon next door.

When she begins following the clues left behind, she discovers this isn't the only old book in town filled with romantic marginalia. This kickstarts a literary scavenger hunt that Chloe is determined to see through to the end. What happened to the two tragic lovers who corresponded in the margins of so many different library books? And what does it have to do with the old, sad man next door—who only now has begun to open his home and heart to Chloe and her siblings?

In a romantic tale that spans the decades, Chloe discovers that there's much more to her grouchy old neighbor than meets the eye. And in allowing herself to accept the unexpected friendship he offers, she learns that some love stories begin in the unlikeliest of places.]]> Lucy Gilmore Colleen 0 to-read 3.78 2024 The Library of Borrowed Hearts
author: Lucy Gilmore
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> Peggy 202102027 A dazzling novel about Peggy Guggenheim—a story of art, family, love, and becoming oneself—by the award-winning author of Under the Bridge, now a Hulu limited series starring Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone

“Godfrey brilliantly resurrects the avant-garde adventurer Peggy Guggenheim as a feminist icon for our times.”—Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation

Venice, 1958. Peggy Guggenheim, heiress and now legendary art collector, sits in the sun at her white marble palazzo on the Grand Canal. She’s in a reflective mood, thinking back on her thrilling, tragic, nearly impossible journey from her sheltered, old-fashioned family in New York to here: iconoclast and independent woman.

Rebecca Godfrey’s Peggy is a blazingly fresh interpretation of a woman who defies every expectation to become an original. The daughter of two Jewish dynasties, Peggy finds her cloistered life turned upside down at fourteen, when her beloved father perishes on the Titanic. His death prompts Peggy to seek a life of passion and personal freedom and, above all, to believe in the transformative power of art. We follow Peggy as she makes her way through the glamorous but sexist and anti-Semitic art worlds of New York and Europe and meet the numerous men who love her (and her money) while underestimating her intellect, talent, and vision. Along the way, Peggy must balance her loyalty to her family with her need to break free from their narrow, snobbish ways and the unexpected restrictions that come with vast fortune.

Rebecca Godfrey’s final book—completed by her friend, the acclaimed writer Leslie Jamison, following Godfrey’s death in 2022—brings to life the woman who helped make the Guggenheim name synonymous with art and genius.]]> 384 Rebecca Godfrey 0385538286 Colleen 0 to-read 3.51 2024 Peggy
author: Rebecca Godfrey
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> Under the Bridge 43258143 *Now a Hulu limited series starring Lily Gladstone, Riley Keough, and Archie Panjabi!*


“A swift, harrowing classic perfect for these unnerving times.� —Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation


One moonlit night, fourteen-year-old Reena Virk went to join friends at a party and never returned home.


In this “tour de force of crime reportage� (Kirkus Reviews), acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey takes us into the hidden world of the seven teenage girls—and boy—accused of a savage murder. As she follows the investigation and trials, Godfrey reveals the startling truth about the unlikely killers. Laced with lyricism and insight, Under the Bridge is an unforgettable look at a haunting modern tragedy.

]]> 480 Rebecca Godfrey 1982123184 Colleen 0 to-read 3.74 2005 Under the Bridge
author: Rebecca Godfrey
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Torn Skirt 252941 208 Rebecca Godfrey 0060094850 Colleen 0 to-read 3.47 2001 The Torn Skirt
author: Rebecca Godfrey
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Did I Ever Tell You? 176443541 Based on her "Modern Love" piece ("She Put Her Unspent Love in a Cardboard Box"), this extraordinary memoir tells the astonishing story of a mother's last gifts to her daughter, and the wisdom and love she bestowed upon her from beyond the grave.

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

Did I Ever Tell You? is Crying in H Mart meets The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs. This is not just a gorgeously written mother-daughter story. It's also the story of a family riven by grief and mental illness, and a story of a young woman's navigation through both. It's a book about family and legacy; and it's one that emphatically declares, as Gwen's mother does in a particularly powerful letter, that "Love is stronger than death."]]> 288 Genevieve Kingston 1668006294 Colleen 5 4.29 2024 Did I Ever Tell You?
author: Genevieve Kingston
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/08
date added: 2024/06/08
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]]> Table for Two 195474144 From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories set in New York and Los Angeles. The millions of readers of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of compromise which operate at the heart of modern marriages. In Towles’s novel, Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September, 1938, with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood� describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in the midst of Hollywood’s golden age. Throughout the stories, two characters often find themselves sitting across a table for two where the direction of their futures may hinge upon what they say to each other next. Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting historical fiction.]]> 451 Amor Towles 0593296370 Colleen 0 currently-reading 4.15 2024 Table for Two
author: Amor Towles
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/01
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2) 199798868 New York Times bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving and intense novel of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love, the story of Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín’s most popular work, twenty years later.

Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family that lives and works, eats and plays together. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.

One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door asking for her by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting.

Long Island is about longings unfulfilled, even unrecognized. The silences in Eilis� life are thunderous and dangerous, and there’s no one more deft than Tóibín at giving them language. This is a gorgeous story of a woman alone in a marriage and the deepest bonds she rekindles on her return to the place and people she left behind, to ways of living and loving she thought she’d lost.]]> 294 Colm Tóibín 1476785112 Colleen 3 3.68 2024 Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2)
author: Colm TĂłibĂ­n
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/01
date added: 2024/06/01
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]]> Chain-Gang All-Stars 61190770
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.]]> 367 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 0593317335 Colleen 4 4.13 2023 Chain-Gang All-Stars
author: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/28
date added: 2024/05/28
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]]> <![CDATA[An Underachiever's Diary: A Novel]]> 6214701
This is William’s manifesto for the underachiever. It is the chronicle of a lifetime of failure–part diary and part handbook for self-defeat. At once corrosively funny and surprisingly tender, An Underachiever’s Diary is a classic tale of perverse perseverance.]]> 160 Benjamin Anastas 0385343043 Colleen 0 to-read 3.00 1998 An Underachiever's Diary: A Novel
author: Benjamin Anastas
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne]]> 782982 The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne is an unflinching and deeply sympathetic portrait of a woman destroyed by self and circumstance. First published in 1955, it marked Brian Moore as a major figure in English literature (he would go on to be short-listed three times for the Booker Prize) and established him as an astute chronicler of the human soul.

Judith Hearne is an unmarried woman of a certain age who has come down in society. She has few skills and is full of the prejudices and pieties of her genteel Belfast upbringing. But Judith has a secret life. And she is just one heartbreak away from revealing it to the world.]]> 223 Brian Moore 0316579661 Colleen 0 to-read 3.99 1955 The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
author: Brian Moore
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1955
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> Reboot 194803857 A raucous and wickedly smart satire of Hollywood, toxic fandom, and our chronically online culture, following a washed-up actor on his quest to revive the cult TV show that catapulted him to teenage fame

David Crader is a has-been. A former child actor from the hit teen drama Rev Beach, he now rotates between his new roles as deadbeat dad, recovering alcoholic, and occasional videogame voice actor. But when David is summoned to Los Angeles by Grace, his ex-wife and former co-star, he suddenly sees an opportunity for a reboot—not just of the show that made him famous, but also of his listless existence.

Hollywood, the Internet, and a fractured nation have other plans, however, and David soon drinks himself to a realization: This seemingly innocuous revival of an old Buffy rip-off could be the spark that sets ablaze a nation gripped by far-right conspiracy, climate catastrophe, and mass violence.

Reboot is a madcap speculative comedy for our era of glass-eyed doom-scrolling and Millennial nostalgia—and yet it’s still full of heart. It’s a tale of former teen heartthrobs, striving parents, internet edgelords, and fish-faced cryptids, for anyone who has looked back on their life and wanted—even if but for a moment—to hit “reset.”]]> 304 Justin Taylor 0553387626 Colleen 3 2.94 2024 Reboot
author: Justin Taylor
name: Colleen
average rating: 2.94
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/06
date added: 2024/05/06
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]]> Within Arm's Reach 203019737 A tender and perceptive debut novel about three generations of an Irish American family jarred into crisis by an unexpected pregnancy—from the bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

“This stunning . . . exquisite, skillfully written gem addresses serious issues–e.g., guilt vs. loyalty, the past vs. the present—[but] remains hopeful and includes ample doses of humor and wit.”—Library Journal (starred review)

No one in my mother’s family ever talks about anything that can be categorized as unpleasant or as having to do with emotions. . . .

This spellbinding debut by bestselling author Ann Napolitano is a poignant reminder of how connected we are to those we love, even when we cannot find the words to say it. The unforgettable story of three generations of a large Irish Catholic family, Within Arms Reach is another rich and deeply satisfying novel from the author who captured the many dimensions of grief in Dear Edward and the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood in Hello Beautiful.]]> 352 Ann Napolitano 0593732499 Colleen 0 to-read 3.41 2004 Within Arm's Reach
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/02
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]]> The Idea of You 31450913
What begins as a series of clandestine trysts quickly evolves into a passionate and genuine relationship. It is a journey that spans continents as Solène and Hayes navigate each other’s worlds: from stadium tours to international art fairs to secluded hideaways in Paris and Miami. For Solène, it is a reclaiming of self, as well as a rediscovery of happiness and love. When Solène and Hayes� romance becomes a viral sensation, and both she and her daughter become the target of rabid fans and an insatiable media, Solène must face how her romantic life has impacted the lives of those she cares about most.]]> 372 Robinne Lee 1250125901 Colleen 0 to-read 3.67 2017 The Idea of You
author: Robinne Lee
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/29
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]]> The Firm (The Firm, #1) 452235 Ěý
For a young lawyer on the make, it was an offer Mitch McDeere couldn’t a position at a law firm where the bucks, billable hours, and benefits are over the top. It’s a dream job for an up-and-comer—if he can overlook the uneasy feeling he gets at the office. Then an FBI investigation into the firm’s connections to the Mafia plunges the straight and narrow attorney into a nightmare of terror and intrigue.ĚýWith no choice but to pit his wits, ethics, and legal skills against the firm’s deadly secrets—if he hopes to stay alive…]]> 501 John Grisham 044021145X Colleen 0 4.26 1991 The Firm (The Firm, #1)
author: John Grisham
name: Colleen
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/25
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]]> Origin (Robert Langdon, #5) 32307358 This an alternate cover for B01LY7FD0D

Robert Langdon, Harvard professor of symbology and religious iconology, arrives at the ultramodern Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend a major announcement--the unveiling of a discovery that "will change the face of science forever." The evening's host is Edmond Kirsch, a forty-year-old billionaire and futurist whose dazzling high-tech inventions and audacious predictions have made him a renowned global figure. Kirsch, who was one of Langdon's first students at Harvard two decades earlier, is about to reveal an astonishing breakthrough . . . one that will answer two of the fundamental questions of human existence.

As the event begins, Langdon and several hundred guests find themselves captivated by an utterly original presentation, which Langdon realizes will be far more controversial than he ever imagined. But the meticulously orchestrated evening suddenly erupts into chaos, and Kirsch's precious discovery teeters on the brink of being lost forever. Reeling and facing an imminent threat, Langdon is forced into a desperate bid to escape Bilbao. With him is Ambra Vidal, the elegant museum director who worked with Kirsch to stage the provocative event. Together they flee to Barcelona on a perilous quest to locate a cryptic password that will unlock Kirsch's secret.

Navigating the dark corridors of hidden history and extreme religion, Langdon and Vidal must evade a tormented enemy whose all-knowing power seems to emanate from Spain's Royal Palace itself . . . and who will stop at nothing to silence Edmond Kirsch. On a trail marked by modern art and enigmatic symbols, Langdon and Vidal uncover clues that ultimately bring them face-to-face with Kirsch's shocking discovery . . . and the breathtaking truth that has long eluded us. Origin is stunningly inventive--Dan Brown's most brilliant and entertaining novel to date]]> 482 Dan Brown Colleen 0 to-read 3.87 2017 Origin (Robert Langdon, #5)
author: Dan Brown
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/24
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]]> Great Expectations 139400711
I’d seen the Senator speak a few times before my life got caught up, however distantly, with his, but the first time I can remember paying real attention was when he delivered the speech announcing his run for the Presidency.

When David first hears the Senator from Illinois speak, he feels deep ambivalence. Intrigued by the Senator’s idealistic rhetoric, David also wonders how he’ll balance the fervent belief and inevitable compromises it will take to become the United States� first Black president.

Great Expectations is about David’s eighteen months working for the Senator's presidential campaign. Along the way David meets a myriad of people who raise a set of questions—questions of history, art, race, religion, and fatherhood—that force David to look at his own life anew and come to terms with his identity as a young Black man and father in America.

Meditating on politics and politicians, religion and preachers, fathers and family, Great Expectations is both an emotionally resonant coming-of-age story and a rich novel of ideas, marking the arrival of a major new writer.]]> 272 Vinson Cunningham 0593448235 Colleen 0 currently-reading 3.24 2024 Great Expectations
author: Vinson Cunningham
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/23
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Expiration Dates 176443178
From the New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years and One Italian Summer comes the romance that will define a generation.

Daphne Bell believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it—the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she’d spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favorite Los Angeles restaurant, there’s only a name: Jake.

But as Jake and Daphne’s story unfolds, Daphne finds herself doubting the paper’s prediction, and wrestling with what it means to be both committed and truthful. Because Daphne knows things Jake doesn’t, information that—if he found out—would break his heart.

Told with her signature warmth and insight into matters of the heart, Rebecca Serle has finally set her sights on romantic love. The result is a gripping, emotional, passionate, and (yes) heartbreaking novel about what it means to be single, what it means to find love, and ultimately how we define each of them for ourselves. Expiration Dates is the one fans have been waiting for.]]> 272 Rebecca Serle 1982166827 Colleen 3 3.58 2024 Expiration Dates
author: Rebecca Serle
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/23
date added: 2024/04/23
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]]> The Hunter (Cal Hooper, #2) 174156145
Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or he’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge.

A nuanced, atmospheric tale that explores what we’ll do for our loved ones, what we’ll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide.]]> 467 Tana French 0593493435 Colleen 4 3.95 2024 The Hunter (Cal Hooper, #2)
author: Tana French
name: Colleen
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/19
date added: 2024/04/19
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