en-US Mon, 01 Jan 2018 21:57:23 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 25899336
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a naĂŻve medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

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

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. "I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything," he wrote. "Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: 'I can't go on. I'll go on.'" When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.]]> 208 Paul Kalanithi 0812988418 Lu 0 to-read 4.41 2016
author: Paul Kalanithi
name: Lu
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> 24073
They come from all across America to be the youngest kid ever to climb Everest. But only one will reach the top first. The competition is fierce. The preparation is intense. The challenge is breathtaking.

When the final four reach the higher peaks, disaster strikes -- and all that separates the living from the dead is chance, bravery, and action.

A thrilling adventure trilogy from Gordon Korman about a number of kids competing to be the youngest person to ever reach the top of Mt. Everest.]]> 144 Gordon Korman 0439401399 Lu 0 3.85 2002
author: Gordon Korman
name: Lu
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/05/06
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]]> 960
A devastating new weapon of destruction.
When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol -- seared into the chest of a murdered physicist -- he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati...the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy -- the Catholic Church.

Langdon's worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the Vatican's holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.
Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair...a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.

An explosive international thriller, Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war.]]> 736 Dan Brown 1416524797 Lu 5 3.95 2000
author: Dan Brown
name: Lu
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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date added: 2012/12/27
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]]> 968 The da Vinci Code, The da Vinci Code, The da Vinci Code, and The da Vinci Code

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.]]> 489 Dan Brown Lu 4 3.92 2003
author: Dan Brown
name: Lu
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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date added: 2012/12/27
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]]> 33514 105 William Strunk Jr. Lu 4 4.15 1918
author: William Strunk Jr.
name: Lu
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1918
rating: 4
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]]> 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 Lu 4 4.02 2004
author: David Mitchell
name: Lu
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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]]> 53645 282 Ruth Reichl 0767903382 Lu 4 4.08 1998
author: Ruth Reichl
name: Lu
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1998
rating: 4
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]]> 33313 A deluxe, annotated edition of Kitchen Confidential to celebrate the life of Anthony Bourdain, featuring new photo inserts

Over two decades ago, the New Yorker published a now infamous article, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,� by then little-known chef Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain spared no one’s appetite as he revealed what happens behind the kitchen door. The article was a sensation, and the book it spawned, the now iconic Kitchen Confidential, became an even bigger sensation and megabestseller. Frankly confessional, addictively acerbic, and utterly unsparing, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business.

Fans will love to return to this deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade, laying out Bourdain’s more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute cuisine. Including a handwritten introduction and annotations done by Bourdain about a decade after the book was originally published, this edition also features previously unpublished photos to accompany the now-classic text.]]> 312 Anthony Bourdain 0060899220 Lu 3 4.17 2000
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: Lu
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2000
rating: 3
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date added: 2012/12/27
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]]> 80642 Garlic and Sapphires, Reichl reveals the comic absurdity, artifice, and excellence to be found in the sumptuously appointed stages of the epicurean world and gives us--along with some of her favorite recipes and reviews--her remarkable reflections on how one's outer appearance can influence one's inner character, expectations, and appetites, not to mention the quality of service one receives.]]> 333 Ruth Reichl 0143036610 Lu 4 3.93 2005
author: Ruth Reichl
name: Lu
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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date added: 2012/03/06
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]]> 64158 306 Mort Rosenblum 0865477302 Lu 5 3.80 2005
author: Mort Rosenblum
name: Lu
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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date added: 2012/03/06
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]]> 662 This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world and did. Was he a destroyer or the greatest of liberators?

Why did he have to fight his battle, not against his enemies, but against those who needed him most, and his hardest battle against the woman he loved? What is the world’s motor � and the motive power of every man? You will know the answer to these questions when you discover the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the characters in this story.

Tremendous in its scope, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life � from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy � to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction � to the philosopher who becomes a pirate � to the composer who gives up his career on the night of his triumph � to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad � to the lowest track worker in her Terminal tunnels.

You must be prepared, when you read this novel, to check every premise at the root of your convictions.

This is a mystery story, not about the murder � and rebirth � of man’s spirit. It is a philosophical revolution, told in the form of an action thriller of violent events, a ruthlessly brilliant plot structure and an irresistible suspense. Do you say this is impossible? Well, that is the first of your premises to check.]]> 1168 Ayn Rand 0452011876 Lu 2 3.67 1957
author: Ayn Rand
name: Lu
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1957
rating: 2
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]]> 531197 Lyra's Oxford begins with Lyra and Pantalaimon spotting a witch's dæmon. Lyra shelters the daemon from the pursuit of a frenzied pack of birds, and then attempts to help by guiding the daemon to the home of an alchemist living in a part of Oxford known as Jericho. The journey through Oxford reveals more dangers than Lyra had anticipated.]]> 64 Philip Pullman 0375828192 Lu 2 3.62 2003
author: Philip Pullman
name: Lu
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2003
rating: 2
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date added: 2012/03/06
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]]> 119322
Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want--but what Lyra doesn't know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other.]]> 399 Philip Pullman 0679879242 Lu 5 4.02 1995
author: Philip Pullman
name: Lu
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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]]> 119324
Each is searching—Lyra for the meaning of Dark Matter, Will for his missing father—but what they find instead is a deadly secret, a knife of untold power. And neither Lyra nor Will suspects how tightly their lives, their loves, and their destinies are bound together... until they are split apart.]]> 326 Philip Pullman 0679879250 Lu 5 4.12 1997
author: Philip Pullman
name: Lu
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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]]> 18122
But how can he go looking for Lord Asriel when Lyra is gone? Only with her help can he fathom the myriad plots and intrigues that beset him.

The two great powers of the many worlds are lining up for war, and Will must find Lyra, for together they are on their way to battle, an inevitable journey that will even take them to the world of the dead...]]> 465 Philip Pullman 0440238153 Lu 5 4.11 2000
author: Philip Pullman
name: Lu
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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date added: 2012/03/06
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]]> 492490 0 Tamora Pierce 0375825649 Lu 5 4.60 1997
author: Tamora Pierce
name: Lu
average rating: 4.60
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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date added: 2012/03/06
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]]>