Irena's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 24 Apr 2025 06:31:51 -0700 60 Irena's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg You Killed Me First 212376504 Three women. Three smouldering secrets. Who will make it out alive?

It’s 5 November, and a woman awakens to a nightmare. Bound and gagged, she lies trapped in the heart of a towering bonfire. As the smoke thickens, panic sets in � she’s moments away from being engulfed in flames. How did it come to this?

Rewind eleven months: Margot, a faded TV star, and her long-suffering friend Anna watch as glamorous Liv and her flawless family move into their street. The three women soon fabricate the perfect pretence of friendship, but each harbours her own deadly secret � and newcomer Liv senses something is terribly wrong beneath the polished exteriors.

As cracks widen in the veneer of perfection and lies escalate out of control, tension ignites. Bonfire Night is approaching and someone is set to burn…But who will it be?]]> 368 John Marrs 1662506503 Irena 0 currently-reading 4.15 2025 You Killed Me First
author: John Marrs
name: Irena
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Tell Me Everything: A Memoir 74044158 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Washington Post best celebrity memoir of 2023
An Audible best celebrity memoir of 2023

“A timely, urgent portrait of working-class American women.�
—Gabrielle Union

In her highly anticipated memoir Tell Me Everything, Minka Kelly shares a story as powerful as it is page-turning.

Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in these pages, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy.

Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. At times they even lived in storage units. She reconnected with her father, Aerosmith’s Rick Dufay, and eventually made her way to Los Angeles, where she landed the role of a lifetime on Friday Night Lights.

Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer. She has poured her soul into the pages of this book, which ultimately tells a story of triumph over adversity, and how resilience and love are all we have in the end.]]> 280 Minka Kelly 1250852072 Irena 4 4.36 2023 Tell Me Everything: A Memoir
author: Minka Kelly
name: Irena
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The American Roommate Experiment]]> 60216196 From the author of the ŷ Choice Award winner The Spanish Love Deception, the eagerly anticipated follow-up featuring Rosie Graham and Lucas Martín, who are forced to share a New York apartment.

Rosie Graham has a problem. A few, actually. She just quit her well paid job to focus on her secret career as a romance writer. She hasn’t told her family and now has terrible writer’s block. Then, the ceiling of her New York apartment literally crumbles on her. Luckily she has her best friend Lina’s spare key while she’s out of town. But Rosie doesn’t know that Lina has already lent her apartment to her cousin Lucas, who Rosie has been stalking—for lack of a better word—on Instagram for the last few months. Lucas seems intent on coming to her rescue like a Spanish knight in shining armor. Only this one strolls around the place in a towel, has a distracting grin, and an irresistible accent. Oh, and he cooks.

Lucas offers to let Rosie stay with him, at least until she can find some affordable temporary housing. And then he proposes an outrageous experiment to bring back her literary muse and meet her deadline: He’ll take her on a series of experimental dates meant to jump-start her romantic inspiration. Rosie has nothing to lose. Her silly, online crush is totally under control—but Lucas’s time in New York has an expiration date, and six weeks may not be enough, for either her or her deadline.]]> 397 Elena Armas 1668002787 Irena 0 currently-reading 3.83 2022 The American Roommate Experiment
author: Elena Armas
name: Irena
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road]]> 214208225 From a Vanity Fair and The New York Times contributor comes a beautifully written, deeply felt memoir recounting the solo, cross-country journey she made along the Ten across the American a mission to uncover both what harrowing violence may or may not have happened to her late mother, but also, to look within and discover who she herself is—where her mother ends and she begins.

In her trusted loaded-up minivan “Minnie,� E.A. Hanks follows the same route as a long-ago road trip with her mother in an attempt to better understand the complicated woman who gave her life. Along the way, as she follows her mother’s diaries and her own recollections of the route, she begins to uncover secrets—some unexpectedly wonderful, and others darker and more violent than she ever imagined—that bring more questions than answers.

From the quiet expanses of White Sands National Park to the bustling streets of New Orleans, and the Texas-Mexico border to the swamps of the Florida panhandle, she interacts with the amazing breadth and diversity of the people that call these places home. Reckoning with the past, the present, her memories, and herself, Hanks brings us along a beautiful voyage towards understanding how the stories we tell about the places we’re from ultimately become the stories we tell about the people we are.]]> 348 E.A. Hanks 1982131314 Irena 4 3.96 2025 The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road
author: E.A. Hanks
name: Irena
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: budapest, california, dark, grief-and-loss, hollywood-old, kindle, memoirs-biography, mental-illness, new-mexico-zuni, texas, road-trip
review:

]]> The Tell: A Memoir 214537759 “Where are you, Mom?� So began Amy’s quest to solve a mystery trapped in the deep recesses of her own memory—a journey that would take her into the burgeoning field of psychedelic therapy, to the limits of the judicial system, and ultimately, home to the Texas panhandle, where her story began.

In her search for the truth, to understand and begin to recover from buried childhood trauma, Griffin interrogates the pursuit of perfectionism, control, and maintaining appearances that drives so many women, asking, when, in our path from girlhood to womanhood, did we learn to look outside ourselves for validation? What kind of freedom is possible if we accept the whole story and embrace who we really are? With hope, heart, and relentless honesty, she points a way forward for all of us, revealing the power of radical truth-telling to deepen our connections—with others and ourselves.]]> 288 Amy Griffin 0593731204 Irena 4 4.22 2025 The Tell: A Memoir
author: Amy Griffin
name: Irena
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/11
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: dark, kindle, memoirs-biography, new-york
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Vanishing at Smokestack Hollow: A Missing Family, a Desperate Plan, an Unsolved Mystery]]> 196406311 An immersive exploration of the mystery that gripped internet sleuths and bloggers and inspires an avid online following to this day—the bizarre disappearance of the Jamison family in the rugged Sans Bois Mountains—from a contemporary master of true crime journalism.

“There’s dark stuff up there, sir. You know that, right? Cults and such.� That’s what Starlet Jamison told the Sheriff after her son and his family went missing.

On October 8th, 2009, Bobby Jamison, his wife Sherilynn, and their six-year-old daughter Madyson, set off for a drive from their home in Eufaula, Oklahoma, to the nearby Sans Bois Mountains. They didn’t return that day, or the next. A week later, their truck was found abandoned on a mountain road. Inside was their dog, malnourished but alive, the family’s cell phones, wallets, and $32,000 in cash.

The ensuing eight-month search was the largest in Oklahoma history, but it yielded little evidence. Online, bloggers and web sleuths put forth dozens of theories, fueled by the Jamisons� strange, trancelike behavior on a CCTV video. Some claimed the family was abducted by white supremacists or a religious cult. In 2013, there was a tragic break in the case, when deer hunters stumbled upon the skeletal remains of two adults and a child in the Smokestack Hollow area of Panola Mountain. Forensic testing confirmed the Jamisons� identities.

But the mystery was only beginning. Had the Jamisons been planning to abandon their lives and raise Madyson alone in the wilderness—and if so, why? What happened to the briefcase and handgun that Sheryilynn was seen putting into the car? And why were no arrests ever made?

Investigative journalist Jake Anderson draws on police notes, interviews, and exclusive evidence to piece together the Jamisons� last days and weeks, weaving together startling material with his own personal insights. The story is one of dark, paranoid obsessions, but also of real malevolent forces residing in those shadowy mountains—and a compulsively readable account of a true murder mystery whose chilling impact continues to be felt.]]> 390 Jake Anderson 0806542497 Irena 3 anna-recommended, aspies 3.78 The Vanishing at Smokestack Hollow: A Missing Family, a Desperate Plan, an Unsolved Mystery
author: Jake Anderson
name: Irena
average rating: 3.78
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: anna-recommended, aspies
review:

]]> Eight Years of Lies 222440949
This is the day my life changes for ever.

Earlier, I was scrolling through Facebook when something caught my eye. A photograph. The caption PLEASE CAN ANYONE HELP ME? HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?

It's my husband and our daughter.

The man I married eight years ago isn’t who I thought he was at all. My husband has been lying to me . . . about everything.]]> 301 Lisa Hall 1835269524 Irena 2 3.97 2025 Eight Years of Lies
author: Lisa Hall
name: Irena
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/18
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Listen for the Lie 150260823 What if you thought you murdered your best friend? And if everyone else thought so too? And what if the truth doesn't matter?

After Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town: pretty, smart, and enviable. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all, and if you believe the rumors, especially popular with the men in town. It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA and started a new life.

But now the phenomenally huge hit true crime podcast "Listen for the Lie," and its too-good looking host Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy’s murder for the show’s second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one that did it.]]> 338 Amy Tintera Irena 0 currently-reading 4.22 2024 Listen for the Lie
author: Amy Tintera
name: Irena
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis]]> 27161156 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062300546.

Hillbilly Elegy recounts J.D. Vance's powerful origin story...

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio and the Republican Vice Presidential candidate for the 2024 election, an incisive account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class.

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.]]> 264 J.D. Vance Irena 2 3.81 2016 Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
author: J.D. Vance
name: Irena
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2017/02/02
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: public-library, memoirs-biography, non-fiction
review:

]]> The Patron Saint of Liars 38313131
St. Elizabeth's, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while. Not so Rose Clinton, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed, and stays. She plans to give up her child, thinking she cannot be the mother it needs. But when Cecilia is born, Rose makes a place for herself and her daughter amid St. Elizabeth's extended family of nuns and an ever-changing collection of pregnant teenage girls. Rose's past won't be kept away, though, even by St. Elizabeth's; she cannot remain untouched by what she has left behind, even as she cannot change who she has become in the leaving]]> 402 Ann Patchett Irena 3 4.18 1992 The Patron Saint of Liars
author: Ann Patchett
name: Irena
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/11
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> The Last House Guest 43348622 **A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller** A year after a summer guest dies under suspicious circumstances, her best friend lives under a cloud of grief and suspicion in this “fast-paced and gripping� (People) thriller filled with “dizzying plot twists and multiple surprise endings� (The New York Times Book Review).Littleport, Maine, has always felt like two separate an ideal vacation enclave for the wealthy, whose summer homes line the coastline; and a simple harbor community for the year-round residents whose livelihoods rely on service to the visitors. Typically, fierce friendships never develop between a local and a summer girl—but that’s just what happens with visitor Sadie Loman and Littleport resident Avery Greer. Each summer for almost a decade, the girls are inseparable—until Sadie is found dead. While the police rule the death a suicide, Avery can’t help but feel there are those in the community, including a local detective and Sadie’s brother, Parker, who blame her. Someone knows more than they’re saying, and Avery is intent on clearing her name, before the facts get twisted against her. “A riveting read…from master of suspense, Megan Miranda,� (Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl) The Last House Guest is a clever, twisty mystery that brilliantly explores the elusive nature of memory and the complexities of female friendships.]]> 351 Megan Miranda 1501165399 Irena 2 3.77 2019 The Last House Guest
author: Megan Miranda
name: Irena
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/11
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> The Sublet 224277538 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Greer Hendricks comes a chilling story about the hidden cost of perfection.

Anne is barely keeping it together. A frazzled ghostwriter and aspiring novelist, she juggles nine-year-old twins and a listless marriage from an overcrowded Manhattan apartment, spreading herself thinner each day. Just as Anne is about to give up on her dreams, she lands her biggest client Melody Wells.

Melody paints a picture of serenity and empowerment in the lavender haze of her visualization workshops—however, the one thing she can’t manifest are the pages her publisher is demanding for her new motivational book. Enter Anne.

As Melody invites Anne deeper into her magical world, Anne finds herself working impossibly long days and traveling far beyond her comfort zone.

When Melody passes along a lead on a spacious sublet complete with East River views, built-in closets, and three bedrooms, Anne can’t believe her luck. Melody seems to know just what her family needs. But as small, unsettling incidents begin to accumulate, Anne starts to wonder what price she’s willing to pay for the good life.]]> 61 Greer Hendricks 1662528515 Irena 2 3.23 2025 The Sublet
author: Greer Hendricks
name: Irena
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/11
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Incident at Big Sky: The Inside Story of the Search for Two Savage Killers in Montana]]> 34644901 Edgar Award The “exciting� true story of the abduction of biathlete Kari Swenson and the five-month manhunt to bring her tormentors to justice (The New York Times Book Review). Former rodeo cowboy Johnny France had been sheriff of Madison County, Montana, for three years when Kari Swenson, a Bozeman resident training for the World Biathlon Championship, went missing near Big Sky Resort in July 1984. Her friends feared that Kari had been attacked by a grizzly bear, but the truth was far She’d been kidnapped at gunpoint by father-and-son survivalists Don and Dan Nichols. The pair had been living in the wilderness off and on for years and hoped to make Kari a “mountain woman� and Dan’s bride. But the plan went horribly wrong from the start, and after a deadly firefight with rescuers, the kidnappers vanished into the rugged terrain of the Spanish Peaks. As Montana’s summer froze into brutal winter blizzards, SWAT teams, forest rangers, and antiterrorist units searched the backcountry but sighted the mountain men only once. Then came the call about a strange campfire on a slope above the Madison River. Sheriff France decided to go into the forest to face the fugitives—alone. The resulting showdown made him “perhaps the most famous Western sheriff since Wyatt Earp... a modern legend� (Chicago Tribune). Incident at Big Sky is an “amazing... exciting retelling of a modern crime� that made headlines around the world (The New York Times Book Review). In a voice as distinctive and compelling as the Montana landscape, France takes readers on a high-stakes adventure so bizarre and unforgettable it could only be true.]]> 310 Johnny France Irena 3 4.13 1986 Incident at Big Sky: The Inside Story of the Search for Two Savage Killers in Montana
author: Johnny France
name: Irena
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1986
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Death in California: A True Account of Love and Murder Among the Very Rich]]> 28584410 A charismatic killer terrorizes a beautiful Los Angeles socialite in this dramatic saga of love, lies, and murder among the very rich

Hope Masters lived in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Beverly Hills—but was entitled to food stamps. Pretty, petite, and privileged, she was recovering from two failed marriages and a string of poor decisions. But when Hope met and fell in love with a handsome advertising executive, she believed her life was finally back on track—until the morning she woke up to find the barrel of a gun in her mouth.

Hope’s fiancé lay dead in the next room. His killer was a new acquaintance who’d been visiting the couple in a remote ranch in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. He claimed to be a journalist, but his real identity was as mysterious as his motivations. Even more bizarre, however, was what happened at the end of the long, nightmarish weekend in which Hope saw everything she cared about She began to fall in love with her tormenter.

A fascinating and frightening portrait of the power of evil to lead the most innocent of victims down the darkest of paths, A Death in California is a dramatic tale of true crime from the acclaimed author of A Death in Canaan.]]> 528 Joan Barthel 1504028228 Irena 4 3.72 1982 A Death in California: A True Account of Love and Murder Among the Very Rich
author: Joan Barthel
name: Irena
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/04
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Quality of Life Report: A Novel]]> 34685295 New York Times Notable A Manhattanite seeks Midwestern bliss and finds something else in this "funny, literate [and] often touching story" (People).

Television correspondent Lucinda Trout is unhappy about the superficiality and shallowness of her life in New York, not to mention the latest stratospheric rent hike. Seeking an escape, she proposes a new She'll move far, far away, to the wholesome, most-livable-list town of Prairie City, and send "Quality of Life Report" segments back to the network.

But her mental image of the nation's heartland doesn't quite match up to the reality she finds. Prairie City may not be Manhattan, but it isn't Mayberry either--and while housing may be cheaper here, life and love are just as complicated. Now Lucinda has to confront the challenge of truly finding her own place in the world, in the wildly acclaimed first novel by the New York Times-bestselling and PEN Award-winning author of The Problem with Everything.

"Daum brings a crisp, wisecracking voice to her novel . . . An admirably nuanced view of the American heartland." --The New Yorker

"Daum's enormous comic gift--and her ability to use it in the service of fundamentally serious issues--is an unexpected delight." --The New York Times Book Review

"A confident first novel, full of wit and deft social criticism, often very funny and frequently wise." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"With a keen eye and trenchant wit, Meghan Daum skewers the obsessive narcissism and sense of entitlement that passes for real values in our media-driven culture. Always funny, often painfully so, The Quality of Life Report is more than simply satirical. It is an intelligent and heartfelt tale of a young woman, making radical choices and waking up to her life." --Ruth Ozeki, author of The Book of Form and Emptiness]]> 343 Meghan Daum 1477313168 Irena 3 3.72 2003 The Quality of Life Report: A Novel
author: Meghan Daum
name: Irena
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Good Bones 35738258 99 Maggie Smith 1946482013 Irena 0 to-read 4.26 2017 Good Bones
author: Maggie Smith
name: Irena
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[You Could Make This Place Beautiful]]> 61940694 “Life, like a poem, is a series of choices.�

In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself. The book begins with one woman’s personal heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work, and patriarchy.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful, like the work of Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Gina Frangello, is an unflinching look at what it means to live and write our own lives. It is a story about a mother’s fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman’s love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is “extraordinary� (Ann Patchett) in the way that it reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new and beautiful.]]> 316 Maggie Smith Irena 3 4.21 2023 You Could Make This Place Beautiful
author: Maggie Smith
name: Irena
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: grief-and-loss, memoirs-biography
review:

]]> <![CDATA[TOXIC RAGE: A Tale Of Murder In Tucson]]> 54834217 An eye-opening account of the shocking murder that has been featured on 48 Hours, Forensic Files, and Investigation Discovery’s Killing Time. Brian Stidham fell in love with Tucson, Arizona, the minute he came to town. A young and talented eye surgeon, he accepted a job with an established eye surgeon to take over his pediatric patients.

“It’s a beautiful place,� Stidham told a friend. “I can live right there by the mountains and go hiking. It’s a great deal for me there. The partner I’ll be working with is ultracool. He’s giving me the keys to the kingdom.� Brad Schwartz, the doctor who hired Brian, was ambitious and possessed surgical skills few others had. But he was a troubled man. Within a year of Stidham’s arrival in Tucson, the medical relationship would be severed by Schwartz’s personal troubles. Stidham broke away to start his own practice. Rumors abounded within the medical community that Schwartz was incensed and considered the departure a betrayal. His rage grew, even driving a wedge between him and his fiancée, Lourdes Lopez, a former prosecutor. Three years after Stidham moved to Tucson, his life ended in an empty, darkened parking lot. But who would murder such a nice man in such a violent manner? Lourdes, who had witnessed Schwartz’s toxic rage toward his former partner, feared she knew. But would her suspicions be enough to catch the killer? Find out in Toxic Rage.]]> 303 A.J. Flick 1947290843 Irena 3 3.62 TOXIC RAGE: A Tale Of Murder In Tucson
author: A.J. Flick
name: Irena
average rating: 3.62
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA["My Husband's Trying to Kill Me!": A True Story of Money, Marriage, and Murderous Intent]]> 78299745 From an award-winning journalist, this “grippingly suspenseful true-crime tale details the foiling of a wealthy Texan’s plot to have his wife murdered�(Publishers Weekly).

To the world, Linda DeSilva’s marriage to Robert Edelman was perfect. He was her college boyfriend turned wealthy and successful husband, and the father of her children. But what friends and family didn’t know was that the Texas real estate tycoon who set her up with a luxurious life in Dallas was also her abuser. When she asked him for a divorce, the violence against her only escalated, until the shocking moment she learned her husband had hired an assassin to take her life.

From acclaimed journalist and author Jim Schutze,“My Husband’s Trying to Kill Me!”�is the riveting true-crime account of how Linda DeSilva worked with the FBI to trap her husband before he could act on his murderous intentions—and how the sting operation nearly got her killed instead. A shocking and sensational story of a wife and mother’s escape from the marriage that went from American dream to every woman’s worst nightmare.

“NܳԲ.��Kirkus Reviews]]> 396 Jim Schutze 1504081951 Irena 3 4.10 1992 "My Husband's Trying to Kill Me!": A True Story of Money, Marriage, and Murderous Intent
author: Jim Schutze
name: Irena
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves:
review:

]]> Nantucket Nights 8145194 The ties between women can run as deep as the ocean--but so can the secrets.For 20 years, Kayla, Antoinette and Val have performed their own special summer ritual. Once a year, the old friends put aside their daily, separate lives to drink champagne, swap stories and swim naked under the Nantucket stars. But on one of those bonding nights, one of their trio swims out from the shore and doesn't return. After the surviving friends emerge from their grief, they realize that the repercussions of their loss go far beyond their little circle, and they begin to uncover layers of secrets--and their connections to each other--that were never revealed on the beach. What has made their friendship strong now has the power to destroy--their marriages, families, even themselves, in Elin Hilderbrand's Nantucket Nights.]]> 240 Elin Hilderbrand Irena 0 3.83 2002 Nantucket Nights
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Irena
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]> The Rumor 23341607
And rumor has it...

...that Madeline, a novelist, is battling writer's block, with a deadline looming, bills piling up, and blank pages driving her to desperation--and a desperately bad decision;

...that Grace, hard at work to transform her backyard into a garden paradise, has been collaborating a bit more closely than necessary with her ruggedly handsome landscape architect;

...that Grace's husband, successful island real estate developer "Fast Eddie" Pancik, has embarked on quite an unusual side project;

...that the storybook romance between Madeline's son, Brick, and Grace's daughter Allegra is on the rocks, heading for disaster.

As the gossip escalates, and they face the possible loss of the happy lives they've worked so hard to create, Grace and Madeline try mightily to set the record straight--but the truth might be even worse than rumor has it.
]]> 370 Elin Hilderbrand 0316334529 Irena 0 to-read 3.71 2015 The Rumor
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Irena
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Taste For Murder 28762931
Demanding to know the cause of her husband’s death, Angie Rodriguez badgers the police, insisting that Frank was murdered. The cops attribute her assertions to overwhelming grief, but soon they too believe that Frank didn’t die of natural causes.

When the police enlist their number one suspect to help in the investigation, things spiral out of control until police are dealing with a daring plot to murder Angie’s best friend, and allegations of another homicide so evil and perverse that even seasoned L.A County Detectives are shocked beyond belief ... and so will the readers!
]]> 259 Burl Barer Irena 3 3.79 2016 A Taste For Murder
author: Burl Barer
name: Irena
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves:
review:

]]> The Blue Bistro 8377676
Adrienne Dealey has spent the past six years working for hotels in exotic resort towns. This summer she has decided to make Nantucket home. Left flat broke by her ex-boyfriend, she is desperate to earn some fast money. When the desirable Thatcher Smith, owner of Nantucket's hottest restaurant, is the only one to offer her a job, she wonders if she can get by with no restaurant experience. Thatcher gives Adrienne a crash course in the business...and they share an instant attraction. But there is a mystery about their what is it about Fiona, the Blue Bistro's chef, that captures Thatcher's attention again and again? And why does such a successful restaurant seem to be in its final season before closing its doors for good? Despite her uncertainty, Adrienne must decide whether to open her heart for the first time, or move on, as she always does.

Infused with intimate Nantucket detail and filled with the warmth of passion and the breeze of doubt, The Blue Bistro is perfect summer reading.]]> 428 Elin Hilderbrand 1429905492 Irena 4 4.15 2005 The Blue Bistro
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Irena
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves:
review:

]]> Murder in the Family 54207780 Kill, Kirby, Kill

On March 15th, 1987, police in Anchorage, Alaska arrived at a horrific scene of carnage. In a modest downtown apartment, they found Nancy Newman's brutally beaten corpse sprawled across her bed. In another room were the bodies of her eight-year-old daughter, Melissa, and her three-year-old, Angie, whose throat was slit from ear to ear. Both Nancy and Melissa had been sexually assaulted.

Run, Kirby, Run

23-year-old Kirby Anthoney was a troubled drifter from Twin Falls, Idaho, who had turned to his uncle, John Newman, Nancy's husband. But little did John know that the nephew he took in was a murderous sociopath capable of slaughtering his beloved wife and children while he was away on business. But while police built their case, Kirby bolted for the Canadian border.

Lie, Kirby, Lie

First they hunted him down. Then, authorities began their long, bitter battle to convict him. But justice would not be done until Kirby Anthoney took the stand in his own defense—and showed the world the monster he truly was.

16 PAGES OF SHOCKING PHOTOS!

]]> 433 Burl Barer 1942266537 Irena 0 4.03 2000 Murder in the Family
author: Burl Barer
name: Irena
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Too Pretty to Live: The Catfishing Murders of East Tennessee]]> 28551695 Murder begins with the click of a button in this true crime story of Facebook, catfishing and deadly jealousy--as seen on Investigation Discovery.



Chris was a CIA agent worried for the safety of Jenelle Potter. Contacting her parents and boyfriend, Chris warned them that Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth were bullying Jenelle online and posed an imminent, physical threat. Something needed to be done, Chris said. And he'd have their backs if they took action to protect Jenelle. And so they did. Jenelle's father and boyfriend murdered Payne and Hayworth in their own home--mercifully leaving the couple's infant unharmed. But when they told their story to the police, they discovered a devastating there was no Chris. It had been Jenelle the entire time, catfishing them to exact revenge over a Facebook feud.

Using forensic linguistics and diving through the brambles that Jenelle laid to cover her tracks, police were able to put together a chilling portrait of a sociopath who set a double murder in motion from the shadows of the internet. Dennis Brooks, the lead prosecutor in this strange and tragic case, examines the crime and trial from all angles in Too Pretty to Live.

What the police investigation turned up, though, made this crime all the more terrifying. Jenelle had been Chris the entire time, catfishing her family and her boyfriend to act in vengeance on her behalf. Using forensic linguistics and diving through the brambles that Jenelle laid to cover her tracks, police were able to put together a chilling portrait of a sociopath, made all the more ruthless by the anonymity of her online life.

Bizarre and unforgettable, Dennis Brooks examines the crime and trial from all angles, bringing his expertise as the lead prosecutor in the strange and disturbing case.]]> 350 Dennis Brooks 1682301982 Irena 3 3.46 Too Pretty to Live: The Catfishing Murders of East Tennessee
author: Dennis Brooks
name: Irena
average rating: 3.46
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: kindle, mental-illness, other-people-families, real-crime
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health]]> 210083661 Blind Spots written and read by Dr Marty Makary

From Johns Hopkins medical expert Dr. Marty Makary, the New York Times- bestselling author of The Price We Pay —an eye-opening look at the medical groupthink that has led to public harm, and what you need to know about your health.

More Americans have peanut allergies today than at any point in history. Why? In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a strict recommendation that parents avoid giving their children peanut products until they’re three years old. Getting the science perfectly backward, triggering intolerance with lack of early exposure, the US now leads the world in peanut allergies—and this misinformation is still rearing its head today.

How could the experts have gotten it so wrong? Dr. Marty Makary asks, Could it be that many modern-day health crises have been caused by the hubris of the medical establishment? Experts said for decades that opioids were not addictive, igniting the opioid crisis. They refused menopausal women hormone replacement therapy, causing unnecessary suffering. They demonized natural fat in foods, driving Americans to processed carbohydrates as obesity rates soared. They told citizens that there are no downsides to antibiotics and prescribed them liberally, causing a drug-resistant bacteria crisis.

When modern medicine issues recommendations based on good scientific studies, it shines. Conversely, when modern medicine is interpreted through the harsh lens of opinion and edict, it can mold beliefs that harm patients and stunt research for decades. In Blind Spots, Dr. Makary explores the latest research on critical topics ranging from the microbiome to childbirth to nutrition and longevity and more, revealing the biggest blind spots of modern medicine and tackling the most urgent yet unsung issues in our $4.5 trillion health care ecosystem. The path to medical mishaps can be absurd, entertaining, and jaw-dropping—but the truth is essential to our health.]]> 288 Marty Makary 1639735313 Irena 3 non-fiction, public-library 4.38 2024 Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health
author: Marty Makary
name: Irena
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: non-fiction, public-library
review:

]]> Live. Fight. Survive. 199598305 400 Shaun Pinner Irena 0 4.38 Live. Fight. Survive.
author: Shaun Pinner
name: Irena
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read, home-library, memoirs-biography
review:

]]> The Gatecrasher 8193665 Madeleine Wickham is Sophie Kinsella, and The Gatecrasher is just as delicious as her internationally bestselling Shopaholic series. Everything's coming up roses for Fleur Daxeny, as she goes through more rich men than she does designer hats. Beautiful and utterly irresistible, her success at crashing funerals to find wealthy men is remarkable. Fleur wastes no time in seducing her latest conquest, the handsome and rich widower Richard Favour. His children are caught up in a whirlwind as their father's new girlfriend descends on the family estate. Fleur is not one to wear her heart on her Chanel sleeves, but she soon finds herself embracing Richard and his family. But just as Fleur contemplates jumping off the gold-digger train for good, a long-buried secret from her past threatens to destroy her new family.Take a wild and marvelous ride with The Gatecrasher, whose clever, chic, and sassy style will leave you desperately wanting more wonderful Wickham!]]> 335 Madeleine Wickham Irena 3 3.54 1998 The Gatecrasher
author: Madeleine Wickham
name: Irena
average rating: 3.54
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Death on Ocean Boulevard: Inside the Coronado Mansion Case]]> 55033561 Bestselling author Caitlin Rother explores the mysterious death of 32-year-old Rebecca Zahau, who was found hanging from a second-story balcony of her multimillionaire boyfriend's San Diego mansion in 2011. She was naked and gagged, with her ankles tied and hands bound behind her. On the door to her bedroom investigators found a hand-written message: "SHE SAVED HIM, CAN YOU SAVE HER." The death was deemed a suicide, but Rother reveals there's more to the story...

"I got a girl, hung herself in the guest house."

The call came on the morning of July 13, 2011, from the historic Spreckels Mansion, a lavish beachfront property in Coronado, California, owned by pharmaceutical tycoon and multimillionaire Jonah Shacknai. When authorities arrived, they found the naked body of Jonah's girlfriend, Rebecca Zahau, gagged, her ankles tied and her wrists bound behind her. Jonah's brother, Adam, claimed to have found Rebecca hanging by a rope from the second-floor balcony. On a bedroom door in black paint were the cryptic words: SHE SAVED HIM CAN YOU SAVE HER.

Was this scrawled message a suicide note or a killer's taunt? Rebecca's death came two days after Jonah's six-year-old son, Max, took a devastating fall while in Rebecca's care. Authorities deemed Rebecca's death a suicide resulting from her guilt. But who would stage either a suicide or a murder in such a bizarre, elaborate way?

Award-winning investigative journalist Caitlin Rother weaves stunning new details into a personal yet objective examination of the sensational case. She explores its many layers-including the civil suit in which a jury found Adam Shacknai responsible for Rebecca's death, and the San Diego County Sheriff's Department bombshell decision to reconfirm its original findings. As compelling as it is troubling, this controversial real-life mystery is a classic American tragedy that evokes the same haunting fascination as the JonBenet Ramsey and O.J. Simpson cases.]]> 402 Caitlin Rother 0806540907 Irena 3 3.66 2021 Death on Ocean Boulevard: Inside the Coronado Mansion Case
author: Caitlin Rother
name: Irena
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Consent: A Memoir 201451370 Half a Life. She asks herself whether she told the whole truth back then. What did truth look like to her in the era of love-bead curtains, when no one asked who was served by the permissibility of May-December romance? With new understanding about the imbalance of power between an older man and a minor girl, Ciment re-explores the erotic wild ride and intellectual flowering that shaped an improbable but blissful marriage that lasted for forty-five years, until her husband’s death at age ninety-three.]]> 161 Jill Ciment 0593701070 Irena 4 4.09 2024 Consent: A Memoir
author: Jill Ciment
name: Irena
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: memoirs-biography, mental-illness, other-people-families, unfinished
review:

]]> I Hope This Finds You Well 62066104 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 color 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 favor, convince HR she’s Supershops material, and beat out the competition.

But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworkers' private worlds and realizes they are each keeping secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble—especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Eventually she will need to decide if she’s ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if that 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 along with it.]]> 349 Natalie Sue 006332038X Irena 1 3.85 2024 I Hope This Finds You Well
author: Natalie Sue
name: Irena
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering]]> 213890796
Why is Miami…Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns for the first time in twenty-five years to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena.

Through a series of riveting stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering. He takes us to the streets of Los Angeles to meet the world’s most successful bank robbers, rediscovers a forgotten television show from the 1970s that changed the world, visits the site of a historic experiment on a tiny cul-de-sac in northern California, and offers an alternate history of two of the biggest epidemics of our day: COVID and the opioid crisis. Revenge of the Tipping Point is Gladwell’s most personal book yet. With his characteristic mix of storytelling and social science, he offers a guide to making sense of the contagions of modern world. It’s time we took tipping points seriously.]]> 352 Malcolm Gladwell Irena 4 non-fiction, public-library 4.06 2024 Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Irena
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: non-fiction, public-library
review:

]]> <![CDATA[David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants]]> 15751404 The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell has explored the ways we understand and change our world. Now he looks at the complex and surprising ways the weak can defeat the strong, the small can match up against the giant, and how our goals (often culturally determined) can make a huge difference in our ultimate sense of success. Drawing upon examples from the world of business, sports, culture, cutting-edge psychology, and an array of unforgettable characters around the world, David and Goliath is in many ways the most practical and provocative book Malcolm Gladwell has ever written.]]> 305 Malcolm Gladwell 0316204366 Irena 0 to-read 3.97 2013 David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Irena
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Two Women Walk into a Bar 198712875 31 Cheryl Strayed 1662517920 Irena 0 to-read 4.04 Two Women Walk into a Bar
author: Cheryl Strayed
name: Irena
average rating: 4.04
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sonny Boy 209499400 From one of the most iconic actors in the history of film, an astonishingly revelatory account of a creative life in full. To the wider world, Al Pacino exploded onto the scene like a supernova. He landed his first leading role, in The Panic in Needle Park, in 1971, and by 1975, he had starred in four movies—The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon—that were not just successes but landmarks in the history of film. Those performances became legendary and changed his life forever. Not since Marlon Brando and James Dean in the late 1950s had an actor landed in the culture with such force. But Pacino was in his mid-thirties by then, and had already lived several lives. A fixture of avant-garde theater in New York, he had led a bohemian existence, working odd jobs to support his craft. He was raised by a fiercely loving but mentally unwell mother and her parents after his father left them when he was young, but in a real sense he was raised by the streets of the South Bronx, and by the troop of buccaneering young friends he ran with, whose spirits never left him. After a teacher recognized his acting promise and pushed him toward New York’s fabled High School of Performing Arts, the die was cast. In good times and bad, in poverty and in wealth and in poverty again, through pain and joy, acting was his lifeline, its community his tribe. Sonny Boy is the memoir of a man who has nothing left to fear and nothing left to hide. All the great roles, the essential collaborations, and the important relationships are given their full due, as is the vexed marriage between creativity and commerce at the highest levels. The book’s golden thread, however, is the spirit of love and purpose. Love can fail you, and you can be defeated in your ambitions—the same lights that shine bright can also dim. But Al Pacino was lucky enough to fall deeply in love with a craft before he had the foggiest idea of any of its earthly rewards, and he never fell out of love. That has made all the difference.]]> 384 Al Pacino 0593655117 Irena 4 3.99 2024 Sonny Boy
author: Al Pacino
name: Irena
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/10
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: hollywood-old, memoirs-biography, public-library, new-york
review:

]]> This is My Daughter 165182 416 Roxana Robinson 0684864363 Irena 5 3.52 1998 This is My Daughter
author: Roxana Robinson
name: Irena
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: kindle, new-york, other-people-families, cerebral
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mauritius, Reunion and Seychelles: Travel Survival Kit]]> 5008771 Lonely Planet 0864420854 Irena 3 3.00 2007 Mauritius, Reunion and Seychelles: Travel Survival Kit
author: Lonely Planet
name: Irena
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Marble Hall Murders 217432789 Murder links past and present once again in this mind-boggling metafictional mystery fromAnthony Horowitz—another tribute to the golden age of Agatha Christie featuring detective Atticus Pund and editor Susan Ryland, stars of the New York Times bestsellers Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders.

Editor Susan Ryeland has left her Greek island, her hotel, and her Greek boyfriend Andreas in search of a new life back in England.

Freelancing for Causton Books, she’s working on the manuscript of a novel, Pund’s Last Case, by a young author named Eliot Crace, a continuation of the popular Alan Conway series. Susan is surprised to learn that Eliot is the grandson of legendary children’s author Marian Crace, who died some fifteen years ago—murdered, Elliot insists, by poison.

As Susan begins to read the manuscript’s opening chapters, the skeptical editor is relieved to find that Pund’s Last Case is actually very good. Set in the South of France, it revolves around the mysterious death of Lady Margaret Chalfont, who, though mortally ill, is poisoned—perhaps by a member of her own family. But who did it? And why?

The deeper Susan reads, the more it becomes clear that the clues leading to the truth of Marian Crace’s death are hidden within this Atticus Pund mystery.

While Eliot’s accusation becomes more plausible, his behavior grows increasingly erratic.. Then he is suddenly killed in a hit-and-run accident, and Susan finds herself under police scrutiny as a suspect in his killing.

Three mysterious deaths. Multiple motives and possible murderers. If Susan doesn’t solve the mystery of Pund’s Last Case, she may well be the next victim.]]> 592 Anthony Horowitz 0063305704 Irena 0 to-read 4.39 2025 Marble Hall Murders
author: Anthony Horowitz
name: Irena
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> How the Light Gets In 200298178 432 Joyce Maynard 006239830X Irena 0 to-read 4.12 2024 How the Light Gets In
author: Joyce Maynard
name: Irena
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Very Inconvenient Scandal 127828076 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jacquelyn Mitchard comes a thrilling family drama that explores the emotional consequences of loyalty, deception and jealousy.

Stunned by her recently widowed father’s reckless behavior, a young woman must learn to navigate a new world—where the people she should trust the most have become strangers she cannot trust at all.

Frankie Attleboro returns home to Cape Cod with thrilling news. She’s met the love of her life, and they’re getting married with a baby on the way. That’s the moment her father makes his own jaw-dropping announcement: at sixty, he’s getting married as well, to Frankie’s best friend, Ariel, who is also pregnant, and due soon.

As Frankie and Ariel struggle to adjust to their new relationship, Ariel’s estranged mother, Carlotta, returns after a decade-long absence. She claims to be a changed woman—but is she really? And where has she been all these years? Frankie is suspicious, and as Carlotta’s unpredictable behavior intensifies, Frankie must untangle the threads of the past to protect Ariel’s future—and her own.]]> 336 Jacquelyn Mitchard 0778369374 Irena 0 to-read 2.96 2023 A Very Inconvenient Scandal
author: Jacquelyn Mitchard
name: Irena
average rating: 2.96
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An American Story (Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Winner)]]> 60656846
From the fireside tales in an African village, through the unspeakable passage across the Atlantic, to the backbreaking work in the fields of the South, this is a story of a people's struggle and strength, horror and hope. This is the story of American slavery, a story that needs to be told and understood by all of us. A testament to the resilience of the African American community, this book honors what has been and envisions what is to be.

With stunning mixed-media illustrations by newcomer Dare Coulter, this isapotent book for those who want to speak the truth. Perfect forfamily sharing, theclassroom,andhomeschooling.]]> 56 Kwame Alexander 031647312X Irena 5 school-library, story-time 4.63 2023 An American Story (Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Winner)
author: Kwame Alexander
name: Irena
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: school-library, story-time
review:

]]> Madness: A Bipolar Life 9151023 In the vein of An Unquiet Mind comes a storm of a memoir that will take you deep inside bipolar disorder and change everything you know. When Marya Hornbacher published her first book, A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, she did not yet have the piece of shattering knowledge that would finally make sense of the chaos of her life. At age twenty-four, Hornbacher was diagnosed with Type I rapid-cycle bipolar, the most severe form of bipolar disorder. In Madness, in her trademark wry and utterly self-revealing voice, Hornbacher tells her new story. Through scenes of astonishing visceral and emotional power, she takes us inside her own desperate attempts to counteract violently careening mood swings by self-starvation, substance abuse, numbing sex, and self-mutilation. How Hornbacher fights her way up from a madness that all but destroys her, and what it is like to live in a difficult and sometimes beautiful life and marriage—where bipolar always beckons—is at the center of this brave and heart-stopping memoir.Madness delivers the revelation that Hornbacher is not millions of people in America today are struggling with a variety of disorders that may disguise their bipolar disease. And Hornbacher's fiercely self-aware portrait of her own bipolar as early as age four will powerfully change, too, the current debate on whether bipolar in children actually exists.









New York Times“Humorous, articulate, and self-aware…A story that is almost impossible to put down.”�







“With the same intimately revelatory and shocking emotional power that marked [Wasted], Hornbacher guides us through her labyrinth of psychological demons.”—Elle ]]> 315 Marya Hornbacher 0547348193 Irena 2 4.26 2008 Madness: A Bipolar Life
author: Marya Hornbacher
name: Irena
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: memoirs-biography, mental-illness, non-fiction, other-people-families, slow-burners-reference, unfinished
review:

]]> Cost 2939754
In an attempt to save him, Julia marshals help from her looseknit clan: elderly parents; remarried ex-husband; removed sister; and combative eldest son. Ultimately, heroin courses through the characters' lives with an impersonal and devastating energy, sweeping the family into a world in which deceit, crime, and fear are part of daily life.]]> 416 Roxana Robinson 0374271879 Irena 0 to-read 3.58 2008 Cost
author: Roxana Robinson
name: Irena
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My People (Coretta Scott King Award - Illustrator Winner Title(s))]]> 4237385 40 Langston Hughes 1416935401 Irena 5 school-library, story-time 4.33 2009 My People (Coretta Scott King Award - Illustrator Winner Title(s))
author: Langston Hughes
name: Irena
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: school-library, story-time
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well]]> 30045683 Hygge has been described as everything from "cosines of the soul" to "the pursuit of everyday pleasures". The Little Book of Hygge is the book we all need right now, and is guaranteed to bring warmth and comfort to you and your loved ones this winter.

Hooga? Hhyooguh? Heurgh? It is not really important how you choose to pronounce 'hygge'. What is important is that you feel it. Whether you're cuddled up on a sofa with a loved one, or sharing comfort food with your closest friends, hygge is about creating an atmosphere where you can let your guard down.]]> 289 Meik Wiking 0241283914 Irena 4 3.76 2016 The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well
author: Meik Wiking
name: Irena
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: anna-recommended, current-reference, denmark, expatriates-europe-living-abroad, gifts-from-friends, non-fiction
review:

]]> Beautiful Ugly 210993995 The million-copy bestselling Queen of Twists Alice Feeney returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage. . .
. . . and revenge.

Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.

Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.

A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible � a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.]]> 320 Alice Feeney 1250337798 Irena 3 3.75 2025 Beautiful Ugly
author: Alice Feeney
name: Irena
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves:
review:

]]> The Crash 216223604 The nightmare she’s running from is nothing compared to where she’s headed.

Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror. So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn’t realize she’s heading straight into a blizzard.

She never arrives at her destination.

Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle, Tegan worries she’s made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle she is rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears.

But something isn’t right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is in grave danger. This safe haven isn’t what she thought it was, and staying here may have been her most deadly mistake yet.

And now she must do whatever it takes to save herself—and her unborn child.

A gut-wrenching story of motherhood, survival, and twisted expectations, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden delivers a snowbound thriller that will chill you to the bone.
]]> 384 Freida McFadden 1464232989 Irena 0 to-read 3.58 2025 The Crash
author: Freida McFadden
name: Irena
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Snow Dancer 50632660 32 Addie Boswell 1542093171 Irena 5 3.46 2020 The Snow Dancer
author: Addie Boswell
name: Irena
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves:
review:

]]> The Minister 10079744 223 Maurice Edelman Irena 0 to-read 3.67 1961 The Minister
author: Maurice Edelman
name: Irena
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 365 Days (365 Days, #1) 55702231 The sexy and deeply romantic internationally bestselling novel that inspired the blockbuster movie.

Laura Biel and her boyfriend are on a dream vacation in beautiful Sicily. On the second day of their trip, her twenty-ninth birthday, she is kidnapped. Her kidnapper is none other than the head of a powerful Sicilian crime family, the incredibly handsome, young Don Massimo Torricelli, who is determined to possess her at all costs. Massimo has his reasons. During an earlier attempt on his life, a vision appeared before his eyes: a beautiful woman, identical to Laura. After surviving the attack, he vows that he will find the woman in his vision and make her his own. No matter what.

For 365 days, Massimo will keep Laura captive in his palatial estate and attempt to win her heart. If she doesn’t fall in love with him during this time, he will let her go. But if she tries to escape at any point, he will track her down and kill her entire family.

Soon Laura develops a fascination with her handsome and powerful captor. But as a precarious, risky relationship forms between them, forces outside their control threaten to tear them apart...]]> 336 Blanka Lipińska 1982174315 Irena 0 3.52 2018 365 Days (365 Days, #1)
author: Blanka Lipińska
name: Irena
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves:
review:

]]> The Resort 61459522
But when their directions send them down a narrow, steep road, Mila begins to think something is wrong.

Then the car engine stops and won’t start again.

Stranded in the snowy mountains and with night closing in, they make their way back down the road to where they saw a sign to turn off to an abandoned ski resort, with windows boarded up and the eerie sense they shouldn’t be there.

With few choices left, they break into an old cabin to spend the night out of the cold.

In the morning when Mila wakes, Ethan is gone.

She is all alone. Or is she?]]> 384 Sarah Goodwin 0008591555 Irena 0 currently-reading 3.73 2023 The Resort
author: Sarah Goodwin
name: Irena
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Exiles (Aaron Falk, #3) 60807061
A year on, Kim Gillespie’s absence casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather deep in the heart of South Australian wine country to welcome a new addition to the family.

Joining the celebrations is federal investigator Aaron Falk. But as he soaks up life in the lush valley, he begins to suspect this tight-knit group may be more fractured than it seems.

Between Falk’s closest friend, a missing mother, and a woman he’s drawn to, dark questions linger as long-ago truths begin to emerge.

An outstanding novel, a brilliant mystery and a heart-pounding read from the author of The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man and The Survivors.]]> 352 Jane Harper 1250874866 Irena 4 4.19 2022 Exiles (Aaron Falk, #3)
author: Jane Harper
name: Irena
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves:
review:

]]> Fi: A Memoir of My Son 198331723 And then � suddenly and incomprehensibly - her son Fi, at 21 years old, dies in his sleep.
No stranger to loss - young siblings, a parent, a home country - Alexandra is nonetheless leveled. At the same time, she is painfully aware that she cannot succumb and abandon her two surviving daughters as her mother before her had done. From a sheep wagon deep in the mountains of Wyoming to a grief sanctuary in New Mexico to a silent meditation retreat in Alberta, Canada, Alexandra journeys up and down the spine of the Rocky Mountains in an attempt to find how to grieve herself whole. There is no answer, and there are countless answers � in poetry, in rituals and routines, in nature and in the indigenous wisdom she absorbed as a child in Zimbabwe. By turns disarming, devastating and unexpectedly, blessedly funny, Alexandra recounts the wild medicine of painstakingly grieving a child in a culture that has no instructions for it. ]]> Alexandra Fuller 0802162452 Irena 4 4.10 2024 Fi: A Memoir of My Son
author: Alexandra Fuller
name: Irena
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: grief-and-loss, kindle, memoirs-biography
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country]]> 24359966 When she was suddenly given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutland, journalist and archetypal Londoner Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: the happiest place on earth isn’t Disneyland, but Denmark, a land often thought of by foreigners as consisting entirely of long dark winters, cured herring, Lego and pastries.

What is the secret to their success? Are happy Danes born, or made? Helen decides there is only one way to find out: she will give herself a year, trying to uncover the formula for Danish happiness.

From childcare, education, food and interior design to SAD, taxes, sexism and an unfortunate predilection for burning witches, The Year of Living Danishly is a funny, poignant record of a journey that shows us where the Danes get it right, where they get it wrong, and how we might just benefit from living a little more Danishly ourselves.

]]> 389 Helen Russell 1848318138 Irena 0 currently-reading 4.07 2015 The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country
author: Helen Russell
name: Irena
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Rain Stomper 4416388 32 Addie Boswell 0761453938 Irena 0 to-read 3.86 2008 The Rain Stomper
author: Addie Boswell
name: Irena
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Half a Life: A Memoir 25878655 210 Jill Ciment 1101905484 Irena 4 4.05 1996 Half a Life: A Memoir
author: Jill Ciment
name: Irena
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Tijuana Straits: A Novel 19321076 Tapping the Source and The Dogs of Winter, comes an exquisitely written tale of loss and redemption. Nunn renders the dangerous beaches and waters of California's borderland as only the critically acclaimed poet laureate of surf noir can, and Tijuana Straits confirms his reputation as a master of suspense and a novelist of the first rank.

When Fahey, once a great surfer, now a reclusive ex-con, meets Magdalena, she is running from a pack of wild dogs along the ragged wasteland where California and Mexico meet the Pacific Ocean -- a spot once known to the men who rode its giant waves as the Tijuana Straits. Magdalena has barely survived an attack that forced her to flee Tijuana, and Fahey takes her in. That he is willing to do so runs contrary to his every instinct, for Fahey is done with the world, seeking little more than solitude from this all-but-forgotten corner of the Golden State. Nor is Fahey a stranger to the lawless ways of the border. He worries that in sheltering this woman he may not only be inviting further entanglements but may be placing them both at risk. In this, he is not wrong.

An environmental activist, Magdalena has become engaged in the struggle for the health and rights of the thousands of peasants streaming from Mexico's enervated heartland to work in the maquilladoras -- the foreign-owned factories that line her country's border, polluting its air and fouling its rivers. It is a risky contest. Danger can come from many directions, from government officials paid to preserve the status quo to thugs hired to intimidate reformers.

As Magdalena and Fahey become closer, Magdalena tries to discover who is out to get her, attempting to reconstruct the events that delivered her, battered and confused, into Fahey's strange yet oddly seductive world. She examines every lead, never guessing the truth. For into this no-man's-land between two countries comes a trio of killers led by Armando Santoya, a man beset by personal tragedy, an aberration born of the very conditions Magdalena has dedicated her life to fight against, yet who in the throes of his own drug-fueled confusions has marked her for death. And so will Fahey be put to the test, in a final duel on the beaches of his Tijuana Straits.]]> 332 Kem Nunn 1439125074 Irena 0 currently-reading 3.94 2004 Tijuana Straits: A Novel
author: Kem Nunn
name: Irena
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Wedding People 177328214 A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Today Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club Pick

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 1250899567 Irena 5 4.23 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Irena
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: grief-and-loss, other-people-families, smart-women-fiction, cerebral, kindle, romantic-light
review:

]]> TOO MUCH 222841490
This gripping memoir is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, a raw and honest exploration of one woman's fight to reclaim her sanity, her voice, and her future.]]> 336 Cindy Lee Neighbors Irena 2 3.68 2024 TOO MUCH
author: Cindy Lee Neighbors
name: Irena
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: kindle, memoirs-biography, unfinished
review:

]]> <![CDATA[There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America's Biggest Catfish]]> 201294595 Part memoir, part explosive window into the mind of a catfisher, a thrilling personal account of three women coming face-to-face with an internet predator and teaming up to expose them

In 2011 three successful and highly educated women fell head over heels for the brilliant and charming Ethan Schuman. Unbeknownst to the others, each exchanged countless messages with Ethan, staying up late into the evenings to deepen their connections with this fascinating man. His detailed excuses about broken webcams and complicated international calling plans seemed believable, as did last-minute trip cancellations. After all, why would he lie? Ethan wasn't after money—he never convinced his marks to shell out thousands of dollars for some imagined crisis. Rather, he ensnared these women in a web of intense emotional intimacy.

After the trio independently began to question inconsistencies in their new flame's stories, they managed to find one another and uncover a greater deception than they could have ever imagined. As Anna Akbari and the women untangled their catfish’s web, they found other victims and realized that without a proper crime, there was no legal reason for “Ethan� to ever stop.

There is No Ethan catalogues Akbari's experience as both victim and observer. By looking at the bigger picture—a world where technology mediates our relationships; where words and images are easily manipulated; and where truth, reality, and identity have become slippery terms—Akbari provides an explanation for why these stories matter.]]> 304 Anna Akbari 1538742195 Irena 4 3.57 2024 There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America's Biggest Catfish
author: Anna Akbari
name: Irena
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: kindle, non-fiction, other-people-families, overcoming, cerebral, debuts, immigrants, memoirs-biography, new-york, new-publications-library, real-crime, suspense, survival
review:

]]> All the Little Bird-Hearts 62606735
Into this carefully ordered life step Vita and Rollo, a glamorous London couple who move in next door, disarm Sunday with their wit and charm, and proceed to deliciously break just about every rule in her etiquette manual. Soon the two families are in and out of each others houses, and Sunday feels loved and accepted like never before. But beneath Vita and Rollo's charm and wealth there is something else, something darker. And Sunday has something that Vita has always wanted for herself, a beautiful, clever daughter of her own.]]> 297 Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow 1472288009 Irena 0 to-read, aspies 3.72 2023 All the Little Bird-Hearts
author: Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
name: Irena
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: to-read, aspies
review:

]]> <![CDATA[North of Normal: A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Unusual Family, and How I Survived Both]]> 19628269
In the late 1960s, riding the crest of the counterculture movement, Cea’s family left a comfortable existence in California to live off the land in the Canadian wilderness. But unlike most commune dwellers of the time, the Persons weren’t trying to build a new society—they wanted to escape civilization altogether. Led by Cea’s grandfather Dick, they lived a pot-smoking, free-loving, clothing-optional life under a canvas tipi without running water, electricity, or heat for the bitter winters.

Living out her grandparents� dream with her teenage mother Michelle, young Cea knew little of the world beyond her forest. She spent her summers playing nude in the meadow and her winters snowshoeing behind the grandfather she idolized. Despite fierce storms, food shortages, and the occasional drug-and-sex-infused party for visitors, it seemed to be a mostly happy existence. For Michelle, however, now long separated from Cea’s father, there was one crucial element a man. When Cea was five, Michelle took her on the road with a new boyfriend. As the trio set upon a series of ill-fated adventures, Cea began to question both her highly unusual world and the hedonistic woman at the centre of it—questions that eventually evolved into an all-consuming search for a more normal life. Finally, in her early teens, Cea realized she would have to make a choice as drastic as the one her grandparents once had in order to save herself.

While a successful international modeling career offered her a way out of the wilderness, Cea discovered that this new world was in its own way daunting and full of challenges. Containing twenty-four intimate black-and-white family photos, North of Normal is Cea’s funny, shocking, heartbreaking, and triumphant tale of self-discovery and acceptance, adversity, and strength that will leave no reader unmoved.]]> 357 Cea Sunrise Person 0062289888 Irena 4 4.36 2014 North of Normal: A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Unusual Family, and How I Survived Both
author: Cea Sunrise Person
name: Irena
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/01
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: canada, california, dark, kindle, memoirs-biography, survival, bards-beatniks-and-hippies, book-movie, alaska, non-fiction, other-people-families, overcoming, mental-illness
review:

]]> Last Night 57010537 From the Amazon Charts and New York Times bestselling author of The Shadow Box and Last Day comes a breathtaking thriller about a family shaken by lies, vengeance, and a cold-blooded crime.

A fierce blizzard is burying the eastern seaboard, but on the icy Rhode Island shore renowned artist Maddie Morrison finds warm sanctuary from a contentious divorce at the legendary Ocean House. Hours later, her body is found buried under a blanket of snow and her little daughter, CeCe, has disappeared without a trace.

For Detective Conor Reid; his brother, Tom, a coast guard commander; and Maddie’s grieving sister, Hadley, the posh hotel becomes ground zero for an investigation. Trapped by the blizzard, they must hunker down and determine who in the young mother’s life could have possibly wanted her dead. There are stories of a twisted romantic past. Of old jealousies and resentments that still cut to the bone. And a history of greed, rage, and revenge that created the perfect storm for murder. A storm that has just begun.]]> 329 Luanne Rice 1542030218 Irena 0 to-read 4.05 2024 Last Night
author: Luanne Rice
name: Irena
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Malibu Burning (Sharpe & Walker #1)]]> 61334564 For a professional criminal and a relentless arson investigator, fear and revenge spread like wildfire in a an incendiary thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg.

Hell comes to Southern California every October. It rides in on searing Santa Ana winds that blast at near hurricane force, igniting voracious wildfires. Master thief Danny Cole longs for the flames. A tsunami of fire is exactly what he needs to pull off a daring crime and avenge a fallen friend.

As the most devastating firestorms in Los Angeles� history scorch the hills of Malibu, relentless arson investigator Walter Sharpe and his wild card of a new partner, Andrew Walker, a former US marshal, suspect that someone set the massive blazes intentionally, a terrifying means to an unknown end.

While the flames rage out of control, Danny pursues his brilliant scheme, unaware that Sharpe and Walker are closing in. But when they all collide in a canyon of fire, everything changes, pitting them against an unexpected enemy within an inescapable inferno.]]> 283 Lee Goldberg 1662500696 Irena 0 to-read 4.25 2023 Malibu Burning (Sharpe & Walker #1)
author: Lee Goldberg
name: Irena
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Murder at the End of the World]]> 197715421
Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched.

On the island: it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they're told by the scientists.

Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn't solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island—and everyone on it.

But the security system has also wiped everyone's memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer—and they don't even know it.

And the clock is ticking.

From the bestselling author of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water comes an inventive, high-concept murder mystery: an ingenious puzzle, an extraordinary backdrop, and an audacious solution.]]> 368 Stuart Turton Irena 0 to-read, kindle 3.86 2024 The Last Murder at the End of the World
author: Stuart Turton
name: Irena
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: to-read, kindle
review:

]]> The Daring Book for Girls 13624251 288 Andrea J. Buchanan 0062208969 Irena 0 school-library 4.39 2007 The Daring Book for Girls
author: Andrea J. Buchanan
name: Irena
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: school-library
review:

]]> A Story of Yesterday 58913358 Under a sky of different colors germinates a magical story of survival, where the result of each choice, enclosed in this particular tale, will snatch the whereabouts of each story forever.]]> 70 Sergio Cobo Irena 0 to-read 4.44 2014 A Story of Yesterday
author: Sergio Cobo
name: Irena
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Worst Case Scenario 210375937 Following her explosive debut thriller Falling and its harrowing follow-up Drowning, #1 internationally bestselling author T.J. Newman is back with Worst Case Scenario.

When a pilot suffers a heart attack at 35,000 feet, a commercial airliner filled with passengers crashes into a nuclear power plant in the small town of Waketa, Minnesota, which becomes ground zero for a catastrophic national crisis with global implications.

The International Nuclear Event Scale tracks nuclear disasters. It has seven levels. Level 7 is a Major Accident, with only two on record: Fukushima and Chernobyl. There has never been a Level 8. Until now.

In this heart-stopping thriller, ordinary people—power plant employees, firefighters, teachers, families, neighbors, and friends� are thrust into an extraordinary situation as they face the ultimate test of their lives. It will take the combined courage, ingenuity, and determination of a brave few to save not only their community and loved ones, but the fate of humanity at large.]]> 321 T.J. Newman 0316577871 Irena 0 to-read 4.26 2024 Worst Case Scenario
author: T.J. Newman
name: Irena
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ukrainian English Bilingual Visual Dictionary (DK Bilingual Visual Dictionaries)]]> 61154120
With over 6,500 fully illustrated words and phrases in Ukrainian and English, along with a free English audio app, DK’s English Ukrainian Bilingual Visual Dictionary is your essential companion for life in any English-speaking country.

You will learn all the words and phrases you need to buy food and clothes, talk about work and education, visit the doctor, go to the bank, use public transport, and much more. The dictionary is incredibly easy to follow, with thematically organized vocabulary so you can find closely related words on a particular topic. Words and phrases are illustrated with full-color photographs and artworks, helping to fix new vocabulary in your mind. A comprehensive, two-way index provides an instant reference point for new English vocabulary.

Ready to learn? Dive right in to

- A comprehensive two-way index provides instant reference
- Covers key topics including food and drink, transport, shopping, people, home, work, and leisure
- Additional panels include key nouns, verbs, and useful phrases
- Photos and text include all the latest technology and clothing

The supporting audio app enables you to hear all the words and phrases spoken out loud in English.The app is easy to use and helps you learn, remember, and pronounce important vocabulary.The dictionary gives a pronunciation guide for every English word, and you can use this alongside the app to perfect your pronunciation.

English Ukrainian Bilingual Visual Dictionary is perfect for tourists and business travelers, as well asUkrainian refugees who have come to live in English-speaking countries, Ukrainian-speaking students and teachers of English as a second language, alongside charities and organizations providing resources for Ukrainian refugees.]]> 360 D.K. Publishing 0744080037 Irena 0 school-library 3.50 Ukrainian English Bilingual Visual Dictionary (DK Bilingual Visual Dictionaries)
author: D.K. Publishing
name: Irena
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: school-library
review:

]]> Archon (Psi Chronicles, #2) 13438525 As the powerless and the powerful clash, allies and enemies are not always who they seem to be in this dynamic sequel to the dystopian novel Freakling.

Having used his unique connection with the Heart of the Earth to terminate the use of psi, or telekinesis, in the secluded city of Deliverance, twelve-year-old Taemon bears the burden of responsibility for the fate of its people. With society in disarray, his family missing, and tensions looming with the mysterious Republik, Taemon confronts the startling discovery that he alone can still use psi � and that it comes with a price. In an attempt to find his father and prevent war, Taemon and his friend Amma set out on a dangerous journey to the Republik. But what they find there is far from what they expected, and Taemon’s understanding of the world is challenged. Will his psi and his courage be enough to conquer the obstacles standing in the way of peace?]]> 320 Lana Krumwiede 0763664022 Irena 0 school-library 4.04 2013 Archon (Psi Chronicles, #2)
author: Lana Krumwiede
name: Irena
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: school-library
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When Bad Things Happen to Good People]]> 46676
When Harold Kushner’s three-year-old son was diagnosed with a degenerative disease that meant the boy would only live until his early teens, he was faced with one of life’s most difficult questions: Why, God? Years later, Rabbi Kushner wrote this straightforward, elegant contemplation of the doubts and fears that arise when tragedy strikes. In these pages, Kushner shares his wisdom as a rabbi, a parent, a reader, and a human being. Often imitated but never superseded, When Bad Things Happen to Good Peopl eis a classic that offers clear thinking and consolation in times of sorrow.]]> 176 Harold S. Kushner 1400034728 Irena 4 4.00 1981 When Bad Things Happen to Good People
author: Harold S. Kushner
name: Irena
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: school-library, non-fiction, grief-and-loss
review:

]]> <![CDATA[All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten]]> 34760 All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is brimming with the very stuff of life and the significance found in the smallest details.]]> 221 Robert Fulghum 034546639X Irena 4 school-library 4.02 1986 All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
author: Robert Fulghum
name: Irena
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: school-library
review:

]]> Just for the Summer 195834342
Emma hadn't planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially when they get to rent an adorable cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka.

It's supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma's toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they're suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected--including catching real feelings for each other. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?]]> 400 Abby Jimenez Irena 3 4.47 2024 Just for the Summer
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Irena
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves:
review:

]]> In Ascension 200624139 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZE

An astonishing novel about a young microbiologistinvestigating an unfathomable deep vent in the ocean floor, leading her on ajourney that will encompass the full trajectory of the cosmos and the passageof a single human life

Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as anescape from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by theundersea world of her childhood, she excels in marine biology, travelling theglobe to study ancient organisms. When a trench is discovered in the Atlanticocean, Leigh joins the exploration team, hoping to find evidence of the earth'sfirst life forms - what she instead finds calls into question everything weknow about our own beginnings.

Her discovery leads Leigh to the Mojave desert and an ambitious new spaceagency. Drawn deeper into the agency's work, she learns that the Atlantictrench is only one of several related phenomena from across the world, eachpiece linking up to suggest a pattern beyond human understanding. Leigh knowsthat to continue working with the agency will mean leaving behind her decliningmother and her younger sister, and faces an impossible to remain withher family, or to embark on a journey across the breadth of the cosmos.

Exploring the natural world with the wonder and reverence we usually reservefor the stars,In Ascensionis a compassionate, deeply inquisitiveepic that reaches outward to confront the greatest questions of existence,looks inward to illuminate the smallest details of the human heart, and showshow - no matter how far away we might be and how much we have lost hope - wewill always attempt to return to the people and places we call home.]]> 382 Martin MacInnes Irena 0 to-read 3.90 2023 In Ascension
author: Martin MacInnes
name: Irena
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Orbital 123314421 A singular new novel from Betty Trask Prize-winner Samantha Harvey,Orbitalis an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in 24 hours


"Ravishingly beautiful."—Joshua Ferris,New York Times

A slender novel of epic power,Orbitaldeftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space.Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate.

Profound and contemplative,Orbitalis a moving elegy to our environment and planet.]]> 212 Samantha Harvey 0802161553 Irena 0 3.89 2023 Orbital
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Irena
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read, new-publications-library
review:

]]> An Extraordinary Egg 375915 40 Leo Lionni 0679893857 Irena 4 4.08 1948 An Extraordinary Egg
author: Leo Lionni
name: Irena
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1948
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Frederick (Leo Lionni's Friends): A Lift-the-Flap Book]]> 59447029
Winter is coming, and all the mice are gathering food . . . except for Frederick. But when the days grow short and the snow begins to fall, it’s Frederick’s stories that warm the hearts and spirits of his fellow field mice. Winner of a 1967 Caldecott Honor, Frederick has been cherished by generations of readers.

“A splendid achievement.� � School Library Journal , starred review

“In Frederick, a mouse who is a poet from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail demonstrates that a seemingly purposeless life is indeed far from that—and that we need not live by bread alone!� —Eric Carle]]> 22 Leo Lionni 0593382145 Irena 3 school-library 3.83 1967 Frederick (Leo Lionni's Friends): A Lift-the-Flap Book
author: Leo Lionni
name: Irena
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1967
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: school-library
review:

]]> Heartwood 220259184 Heartwood takes you on a journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.

At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.]]> 320 Amity Gaige 1668063603 Irena 0 to-read 3.95 2025 Heartwood
author: Amity Gaige
name: Irena
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Ghost Marriage: A Memoir 57624414
Twenty-two years later, Steve has turned into someone quite different. Unemployed and addicted to opioids, he uses money and their two children to emotionally blackmail Kirsten. What's more, he's been having an affair with their real estate agent, who is also her close friend. So she divorces him--but after their divorce is finalized, Steve is diagnosed with colon cancer and dies within a year, leaving Kirsten with $1.5 million in debts she knew nothing about. It's then that she finally understands: The man she'd married was a needy, addictive person who came wrapped in a shiny package.

As she fights toward recovery, Kirsten begins to receive communications from Steve in the afterlife--which lead her on an unexpected path to forgiveness. The Ghost Marriage is her story of discovery -- that life isn't limited to the tangible reality we experience on this earth, and that our worst adversaries can become our greatest teachers.]]> 359 Kirsten Mickelwait 1647420318 Irena 3 4.22 2021 The Ghost Marriage: A Memoir
author: Kirsten Mickelwait
name: Irena
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: kindle, memoirs-biography, other-people-families
review:

]]> The Boyfriend 208503280 She's looking for the perfect man. He's looking for the perfect victim.

Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot.

Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet.

Then the brutal murder of a young woman―the latest in a string of deaths across the coast―confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them.

Sydney should feel safe. After all, she is dating the guy of her dreams. But she can’t shake her own suspicions that the perfect man may not be as perfect as he seems. Because someone is watching her every move, and if she doesn’t get to the truth, she’ll be the killer’s next victim...

A dark story about obsession and the things we’ll do for love, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden proves that crimes of passion are often the bloodiest…]]> 368 Freida McFadden 1728296226 Irena 2 kindle, suspense 3.95 2024 The Boyfriend
author: Freida McFadden
name: Irena
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: kindle, suspense
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What Happens in Paradise (Paradise #2)]]> 43925625 Spend your winter on sunlit shores in the New York Times bestselling follow-up to Winter in Paradise, as secret lives and new loves emerge under the bright Caribbean sky.A year ago, Irene Steele had the shock of her her loving husband, father to their grown sons and successful businessman, was killed in a helicopter crash. But that wasn't Irene's only shattering he'd also been leading a double life on the island of St. John, where another woman loved him, too.Now Irene and her sons are back on St. John, determined to learn the truth about the mysterious life—and death—of a man they thought they knew. Along the way, they're about to learn some surprising truths about their own lives, and their futures.Lush with the tropical details, romance, and drama that made Winter in Paradise a national bestseller, What Happens in Paradise is another immensely satisfying page-turner from one of America's most beloved and engaging storytellers.]]> 337 Elin Hilderbrand Irena 4 4.21 2019 What Happens in Paradise (Paradise #2)
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Irena
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Troubles in Paradise (Paradise, #3)]]> 51113650 What happened in Paradise? At last all will be revealed about the secrets and lies that led Irene and her sons to St. John -- and to new lives that transformed them all.]]> 355 Elin Hilderbrand Irena 4 4.18 2020 Troubles in Paradise (Paradise, #3)
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Irena
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: expatriates-europe-living-abroad, islands, kindle, other-people-families, romantic-light
review:

]]> The Marriage Sabbatical 179439653
After twenty-three years of building careers and raising kids together, Jason and Nicole Elswick are ready for a break from their daily lives. Jason has spent years planning his dream sabbatical—ditching work for a nine-month-long motorcycle trip through South America. Problem is, that’s Jason’s dream, not Nicole’s. After years working retail and parenting in Portland, Nicole craves the sun of the Southwest and the artistic community in Santa Fe, where she wants to learn jewelry design.

A chance encounter at a dinner party presents a surprising—and intriguing—way out of their dilemma. Over a little too much wine, Jason and Nicole’s married neighbors sing the praises of the 500 Mile Rule: their policy of enjoying themselves however they wish—and with whomever they wish—when they’re temporarily far apart. It seems like the perfect solution: nine months pursuing their own adventures—with a bit of don’t-ask-don’t-tell—and then a return to their shared lives. It’ll be a sabbatical from their marriage as well as their day jobs. As Jason bikes his way across a continent and Nicole reclaims the art she’s long neglected, they discover the pleasures and pitfalls of the 500 Mile Rule, confronting temptations of all kinds, uncomfortable truths about themselves, and gaining new perspective on their partnership. But all sabbaticals come to an end…then what?]]> 288 Lian Dolan 0063270617 Irena 3 3.64 2024 The Marriage Sabbatical
author: Lian Dolan
name: Irena
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/29
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: kindle, other-people-families, romantic-light, new-mexico-zuni
review:

]]> Held 200241802
1917. On a battlefield near the River Aisne, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast—as the snow falls.

1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river—alive, but not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his ghosts whose messages he cannot understand .

So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, and transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later. This resonance through time—not only of actions but also of feelings and perceptions—desire in its many forms—are at the heart of this novel’s profound investigation.

Held is a deeply affecting and intensely beautiful novel, full of unforgettable characters and imagery, wisdom and compassion. It explores the deepest mysteries, and the ways in which desire in its many forms—andperhaps the deepest desire, to find meaning—manifests itself. Held moves through history to light upon Darwin, Sir Ernest Rutherford, North Sea ganseys, early photography, Ella Mary Leather, modern field hospitals…while lovers find each other and snow drifts down across the centuries. From the WW1 battlefield where the novel begins, and its opening lines, Held is alive with "We know life is finite. Why should we believe death lasts forever?”]]> 240 Anne Michaels 0771005458 Irena 0 to-read 3.50 2023 Held
author: Anne Michaels
name: Irena
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Heartfelt Poetry Collection 60572842 93 Ruchi Acharya Irena 0 to-read 4.00 Heartfelt Poetry Collection
author: Ruchi Acharya
name: Irena
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Irena 0 to-read 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Irena
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Winter in Paradise (Paradise #1)]]> 38472072 Spend the coldest days of winter on a Caribbean beach with New York Times Bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand.

Join New York Times Bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand on the stunning beaches of St. John's for the beginning of her thrilling new winter series-The Paradise. Winter Paradise, the first book in the Paradise series, has everything that readers have come to know and love about an Elin Hilderbrand novel, plus a healthy dose of intrigue. Irene Steele's idyllic life-house, husband, family-is shattered when she is woken up by a late-night phone call. Her beloved husband has been found dead, but before Irene can process this tragic news, she must confront the perplexing details of her husband's death. He was found on St. John's island, a tropical paradise far removed from their suburban life. Leaving the cold winter behind, Irene flies down to the beautiful Caribbean beaches of St. John's only to make another shocking discovery: her husband had a secret second family. As Irene investigates the mysterious circumstances of her husband's death, she is plunged into a web of intrigue and deceit belied by the pristine white sand beaches of St. John's. This exciting first book in the Paradise series will transport readers to a new beach locale-another world that Elin knows as well as her beloved Nantucket-and have them longing for winter]]> 321 Elin Hilderbrand Irena 3 4.28 2018 Winter in Paradise (Paradise #1)
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Irena
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: expatriates-europe-living-abroad, islands, kindle, other-people-families, romantic-light, world, grief-and-loss
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The House at Pooh Corner (Winnie-the-Pooh, #2)]]> 776407 180 A.A. Milne 0525444440 Irena 0 my-parents-library 4.37 1928 The House at Pooh Corner (Winnie-the-Pooh, #2)
author: A.A. Milne
name: Irena
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: my-parents-library
review:

]]> The Love of My Afterlife 199698229 A recently deceased woman meets “the one� in the afterlife waiting room, scoring a second chance at life (and love!) if she can find him on earth before ten days are up�

If she wasn’t dead already, Delphie would be dying of embarrassment. Not only did she just die by choking on a microwaveable burger, but now she’s standing in her ‘shine like a star� nightie in front of the hottest man she’s ever seen. And he’s smiling at her.

As they start to chat, everything else becomes background noise. That is until someone comes running out of a door, yelling something about a huge mistake, and sends the dreamy stranger back down to earth. And here Delphie was thinking her luck might be different in the afterlife.

When Delphie is offered a deal in which she can return to earth and reconnect with the mysterious man, she jumps at the opportunity to find her possible soulmate and a fresh start. But in a city of millions, Delphie is going to have to listen to her heart, learn to ask for help, and perhaps even see the magic in the life she’s leaving behind…]]> 384 Kirsty Greenwood Irena 3 4.16 2024 The Love of My Afterlife
author: Kirsty Greenwood
name: Irena
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/02
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves:
review:

]]> The Sisters Brothers 9850443
With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters - losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life - and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West, and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.]]> 328 Patrick deWitt 0062041266 Irena 0 to-read 3.84 2011 The Sisters Brothers
author: Patrick deWitt
name: Irena
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Irena 0 brittish, my-parents-library 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Irena
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: brittish, my-parents-library
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Far from the Tree: How Children and Their Parents Learn to Accept One Another . . . Our Differences Unite Us]]> 25785693 New York Times bestselling author Andrew Solomon comes a stunning, poignant, and affecting young adult edition of his award-winning masterpiece, Far From the Tree, which explores the impact of extreme differences between parents and children.

The old adage says that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, meaning that children usually resemble their parents. But what happens when the apples fall somewhere else—sometimes a couple of orchards away, sometimes on the other side of the world?

In this young adult edition, Andrew Solomon profiles how families accommodate children who have a variety of differences: families of people who are deaf, who are dwarfs, who have Down syndrome, who have autism, who have schizophrenia, who have multiple severe disabilities, who are prodigies, who commit crimes, and more.

Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker, Far From the Tree explores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other—a theme in every family’s life. The New York Times calls the adult edition a “wise and beautiful� volume, that “will shake up your preconceptions and leave you in a better place.”]]> 464 Laurie Calkhoven 148144090X Irena 5 4.18 2012 Far from the Tree: How Children and Their Parents Learn to Accept One Another . . . Our Differences Unite Us
author: Laurie Calkhoven
name: Irena
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2019/10/10
date added: 2024/11/25
shelves:
review:

]]> The Villa 60825634 From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins comes a deliciously wicked gothic suspense, set at an Italian villa with a dark history, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.

As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend.

Villa Aestas in Orvieto is a high-end holiday home now, but in 1974, it was known as Villa Rosato, and rented for the summer by a notorious rock star, Noel Gordon. In an attempt to reignite his creative spark, Noel invites up-and-coming musician, Pierce Sheldon to join him, as well as Pierce’s girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister, Lara. But he also sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Mari writing one of the greatest horror novels of all time, Lara composing a platinum album––and ends in Pierce’s brutal murder.

As Emily digs into the villa’s complicated history, she begins to think there might be more to the story of that fateful summer in 1974. That perhaps Pierce’s murder wasn’t just a tale of sex, drugs, and rock & roll gone wrong, but that something more sinister might have occurred––and that there might be clues hidden in the now-iconic works that Mari and Lara left behind.

Yet the closer that Emily gets to the truth, the more tension she feels developing between her and Chess. As secrets from the past come to light, equally dangerous betrayals from the present also emerge––and it begins to look like the villa will claim another victim before the summer ends.]]> 290 Rachel Hawkins 1250280028 Irena 4 3.85 2023 The Villa
author: Rachel Hawkins
name: Irena
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/14
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: kindle, suspense, expatriates-europe-living-abroad, bards-beatniks-and-hippies
review:

]]> Parents Weekend 217387739 From the bestselling author of If Something Happens to Me, comes one of the year’s most anticipated thrillers.

In the glow of their children’s exciting first year of college at a small private school in Northern California, five families plan on a night of dinner and cocktails for the opening festivities of Parents Weekend. As the parents stay out way past their bedtimes, their kids—five residents of Campisi Hall—never show up at dinner.

At first, everyone thinks that they’re just being college students, irresponsibly forgetting about the gathering or skipping out to go to a party. But as the hours click by and another night falls with not so much as a text from the students, panic ensues. Soon, the campus police call in reinforcements. Search parties are formed. Reporters swarm the small enclave. Rumors swirl and questions arise.

Libby, Blane, Mark, Felix, and Stella—The Five, as the podcasters, bloggers, and TikTok sleuths call them—come from five very different families. What led them out on that fateful night? Could it be the sins of their mothers and fathers come to cause them peril or a threat to the friend group from within?

Told through multiple points of view in past and present—and marking the return of FBI Special Agent Sarah Keller from Every Last Fear and The Night Shift—Parents Weekend explores the weight of expectation, family dysfunction, and those exhilarating first days we all remember in the dorms when our friends become our family.]]> 320 Alex Finlay 1250360722 Irena 0 to-read 3.66 2025 Parents Weekend
author: Alex Finlay
name: Irena
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century]]> 2917848 349 Edward Dolnick 0060825413 Irena 0 to-read 3.86 2008 The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century
author: Edward Dolnick
name: Irena
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way]]> 11151351 This vastly expanded edition, as of October 2014, includes an afterword, a detailed look at further financial improprieties committed by Mortenson, an analysis of his recent claims of innocence, and fresh evidence from new sources from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the US.Greg Mortenson has built a global reputation as a selfless humanitarian and children’s crusader, and he’s been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is also not what he appears to be. As acclaimed author Jon Krakauer discovered, Mortenson has not only fabricated substantial parts of his bestselling books Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, but has also misused millions of dollars donated by unsuspecting admirers like Krakauer himself.This is the tragic tale of good intentions gone very wrong.One hundred percent of Jon Krakauer's proceeds from the sale of Three Cups of Deceit will be donated to the "Stop Girl Trafficking" project at the American Himalayan Foundation ( THE AUTHORJon Krakauer is the author of "Eiger Dreams", "Into the Wild", "Into Thin Air", "Under the Banner of Heaven", and "Where Men Win Glory" and is the editor of the Modern Library Exploration series.PRAISE FOR "THREE CUPS OF DECEIT""The truth matters. Jon Krakauer's takedown of Greg Mortenson's book "Three Cups of Tea" and the charitable foundation he built from it is devastating. It is not just the fascinating story of a huckster who took publishers, philanthropists, journalists, academics, and a gullible public for a ride, but a detailed trip into the slippery netherworld where what matters most is what sells, not what really happened." —Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down""Packed with interviews and anecdotes that undercut Mortenson's image as a cheerful do-gooder, Krakauer's account of good intentions gone horribly wrong is a stunning example of investigative journalism." —Publishers Weekly“Krakauer forcefully claims that Mortenson improperly used his charity’s funds and failed to build all the schools he says he did.� —Elizabeth Taylor, Literary Editor, Chicago Tribune]]> 77 Jon Krakauer 1614520011 Irena 2 hoax-in-literature 3.70 2011 Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Irena
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/11/19
shelves: hoax-in-literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine]]> 2634030
Written in exquisite, spare, unflinching prose, The Road of Lost Innocence recounts the experiences of her early life and tells the story of her awakening as an activist and her harrowing and brave fight against the powerful and corrupt forces that steal the lives of these girls. She has orchestrated raids on brothels and rescued sex workers, some as young as five and six; she has built shelters, started schools, and founded an organization that has so far saved more than four thousand women and children in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. Her memoir will leave you awestruck by her tenacity and courage and will renew your faith in the power of an individual to bring about change.]]> 193 Somaly Mam 0385526210 Irena 0 hoax-in-literature 4.20 2005 The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine
author: Somaly Mam
name: Irena
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/19
shelves: hoax-in-literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Environmental Preservation and the Grey Cliffs Conflict: Negotiating Common Narratives, Values, and Ethos]]> 201306361 268 Kristin Pickering 164642574X Irena 0 to-read 2.50 Environmental Preservation and the Grey Cliffs Conflict: Negotiating Common Narratives, Values, and Ethos
author: Kristin Pickering
name: Irena
average rating: 2.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Hundred-Year Barn 43245848 The story of a red barn and the people who call it home.

One hundred years ago, a little boy watched his family and community come together to build a grand red barn. This barn become his refuge and home—a place to play with friends and farm animals alike.

As seasons passed, the barn weathered many storms. The boy left and returned a young man, to help on the farm and to care for the barn again. The barn has stood for one hundred years, and it will stand for a hundred more: a symbol of peace, stability, caring and community.]]> 48 Patricia MacLachlan 0062687735 Irena 0 school-library 4.13 2019 The Hundred-Year Barn
author: Patricia MacLachlan
name: Irena
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: school-library
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn (Kenard Pak's Changing Seasons)]]> 25774391
Join a young girl as she takes a walk through forest and town, greeting all the signs of the coming season. In a series of conversations with every flower and creature and gust of wind, she says good-bye to summer and welcomes autumn.]]> 32 Kenard Pak 1627794158 Irena 4 school-library, story-time 3.93 2016 Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn (Kenard Pak's Changing Seasons)
author: Kenard Pak
name: Irena
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: school-library, story-time
review:

]]>