Stephanie's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 24 Mar 2020 01:44:13 -0700 60 Stephanie's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)]]> 37684 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for the youngest fans! Introduce them to the magic of Narnia with this picture book featuring illustrations by Tudor Humphries.

Now younger children can share the magical experience, entering into a world of enchantment that will forever lure them back. Four adventurous siblings step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter—but never Christmas—cursed by the power of the White Witch. Only Aslan, the Great Lion, can reverse her wicked spell.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe can also be read as a novel. It is the second book in C. S. Lewis's classic fantasy series, The Chronicles of Narnia, which has been drawing readers of all ages into a magical land with unforgettable characters for over sixty years.]]> 48 Hiawyn Oram 0060556501 Stephanie 4 4.42 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)
author: Hiawyn Oram
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.42
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2020/03/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)]]> 1 652 J.K. Rowling Stephanie 5 4.57 2005 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2014/04/28
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]]> Beowulf: A Verse Translation 19184
Beowulf is the greatest surviving work of literature in Old English, unparalleled in its epic grandeur and scope. It tells the story of the heroic Beowulf and of his battles, first with the monster Grendel, who has laid waste to the great hall of the Danish king Hrothgar, then with Grendel's avenging mother, and finally with a dragon that threatens to devastate his homeland. Through its blend of myth and history, Beowulf vividly evokes a twilight world in which men and supernatural forces live side by side. And it celebrates the endurance of the human spirit in a transient world.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 137 Unknown 0140449310 Stephanie 4 3.47 1000 Beowulf: A Verse Translation
author: Unknown
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.47
book published: 1000
rating: 4
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date added: 2010/09/05
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]]> Invisible Touch 2238575 Because Kara has a gift -- one that often feels like a curse. She sees signs, visions that are clues to a person's fate, if she can put together the pieces of the puzzle in time. So far, she's been able to solve the clues and avert disaster for those she's been warned about -- until she sees the flash of a gun on a fellow classmate, and the stakes are raised higher than ever before. Kara does her best to follow the signs, but it's her heart that wanders into new territory when she falls for a mysterious guy from the wrong side of town, taking her closer to answers she may not be able to handle. Will her forbidden romance help her solve the deadly puzzle before it's too late...or lead her even further into danger?

]]> 288 Kelly Parra 1416563377 Stephanie 5 4.00 2008 Invisible Touch
author: Kelly Parra
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2008
rating: 5
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date added: 2008/09/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Ink Exchange (Wicked Lovely, #2)]]> 2321296
Seventeen-year-old Leslie knows nothing of faeries or their intrigues. When she is attracted to an eerily beautiful tattoo of eyes and wings, all she knows is that she has to have it, convinced it is a tangible symbol of changes she desperately craves for her own life.

The tattoo does bring changes, but not the kind Leslie has dreamed of, but sinister, compelling changes that are more than symbolic. Those changes will bind Leslie and Irial together, drawing Leslie deeper and deeper into the faery world, unable to resist its allures, and helpless to withstand its perils. . .]]> 325 Melissa Marr 006121468X Stephanie 5 currently-reading 3.70 2008 Ink Exchange (Wicked Lovely, #2)
author: Melissa Marr
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/05/01
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2)]]> 49041 There is an alternate cover edition for ISBN13 9780316160193 here.

I knew we were both in mortal danger. Still, in that instant, I felt well. Whole. I could feel my heart racing in my chest, the blood pulsing hot and fast through my veins again. My lungs filled deep with the sweet scent that came off his skin. It was like there had never been any hole in my chest. I was perfect - not healed, but as if there had never been a wound in the first place.

I FELT LIKE I WAS TRAPPED IN ONE OF THOSE TERRIFYING NIGHTMARES, the one where you have to run, run till your lungs burst, but you can't make your body move fast enough.... But this was no dream, and, unlike the nightmare, I wasn't running for my life; I was racing to save something infinitely more precious. My own life meant little to me today.

FOR BELLA SWAN THERE IS ONE THING more important than life itself: Edward Cullen. But being in love with a vampire is even more dangerous than Bella could ever have imagined. Edward has already rescued Bella from the clutches of one evil vampire, but now, as their daring relationship threatens all that is near and dear to them, they realize their troubles may be just beginning....

LEGIONS OF READERS ENTRANCED BY THE New York Times bestseller Twilight are hungry for the continuing story of star-crossed lovers Bell and Edward. In New Moon, Stephanie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural spin. passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.]]> 563 Stephenie Meyer 0316160199 Stephanie 3 3.60 2006 New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2008/05/01
date added: 2008/05/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Twilight (The Twilight Saga, #1)]]> 41865
First, Edward was a vampire.

Second, there was a part of him - and I didn't know how dominant that part might be - that thirsted for my blood.

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Deeply seductive and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight is a love story with bite.]]> 498 Stephenie Meyer 0316015849 Stephanie 4 3.66 2005 Twilight (The Twilight Saga, #1)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2008/04/23
date added: 2008/02/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Red: The Next Generation of American Writers--Teenage Girls--On What Fires Up Their Lives Today]]> 751887
If you're a teenage girl today, you live your life in words-in text and instant messages, on blogs and social network pages. It's how you conduct your friendships and present yourself to the world. Every day, you're creating a formidable body of personal written work.

This generation's unprecedented comfort level with the written word has led to a fearless new American literature. These collected essays, at last, offer a key to understanding the inscrutable teenage girl-one of the most mislabeled and underestimated members of society, argues editor and writer Amy Goldwasser, whose work has appeared in Seventeen , Vogue , The New York Times , and The New Yorker . And while psychologists and other experts have tried to explain the teen girl in recent years, no book since Ophelia Speaks has given her the opportunity to speak for herself-until now.

In this eye-opening collection, nearly sixty teenage girls from across the country speak out, writing about everything from post-Katrina New Orleans to Johnny Depp; from learning to rock climb to starting a rock band; from the loneliness of losing a best friend to the loathing or pride they feel about their bodies. Ranging in age from 13 to 19, and hailing from Park Avenue to rural Nevada, Georgia to Hawaii, the girls in RED-whose essays were selected from more than 800 contributions-represent a diverse spectrum of socioeconomic, political, racial, and religious backgrounds, creating a rich portrait of life as a teen girl in America today.

Revealing the complicated inner lives, humor, hopes, struggles, thrills, and obsessions of this generation, RED ultimately provides today's teen girl with much-needed community, perspective, and validation-and helps the rest of us to better understand her.]]> 288 Amy Goldwasser 1594630402 Stephanie 0 currently-reading 3.77 2007 Red: The Next Generation of American Writers--Teenage Girls--On What Fires Up Their Lives Today
author: Amy Goldwasser
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2008/02/01
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[The Second Virginity of Suzy Green]]> 1713868 264 Sara Hantz 073871139X Stephanie 0 currently-reading 3.32 2007 The Second Virginity of Suzy Green
author: Sara Hantz
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/02/01
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Revenge of the Homecoming Queen (Aspen Brooks, #1)]]> 332402 304 Stephanie Hale 0425216152 Stephanie 0 to-read 3.54 2007 Revenge of the Homecoming Queen (Aspen Brooks, #1)
author: Stephanie Hale
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2008/02/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> Wicked Game (WVMP Radio, #1) 2669405 LATE NIGHT RADIO YOU CAN SINK YOUR TEETH INTO

Recovering con artist Ciara Griffin is trying to live the straight life, even if it means finding a (shudder!) real job. She takes an internship at a local radio station, whose late-night time-warp format features 1940s blues, '60s psychedelia, '80s goth, and more, all with an uncannily authentic flair. Ciara soon discovers just how the DJs maintain their cred: they're vampires, stuck forever in the eras in which they were turned.

Ciara's first instinct, as always, is to cut and run. But communications giant Skywave wants to buy WVMP and turn it into just another hit-playing clone. Without the station — and the link it provides to their original Life Times — the vampires would "fade," becoming little more than mindless ghosts of the past. Suddenly a routine corporate takeover is a matter of life and undeath.

To boost ratings and save the lives of her strange new friends, Ciara rebrands the station as "WVMP, the Lifeblood of Rock 'n' Roll." In the ultimate con, she hides the DJs' vampire nature in plain sight, disguising the bloody truth as a marketing gimmick. WVMP becomes the hottest thing around — next to Ciara's complicated affair with grunge vamp Shane McAllister. But the "gimmick" enrages a posse of ancient and powerful vampires who aren't so eager to be brought into the light. Soon the stakes are higher — and the perils graver — than any con game Ciara's ever played...]]> 361 Jeri Smith-Ready 141655176X Stephanie 5 3.70 2008 Wicked Game (WVMP Radio, #1)
author: Jeri Smith-Ready
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2008/03/23
date added: 2008/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3)]]> 428263 "BELLA?"
Edward's soft voice came from behind me. I turned to see him spring lightly up the porch steps, his hair windblown from running. He pulled me into his arms at once, just like he had in the parking lot, and kissed me again.
This kiss frightened me. There was too much tension, too strong an edge to the way his lips crushed mine - like he was afraid we had only so much time left to us.

As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob - knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which?

READERS CAPTIVATED BY Twilight AND New Moon will eagerly devour Eclipse, the much-anticipated third book in Stephenie Meyer's riveting vampire love saga.]]> 629 Stephenie Meyer 0316160202 Stephanie 0 to-read 3.73 2007 Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/02/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> Girl, Interrupted 68783
Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties. Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching documnet that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.]]> 169 Susanna Kaysen 0679746048 Stephanie 4 3.95 1993 Girl, Interrupted
author: Susanna Kaysen
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/01/29
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]]> The Virgin Suicides 10956 250 Jeffrey Eugenides 0747560595 Stephanie 4 3.81 1993 The Virgin Suicides
author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1993
rating: 4
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date added: 2008/01/29
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]]> The Outsiders 231804 The Outsiders is about two weeks in the life of a 14-year-old boy. The novel tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser.

Librarian note: This record is for one of the three editions published with different covers and with ISBN 0-140-38572-X / 978-0-14-038572-4. The records are for the 1988 cover (this record), the 1995 cover, and the 2008 cover which is also the current in-print cover.]]> 208 S.E. Hinton 0670532576 Stephanie 4 4.13 1967 The Outsiders
author: S.E. Hinton
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1967
rating: 4
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date added: 2008/01/22
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]]> A Farewell to Arms 10799 A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield - the weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote his ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right.]]> 293 Ernest Hemingway 0099910101 Stephanie 1 3.83 1929 A Farewell to Arms
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1929
rating: 1
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway]]> 4625 THE ONLY COMPLETE COLLECTION BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR

In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection. For Hemingway fans The Complete Short Stories is an invaluable treasury.]]> 650 Ernest Hemingway 0684843323 Stephanie 1 4.30 1987 The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1987
rating: 1
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> The Old Man and the Sea 2165 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

This short novel, already a modern classic, is the superbly told, tragic story of a Cuban fisherman in the Gulf Stream and the giant Marlin he kills and loses—specifically referred to in the citation accompanying the author's Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.]]> 96 Ernest Hemingway 0684830493 Stephanie 1 3.81 1952 The Old Man and the Sea
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1952
rating: 1
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> Lolita 7604 Librarian's note: Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141182537.

Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Dolores Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.]]> 368 Vladimir Nabokov 0679723161 Stephanie 4 3.87 1955 Lolita
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1955
rating: 4
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]> 311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X Stephanie 4 4.15 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 4
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Little Women (Little Women, #1)]]> 1934 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780451529305.

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.

It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with "woman’s work,� including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the "girl’s book� her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.

]]> 449 Louisa May Alcott Stephanie 4 4.16 1868 Little Women (Little Women, #1)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1868
rating: 4
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)]]> 34
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkeness bind them

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, The Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit.

In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.
--back cover]]> 398 J.R.R. Tolkien 0618346252 Stephanie 4 4.36 1954 The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1954
rating: 4
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> Romeo and Juliet 18135 Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud.

In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers� final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers.]]> 281 William Shakespeare 0743477111 Stephanie 5 3.74 1597 Romeo and Juliet
author: William Shakespeare
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1597
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]> 2956 327 Mark Twain 0142437174 Stephanie 4 3.82 1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
author: Mark Twain
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1884
rating: 4
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> The Grapes of Wrath 4395 The Grapes of Wrath is a landmark of American literature. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. Although it follows the movement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma family, the Joads, who are driven off their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.

First published in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath summed up its era in the way that Uncle Tom's Cabin summed up the years of slavery before the Civil War. Sensitive to fascist and communist criticism, Steinbeck insisted that "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" be printed in its entirety in the first edition of the book—which takes its title from the first verse: "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s fictional chronicle of the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s is perhaps the most American of American Classics.]]> 455 John Steinbeck Stephanie 5 3.88 1939 The Grapes of Wrath
author: John Steinbeck
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1939
rating: 5
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]]> Of Mice and Men 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.�

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]> 107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 Stephanie 4 3.88 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 4
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]]> Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Stephanie 4 3.70 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 4
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]]> Memoirs of a Geisha 930
In "Memoirs of a Geisha," we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction - at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful - and completely unforgettable.]]> 434 Arthur Golden 0739326228 Stephanie 4 4.07 1997 Memoirs of a Geisha
author: Arthur Golden
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1997
rating: 4
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hobbit, or There and Back Again]]> 5907 Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).]]> 366 J.R.R. Tolkien Stephanie 4 4.29 1937 The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1937
rating: 4
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]]> Where the Sidewalk Ends 30119 Come in... for where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein's world begins.

Shel Silverstein, the New York Times bestselling author of The Giving Tree, A Light in the Attic, Falling Up, and Every Thing On It, has created a poetry collection that is outrageously funny and deeply profound.

You'll meet a boy who turns into a TV set, and a girl who eats a whale. The Unicorn and the Bloath live there, and so does Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who will not take the garbage out. It is a place where you wash your shadow and plant diamond gardens, a place where shoes fly, sisters are auctioned off, and crocodiles go to the dentist.

Shel Silverstein's masterful collection of poems and drawings stretches the bounds of imagination and will be cherished by readers of all ages.]]> 176 Shel Silverstein 0060513039 Stephanie 3 4.34 1974 Where the Sidewalk Ends
author: Shel Silverstein
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1974
rating: 3
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> 1984 5470 328 George Orwell Stephanie 4 4.15 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 4
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)]]> 5 435 J.K. Rowling 043965548X Stephanie 5 4.57 1999 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1999
rating: 5
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)]]> 2
Harry has had enough. He is beginning to think he must do something, anything, to change his situation, when the summer holidays come to an end in a very dramatic fashion. What Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his world upside down...]]> 912 J.K. Rowling Stephanie 5 4.50 2003 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)]]> 6 734 J.K. Rowling 0439139597 Stephanie 5 4.56 2000 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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]]> The Great Gatsby 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Stephanie 4 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)]]> 15881
And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls� bathroom. But then the real trouble begins � someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects� Harry Potter himself!]]> 352 J.K. Rowling Stephanie 4 4.42 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1998
rating: 4
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]]> The Catcher in the Rye 5107 It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school...

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

J.D. Salinger's (1919�2010) classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.]]> 277 J.D. Salinger 0316769177 Stephanie 4 3.81 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)]]> 3 309 J.K. Rowling 0439554934 Stephanie 5 4.47 1997 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)]]> 136251
In this final, seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited.]]> 759 J.K. Rowling Stephanie 5 4.61 2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> To Kill a Mockingbird 2657
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, "To Kill A Mockingbird" takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.]]> 323 Harper Lee 0060935464 Stephanie 5 4.25 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present]]> 2767 Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen as the exploitation and manipulation of the majority by rigged systems that hugely favor a small aggregate of elite rulers from across the orthodox political parties.
A People's History has been assigned as reading in many high schools and colleges across the United States. It has also resulted in a change in the focus of historical work, which now includes stories that previously were ignored

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s book “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those…whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.”]]> 729 Howard Zinn 0060838655 Stephanie 5 4.07 1980 A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present
author: Howard Zinn
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1980
rating: 5
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]]> A Streetcar Named Desire 653945
Produced across the world, translated into many languages, and recreated as a prize-winning film, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE has attracted one of the most widely audiences in contemporary literature.]]> 142 Tennessee Williams 0451167783 Stephanie 4 3.90 1947 A Streetcar Named Desire
author: Tennessee Williams
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1947
rating: 4
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]]> Nine Stories 77532
The stories are:

"A Perfect Day for Bananafish"
"Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut"
"Just Before the War with the Eskimos"
"The Laughing Man"
"Down at the Dinghy"
"For Esmé � with Love and Squalor"
"Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes"
"De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period"
"Teddy"]]> 198 J.D. Salinger 0316769509 Stephanie 2 4.12 1953 Nine Stories
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1953
rating: 2
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]]> <![CDATA[Naked Lunch: The Restored Text]]> 7437 Naked Lunch is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century, a book that redefined not just literature but American culture. An unnerving tale of a narcotics addict unmoored in New York, Tangier, and ultimately a nightmarish wasteland known as Interzone, its formal innovation, taboo subject matter, and tour de force execution have exerted a significant influence on authors like Thomas Pynchon, J. G. Ballard, and William Gibson; on the relationship of art and obscenity; and on the shape of music, film, and media generally. Naked Lunch: The Restored Text includes many editorial corrections to errors present in previous editions, and incorporates Burroughs’s notes on the text, several essays he wrote over the years about the book, and an appendix of 20 percent new material and alternate drafts from the original manuscript, which predates the first published version. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume is a valuable and fresh experience of this classic of our culture.]]> 289 William S. Burroughs 0802140181 Stephanie 3 3.48 1959 Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
author: William S. Burroughs
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1959
rating: 3
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]]> Nausea 298275 Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the world and people around him.

His thoughts culminate in a pervasive, overpowering feeling of nausea which "spread at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time, the time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain."

Roquentin's efforts to try and come to terms with his life, his philosophical and psychological struggles, give Sartre the opportunity to dramatize the tenets of his Existentialist creed.

The introduction for this edition of Nausea by Hayden Carruth gives background on Sartre's life and major works, a summary of the principal themes of Existentialist philosophy, and a critical analysis of the novel itself.]]> 178 Jean-Paul Sartre 0811201880 Stephanie 4 3.96 1938 Nausea
author: Jean-Paul Sartre
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1938
rating: 4
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]]> Fahrenheit 451 4381 158 Ray Bradbury 0307347974 Stephanie 4 3.96 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1953
rating: 4
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]]> Great Expectations 16151 128 Kathy Acker 0802131557 Stephanie 3 3.65 1982 Great Expectations
author: Kathy Acker
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1982
rating: 3
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]]> Medea and Other Plays 1473 256 Euripides 0140449299 Stephanie 5 4.00 -428 Medea and Other Plays
author: Euripides
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.00
book published: -428
rating: 5
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]]> A Separate Peace 5148 A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to the second world war.

Set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.

A bestseller for more than thirty years, A Separate Peace is John Knowles crowning achievement and an undisputed American classic.]]> 208 John Knowles Stephanie 3 3.60 1959 A Separate Peace
author: John Knowles
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1959
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Fire: From "A Journal of Love": The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1934-1937]]> 18349 ]]> 434 Anaïs Nin 0156003902 Stephanie 4 4.12 1987 Fire: From "A Journal of Love": The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1934-1937
author: Anaïs Nin
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1987
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Children of the Albatross (Cities of the Interior #2)]]> 248641 Children of the Albatross is divided into two sections: "The Sealed Room" focuses on the dancer Djuna and a set of characters, chiefly male, who surround her; "The Caf�" brings together a cast of characters already familiar to Nin's readers, but it is their meeting place that is the focal point of the story.

As always, in Children of the Albatross, Nin's writing is inseparable from her life. From Djuna's story, told in "The Sealed Room" through hints and allusions, hazy in their details and chronology, the most important event to emerge is her father's desertion (like Nin's) when she was sixteen. By rejecting realistic writing for the experience and intuitions she drew from her diary, Nin was able to forge a novelistic style emphasizing free association, spontaneity, and improvisation, a technique that finds its parallel in the jazz music performed at the caf� where Nin's characters meet.]]> 182 Anaïs Nin 0720611652 Stephanie 3 3.92 1959 Children of the Albatross (Cities of the Interior #2)
author: Anaïs Nin
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1959
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Ladders to Fire (Cities of the Interior #1)]]> 18358 Ladders to Fire interweaves the stories of several women, each emotionally inhibited in her own way: through self-doubt, fear, guilt, moral drift, and distrust. The novel follows their inner struggles to overcome these barriers to happiness and wholeness. The author's own experiences, as recorded in her famous diaries, supplied the raw material for her fiction. It was her intuitive, experimental, and always original style that transformed one into the other. Nin herself memorably claimed that "it was the fiction writer who edited the diary."

Ladders to Fire is the first book of Nin's continuous novel, Cities of the Interior, which also includes Children of the Albatross, The Four-Chambered Heart, A Spy in the House of Love, and Seduction of the Minotaur. These loosely interlinked stories develop the characters and themes established in the first volume, leading slowly toward a resolution of inner turmoil and conflict.

This Swallow Press reissue of Ladders to Fire includes a new introduction by Nin scholar Benjamin Franklin V, as well as Gunther Stuhlmann's classic foreword to the 1995 edition.]]> 152 Anaïs Nin 0804001812 Stephanie 3 3.78 1946 Ladders to Fire (Cities of the Interior #1)
author: Anaïs Nin
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1946
rating: 3
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]]> Henry and June 168425 288 Anaïs Nin 0141183284 Stephanie 4 3.76 1986 Henry and June
author: Anaïs Nin
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1986
rating: 4
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]]> Little Birds 815637 144 Anaïs Nin 0141183403 Stephanie 4 3.54 1979 Little Birds
author: Anaïs Nin
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.54
book published: 1979
rating: 4
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]]> The Metamorphosis 485894 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 0553213695 / 9780553213690

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."

With it's startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first opening, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote, "Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man."]]> 201 Franz Kafka 0553213695 Stephanie 3 3.90 1915 The Metamorphosis
author: Franz Kafka
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1915
rating: 3
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]]> Leftovers 768192 Such a Pretty Girl, Laura Wiess once again spins a shattering tale of the tragedies that befall young women who are considered society's Leftovers.

Blair and Ardith are best friends who have committed an unforgivable act in the name of love and justice. But in order to understand what could drive two young women to such extreme measures, first you'll have to understand why. You'll have to listen as they describe parents who are alternately absent and smothering, classmates who mock and shun anyone different, and young men who are allowed to hurt and dominate without consequence. You will have to learn what it's like to be a teenage girl who locks her bedroom door at night, who has been written off by the adults around her as damaged goods. A girl who has no one to trust except the one person she's forbidden to see. You'll have to understand what it's really like to be forgotten and abandoned in America today.

Are you ready?]]> 232 Laura Wiess 1416546626 Stephanie 5 3.81 2008 Leftovers
author: Laura Wiess
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2008
rating: 5
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]]> Such a Pretty Girl 162086 212 Laura Wiess 1416521836 Stephanie 5 3.87 2007 Such a Pretty Girl
author: Laura Wiess
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely, #1)]]> 305234 Don't stare at invisible faeries.
Aislinn has always seen faeries. Powerful and dangerous, they walk hidden in the mortal world. Aislinn fears their cruelty - especially if they learn of her Sight - and wishes she were as blind to their presence as other teens.

Rule #2: Don't speak to invisible faeries.
Now faeries are stalking her. One of them, Keenan, who is equal parts terrifying and alluring, is trying to talk to her, asking questions Aislinn is afraid to answer.

Rule #1: Don't ever attract their attention.
But it's too late. Keenan is the Summer King, who has sought his queen for nine centuries. Without her, summer itself will perish. He is determined that Aislinn will become the Summer Queen at any cost � regardless of her plans or desires.

Suddenly none of the rules that have kept Aislinn safe are working anymore, and everything is on the line: her freedom; her best friend, Seth; her life; everything.

Faery intrigue, mortal love, and the clash of ancient rules and modern expectations swirl together in Melissa Marr's stunning twenty-first-century faery tale.]]> 328 Melissa Marr 0061214655 Stephanie 5 3.70 2007 Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely, #1)
author: Melissa Marr
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2008/02/01
date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> Almost Home 1560455 256 Jessica Blank 1423106423 Stephanie 5 3.90 2007 Almost Home
author: Jessica Blank
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> Graffiti Girl 688199
Raised by her single mom (who's always dating the wrong kind of man) in a struggling California neighborhood, Angel Rodriguez is a headstrong, independent young woman who channels her hopes and dreams for the future into her painting. But when her entry for a community mural doesn't rate, she's heartbroken. Even with winning artist Nathan Ramos—a senior track star and Angel's secret crush—taking a sudden interest in Angel and her art, she's angry and hurt. She's determined to find her own place in the art world, her own way.

That's when Miguel Badalin—from the notorious graffiti crew Reyes Del Norte� opens her eyes to an underground world of graf tags and turf wars. She's blown away by this bad boy's fantastic work and finds herself drawn to his dangerous charm. Soon she's running with Miguel's crew, pushing her skills to the limit and beginning to emerge as the artist she always dreamed she could be. But Nathan and Miguel are bitter enemies with a shared past, and choosing between them and their wildly different approaches to life and art means that Angel must decide what matters most before the artist inside of her can truly break free.]]> 247 Kelly Parra 141653461X Stephanie 5 3.52 2007 Graffiti Girl
author: Kelly Parra
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> Troublemakers 891444 Troublemakers is an often hilarious, sometimes frightening, occasionally off-the-wall collection of stories about men living on the edge. From the streets of Chicago's southwest side to the rural roads of Nebraska to the small towns of southern Illinois, these men tread a very fine line between right and wrong, love and hate, humor and horror.

Each story is a Pandora's box waiting to be opened: a high school boy with a new driver's license picks his brother up from jail; a UPS driver suspects his wife of having an affair but cannot find any tangible evidence of her indiscretion; an unemployed man's life begins to unravel after he discovers a dead man in a tree in his own backyard; two boys spend Halloween with an older thug; a young college teacher's patience is tested by both his annoying colleagues and the criminals who haunt his neighborhood. In story after story, McNally's troublemakers lead readers to a place no less thrilling or dangerous than the human heart itself.]]> 228 John McNally 0877457271 Stephanie 5 4.13 2000 Troublemakers
author: John McNally
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[When I Was a Loser: True Stories of (Barely) Surviving High School]]> 261157
Who's teenage years weren't terrible? Remember the scary older kids? The sadistic gym teacher? The smelly kid who sat next to you in science class? Your first fumbling kiss? That time you threw up in the cafeteria? Your first attempt at putting on a condom? The period that arrived unexpectedly? That awful fight with your parents? The first time you got drunk? That note you wrote that you shouldn't have written? The day you forgot to zip your fly? That monster zit? When, you wondered, would it all end?

In When I Was a Loser , John McNally, author of the novel America's Report Card , assembles twenty-five original essays--often hilarious, sometimes tenderhearted, always evocative--about defining moments of high school loserdom. Brad Land, Julianna Baggott, Owen King, Johanna Edwards, and many more fresh, talented writers explore their own angst, humiliation, heartache, and other staples of teen life.

These essays perfectly capture what it was like to be in high to experience so many things for the first time, to assert independence while desperately trying to fit in, to feel misunderstood and unable to articulate the wild swings between heartbreak, anger, and euphoria. One writer recalls how his grandmother helped him with his home perm in preparation for the Senior Class picture; another recounts her discovery, sometime after hitting puberty, of the power she held over boys and men, while at the same time she felt herself at their mercy; a third remembers the casual cruelties visited on him by the cooler kids, and the cruelties he, in turn, inflicted on kids below him on the social ladder.

Utterly candid and compulsively readable, these essays conjure up and untangle those raw and formative years. The writers cringe and laugh at the teenagers they were, but at the same time, they honor their adolescence and the way it shaped their lives. Because, in truth, beneath the layers of adult respectability, we all still carry a little bit of our teenage selves around with us.]]> 304 John McNally 1416532447 Stephanie 5 3.54 2007 When I Was a Loser: True Stories of (Barely) Surviving High School
author: John McNally
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[America's Report Card: A Novel]]> 352184 288 John McNally 0743256263 Stephanie 5 3.37 2006 America's Report Card: A Novel
author: John McNally
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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]]> The Book of Ralph 607051 All of us need a Ralph in our lives.

Chicago, 1978. Hank Boyd, a solid B+ student, a good kid, wants eighth grade to be his special year. But when Ralph, an oddball troublemaker who ' s been held back twice, gets the idea that he and Hank are pals, Hank's year devolves into an odyssey as frightening as it is hilarious.

John McNally, acclaimed author of Troublemakers, deftly portrays the astonishing, sometimes terrifying world of adolescence in 1970s America: The adult world becomes increasingly untrustworthy, the economy plummets, and families seem to be falling apart, yet the two boys manage to create their own small moments of transcendence.

At once wary and full of wonder, Hank and Ralph will win your heart with their outrageous, poignant, and occasionally scary antics -- and they will teach you something about the ties that bind us together, hold us back, and redeem us.

]]> 304 John McNally 0743257774 Stephanie 5 3.67 2004 The Book of Ralph
author: John McNally
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2004
rating: 5
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]]> Dracula 17245 You can find an alternative cover edition for this ISBN here and here.

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the 'Master' and his imminent arrival.

In Dracula, Bram Stoker created one of the great masterpieces of the horror genre, brilliantly evoking a nightmare world of vampires and vampire hunters and also illuminating the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.

This Norton Critical Edition includes a rich selection of background and source materials in three areas: Contexts includes probable inspirations for Dracula in the earlier works of James Malcolm Rymer and Emily Gerard. Also included are a discussion of Stoker's working notes for the novel and "Dracula's Guest," the original opening chapter to Dracula. Reviews and Reactions reprints five early reviews of the novel. "Dramatic and Film Variations" focuses on theater and film adaptations of Dracula, two indications of the novel's unwavering appeal. David J. Skal, Gregory A. Waller, and Nina Auerbach offer their varied perspectives. Checklists of both dramatic and film adaptations are included.

Criticism collects seven theoretical interpretations of Dracula by Phyllis A. Roth, Carol A. Senf, Franco Moretti, Christopher Craft, Bram Dijkstra, Stephen D. Arata, and Talia Schaffer.

A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included.]]> 488 Bram Stoker 0393970124 Stephanie 5 4.02 1897 Dracula
author: Bram Stoker
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1897
rating: 5
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]]> Tender as Hellfire 138381
Dough and Pill are brothers bound by more than blood. The anguish of their past, the terror of their present, and the uncertainty of their future all underscore the only truth that is within their grasp: each other. For beneath the cruel surface of their trailer park community lies a menagerie of odd characters, each one strange yet somehow beautiful, including Val, the blowsy bottle-blonde who shows surprising maternal instincts when the boys need it most, and El Rey del Perdito, the “Undisputed King of the Tango,� a widower who dances nightly, imagining his wife in his arms, as Dough peers through the window contemplating a love that seems not to die. Surrounded by the strange and displaced, Dough and Pill must navigate through a world of constant pain and confusion. Finding beauty in unexpected places and maintaining reverence for hard-won scars, these two brothers learn, finally, that even broken things can be perfect.]]> 220 Joe Meno 1933354305 Stephanie 5 3.79 1999 Tender as Hellfire
author: Joe Meno
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1999
rating: 5
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]]> How the Hula Girl Sings 138382 A young ex-con in a small Illinois town. A lonely giant with a haunted past. A beautiful girl with a troubled heart. Strange and darkly magical, How the Hula Girl Sings begins exactly where most pulp fiction usually ends, with the vivid episode of the terrible crime itself. Three years later, Luce Lemay, out on parole for the awful tragedy, does his best to finds hope: in a new job at the local Gas-N-Go; in his companion and fellow ex-con, Junior Breen, who spells out puzzling messages to the unquiet ghosts of his past; and finally, in the arms of the lovely but reckless Charlene. How the Hula Girl Sings is a suspenseful exploration of a country bright with the far-off stars of forgiveness and dark with the still-looming shadow of the death penalty.

Paperback reissue of the second novel from the author of the indie-hit Hairstyles of the Damned]]> 209 Joe Meno 1888451831 Stephanie 4 3.64 2001 How the Hula Girl Sings
author: Joe Meno
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2001
rating: 4
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]]> The Boy Detective Fails 102504 Lost within this unwelcoming place, Billy finds the companionship of two lonely children, Effie and Gus Mumford - one a science fair genius, the other a charming, silent bully. With a nearly forgotten bravery, Billy confronts the monotony of his job in telephone sales, the awkward beauty of a desperate pickpocket named Penny Maple, and the seemingly impossible solution to the mystery of his sister's death. Along the path laden with hidden clues and codes that dare to be deciphered, the boy detective may learn the greatest secret of all: the necessity of the unknown.

]]> 328 Joe Meno 1933354100 Stephanie 0 to-read 3.90 2006 The Boy Detective Fails
author: Joe Meno
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> Less Than Zero 9915
Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs, and into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.]]> 208 Bret Easton Ellis Stephanie 2 3.62 1985 Less Than Zero
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1985
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Hairstyles of the Damned (Punk Planet Books)]]> 22539 Hairstyles is an honest depiction of growing up punk on Chicago’s south side: a study in the demons of racial intolerance, Catholic school conformism and class repression. It is the story of the riotous exploits of Brian, a high school burnout, and his best friend Gretchen, a punk rock girl fond of brawling.]]> 270 Joe Meno 188845170X Stephanie 5 3.74 2004 Hairstyles of the Damned (Punk Planet Books)
author: Joe Meno
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2004
rating: 5
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs]]> 212534 "A family saga, a revenge fantasy, a Twilight Zone-esque parable, and, most importantly, a very fun read." Entertainment Weekly

This story of two men locked in a war of wills that threatens their very existence is vintage Irvine Welsh. Troubled restaurant inspector Danny Skinner is on a quest to find the mysterious father his mother will not identify. Unraveling this hidden information is the key to understanding the crippling compulsions that threaten to wreck his young life. His ensuing journey takes him from the festival city of Edinburgh to the foodie city of San Francisco. But the hard-drinking, womanizing Skinner has a strange nemesis in the form of mild-mannered fellow inspector Brian Kibby.

It is Skinner's unfathomable, obsessive hatred of Kibby that takes over everything, threatening to destroy not only Skinner and his mission but also those he loves most dearly. When Kibby contracts a horrific, undiagnosable illness, Skinner understands that his destiny is inextricably bound to that of his hated rival, and he is faced with a terrible dilemma.

Irvine Welsh's work is a transgressive parable about the great obsessions of our time: food, sex, and celebrity.

]]> 400 Irvine Welsh 0393329666 Stephanie 0 to-read 3.54 2006 The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs
author: Irvine Welsh
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2008/01/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Ecstasy 135840 352 Irvine Welsh 2879291526 Stephanie 5 3.64 1996 Ecstasy
author: Irvine Welsh
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1996
rating: 5
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> The Acid House 527862 Description from the inside sleeve:

This scintillating, disturbing, and altogether outrageous collection of stories introduces to these shores a young writer already being called "the Scottish Celine of the 1990s" (Guardian) and "a mad postmodern Roald Dahl" (Weekend Scotsman). Using a range of approaches from bitter realism to demented fantasy, Irvine Welsh is able to evoke the essential humanity, well hidden as it is, of his generally depraved, lazy, manipulative, and vicious characters. He specializes particularly in cosmic reversals--God turns a hapless footballer into a fly; an acid head and a newborn infant exchange consciousnesses with sardonically unexpected results--always displaying a corrosive wit and a telling accuracy of language and detail. Irvine Welsh is one hilariously dangerous writer and he is bound to create a sensation.

Includes the following stories:

"The Shooter"
"Eurotrash"
"Stoke Newington Blues"
"Vat '96"
"A Soft Touch"
"The Last Resort on the Adriatic"
"Sexual Disaster Quartet"
"Snuff"
"A Blockage in the System"
"Wayne Foster"
"Where the Debris Meets the Sea"
"Granny's Old Junk"
"The House of John Deaf"
"Across the Hall"
"Lisa's Mum Meets the Queen Mum"
"The Two Philosophers"
"Disnae Matter"
"The Granton Star Cause"
"Snowman Building Parts for Rico the Squirrel"
"Sport for All"
"The Acid House"
A Smart Cunt: a novella]]> 289 Irvine Welsh 0393312801 Stephanie 5 3.75 1994 The Acid House
author: Irvine Welsh
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1994
rating: 5
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date added: 2008/01/21
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review:

]]> Oliver Twist 18254
The story of Oliver Twist - orphaned, and set upon by evil and adversity from his first breath - shocked readers when it was published. After running away from the workhouse and pompous beadle Mr Bumble, Oliver finds himself lured into a den of thieves peopled by vivid and memorable characters - the Artful Dodger, vicious burglar Bill Sikes, his dog Bull's Eye, and prostitute Nancy, all watched over by cunning master-thief Fagin. Combining elements of Gothic Romance, the Newgate Novel and popular melodrama, Dickens created an entirely new kind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery.

This Penguin Classics edition of Oliver Twist is the first critical edition to faithfully reproduce the text as its earliest readers would have encountered it from its serialisation in Bentley's Miscellany, and includes an introduction by Philip Horne, a glossary of Victorian thieves' slang, a chronology of Dickens's life, a map of contemporary London and all of George Cruikshank's original illustrations.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 608 Charles Dickens Stephanie 4 3.88 1838 Oliver Twist
author: Charles Dickens
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1838
rating: 4
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> Porno (Mark Renton, #3) 23965 Trainspotting, Sick Boy está en franca decadencia. Acaba de dejar su piso en un barrio pijo de Londres y se ha mudado a un agujero miserable, y tras una noche de drogas y sexo indiscriminados, decide aceptar la oferta de su tía Paula: lo dejará a cargo de su pub en Leith y se marchará con su amante español a Alicante.

Pero en el Port Sunshine el negocio no está solamente en las bebidas: Sick Boy descubre que un grupo liderado por «Juice» Terry Lawson, su antiguo conocido, se reúne a follar y a filmar sus orgías en uno de los salones privados. Y que en Edimburgo hay un floreciente negocio de vídeos porno realizados en las trastiendas de los pubs, con los clientes como estrellas. Y Sick Boy, que siempre está maquinando negocios, se pondrá, con la ayuda de la guapa Nikki Fuller-Smith, estudiante de cine de día y trabajadora del sexo por las noches, a hacer una película porno de altura, con calidad suficiente como para ser vendida internacionalmente y circular por Internet. Y también incluirá en el equipo a su viejo amigo Renton, el que diez años antes los traicionó y huyó a Ámsterdam con el dinero del alijo de heroína. Pero cuando Sick Boy maquina algo, la cosa tiene más complicaciones y trampas que la tela de una araña, y entre los hilos también se mueven Spud, el único que había recibido a escondidas su parte del dinero de la droga, y Begbie, el psicópata del grupo, que después de pasar unos años en la cárcel volverá a la acción aún más paranoico y furioso que antes.]]> 600 Irvine Welsh 8433972618 Stephanie 5 3.84 2002 Porno (Mark Renton, #3)
author: Irvine Welsh
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2002
rating: 5
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date added: 2008/01/21
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]]> Filth 23966
There are some sizable flies in the ointment, though: a missing wife and child, a nagging cocaine habit, some painful below-the-belt eczema, and a string of demanding extramarital affairs. The last thing Robertson needs is a messy, racially fraught murder, even if it means overtime—and the opportunity to clinch the promotion he craves. Then there's that nutritionally demanding (and psychologically acute) intestinal parasite in his gut. Yes, things are going badly for this utterly corrupt tribune of the law, but in an Irvine Welsh novel nothing is ever so bad that it can't get a whole lot worse. . .

]]> 393 Irvine Welsh 0393318680 Stephanie 5 3.81 1998 Filth
author: Irvine Welsh
name: Stephanie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1998
rating: 5
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date added: 2008/01/21
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review:

]]> Trainspotting 23955 Trainspotting a été porté à l'écran par Dany Boyle.]]> 344 Irvine Welsh 2020336464 Stephanie 5 4.03 1993 Trainspotting
author: Irvine Welsh
name: Stephanie
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/01/21
shelves:
review:

]]>