en-US Wed, 16 Nov 2022 07:30:36 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 62919862
Jesse Braddock is trapped in a tiny cabin deep in the Everglades with her infant daughter and her ex-boyfriend, a wannabe reality TV star who turned out to be a lot prettier on the outside than on the inside. Broke and desperate for a way out, Jesse stumbles across a long-lost treasure, which could solve all her problems—if she can figure out how to keep it. The problem is some very bad men are also looking for the treasure, and they know Jesse has it.

Meanwhile, Ken Bortle of Bortle Brothers Bait and Beer has hatched a scheme to lure tourists to his failing store by making viral videos of the “Everglades Melon Monster.� The Monster is, in fact, an unemployed alcoholic newspaperman named Phil wearing a Dora the Explorer costume head. Incredibly, this plan actually works, inspiring a horde of TikTokers to swarm into the swamp in search of the Monster at the same time villains are on the hunt for Jesse’s treasure. Amid this mayhem, a presidential hopeful arrives in the Everglades to start his campaign. Needless to say, it does not go as planned. In fact, nothing in this story goes as planned. This is, after all, Florida.]]> 320 Dave Barry 1982191333 Anne 0 to-read 3.75 2023
author: Dave Barry
name: Anne
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 10354334 272 Hank Wesselman 1604074302 Anne 0 4.27 2011
author: Hank Wesselman
name: Anne
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2017/06/14
date added: 2018/11/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 17333319
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.

Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only TĂłti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.

Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?]]> 336 Hannah Kent 0316243914 Anne 0 to-read 4.00 2013
author: Hannah Kent
name: Anne
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 443459 352 Caroline Wagner 1931456399 Anne 0 to-read 2.88 2003
author: Caroline Wagner
name: Anne
average rating: 2.88
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/11/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2025027
As one of the first nontraditional healers allowed to work in an operating room, Julie Motz harnesses the body's own energy to help patients survive risky operations, such as heart transplants and cancer surgery. Now she shares remarkable case studies of healing, recovery, and transformation--and gives readers step-by-step guidance on accessing one's own innate healing energy.

Treating the body and spirit as an interconnected whole, Motz explains her breakthrough form of healing, the ultimate synthesis of Eastern holistic healing and Western medicine. She shows how strong emotion affects our bodies, creating energy imbalances that can lead to illness if unaddressed, and illustrates how we can heal.


Treating the body and spirit as an interconnected whole, Motz details her breakthrough form of healing, the ultimate synthesis of Eastern holistic healing and Western medicine. She explains how strong emotion affects our bodies, creating energy imbalances that can lead to illness if unaddressed, and illustrates how we can heal. -->]]> 320 Julie Motz 0553379259 Anne 5 4.38 1998
author: Julie Motz
name: Anne
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2009/08/28
date added: 2015/03/18
shelves:
review:
An excellent account of energy healing by a very talented healer who worked with surgeons in operating rooms, connecting physical illnesses with their emotionally-related issues.
]]> 10664113 Alternate cover edition of ASIN B004XISI4A

In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance—beset by newly emerging threats from every direction. In the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen, rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has thousands of enemies, and many have set out to find her. As they gather, one young man embarks upon his own quest for the queen, with an entirely different goal in mind.

Fleeing from Westeros with a price on his head, Tyrion Lannister, too, is making his way to Daenerys. But his newest allies in this quest are not the rag-tag band they seem, and at their heart lies one who could undo Daenerys’s claim to Westeros forever.

Meanwhile, to the north lies the mammoth Wall of ice and stone—a structure only as strong as those guarding it. There, Jon Snow, 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, will face his greatest challenge. For he has powerful foes not only within the Watch but also beyond, in the land of the creatures of ice.

From all corners, bitter conflicts reignite, intimate betrayals are perpetrated, and a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves, will face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Some will fail, others will grow in the strength of darkness. But in a time of rising restlessness, the tides of destiny and politics will lead inevitably to the greatest dance of all.]]> 1125 George R.R. Martin Anne 0 to-read 4.33 2011
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Anne
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 16695 384 John Robbins 1400065216 Anne 0 to-read 4.20 2006
author: John Robbins
name: Anne
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/07/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 9439303 576 Keith Richards 0297854399 Anne 0 to-read 3.88 2010
author: Keith Richards
name: Anne
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/12/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 8171378
Wilkerson tells this interwoven story through the lives of three unforgettable protagonists: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper’s wife, who in 1937 fled Mississippi for Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, and Robert Foster, a surgeon who left Louisiana in 1953 in hopes of making it in California.

Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous cross-country journeys by car and train and their new lives in colonies in the New World. The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration� within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is a modern classic.]]> 622 Isabel Wilkerson 0679444327 Anne 0 to-read 4.45 2010
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Anne
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/12/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13547180 New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity.

When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?

In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Cahalan tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen.]]> 250 Susannah Cahalan 145162137X Anne 0 to-read 4.06 2012
author: Susannah Cahalan
name: Anne
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/11/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1798763 208 Lee Holden 1583332766 Anne 3 to-read (Prompted to update my status with this book by Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ, I changed it to "to read" because I haven't looked at the book since I first wrote the review!)]]> 3.74
author: Lee Holden
name: Anne
average rating: 3.74
book published:
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2012/11/02
shelves: to-read
review:
As I was cleaning up, I ran across this book I had bought some time ago but never read. I don't have a regular exercise routine; I'm thinking this one may be short yet effective enough to be worthwhile. I haven't gotten to the nitty-gritty yet, but meanwhile the philosophy behind it is good.
(Prompted to update my status with this book by Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ, I changed it to "to read" because I haven't looked at the book since I first wrote the review!)
]]> 3639658
Based on new evidence culled from their brain-scan studies on memory patients and meditators, their Web-based survey of people’s religious and spiritual experiences, and their analyses of adult drawings of God, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg, therapist Mark Robert Waldman, and their research team have concluded that active and positive spiritual belief changes the human brain for the better. What’s more, actual faith isn’t always atheists who meditate on positive imagery can obtain similar neurological benefits. Written in an accessible style–with illustrations highlighting how spiritual experiences affect the mind� How God Changes Your Brain offers the following breakthrough

� Not only do prayer and spiritual practice reduce stress and anxiety, but just twelve minutes of meditation per day may slow down the aging process.
� Contemplating a loving God rather than a punitive God reduces anxiety, depression, and stress and increases feelings of security, compassion, and love.
� Fundamentalism, in and of itself, is benign and can be personally beneficial, but the anger and prejudice generated by extreme beliefs can permanently damage your brain.
� Intense prayer and meditation permanently change numerous structures and functions in the brain–altering your values and the way you perceive reality.

How God Changes Your Brain is both a revelatory work of modern science and a practical guide for readers to enhance their physical and emotional health and to avoid mental decline. Newberg and Waldman explain the eight best ways to “exercise� your brain and guide readers through specific routines derived from a wide variety of Eastern and Western spiritual practices that improve personal awareness and empathy. They explain why yawning heightens consciousness and relaxation, and they teach “Compassionate Communication,� a new mediation technique that builds intimacy with family and friends in less than fifteen minutes of practice.

Unique in its conclusions and innovative in its methods, How God Changes Your Brain is a first-of-a-kind book about faith that is as credible as it is inspiring.]]> 368 Andrew B. Newberg 0345503414 Anne 0 (I don't know when I really finished reading this - approx date, sometime last year!)]]> 3.95 2009
author: Andrew B. Newberg
name: Anne
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2011/03/28
date added: 2012/03/28
shelves:
review:
Loved it!
(I don't know when I really finished reading this - approx date, sometime last year!)
]]> 158277
In this astonishing true story, award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States.

When Enrique is five years old, his mother, Lourdes, too poor to feed her children, leaves Honduras to work in the United States. The move allows her to send money back home to Enrique so he can eat better and go to school past the third grade.

Lourdes promises Enrique she will return quickly. But she struggles in America. Years pass. He begs for his mother to come back. Without her, he becomes lonely and troubled. When she calls, Lourdes tells him to be patient. Enrique despairs of ever seeing her again. After eleven years apart, he decides he will go find her.

Enrique sets off alone from Tegucigalpa, with little more than a slip of paper bearing his mother's North Carolina telephone number. Without money, he will make the dangerous and illegal trek up the length of Mexico the only way he can � clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains.

With gritty determination and a deep longing to be by his mother's side, Enrique travels through hostile, unknown worlds. Each step of the way through Mexico, he and other migrants, many of them children, are hunted like animals. Gangsters control the tops of the trains. Bandits rob and kill migrants up and down the tracks. Corrupt cops all along the route are out to fleece and deport them. To evade Mexican police and immigration authorities, they must jump onto and off the moving boxcars they call El Tren de la Muerte- The Train of Death. Enrique pushes forward using his wit, courage, and hope - and the kindness of strangers. It is an epic journey, one thousands of immigrant children make each year to find their mothers in the United States.

Based on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for feature writing and another for feature photography, Enrique's Journey is the timeless story of families torn apart, the yearning to be together again, and a boy who will risk his life to find the mother he loves.]]> 294 Sonia Nazario 0812971787 Anne 0 3.87 2005
author: Sonia Nazario
name: Anne
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2011/01/31
date added: 2011/03/03
shelves:
review:
Really opened my eyes to some of the realities surrounding illegal immigrants.
]]> 8574712 384 V.S. Ramachandran 0393077829 Anne 0 to-read 4.14 2010
author: V.S. Ramachandran
name: Anne
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6295165
"Carolyn speaks with a confidence that never flinches from entering into the hardest truths of our times, or from the most difficult truths about the culture we are immersed in, so that we might emerge from the chrysalis of global crisis with open hearts and a renewed way of living on Earth together."--Juan Santos, Fourth World Blogspot]]> 392 Carolyn Baker 1440119724 Anne 3 3.87 2009
author: Carolyn Baker
name: Anne
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/07/12
date added: 2010/07/13
shelves:
review:
Worth reading. Food for thought. I didn't do all the exercises in it but they'd probably be good to do!
]]> 19501
Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want—a husband, a house, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be.

To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world—all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year. Her aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Rome, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, and with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise cowboy from Texas, she embarked on four uninterrupted months of spiritual exploration. In Bali, she studied the art of balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. She became the pupil of an elderly medicine man and also fell in love the best way—unexpectedly.

An intensely articulate and moving memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment and stop trying to live in imitation of society’s ideals. It is certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change.]]> 368 Elizabeth Gilbert 0143038419 Anne 5 3.64 2006
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Anne
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2008/01/01
date added: 2010/01/18
shelves:
review:
I think my daughter got me this book for Christmas! Loved it, and also loved the idea of traveling and writing about my travels!!
]]> 1367587
As a young woman, Sharon Matola lived many lives. She was a mushroom expert, an Air Force survival specialist, and an Iowa housewife. She hopped freight trains for fun and starred as a tiger tamer in a traveling Mexican circus. Finally she found her one true calling: caring for orphaned animals at her own zoo in the Central American country of Belize.

Beloved as “the Zoo Lady� in her adopted land, Matola became one of Central America’s greatest wildlife defenders. And when powerful outside forces conspired with the local government to build a dam that would flood the nesting ground of the last scarlet macaws in Belize, Sharon Matola was drawn into the fight of her life.

In The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, award-winning author Bruce Barcott chronicles Sharon Matola’s inspiring crusade to stop a multinational corporation in its tracks. Ferocious in her passion, she and her confederates–a ragtag army of courageous locals and eccentric expatriates–endure slander and reprisals and take the fight to the courtroom and the boardroom, from local village streets to protests around the world.

As the dramatic story unfolds, Barcott addresses the realities of economic survival in Third World countries, explores the tension between environmental conservation and human development, and puts a human face on the battle over globalization. In this marvelous and spirited book, Barcott shows us how one unwavering woman risked her life to save the most beautiful bird in the world.]]> 313 Bruce Barcott 1400062934 Anne 4 4.05 2008
author: Bruce Barcott
name: Anne
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2010/01/18
date added: 2010/01/18
shelves:
review:
I borrowed this book from the library to read before my trip to Belize - only started it after I came home and wish I had read it first!! I visited the zoo founded by the woman the book is about. A very interesting and well-written book.
]]> 1867539 482 M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen 0914390732 Anne 5 4.93 1994
author: M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
name: Anne
average rating: 4.93
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 481222 378 M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen 0914390430 Anne 5 5.00 1987
author: M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
name: Anne
average rating: 5.00
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 3326756 184 Jill Bolte Taylor 0670020745 Anne 5
This is a terrific view of the functioning of the brain from the inside out, and gives scientific credence to certain aspects of spiritual experience.]]> 3.95 2006
author: Jill Bolte Taylor
name: Anne
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2008/06/01
date added: 2008/06/13
shelves:
review:
After viewing Jill Bolte Taylor's talk at the T.E.D. conference (), I was very excited to read this book. I intend to watch the downloads of her interview with Oprah next (see ).

This is a terrific view of the functioning of the brain from the inside out, and gives scientific credence to certain aspects of spiritual experience.
]]> 2187 Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.]]> 529 Jeffrey Eugenides 0312422156 Anne 5 4.03 2002
author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: Anne
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2007/01/01
date added: 2008/03/09
shelves:
review:
My visiting daughter left this book out in the living room and I began reading it - and was glad to be able to finish it just before she left!! I learned a lot about a slice of life I formerly knew little to nothing about.
]]> 77203 371 Khaled Hosseini 159463193X Anne 5 4.34 2003
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Anne
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2007/08/01
date added: 2008/03/09
shelves:
review:
I was totally engrossed by the book - and absolutely hated one of the characters!!! A well-told story.
]]>