en-US Mon, 24 Mar 2025 20:30:55 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 56791389 Alternate cover edition of ASIN B08BKGYQXW


The apocalypse will be televised!

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.]]> 446 Matt Dinniman Beth 0 to-read 4.49 2020
author: Matt Dinniman
name: Beth
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 39325105 Harrow the Ninth, the sequel to Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor's haunted space station.

She answered the Emperor's call.

She arrived with her arts, her wits, and her only friend.

In victory, her world has turned to ash.

After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman's shoulders.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath � but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her.

Sealed in the gothic gloom of the Emperor's Mithraeum with three unfriendly teachers, hunted by the mad ghost of a murdered planet, Harrow must confront two unwelcome questions: is somebody trying to kill her? And if they succeeded, would the universe be better off?]]> 512 Tamsyn Muir 1250313228 Beth 0 to-read 4.30 2020
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Beth
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 42036538
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.]]> 448 Tamsyn Muir 1250313198 Beth 5 4.19 2019
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Beth
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 195790571
The goblins have killed all of our horses and most of our men.

They have enslaved our cities, burned our fields, and still they wage war.

Now, our daughters take up arms.

Galva � Galvicha to her three brothers, two of whom the goblins will kill � has defied her family’s wishes and joined the army’s untested new unit, the Raven Knights. They march toward a once-beautiful city overrun by the goblin horde, accompanied by scores of giant war corvids. Made with the darkest magics, these fearsome black birds may hold the key to stopping the goblins in their war to make cattle of mankind.

The road to victory is bloody, and goblins are clever and merciless. The Raven Knights can take nothing for granted � not the bonds of family, nor the wisdom of their leaders, nor their own safety against the dangerous war birds at their side. But some hopes are worth any risk.]]> 416 Christopher Buehlman 1250887674 Beth 0 to-read 4.24 2024
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Beth
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55077697
But today, Kinch Na Shannack has picked the wrong mark.

Galva is a knight, a survivor of the brutal goblin wars, and handmaiden of the goddess of death. She is searching for her queen, missing since a distant northern city fell to giants.

Unsuccessful in his robbery and lucky to escape with his life, Kinch now finds his fate entangled with Galva's. Common enemies and uncommon dangers force thief and knight on an epic journey where goblins hunger for human flesh, krakens hunt in dark waters, and honor is a luxury few can afford.]]> 416 Christopher Buehlman 1250621194 Beth 5 4.18 2021
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Beth
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 944073
Nobleman Captain Jezal dan Luthar, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.

Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it.

Enter the wizard, Bayaz. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Logen, Jezal, and Glokta a whole lot more difficult.

Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood.

]]> 515 Joe Abercrombie 0575079797 Beth 0 to-read 4.21 2006
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Beth
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 20697435
It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea. Peter becomes immersed in the mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as USIC. His work introduces him to a seemingly friendly native population struggling with a dangerous illness and hungry for Peter's teachings—his Bible is their "book of strange new things." But Peter is rattled when Bea's letters from home become increasingly desperate: typhoons and earthquakes are devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea's faith, once the guiding light of their lives, begins to falter.

Suddenly, a separation measured by an otherworldly distance, and defined both by one newly discovered world and another in a state of collapse, is threatened by an ever-widening gulf that is much less quantifiable. While Peter is reconciling the needs of his congregation with the desires of his strange employer, Bea is struggling for survival. Their trials lay bare a profound meditation on faith, love tested beyond endurance, and our responsibility to those closest to us.

Marked by the same bravura storytelling and precise language that made The Crimson Petal and the White such an international success, The Book of Strange New Things is extraordinary, mesmerizing, and replete with emotional complexity and genuine pathos.]]> 500 Michel Faber 055341884X Beth 0 to-read 3.65 2014
author: Michel Faber
name: Beth
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17674968
“You think you got away with something, don’t you? But your time has run out. We know where you are. And we are coming.�
The man on the screen says this in Russian.
“Who are you?�
The man smiles, but it’s not a pleasant smile.
The image freezes.
The celluloid burns exactly where his mouth is, burns in the nearly flat U of his smile. His eyes burn, too.
The man fades, leaving the burning smiley face smoldering on the screen.
“Oh Christ,� Andrew says.
The television catches fire.

Andrew Ranulf Blankenship is a handsome, stylish nonconformist with wry wit, a classic Mustang, and a massive library. He is also a recovering alcoholic and a practicing warlock, able to speak with the dead through film. His house is a maze of sorcerous booby traps and escape tunnels, as yours might be if you were sitting on a treasury of Russian magic stolen from the Soviet Union thirty years ago. Andrew has long known that magic was a brutal game requiring blood sacrifice and a willingness to confront death, but his many years of peace and comfort have left him soft, more concerned with maintaining false youth than with seeing to his own defense. Now a monster straight from the pages of Russian folklore is coming for him, and frost and death are coming with her.]]> 410 Christopher Buehlman 0425256650 Beth 0 to-read 3.72 2013
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Beth
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53177097
And Lucifer said: “Let us rise against Him now in all our numbers, and pull the walls of heaven down…�

The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm—that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict.

Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission: to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.]]> 438 Christopher Buehlman Beth 5 4.43 2012
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Beth
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
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]]> 37570597 A new fantasy series inspired by the ancient Indian classic, The Mahabharata

In a world where demigods and demons walk among mortals, the Emperor of the vast Burnt Empire has died, leaving a turbulent realm without an emperor. Two young princes, Adri and Shvate, are in line to rule, but birthright does not guarantee inheritance: For any successor must sit upon the legendary Burning Throne and pass The Test of Fire. Imbued with dark sorceries, the throne is a crucible—one that incinerates the unworthy.
Ěý
Adri and Shvate pass The Test and are declared heirs to the empireâ€� but there is another with a claim to power, another who also survives: a girl from an outlying kingdom. When this girl, whose father is the powerful demonlord Jarsun, is denied her claim by the interim leaders, Jarsun declares war, vowing to tear the Burnt Empire apart—leaving the young princes Adri and Shvate to rule a shattered realm embroiled in rebellion and chaos.... Ěý
Ěý
Welcome to the Burnt Empire Saga
Ěý]]> 669 Ashok K. Banker 1328916286 Beth 0 to-read 3.45 2019
author: Ashok K. Banker
name: Beth
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 29414640
But no one else believes that nomads can be a real threat. Accompanied by Nicholas Sayre and a young mountain nomad, Lirael goes on a dangerous journey across the steppe and into the mountains to see for herself. There Lirael discovers the future Arielle saw long ago that is now coming to pass: Chlorr has gathered the clans to attack the unsuspecting Old Kingdom.

The only way Lirael and her companions can stop the attack is to find Chlorr’s original, better human self—Clariel. Only, Clariel has been asleep for centuries beyond the Great Rift. Lirael must reach her—and help her go beyond the Ninth Gate to die the final Death—before it is too late.]]> 368 Garth Nix Beth 3 4.10 2016
author: Garth Nix
name: Beth
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> 52822248
Gyre hasn't seen his beloved sister since their parents sold her to the mysterious Twilight Order. Now, twelve years after her disappearance, Gyre's sole focus is revenge, and he's willing to risk anything and anyone to claim enough power to destroy the Order.

Chasing rumors of a fabled city protecting a powerful artifact, Gyre comes face-to-face with his lost sister. But she isn't who she once was. Trained to be a warrior, Maya wields magic for the Twilight Order's cause. Standing on opposite sides of a looming civil war, the two siblings will learn that not even the ties of blood will keep them from splitting the world in two.]]> 592 Django Wexler 0316519545 Beth 0 to-read 3.91 2020
author: Django Wexler
name: Beth
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 41952489
Everyone else is fodder, destined to fight and die in the endless war. Young, gift-less Tau knows all this, but he has a plan of escape. He's going to get himself injured, get out early, and settle down to marriage, children, and land. Only, he doesn't get the chance. Those closest to him are brutally murdered, and his grief swiftly turns to anger. Fixated on revenge, Tau dedicates himself to an unthinkable path. He'll become the greatest swordsman to ever live, a man willing to die a hundred thousand times for the chance to kill the three who betrayed him.]]> 535 Evan Winter 031648976X Beth 0 to-read 4.30 2017
author: Evan Winter
name: Beth
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 91981
Simon, a kitchen boy from the royal castle unknowingly apprenticed to a member of this League, will be sent on a quest that offers the only hope of salvation, a deadly riddle concerning long-lost swords of power. Compelled by fate and perilous magics, he must leave the only home he’s ever known and face enemies more terrifying than Osten Ard has ever seen, even as the land itself begins to die.

After the landmark Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, the epic saga of Osten Ard continues with the brand-new novel, The Heart of What Was Lost. Then don’t miss the upcoming trilogy, The Last King of Osten Ard, beginning with The Witchwood Crown!]]> 672 Tad Williams 0756402697 Beth 0 3.96 1988
author: Tad Williams
name: Beth
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: abandoned-or-skipped-to-the-end
review:

]]> 210943348
Alexei Navalny began writing Patriot shortly after his near-fatal poisoning in 2020. It is the full story of his life: his youth, his call to activism, his marriage and family, his commitment to challenging a world super-power determined to silence him, and his total conviction that change cannot be resisted—and will come.

In vivid, page-turning detail, including never-before-seen correspondence from prison, Navalny recounts, among other things, his political career, the many attempts on his life, and the lives of the people closest to him, and the relentless campaign he and his team waged against an increasingly dictatorial regime.

Written with the passion, wit, candor, and bravery for which he was justly acclaimed, Patriot is Navalny’s final letter to the world: a moving account of his last years spent in the most brutal prison on earth; a reminder of why the principles of individual freedom matter so deeply; and a rousing call to continue the work for which he sacrificed his life.

“This book is a testament not only to Alexei’s life, but to his unwavering commitment to the fight against dictatorship—a fight he gave everything for, including his life. Through its pages, readers will come to know the man I loved deeply—a man of profound integrity and unyielding courage. Sharing his story will not only honor his memory but also inspire others to stand up for what is right and to never lose sight of the values that truly matter.� —Yulia Navalnaya]]> 496 Alexei Navalny 0593320964 Beth 0 to-read 4.55 2024
author: Alexei Navalny
name: Beth
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> 263257
In an instance of remarkable serendipity, more than three decades later, a 2004 DNA match led to the arrest of a new suspect for Jane's murder at precisely the same time that Nelson was set to publish a book of poetry about her aunt's life and death - a book she had been working on for years, and which assumed her aunt's case to be closed forever.

The Red Parts chronicles the uncanny series of events that led to Nelson's interest in her aunt's death, the reopening of the case, the bizarre and brutal trial that ensued, and the effects these events had on the disparate group of people they brought together. But The Red Parts is much more than a "true crime" record of a murder, investigation, and trial. For into this story Nelson has woven an account of a girlhood and early adulthood haunted by loss, mortality, mystery, and betrayal, as well as a look at the personal and political consequences of our cultural fixation on dead (white) women.]]> 201 Maggie Nelson 141653203X Beth 0 to-read 4.04 2007
author: Maggie Nelson
name: Beth
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22267192
But Highfell Hall is not the charity Neil imagines it to be and the young men there aren’t training for the dull lives of city clerks. Amidst the roaring engines and within the icy stone halls, machinations and curious devices are at work. And one man, the rough and enigmatic Leofa, holds the key to the desire that Neil has fled from all his life and a magic as dangerous as treason.]]> 322 Langley Hyde 1935560298 Beth 2 3.61 2014
author: Langley Hyde
name: Beth
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 3876030
In Marloven Hess, no one can pronounce his real names, and they assume his title is his name. He becomes Shevraeth--discovering that there are no marquises or dukes or barons in this kingdom, and no one has the slightest interest in Remalna. Or in foreigners. Until very recently, the academy was closed to outsiders. But the king--also fifteen, and recently come to his throne after a nasty civil war--wants him there.

Learning about command turns out to be very different than Shevraeth had assumed, and the Marlovens, who are going through political and social change at all levels, are not at all what he expected. He makes friends as well as enemies; experiences terror and laughter as well as challenges on the field and off.

He discovers friendship, loyalty--and love.

All the while greater events in the world are moving inexorably toward conflagration, drawing the smartest of the young people into key positions--whether they want it or not. They're going to have to be ready.

"Involving characters, exquisite world building, politics, intrigue, and choices to be made between love, school and country. A Stranger to Command has everything. Drop what you're doing and read it immediately."
--Justine Larbalestier author of HOW TO DITCH YOUR FAIRY

"War games. Courtly Vidanric, sent for his own protection to train as a warrior in a foreign land four months' journey from home, considers himself alien, sensitive, weak, and ignorant among his fellow cadets. Remaining a study in courage and integrity, despite the grinding discipline that takes away even his name, Vidanric's soldier's skills grow swordblade sharp even as he also learns lessons of the heart. But capability, responsibility, and all-too-real invasion come together as Vidanric realizes that not only is he being trained for kingship, he's capable of it, too . . . A diamond-bright portrait of a harsh and magical journey to adulthood."
--Elizabeth E. Wein, author of THE MARK OF SOLOMON

"Sherwood Smith's universe is so detailed at this point that you feel like a traveller in a real foreign land--charmed, sometimes bewildered, and finally at home with no desire to leave. This book deals thoughtfully with the creation of a hero, and also creates an exciting, occasionally-painful, and always absorbing adventure."
--Sarah Rees Brennan, author of THE DEMON LEXICON]]> 476 Sherwood Smith 1934648558 Beth 3 young-adult-fiction, fantasy 3.91 2008
author: Sherwood Smith
name: Beth
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/09/11
shelves: young-adult-fiction, fantasy
review:
This was enjoyable. If, however, you've ever read "Ender's Game" you will be at a disadvantage, because you the comparisons don't stop: Battle Room, command school, trouble in the barracks, kids' slang, all-knowing teachers...all the main plot points are there, except "my evil older brother wants to be Hegemon." When I finished reading this, I had a rough time deciding whether to spend the next few hours with Ender or with a grown-up Shevraeth in "Court Duel."
]]> 21643325 480 Sherwood Smith 1611380723 Beth 3 4.11 2008
author: Sherwood Smith
name: Beth
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/09/11
shelves:
review:
This was enjoyable. If, however, you've ever read "Ender's Game" you will be at a disadvantage, because you the comparisons don't stop: Battle Room, command school, trouble in the barracks, kids' slang, all-knowing teachers...all the main plot points are there, except "my evil older brother wants to be Hegemon." When I finished reading this, I had a rough time deciding whether to spend the next few hours with Ender or with a grown-up Shevraeth in "Court Duel."
]]> 202102022 From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation’s Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, a novel set between the London stage and Sicily, about a daughter who turns her novelist father’s fall from grace into a play, and a father who increasingly fears his precocious daughter’s voice.

August 2020. Sophia, a young playwright, awaits her father’s verdict on her new show. A famous author whose novels haven’t aged as gracefully into the modern era as he might hope, he is completely unaware that the play centers around a vacation the two took years earlier to an island off Sicily, where he dictated to her a new book. The play has been met with rave reviews but Sophia’s father has studiously avoided reading any of them. But when the house lights dim, he understands that his daughter has laid him bare, used the events of their summer to create an incisive, witty, skewering critique of the attitudes and sexual mores of men of his generation.

Set through one staging of the play, The Hypocrite seamlessly and scorchingly shifts through time and perspective, illuminating an argument between a father and his daughter that, with impeccable nuance, examines the fraught inheritances each generation is left to contend with, and the struggle to nurture empathy in a world changing at lightning-speed.]]> 240 Jo Hamya 0593701038 Beth 0 to-read 3.42 2024
author: Jo Hamya
name: Beth
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 99300
Written from a feminist perspective, often focusing on the inferior status accorded to women by society, the tales include "turned," an ironic story with a startling twist, in which a husband seduces and impregnates a naĂŻve servant; "Cottagette," concerning the romance of a young artist and a man who's apparently too good to be true; "Mr. Peebles' Heart," a liberating tale of a fiftyish shopkeeper whose sister-in-law, a doctor, persuades him to take a solo trip to Europe, with revivifying results; "The Yellow Wallpaper"; and three other outstanding stories.

These charming tales are not only highly readable and full of humor and invention, but also offer ample food for thought about the social, economic, and personal relationship of men and women � and how they might be improved.

Collects:
—The Yellow Wallpaper
—Three Thanksgivings
—The Cottagette
—TłÜ°ů˛Ô±đ»ĺ
—Making a Change
—If I Were a Man
—Mr. Peebles' Heart]]> 129 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 0486298574 Beth 3 4.05 1892
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: Beth
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1892
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
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]]> 201750794
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords are laying siege to Camelot, and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.]]> 673 Lev Grossman 0735224048 Beth 0 to-read 3.94 2024
author: Lev Grossman
name: Beth
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 256008 Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America.

Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic, beautifully written, always dramatic, Lonesome Dove is a book to make us laugh, weep, dream, and remember.]]> 960 Larry McMurtry 067168390X Beth 0 to-read 4.53 1985
author: Larry McMurtry
name: Beth
average rating: 4.53
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40916679
Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town.

But she can't shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer?

Now a senior herself, Pip decides to reexamine the closed case for her final project, at first just to cast doubt on the original investigation. But soon she discovers a trail of dark secrets that might actually prove Sal innocent . . . and the line between past and present begins to blur. Someone in Fairview doesn't want Pip digging around for answers, and now her own life might be in danger.]]> 433 Holly Jackson 1405293187 Beth 0 to-read 4.30 2019
author: Holly Jackson
name: Beth
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50088631 The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease.

Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins—aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony—and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family?

What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations.

With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope.]]> 377 Robert Kolker 038554376X Beth 4 4.13 2020
author: Robert Kolker
name: Beth
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/06/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 17934530 Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.

The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.]]> 195 Jeff VanderMeer 0374104093 Beth 3 atmospheric 3.79 2014
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Beth
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/06/12
shelves: atmospheric
review:
3.5 stars. I loved the movie and was excited to read this. I enjoyed it, but found our point of view character’s motivations a little opaque. The book was so atmospheric and a little dreamlike at times. The nightmare encounter with the Crawler was cosmic existential horror at its finest. There were a lot of questions that I had at the end and I’m hoping they will be resolved in the next installments!
]]> 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 Beth 0 to-read 4.17 2022
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Beth
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 37946436
But Lucius has never lifted a surgeon's scalpel. And as the war rages across the winter landscape, he finds himself falling in love with the woman from whom he must learn a brutal, makeshift medicine. Then one day, an unconscious soldier is brought in from the snow, his uniform stuffed with strange drawings. He seems beyond rescue until Lucius makes a fateful decision that will change the lives of doctor, patient, and nurse forever.

From the gilded ballrooms of Imperial Vienna to the frozen forests of the Eastern Front; from hardscrabble operating rooms to battlefields thundering with Cossack cavalry, The Winter Soldier is the story of war and medicine, of family, of finding love in the sweeping tides of history, and finally, of the mistakes we make, and the precious opportunities to atone.]]> 323 Daniel Mason 0316477605 Beth 0 to-read 3.89 2018
author: Daniel Mason
name: Beth
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62039166 From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.

Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil―can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written―is there still time to find a happy ending?]]> 645 Paul Murray 0374600309 Beth 0 to-read 3.92 2023
author: Paul Murray
name: Beth
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 71872930
When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become home to an extraordinary succession of inhabitants . An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins survive war and famine, only to succumb to envy and desire.ĚýA crime reporter unearths a mass grave, but finds the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a conman, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle; as each one confronts the mysteries of the north woods, they come to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

Traversing cycles of history, nature, and even literature, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment and to one another, across time, language and space. Written along with the seasons and divided into the twelve months of the year, it is an unforgettable novel about secrets and fates that asks the timeless how do we live on, even after we’re gone?]]> 372 Daniel Mason 0593597036 Beth 0 to-read 4.12 2023
author: Daniel Mason
name: Beth
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 3525894
Liberty University is the late Rev. Jerry Falwell's proudest accomplishment - a 10,000-student conservative Christian training ground. At Liberty, students (who call themselves "Champions for Christ") take classes like Introduction to Youth Ministry and Evangelism 101. They hear from guest speakers like Mike Huckabee and Karl Rove, they pray before every class, and they follow a 46-page code of conduct called "The Liberty Way" that prohibits drinking, smoking, R-rated movies, contact with the opposite sex, and witchcraft. Armed with an open mind and a reporter's notebook, Roose dives into life at Bible Boot Camp with the goal of connecting with his evangelical peers by experiencing their world first-hand.

Roose's semester at Liberty takes him to church, class, and choir practice at Rev. Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church. He visits a support group for recovering masturbation addicts, goes to an evangelical hip-hop concert, and participates in a spring break mission trip to Daytona Beach, where he learns how to convert bar-hopping co-eds to Christianity. Roose struggles with his own faith throughout, and in a twist that could only have been engineered by a higher power, he conducts what would turn out to be the last in-depth interview of Rev. Falwell's life. Hilarious and heartwarming, respectful and thought-provoking, Roose's embedded report from the front lines of the culture war will inspire and entertain believers and non-believers alike.]]> 324 Kevin Roose 044617842X Beth 0 to-read 3.98 2009
author: Kevin Roose
name: Beth
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 41015038 337 Grady Hendrix Beth 4 3.94 2016
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Beth
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/11/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Beth 4 4.23 2022
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Beth
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/10/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 898694 387 Laurell K. Hamilton 0441004520 Beth 3 fantasy 3.86 1997
author: Laurell K. Hamilton
name: Beth
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/10/21
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> 355862 We's Lives in Da Ghetto, the exploitative debut novel of a young, middle-class black woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Hailed as an authentic representation of the African American experience, the book is a national bestseller and its author feted on the Kenya Dunston television show. The book's success rankles all the more as Monk's own most recent novel has just notched its seventh rejection.

Even as his career as a writer appears to have stalled, Monk finds himself coping with changes in his personal life. In need of distraction from old memories, new responsibilities, and his professional stagnation, Monk composes, in a heat of inspiration and energy, a fierce parody of the sort of exploitative, ghetto wanna-be lit represented by We's Lives in Da Ghetto.

But when his agent sends this literary indictment (included here in its entirety) out to publishers, it is greeted as an authentic new voice of black America. Monk -- or his pseudonymous alter ego, Stagg R. Leigh -- is offered money, fame, success beyond anything he has known. And as demand begins to build for meetings with and appearances by Leigh, Monk is faced with a whole new set of problems.]]> 280 Percival Everett 0786888156 Beth 5 ggbc
Side note: the "My Pafology" section was groan-inducing but the whole time I kept thinking "I see what you're doing here, and it's very funny."]]> 4.17 2001
author: Percival Everett
name: Beth
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/10/21
shelves: ggbc
review:
Interesting themes of identity and erasure of identity. What stood out to me most: Monk's anger and frustration with the literary (and otherwise) world's uninterrogated concept of a monolithic "Black experience" that is obsessed with "real life in the projects" and has nothing in common with his life. His mother's loss of identity through dementia. His brother trying to live openly as a gay man after being closeted, but losing his family and idea of self in the process. His father, who willed himself back into a certain identity in his community and family despite being in love with someone else and ultimately killed himself. His sister, who was living a life with purpose and was murdered. Monk's creation of a new identity, Stagg, his pseudonym for his answer to "We's Lives in Da Ghetto."

Side note: the "My Pafology" section was groan-inducing but the whole time I kept thinking "I see what you're doing here, and it's very funny."
]]> 4965
Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition.

As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love.

As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."

Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. ]]> 304 Geraldine Brooks 0142001430 Beth 3 4.00 2001
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Beth
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/07/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 39943621
Centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones, House Targaryen—the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria—took up residence on Dragonstone. Fire and Blood begins their tale with the legendary Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and goes on to recount the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold that iconic seat, all the way up to the civil war that nearly tore their dynasty apart.

What really happened during the Dance of the Dragons? Why did it become so deadly to visit Valyria after the Doom? What is the origin of Daenerys’s three dragon eggs? These are but a few of the questions answered in this essential chronicle, as related by a learned maester of the Citadel and featuring more than eighty all-new black-and-white illustrations by artist Doug Wheatley. Readers have glimpsed small parts of this narrative in such volumes as The World of Ice & Fire, but now, for the first time, the full tapestry of Targaryen history is revealed.

With all the scope and grandeur of Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Fire and Blood is the ultimate game of thrones, giving readers a whole new appreciation for the dynamic, often bloody, and always fascinating history of Westeros.]]> 706 George R.R. Martin 152479628X Beth 5 4.03 2018
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Beth
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/06/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 61393430 An unexpected act of violence brings together a Chinese-American family and a wealthy white lawyer in this propulsive and sweeping story of family, identity and the American experience—for fans of Jean Kwok, Mary Beth Keane and Naima Coster.

Set in New York and China over three decades, Paper Names explores what it means to be American from three different perspectives. There’s Tony, a Chinese-born engineer turned Manhattan doorman, who immigrated to the United States to give his family a better life. His daughter, Tammy, who we meet at age nine and follow through adulthood, grapples with the expectations of a first generation American and her own personal desires. Finally, there’s Oliver, a handsome white lawyer with a dark family secret and who lives in the building where Tony works. A violent attack causes their lives to intertwine in ways that will change them forever.

Taut, panoramic and powerful, debut novelist Susie Luo's Paper Names is an unforgettable story about the long shadows of our parents, the ripple effect of our decisions and the ways in which our love transcends difference.]]> 288 Susie Luo 1335426884 Beth 0 to-read, ggbc 3.62 2023
author: Susie Luo
name: Beth
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/12
shelves: to-read, ggbc
review:

]]> 61246258
Shot through with the indulgent pleasures of life among New York’s one-percenters, Pineapple Street is an addictive, escapist novel that sparkles with wit. Full of recognizable, lovable—if fallible—characters, it’s about the peculiar unknowability of someone else’s family, the miles between the haves and have-nots, and the insanity of first love—all wrapped in a deliciously funny, sharply observed debut of family, love, and class.]]> 304 Jenny Jackson 059349069X Beth 0 to-read 3.49 2023
author: Jenny Jackson
name: Beth
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61282523
Kathleen Held’s life is turned upside down when she arrives home to find her house on fire and her husband on the front lawn in his underwear. But the scandal that emerges is not that Bill, who's running for Senate, is having a painfully clichéd affair with one of his young staffers: it's that the eyewitness photographing the scene accidentally captures a period stain on the back of Kathleen’s pants.

Overnight, Kathleen finds herself the unwitting figurehead for a social media–centered women’s right movement, #YesWeBleed. Humiliated, Kathleen tries to hide from the spotlight. But when she stumbles upon the Society of Shame—led by "canceled" author Danica Bellevue—Kathleen finds herself part of a group all working to change their lives after their own scandals. Using the teachings of the society, Kathleen channels her newfound fame as a means to reap the benefits of her humiliation and reclaim herself. But as she ascends to celebrity status, Kathleen's growing obsession with maintaining her popularity online threatens her most important relationship IRL: that with her budding activist daughter, Aggie.

Hilarious and heartfelt, The Society of Shame is a pitch-perfect, satirical romp through politics, media, and the perils of being "extremely online"—without losing your sanity or your true self.]]> 352 Jane Roper 0593468767 Beth 0 to-read 3.27 2023
author: Jane Roper
name: Beth
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57846320 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781982156121 can be found here.

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents� sacrifices. What’s worse is she can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with their angelic daughter Harriet does Frida finally feel she’s attained the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she’s just enough.

Until Frida has a horrible day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida � ones who check their phones while their kids are on the playground; who let their children walk home alone; in other words, mothers who only have one lapse of judgement. Now, a host of government officials will determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that she can live up to the standards set for mothers � that she can learn to be good.

This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect� upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.]]> 336 Jessamine Chan Beth 3 ggbc 3.51 2022
author: Jessamine Chan
name: Beth
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/05/08
shelves: ggbc
review:
2.5 stars rounded up. I felt like long sections of the book were repetitive and that the plot was stuck in the doldrums. I almost quit at 33%, but stuck with it to the end. I found the criticisms of our unrealistic expectations for mothers to be insightful (especially comparing the treatment of the mothers to the much kinder treatment of the fathers - not having to change the blue liquid, calls home not withheld, etc), but then taken to such extremes that the book lost me emotionally. All of the state actor characters in this are pure lawful evil, never wavering in lack of empathy and never failing to pounce on an error. I felt like I was being punished myself reading through the treatment the mothers experience. That said, Frida’s love for Harriet shone through on the page and my heart ached with hers in those passages. Another highlight for me was Frida’s interactions with the other mothers - the mothers were complex and felt real, unlike Gust or Susanna or other sketches of humans that wouldn’t pass the Voight-Kampff test.
]]> 58446227 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 259 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321448 Beth 4 4.04 2022
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Beth
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/04/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 59364173
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,� eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?� She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly , she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!�), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.]]> 320 Jennette McCurdy Beth 4 memoir 4.45 2022
author: Jennette McCurdy
name: Beth
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/04/13
shelves: memoir
review:

]]> 607526 264 Peter Maas 0060932775 Beth 0 to-read 4.09 1999
author: Peter Maas
name: Beth
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53152636
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And NoemĂ­, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]> 320 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0525620788 Beth 0 to-read 3.66 2020
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Beth
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 186074
The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature.

A high-action story written with a poet's hand, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that will transport readers into the body and mind of a wizard.]]> 662 Patrick Rothfuss 075640407X Beth 0 to-read 4.52 2007
author: Patrick Rothfuss
name: Beth
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50659467
At least, he’s not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

From bestselling author Sarah J. Maas comes a seductive, breathtaking book that blends romance, adventure, and faerie lore into an unforgettable read.]]> 419 Sarah J. Maas 1635575567 Beth 1 4.16 2015
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Beth
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2015
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2022/07/30
shelves:
review:
The book feels long and unedited. There’s a massive lack of characterization. It’s a major problem in such a meandering story when the only trait I can assign to our main character is “bad listener.� The sex scenes were boring and our heroine is too stupid to live, on to book two!
]]> 34673711
Aren has lived by the rules all his life. He’s never questioned it; that’s just the way things are. But then his father is executed for treason, and he and his best friend Cade are thrown into a prison mine, doomed to work until they drop. Unless they can somehow break free . . .

But what lies beyond the prison walls is more terrifying still. Rescued by a man who hates him yet is oath-bound to protect him, pursued by inhuman forces, Aren slowly accepts that everything he knew about his world was a lie. The rules are not there to protect him, or his people, but to enslave them. A revolution is brewing, and Aren is being drawn into it, whether he likes it or not.

The key to the revolution is the Ember Blade. The sword of kings, the Excalibur of his people. Only with the Ember Blade in hand can their people be inspired to rise up . . . but it’s locked in an impenetrable vault in the most heavily guarded fortress in the land. All they have to do now is steal it. . .

Designed to return to classic fantasy adventures and values, from a modern perspective, this is a fast-moving coming-of-age trilogy featuring a strong cast of diverse characters, brilliant set-pieces and a powerful character and plot driven story.]]> 824 Chris Wooding 1473214866 Beth 0 to-read 4.17 2018
author: Chris Wooding
name: Beth
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 77711 Alternate Cover Edition can be found here.

A Fire upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale.

Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.

Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.]]> 613 Vernor Vinge 0812515285 Beth 0 to-read 4.14 1992
author: Vernor Vinge
name: Beth
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 7184707
p. 1 - A Snake in the Grass (1981)
p. 175 - A Wolf in the Fold (1982)
p. 351 - A Dragon at the Gate (1982)
p. 539 - A Tiger by the Tail (1983)

Cover art by Richard Powers.]]> 755 Jack L. Chalker Beth 0 to-read 4.21 1983
author: Jack L. Chalker
name: Beth
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 47212 HARRY DRESDEN � WIZARD

Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment.

Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he's the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the "everyday" world is actually full of strange and magical things—and most don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a—well, whatever. There's just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks.

So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry's name. And that's when things start to get interesting.

Magic - it can get a guy killed.]]> 372 Jim Butcher 0451457811 Beth 0 to-read 3.99 2000
author: Jim Butcher
name: Beth
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 13986 Follows the adventures of Talia as she trains to become a Herald of Valdemar in the first book in the classic epic fantasy Arrows trilogy

Chosen by the Companion Rolan, a mystical horse-like being with powers beyond imagining, Talia, once a runaway, has now become a trainee Herald, destined to become one of the Queen's own elite guard. For Talia has certain awakening talents of the mind that only a Companion like Rolan can truly sense.

But as Talia struggles to master her unique abilities, time is running out. For conspiracy is brewing in Valdemar, a deadly treason that could destroy Queen and kingdom. Opposed by unknown enemies capable of both diabolical magic and treacherous assassination, the Queen must turn to Talia and the Heralds for aid in protecting the realm and insuring the future of the Queen's heir, a child already in danger of becoming bespelled by the Queen's own foes.]]> 320 Mercedes Lackey 0886773784 Beth 0 to-read 4.13 1987
author: Mercedes Lackey
name: Beth
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 13812 here.

To the forest on the shore of the Kingdom of the Isles, the orphan Pug came to study with the master magician Kulgan. His courage won him a place at court and the heart of a lovely Princess, but he was ill at ease with normal wizardry. Yet his strange magic may save two worlds from dark beings who opened spacetime to renew the age-old battle between Order and Chaos.]]> 485 Raymond E. Feist 0553564943 Beth 0 to-read 4.18 1982
author: Raymond E. Feist
name: Beth
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 19103097 The stunning conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy

Quentin Coldwater has lost everything. He has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams that he once ruled. Everything he had fought so hard for, not to mention his closest friends, is sealed away in a land Quentin may never again visit. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him. Meanwhile, the magical barriers that keep Fillory safe are failing, and barbarians from the north have invaded. Eliot and Janet, the rulers of Fillory, embark on a final quest to save their beloved world, only to discover a situation far more complex—and far more dire—than anyone had envisioned.

Along with Plum, a brilliant young magician with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. His new life takes him back to old haunts, like Antarctica and the Neitherlands, and old friends he thought were lost forever. He uncovers buried secrets and hidden evils and ultimately the key to a sorcerous masterwork, a spell that could create a magical utopia. But all roads lead back to Fillory, where Quentin must face his fears and put things right or die trying.

The Magician’s Land is an intricate and fantastical thriller, and an epic of love and redemption that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnificent conclusion, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy. It’s the story of a boy becoming a man, an apprentice becoming a master, and a broken land finally becoming whole.]]> 402 Lev Grossman Beth 5 4.14 2014
author: Lev Grossman
name: Beth
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/07/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 28876 356 Naomi Novik 0345481283 Beth 0 to-read 4.06 2006
author: Naomi Novik
name: Beth
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5367 Alternate cover edition can be found here

Roger Zelazny's chronicles of Amber have earned their place as all-time classics of imaginative literature. Now, here are all ten novels, together in one magnificent omnibus volume. Witness the titanic battle for supremacy waged on Earth, in the Courts of Chaos, and on a magical world of mystery, adventure and romance.
--back cover]]> 1258 Roger Zelazny 0380809060 Beth 0 to-read 4.31 1999
author: Roger Zelazny
name: Beth
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 3428935 416 Peter V. Brett 0345503805 Beth 0 to-read 4.25 2008
author: Peter V. Brett
name: Beth
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 32620332
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the �80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 Beth 0 to-read 4.39 2017
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Beth
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 27774758 Alternative Cover Edition #1

Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.
Ěý
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.
Ěý
It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.
Ěý
But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.
Ěý
There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

From the Hardcover edition.]]> 446 Sabaa Tahir Beth 0 to-read 4.23 2015
author: Sabaa Tahir
name: Beth
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13623848 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062060624.

Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.]]> 408 Madeline Miller Beth 0 to-read 4.30 2011
author: Madeline Miller
name: Beth
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 168642
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.]]> 343 Truman Capote 0679745580 Beth 0 to-read 4.08 1966
author: Truman Capote
name: Beth
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1966
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58492104 From the New York Times bestselling author of Ghosted comes a love story wrapped in a mystery: an up-all-night page-turner with a dark secret at its core

I have held you at night for ten years and I didn't even know your name. We have a child together. A dog, a house.

Who are you?

Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she’d do anything for them. But almost everything she's told them about herself is a lie.

And she might just have got away with it, if it weren’t for her husband’s job. Leo is an obituary writer; Emma a well-known marine biologist. When she suffers a serious illness, Leo copes by doing what he knows best � researching and writing about his wife’s life. But as he starts to unravel the truth, he discovers the woman he loves doesn’t really exist. Even her name isn’t real.

When the very darkest moments of Emma’s past finally emerge, she must somehow prove to Leo that she really is the woman he always thought she was . . .

But first, she must tell him about the other love of her life.]]> 372 Rosie Walsh 0593296990 Beth 0 to-read 3.77 2022
author: Rosie Walsh
name: Beth
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55196813
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly's orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it's too late?

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]> 304 Nita Prose 0593356152 Beth 3 3.71 2022
author: Nita Prose
name: Beth
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2022/02/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 3591262
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

An unforgettable journey into one man’s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.
(front flap)]]> 560 Abraham Verghese 0375414495 Beth 0 to-read 4.32 2009
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Beth
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 10054335 335 Amor Towles Beth 0 to-read 4.06 2011
author: Amor Towles
name: Beth
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57109107 The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.

Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.]]> 576 Amor Towles 0735222355 Beth 0 to-read 4.18 2021
author: Amor Towles
name: Beth
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53317416
A wrenching debut about the causes and effects of poverty, as seen by a father and son living in a pickup

Evicted from their trailer on New Year’s Eve, Henry and his son, Junior, have been reduced to living out of a pickup truck. Six months later, things are even more desperate. Henry, barely a year out of prison for pushing opioids, is down to his last pocketful of dollars, and little remains between him and the street. But hope is on the Today is Junior’s birthday, and Henry has a job interview tomorrow.

To celebrate, Henry treats Junior to dinner at McDonald’s, followed by a night in a real bed at a discount motel. For a moment, as Junior watches TV and Henry practices for his interview in the bathtub, all seems well. But after Henry has a disastrous altercation in the parking lot and Junior succumbs to a fever, father and son are sent into the night, struggling to hold things together and make it through tomorrow.

In an ingenious structural approach, Jakob Guanzon organizes Abundance by the amount of cash in Henry’s pocket. A new chapter starts with each debit and credit, and the novel expands and contracts, revealing the extent to which the quality of our attention is altered by the abundance―or lack thereof―that surrounds us. Set in an America of big-box stores and fast food, this incandescent debut novel trawls the fluorescent aisles of Walmart and the booths of Red Lobster to reveal the inequities and anxieties around work, debt, addiction, incarceration, and health care in America today.]]> 278 Jakob Guanzon 1644450461 Beth 3 ggbc
The main problem I had was too much description - I would read a few sentences setting a scene and feel like I understood exactly what was being described and could see it in my mind’s eye…and then the descriptions kept on a-comin�, taking me out of the story and ruining the flow. This was problematic with a story as bleak as this one.

Henry had unrelentingly bad luck on top of bad decision making at every. single. turn., to the point that I thought, “come on!� a few times. E.g., in a truck bed full of bags at the end, the cop immediately opens the bag with the iron, sees the blood, and is suspicious…no. One overzealous security guard who wants to wield his petty power? Sure, bad luck. Having every security guard or cop in the story sussing out every infraction felt unlikely, even with unfairly higher scrutiny given to people who look like they’re struggling and overpolicing of marginalized people.

Almost every single scene drove home how degrading, wearing, and dehumanizing it is to be poor in America with no safety net and little hope (and even worse with a felony conviction). I felt like this status quo is well known and the subject of a lot of reform efforts, but it can’t be a bad thing to help readers along the path to greater empathy and underline the humanity in people who are struggling. I appreciated that the author didn’t feel the need to make Henry into a Saint Mary Sue.]]> 3.83 2021
author: Jakob Guanzon
name: Beth
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/02/05
date added: 2022/02/05
shelves: ggbc
review:
I struggled with this one. Henry’s relationships with his father and his son felt real to me and I thought the parts of the book exploring the themes of what it means to be a father and what we hope for the next generation were standouts. I believed Henry’s struggles with his father and how they carried through to parenting his son. I also thought the writing was solid.

The main problem I had was too much description - I would read a few sentences setting a scene and feel like I understood exactly what was being described and could see it in my mind’s eye…and then the descriptions kept on a-comin�, taking me out of the story and ruining the flow. This was problematic with a story as bleak as this one.

Henry had unrelentingly bad luck on top of bad decision making at every. single. turn., to the point that I thought, “come on!� a few times. E.g., in a truck bed full of bags at the end, the cop immediately opens the bag with the iron, sees the blood, and is suspicious…no. One overzealous security guard who wants to wield his petty power? Sure, bad luck. Having every security guard or cop in the story sussing out every infraction felt unlikely, even with unfairly higher scrutiny given to people who look like they’re struggling and overpolicing of marginalized people.

Almost every single scene drove home how degrading, wearing, and dehumanizing it is to be poor in America with no safety net and little hope (and even worse with a felony conviction). I felt like this status quo is well known and the subject of a lot of reform efforts, but it can’t be a bad thing to help readers along the path to greater empathy and underline the humanity in people who are struggling. I appreciated that the author didn’t feel the need to make Henry into a Saint Mary Sue.
]]> 36124936
An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can.]]> 561 Stephen King 1501180983 Beth 0 to-read 3.98 2018
author: Stephen King
name: Beth
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 46000520
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?

Alternate cover edition can be found here .]]> 382 Richard Osman Beth 0 to-read 3.87 2020
author: Richard Osman
name: Beth
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57941459 An epic literary thriller set where America is right now, in which a band of unlikely heroes sets out on a quest to save one innocent life—and might end up saving us all.

Something is happening to teenagers across America, spreading through memes only they can parse.

At the Float Anxiety Abatement Center, in a suburb of Chicago, Simon Oliver is trying to recover from his sister’s tragic passing. He breaks out to join a woman named Louise and a man called The Prophet on a quest as urgent as it is enigmatic. Who lies at the end of the road? A man known as The Wizard, whose past encounter with Louise sparked her own collapse. Their quest becomes a rescue mission when they join up with a man whose sister is being held captive by the Wizard, impregnated and imprisoned in a tower.

Noah Hawley’s new novel is anĚýadventure that finds unquenchable lights in dark corners. Unforgettably vivid characters and a plot as fast and bright as pop cinema blend in a Vonnegutian story that is as timeless as a Grimm’s fairy tale. It is a leap into the idiosyncratic pulse of the American heart, written with the bravado, literary power, and feverish foresight that have made Hawley one of our most essential writers.]]> 427 Noah Hawley 1538711516 Beth 0 to-read 3.43 2022
author: Noah Hawley
name: Beth
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 86655
Two cousins, irreversibly damaged by a childhood prank, reunite twenty years later to renovate a medieval castle in Eastern Europe. In an environment of extreme paranoia, cut off from the outside world, the men reenact the signal event of their youth, with even more catastrophic results. And as the full horror of their predicament unfolds, a prisoner, in jail for an unnamed crime, recounts an unforgettable story that seamlessly brings the crimes of the past and present into piercing relation.]]> 240 Jennifer Egan 1400043921 Beth 0 to-read 3.47 2006
author: Jennifer Egan
name: Beth
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52722079
In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.

In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.]]> 295 Emma Donoghue 0316499013 Beth 2
A few issues:
1. I liked both Julia and Bridie, but felt no sexual tension between them. Bridie was a bit of a Mary Sue.
2. I didn’t believe they were deeply in love after 2 days together.
3. I didn’t need to read all the birth scenes - they felt repetitive and did not illuminate character for me.
4. Making out at the flu hospital with all the suffering around them felt gross, not like an affirmation of life and love.
5. I didn’t get the impression that our protagonist wanted to be a parent, so her sudden adoption of the orphaned infant felt strange. I get that she was trying to save someone she could from the suffering Bridie endured, but it just felt off and didn’t work for me.
6. None of the plot elements around the doctor went anywhere�

Beautiful writing though as I expect from Donoghue. ]]> 3.91 2020
author: Emma Donoghue
name: Beth
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2021/12/05
shelves:
review:
I didn’t like this book much. I felt the romance subplot came out of nowhere and ruined a book that I was enjoying for the first half or so. The third act felt messy to me.

A few issues:
1. I liked both Julia and Bridie, but felt no sexual tension between them. Bridie was a bit of a Mary Sue.
2. I didn’t believe they were deeply in love after 2 days together.
3. I didn’t need to read all the birth scenes - they felt repetitive and did not illuminate character for me.
4. Making out at the flu hospital with all the suffering around them felt gross, not like an affirmation of life and love.
5. I didn’t get the impression that our protagonist wanted to be a parent, so her sudden adoption of the orphaned infant felt strange. I get that she was trying to save someone she could from the suffering Bridie endured, but it just felt off and didn’t work for me.
6. None of the plot elements around the doctor went anywhere�

Beautiful writing though as I expect from Donoghue.
]]> 17225311 "Smart and biting" —New York Journal of Books

"Laced with dark, sometimes savage humor and juicy riffs on consumer culture and its twin obsessions, youth and beauty" �Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

Celeste Price is twenty-six years old, beautiful, smart, married to a handsome man with money, and starting a new job as a junior high school teacher in suburban Tampa. Yet she harbors a dark secret. She is driven by a singular sexual obsession—fourteen-year-old boys. As the school year begins, Celeste has chosen and seduced the naive Jack Patrick, a quiet, thoughtful boy in awe of his teacher. But when her lustful frenzy begins to spiral out of control, the insatiable Celeste bypasses each hurdle with swift thinking and shameless determination.

"Impeccably written, full of smart cultural observations, and no small amount of wit . . . A very bold book." —Daily Beast]]> 266 Alissa Nutting 0062280562 Beth 3
I liked that Nutting didn’t choose to “soften� the abusiveness - and undermine the story - by calling the abuse “love.� At the end, after seeing all the pain Celeste had caused, it was hard to disentangle her sociopathic tendencies from the pedophilia. She’s a villain with no remorse. I really felt the trauma inflicted on her primary victim and wanted him to run, but completely believed that this character would be entrapped by her.

The strangest thing for me was the end - Nutting gets us to feel almost sorry for Celeste’s grim vision of her future as she ages, then you think about what her aims are and think “wait, no!� 3.5 stars for me. ]]> 3.36 2013
author: Alissa Nutting
name: Beth
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2021/11/30
shelves:
review:
I liked this book overall, but it was so hard to read the slow motion predatory behavior and be in the head of the abuser. She’s 100% horny and 100% DGAF about anything but her objective (sex with young teenage boy victim) and how she can accomplish it (logistics, keeping up a youthful face, etc). As a character study, bravo, but hard to read in parts!

I liked that Nutting didn’t choose to “soften� the abusiveness - and undermine the story - by calling the abuse “love.� At the end, after seeing all the pain Celeste had caused, it was hard to disentangle her sociopathic tendencies from the pedophilia. She’s a villain with no remorse. I really felt the trauma inflicted on her primary victim and wanted him to run, but completely believed that this character would be entrapped by her.

The strangest thing for me was the end - Nutting gets us to feel almost sorry for Celeste’s grim vision of her future as she ages, then you think about what her aims are and think “wait, no!� 3.5 stars for me.
]]> 48890225 A whipsmart debut about three women—transgender and cisgender—whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex.

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.]]> 337 Torrey Peters 0593133374 Beth 2 ggbc
As for characterization, the motivations for Ames made sense (maybe because we get to know his story and the character feels real?). One of the standout scenes of the book for me was a flashback to his first time shopping for women’s clothes - he was so excited and happy until the magic of the moment was disturbed, albeit unintentionally, by a cis woman and her daughter. I understood the character’s complicated feelings towards gender and fatherhood. As the reader, I got to sit in his head for a while and his feelings were messy but felt real.

On the other hand, Reese’s motivations didn’t track at all; they were so rooted in antiquated and/or damaging ideas of what womanhood is and wrapped up with a whole slew of fetishes. We’re told Reese wants to be a mother, but her conception of motherhood has nothing to do with being a parent and seems to be more about the acceptance by/into the world of cis womanhood - a world she expresses contempt for. She says having HIV is basically like being a mother, which...yeesh. Even if you don’t like children, that seems like a stretch as an analogy - and seems like the author is trying too hard to be “edgy.� The only thing Reese seems to like is cheating, because it’s “spicy.� I was confused every time I was in Reese’s head as a reader.

Katrina also made no sense, but mostly because she wasn’t a well defined character. When Ames proposes that they raise their child with Reese, Katrina does a 180 from “are you crazy� to “yes I’ll raise a child with you and your ex WHO I DON’T KNOW AT ALL� after a single conversation with her mother. She outs Ames as detransitioned during a work meeting with a client. She is also Ames’s manager, so she is sleeping with a direct report. But we’re told that she’s good at her job? Huh. Seems like a very bad manager who is an HR nightmare, but whatever.

In short, this book was messy plot-wise and 2 of the 3 main characters made no sense.]]> 3.94 2021
author: Torrey Peters
name: Beth
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2021/04/11
date added: 2021/11/08
shelves: ggbc
review:
This book didn’t work for me. The whole book read like an excuse for the inclusion of gender studies monologues. I felt like those themes could have been organically explored without talking down to the reader, but since the plot was also all over the place, maybe that wouldn’t have panned out either.

As for characterization, the motivations for Ames made sense (maybe because we get to know his story and the character feels real?). One of the standout scenes of the book for me was a flashback to his first time shopping for women’s clothes - he was so excited and happy until the magic of the moment was disturbed, albeit unintentionally, by a cis woman and her daughter. I understood the character’s complicated feelings towards gender and fatherhood. As the reader, I got to sit in his head for a while and his feelings were messy but felt real.

On the other hand, Reese’s motivations didn’t track at all; they were so rooted in antiquated and/or damaging ideas of what womanhood is and wrapped up with a whole slew of fetishes. We’re told Reese wants to be a mother, but her conception of motherhood has nothing to do with being a parent and seems to be more about the acceptance by/into the world of cis womanhood - a world she expresses contempt for. She says having HIV is basically like being a mother, which...yeesh. Even if you don’t like children, that seems like a stretch as an analogy - and seems like the author is trying too hard to be “edgy.� The only thing Reese seems to like is cheating, because it’s “spicy.� I was confused every time I was in Reese’s head as a reader.

Katrina also made no sense, but mostly because she wasn’t a well defined character. When Ames proposes that they raise their child with Reese, Katrina does a 180 from “are you crazy� to “yes I’ll raise a child with you and your ex WHO I DON’T KNOW AT ALL� after a single conversation with her mother. She outs Ames as detransitioned during a work meeting with a client. She is also Ames’s manager, so she is sleeping with a direct report. But we’re told that she’s good at her job? Huh. Seems like a very bad manager who is an HR nightmare, but whatever.

In short, this book was messy plot-wise and 2 of the 3 main characters made no sense.
]]> 20518872 472 Liu Cixin Beth 0 to-read 4.08 2006
author: Liu Cixin
name: Beth
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 32600556 307 Alissa Nutting 0062280554 Beth 4 ggbc
This was also interesting for me because I watched the HBO show first and really liked it, so I sought out the book. I’m so glad I did - the book and the show are very different, particularly in the character of Byron - but I thought the book was so well developed and well written. Great read.

ETA: this book is also very, very funny, which I somehow failed to mention in my initial review!]]> 3.48 2017
author: Alissa Nutting
name: Beth
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/10/02
shelves: ggbc
review:
I really enjoyed this book and its structure. All of the supporting cast perfectly illuminate different contours of our protagonist’s struggle with love and authenticity, but never in a boring or trite way. Her father’s relationship with a sex doll, Jasper’s love for a dolphin, Liver’s existence as the antithesis of Byron and his world.

This was also interesting for me because I watched the HBO show first and really liked it, so I sought out the book. I’m so glad I did - the book and the show are very different, particularly in the character of Byron - but I thought the book was so well developed and well written. Great read.

ETA: this book is also very, very funny, which I somehow failed to mention in my initial review!
]]> 55918474 A novel from the author of A Separation, a taut and electrifying story about a woman caught between many truths.

An interpreter has come to The Hague to escape New York and work at the International Court. A woman of many languages and identities, she is looking for a place to finally call home.

She's drawn into simmering personal dramas: her lover, Adriaan, is separated from his wife but still entangled in his marriage. Her friend Jana witnesses a seemingly random act of violence, a crime the interpreter becomes increasingly obsessed with as she befriends the victim's sister. And she's pulled into explosive political fires: her work interpreting for a former president accused of war crimes becomes precarious as their relationship is unbound by shifting language and meaning.

This woman is the voice in the ear of many, but what command does that give her, and how vulnerable does that leave her? Her coolly impassioned views on power, love, and violence, are tested, both in her personal intimacies and in her role at the Court. She is soon pushed to the precipice, where betrayal and heartbreak threaten to overwhelm her; it is her drive towards truth, and love, that throws into stark relief what she wants from her life.]]> 225 Katie Kitamura 0399576169 Beth 0 to-read 3.62 2021
author: Katie Kitamura
name: Beth
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/09/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 9639197
Turn of Mind, a literary page-turner about a retired orthopedic surgeon suffering from dementia and accused of killing her best friend, was a New York Times hardcover bestseller and named a Best Book of the Year by Newsday, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Kirkus Reviews.

When Dr. Jennifer White's best friend, Amanda, is found dead with four of her fingers surgically removed, Dr. White is the prime suspect. But she herself doesn't know whether she did it. Told in White's own voice, fractured and eloquent, a picture emerges of the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between these life-long friends—two proud, forceful women who were at times each other's most formidable adversary. As the investigation into the murder deepens and White's relationships with her live-in caretaker and two grown children intensify, a chilling question lingers: is White's shattered memory preventing her from revealing the truth or helping her to hide it?

A startling portrait of a disintegrating mind clinging to bits of reality through anger, frustration, shame, and unspeakable loss, Turn of Mind is a remarkable debut that examines the deception and frailty of memory and how it defines our very existence.]]> 320 Alice LaPlante 0385669852 Beth 2
I do not practice criminal law, but I feel like there were a lot of weird things here. No competency issues for this advanced Alzheimer’s patient who doesn’t understand the charges against her but her attorney has her sign a plea, I guess? Yikes. ]]> 3.62 2011
author: Alice LaPlante
name: Beth
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2021/09/02
shelves:
review:
Promising idea, but didn’t pan out for me. Amanda was a terrible friend - a toxic blend of cruelty, self-righteousness, jealousy, and vindictiveness. As we got to know her better, I disliked her more and more and hoped there was a good reason Jennifer killed her. I’m already in spoiler mode, so I can say: there wasn’t. Her daughter killed Amanda for threatening to expose James’s past embezzlement? And the BIG CLUE of the surgeon-style cuts on the hands was to remove her daughter’s jewelry while the hands were in rigor mortis?? Stawwwwwp.

I do not practice criminal law, but I feel like there were a lot of weird things here. No competency issues for this advanced Alzheimer’s patient who doesn’t understand the charges against her but her attorney has her sign a plea, I guess? Yikes.
]]> 53597769
It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother’s house, setting her life on a startling new path.

Vivid, tender, funny, and beautifully rendered, The Five Wounds spans the baby’s first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo’s mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel’s mother, Marissa, whom Angel isn’t speaking to; and disapproving Tíve, Yolanda’s uncle and keeper of the family’s history. Each brings expectations that Amadeo, who often solves his problems with a beer in his hand, doesn’t think he can live up to.

The Five Wounds is a miraculous debut novel from a writer whose stories have been hailed as “legitimate masterpieces� (New York Times). Kirstin Valdez Quade conjures characters that will linger long after the final page, bringing to life their struggles to parent children they may not be equipped to save.]]> 419 Kirstin Valdez Quade 0393242838 Beth 4 ggbc 4.24 2021
author: Kirstin Valdez Quade
name: Beth
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/08/28
shelves: ggbc
review:

]]> 77566 500 Dan Simmons 0553283685 Beth 0 to-read 4.26 1989
author: Dan Simmons
name: Beth
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 20170404 An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.]]> 333 Emily St. John Mandel 0385353308 Beth 4 4.05 2014
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Beth
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/05/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Beth 3
I have a soft spot for multiverse stories, but the endgame of this one was pretty clear from the beginning, so I found myself waiting for the story to catch up.

The end felt a little preachy and the main character was a little *too* good at every possible interest she had, but overall, it was fine - an easy read with some psych-lite at the end to overburden the palate.]]> 3.96 2020
author: Matt Haig
name: Beth
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2021/04/27
shelves:
review:
2.5 rounded up. This book is like if It's a Wonderful Life, Maniac (the miniseries on Netflix), and the Library from The Magicians had a baby.

I have a soft spot for multiverse stories, but the endgame of this one was pretty clear from the beginning, so I found myself waiting for the story to catch up.

The end felt a little preachy and the main character was a little *too* good at every possible interest she had, but overall, it was fine - an easy read with some psych-lite at the end to overburden the palate.
]]> 10818853 Ěý
Shocked yet thrilled by Grey’s singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success—his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family—Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey’s secrets and explores her own dark desires.

Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.

This book is intended for mature audiences.]]> 356 E.L. James 1612130291 Beth 1 3.68 2011
author: E.L. James
name: Beth
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2011
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2021/04/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 48931090
In 2009, the acclaimed author of Hitler’s Furies was shown a photograph just brought to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The documentation of the Holocaust is vast, but there are virtually no images of a Jewish family at the actual moment of murder, in this case by German officials and Ukrainian collaborators. A Ukrainian shooter’s rifle is inches from a woman's head, obscured in a cloud of smoke. She is bending forward, holding the hand of a barefooted little boy. And � only one of the shocking revelations of Wendy Lower’s brilliant ten-year investigation of this image � the shins of another child, slipping from the woman’s lap.

Wendy Lower’s forensic and archival detective work � in Ukraine, Germany, Slovakia, Israel, and the United States � recovers astonishing layers of detail concerning the open-air massacres in Ukraine. The identities of mother and children, of the killers—and, remarkably, of the Slovakian photographer who openly took the image, as a secret act of resistance � are dramatically uncovered. Finally, in the hands of this brilliant exceptional scholar, a single image unlocks a new understanding of the place of the family unit in the ideology of Nazi genocide.]]> 272 Wendy Lower 0544828690 Beth 0 to-read 4.11 2021
author: Wendy Lower
name: Beth
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 44318414
The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.]]> 337 Ann Patchett 0062963678 Beth 0 to-read 4.08 2019
author: Ann Patchett
name: Beth
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 32920226 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781501126062

In Jesmyn Ward’s first novel since her National Book Award–winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America. Drawing on Morrison and Faulkner, The Odyssey and the Old Testament, Ward gives us an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi’s past and present that is both an intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. Ward is a major American writer, multiply awarded and universally lauded, and in Sing, Unburied, Sing she is at the height of her powers.

Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high; Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man. When the white father of Leonie’s children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise.

Sing, Unburied, Sing grapples with the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power, and limitations, of the bonds of family. Rich with Ward’s distinctive, musical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic new work and an essential contribution to American literature.]]> 285 Jesmyn Ward Beth 0 to-read 4.00 2017
author: Jesmyn Ward
name: Beth
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30971755 304 Jennifer A. Doudna 0544716949 Beth 0 to-read 4.10 2017
author: Jennifer A. Doudna
name: Beth
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54968118 The Double Helix on her bed. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.

Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his co-discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned �a curiosity ​of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.

The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code.

Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm…Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids?

After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020.]]> 536 Walter Isaacson 1982115858 Beth 0 to-read 4.23 2021
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Beth
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 45304101 A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris

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

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

The Great Believers has become a critically acclaimed, indelible piece of literature; it was selected as one of New York Times Best 10 Books of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, a Buzzfeed Book of the Year, a Skimm Reads pick, and a pick for the New York Public Library's Best Books of the year.]]> 421 Rebecca Makkai 073522353X Beth 0 to-read 4.26 2018
author: Rebecca Makkai
name: Beth
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40304
It was a miracle of science that permitted human beings to live, if not forever, then for a long, long time. Some people, anyway. The rich, the powerful--they lived their lives at the rate of one year every ten. Somec created two societies: that of people who lived out their normal span and died, and those who slept away the decades, skipping over the intervening years and events. It allowed great plans to be put in motion. It allowed interstellar Empires to be built.

It came near to destroying humanity.

After a long, long time of decadence and stagnation, a few seed ships were sent out to save our species. They carried human embryos and supplies, and teaching robots, and one man. The Worthing Saga is the story of one of these men, Jason Worthing, and the world he found for the seed he carried.

Orson Scott Card is "a master of the art of storytelling" (Booklist), and The Worthing Saga is a story that only he could have written.
]]> 463 Orson Scott Card 0812533313 Beth 5 science-fiction, ggbc 3.86 1990
author: Orson Scott Card
name: Beth
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/03/07
shelves: science-fiction, ggbc
review:

]]> 17899948 Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives--presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.

First published in 1938, this classic gothic novel is such a compelling read that it won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century.]]> 449 Daphne du Maurier 0316323705 Beth 5 ggbc
This is narrated by a young woman who has no name beyond her husband’s, no identifying feature beyond diffidence, who becomes completely subsumed under him. The turning point - when he confesses he murdered his first wife, Rebecca, and our current Mrs. de Winter feels nothing but joy because it means he doesn’t love Rebecca - gave me chills. He’s so manipulative, declaring his love for the first time as a sort of quid pro quo for her to manage his secret. She’s only too happy because it means she’s in his confidence and one with him. That’s when our narrator fully merges with Maxim and has nothing left of herself. She’s a different character after that point - she’s become him.

The way the story ends (at the beginning of the book), with Manderley destroyed and Mr. and Mrs. de Winter abroad and living a stultifying routine, is a nightmare. What a prize for the two of them, but also kind of deserved?

I didn’t think about the similarities to Jane Eyre while I was reading, but thought it was an interesting comparison. More interesting as a companion piece in my opinion than Wide Sargasso Sea, but YMMV.

I love that de Maurier made a book where the main character is dead, but inhabits the story so completely that she’s more real than the living characters. Loved it. ]]> 4.28 1938
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Beth
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1938
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/03/07
shelves: ggbc
review:
Not at all what I always thought this story was about! I thought this was a romance with a ghost story, but I don’t know where I got that from. The romance is actually a horror tale and the ghost is the memory of a woman who our narrator feels she can’t measure up to.

This is narrated by a young woman who has no name beyond her husband’s, no identifying feature beyond diffidence, who becomes completely subsumed under him. The turning point - when he confesses he murdered his first wife, Rebecca, and our current Mrs. de Winter feels nothing but joy because it means he doesn’t love Rebecca - gave me chills. He’s so manipulative, declaring his love for the first time as a sort of quid pro quo for her to manage his secret. She’s only too happy because it means she’s in his confidence and one with him. That’s when our narrator fully merges with Maxim and has nothing left of herself. She’s a different character after that point - she’s become him.

The way the story ends (at the beginning of the book), with Manderley destroyed and Mr. and Mrs. de Winter abroad and living a stultifying routine, is a nightmare. What a prize for the two of them, but also kind of deserved?

I didn’t think about the similarities to Jane Eyre while I was reading, but thought it was an interesting comparison. More interesting as a companion piece in my opinion than Wide Sargasso Sea, but YMMV.

I love that de Maurier made a book where the main character is dead, but inhabits the story so completely that she’s more real than the living characters. Loved it.
]]> 7235533 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings, book one of The Stormlight Archive begins an incredible new saga of epic proportion.

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar's niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan's motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.

The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.

Speak again the ancient oaths:

Life before death.
Strength before weakness.
Journey before Destination.

and return to men the Shards they once bore.

The Knights Radiant must stand again.]]> 1007 Brandon Sanderson 0765326353 Beth 0 to-read 4.66 2010
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Beth
average rating: 4.66
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53327897 Already an international literary sensation, an intimate and powerful memoir of a young French teenage girl’s relationship with a famous, much older male writer—a universal #MeToo story of power, manipulation, trauma, recovery, and resiliency that exposes the hypocrisy of a culture that has allowed the sexual abuse of minors to occur unchecked.

Sometimes, all it takes is a single voice to shatter the silence of complicity.Ěý

Thirty years ago, Vanessa Springora was the teenage muse of one of the country’s most celebrated writers, a footnote in the narrative of a very influential man in the French literary world.

At the end of 2019, as women around the world began to speak out, Vanessa, now in her forties and the director of one of France’s leading publishing houses, decided to reclaim her own story, offering her perspective of those events sharply known.

Consent is the story of one precocious young girl’s stolen adolescence. Devastating in its honesty, Vanessa’s painstakingly memoir lays bare the cultural attitudes and circumstances that made it possible for a thirteen-year-old girl to become involved with a fifty-year-old man who happened to be a notable writer. As she recalls the events of her childhood and her seduction by one of her country’s most notable writers, Vanessa reflects on the ways in which this disturbing relationship changed and affected her as she grew older.Ěý

Drawing parallels between children’s fairy tales and French history and her personal life, Vanessa offers an intimate and absorbing look at the meaning of love and consent and the toll of trauma and the power of healing in women’s lives. Ultimately, she offers a forceful indictment of a chauvinistic literary world that has for too long accepted and helped perpetuate gender inequality and the exploitation and sexual abuse of children.]]> 208 Vanessa Springora 0063060388 Beth 0 to-read 4.24 2020
author: Vanessa Springora
name: Beth
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50623864
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.]]> 448 Victoria E. Schwab 0765387565 Beth 0 to-read 4.16 2020
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Beth
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 828025 302 Scott D. Sagan 0691021015 Beth 0 to-read 4.15 1993
author: Scott D. Sagan
name: Beth
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 29906980 Lincoln in the Bardo is a literary experience unlike any other—for no one but Saunders could conceive it.

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," the president says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returned to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy's body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory, where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul.

Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction's ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices—living and dead, historical and invented—to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?]]> 368 George Saunders 0812995341 Beth 0 to-read 3.75 2017
author: George Saunders
name: Beth
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2017
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]]> 37570546 From a psychotherapist, and national advice columnist comes a thought-provoking new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist's world -- where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).

One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives -- a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys -- she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.

With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is revolutionary in its candor, offering a deeply personal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly revealing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.]]> 415 Lori Gottlieb 1328662055 Beth 0 to-read 4.36 2019
author: Lori Gottlieb
name: Beth
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2019
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]]> 33253215 real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from � and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.]]> 582 John Boyne Beth 0 to-read 4.51 2017
author: John Boyne
name: Beth
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2017
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]]> 52290 Codex Pappus said to be the sacred Gnomonic text. He expands the noble brotherhood, survives scandalous schism, bids for governor of Indiana, and sees Gnomons gather in East Texas mobile home. This is an America of misfits and con men, oddballs and innocents.]]> 248 Charles Portis 1585670219 Beth 0 to-read 3.72 1985
author: Charles Portis
name: Beth
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1985
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date added: 2020/12/31
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]]> 18869970 349 Daphne du Maurier 0316252964 Beth 0 to-read 4.02 1951
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Beth
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1951
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date added: 2020/12/29
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