Julie's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 14 Apr 2025 13:53:16 -0700 60 Julie's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg None of This Is True 62334530 Lisa Jewell returns with a scintillating new psychological thriller about a woman who finds herself the subject of her own popular true crime podcast.

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.

A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?]]>
390 Lisa Jewell 1982179007 Julie 4 4.08 2023 None of This Is True
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Julie
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
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The Shell Seekers 37095 The Shell Seekers, is now worth a small fortune, it is Penelope who must make the decisions that will determine whether her family can continue to survive as a family, or be split apart.]]> 544 Rosamunde Pilcher 051722285X Julie 0 currently-reading 4.16 1987 The Shell Seekers
author: Rosamunde Pilcher
name: Julie
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/13
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<![CDATA[Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition of 1761-1767 (NYRB Classics)]]> 32302881 Arabia Felix is the spellbinding true story of a scientific expedition gone disastrously astray. On a winter morning in 1761 six men leave Copenhagen by sea--a botanist, a philologist, an astronomer, a doctor, an artist, and their manservant--an ill-assorted band of men who dislike and distrust one another from the start. These are the members of the first Danish expedition to Arabia Felix, as Yemen was then known, the first organized foray into a corner of the world unknown to Europeans, an enterprise that had the support of the Danish Crown and was keenly followed throughout Europe. The expedition made its way to Turkey and Egypt, by which time its members were already actively seeking to undercut and even kill one another, before disappearing into the harsh desert that was their destination. Nearly seven years later a single survivor returned to Denmark to find himself a forgotten man and all the specimens that had been sent back ruined by neglect.
Based on diaries, notebooks, and sketches that lay unread in Danish archives until the twentieth century, Arabia Felix is both a comedy of intellectual rivalry and very bad manners and an utterly absorbing tale of high adventure."]]>
392 Thorkild Hansen 1681370727 Julie 4 4.37 1962 Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition of 1761-1767 (NYRB Classics)
author: Thorkild Hansen
name: Julie
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/13
date added: 2025/04/13
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Orbital 123136728 207 Samantha Harvey 0802161545 Julie 0 currently-reading 3.56 2023 Orbital
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Julie
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
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Wild Dark Shore 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]>
303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 Julie 4 4.30 2025 Wild Dark Shore
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Julie
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/06
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<![CDATA[The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham]]> 209801576 From the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize, an extraordinary story of the meteoric rise and fall of King James I’s favorite, George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham.

As the king’s lover, Buckingham was one of the most flamboyant and enigmatic seventeenth-century Englishmen at the heart of royal and political life. A dazzling figure on horseback and a skillful player of the political game, he rapidly transformed the influence his beauty gave him into immense wealth and power. By the time he was thirty-three he had been first minister to two successive kings.

With a novelist’s touch, Lucy Hughes-Hallett transports us into a courtly world of masques and dancing, exquisite clothes, the art of Rubens and Van Dyck, gender-fluidity, sex, and appallingly rudimentary medicine. These were dangerous and complicated times, an era where witch hunts coexisted with Descartian rationality, and Buckingham stood at its center--until his spectacular fall from grace.

From tempestuous scenes in Parliament to the political force of public opinion, The Scapegoatis a rich and compelling story with deep resonance for today’s world. Hughes-Hallett’s extraordinary recreation of the period delves into love, war, and pacifism in a society on the brink of cataclysmic change.]]>
688 Lucy Hughes-Hallett 0062940139 Julie 3 4.30 2024 The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham
author: Lucy Hughes-Hallett
name: Julie
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
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Six Days in Bombay 212378278
When renouned painter Mira Novak arrives at Wadia hospital in Bombay after a miscarriage, she's expected to make a quick recovery, and Sona is excited to spend time with the worldly woman who shares her half-Indian identity, even if that's where their similarities end. Sona is enraptured by Mira's stories of her travels, and shocked by accounts of the many lovers she's left scattered through Europe. Over the course of a week, Mira befriends Sona, seeing in her something bigger than the small life she's living with her mother. Mira is released from the hospital just in time to attend a lavish engagement party where all of Bombay society. But the next day, Mira is readmitted to the hospital in worse condition than before, and when she dies under mysterious circumstances, Sona immediately falls under suspicion.

Before leaving the hospital in disgrace, Sona is given a note Mira left for her, along with her four favorite paintings. But how could she have known to leave a note if she didn't know she was going to die? The note sends Sona on a mission to deliver three of the paintings—the first to Petra, Mira's childhood friend and first love in Prague; the second to her art dealer Josephine in Paris; the third to her first painting tutor, Paolo, with whom both Mira and her mother had affairs. As Sona uncovers Mira's history, she learns that the charming facade she'd come to know was only one part of a complicated and sometimes cruel woman. But can she discover what really happened to Mira and exonerate herself?

Along the way, Sona also comes to terms with her own complex history and the English father who deserted her and her mother in India so many years ago. In the end, she'll discover that we are all made up of pieces, and only by seeing the world do we learn to see ourselves.]]>
352 Alka Joshi 077836853X Julie 0 to-read 3.88 2025 Six Days in Bombay
author: Alka Joshi
name: Julie
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon]]> 127282874
In the era of Black Lives Matter, Frantz Fanon’s shadow looms larger than ever. He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power continue to shape radical movements across the world. In this searching biography, Adam Shatz tells the story of Fanon’s stunning journey, which has all the twists of a Cold War-era thriller. Fanon left his modest home in Martinique to fight in the French Army during World War II; when the war was over, he fell under the influence of Existentialism while studying medicine in Lyon and trying to make sense of his experiences as a Black man in a white city. Fanon went on to practice a novel psychiatry of “dis-alienation� in rural France and Algeria, and then join the Algerian independence struggle, where he became a spokesman, diplomat, and clandestine strategist. He died in 1961, while under the care of the CIA in a Maryland hospital. Today, Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth have become canonical texts of the Black and global radical imagination, comparable to James Baldwin’s essays in their influence. And yet they are little understood. In The Rebel’s Clinic , Shatz offers a dramatic reconstruction of Fanon’s extraordinary life―and a guide to the books that underlie today’s most vital efforts to challenge white supremacy and racial capitalism.

Includes 8 pages of black-and-white photographs]]>
464 Adam Shatz 0374176426 Julie 2 4.22 2024 The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon
author: Adam Shatz
name: Julie
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/27
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<![CDATA[Who Ate the First Oyster?: The Extraordinary People Behind the Greatest Firsts in History]]> 52508868 Who wore the first pants? Who painted the first masterpiece? Who first rode the horse? Who invented soap? This madcap adventure across ancient history uses everything from modern genetics to archaeology to uncover the geniuses behind these and other world-changing innovations.Who invented the wheel? Who told the first joke? Who drank the first beer? Who was the murderer in the first murder mystery, who was the first surgeon, who sparked the first fire--and most critically, who was the first to brave the slimy, pale oyster? In this book, writer Cody Cassidy digs deep into the latest research to uncover the untold stories of some of these incredible innovators (or participants in lucky accidents). With a sharp sense of humor and boundless enthusiasm for the wonders of our ancient ancestors, Who Ate the First Oyster? profiles the perpetrators of the greatest firsts and catastrophes of prehistory, using the lives of individuals to provide a glimpse into ancient cultures, show how and why these critical developments occurred, and educate us on a period of time that until recently we've known almost nothing about.]]> 240 Cody Cassidy 014313275X Julie 4 3.86 2020 Who Ate the First Oyster?: The Extraordinary People Behind the Greatest Firsts in History
author: Cody Cassidy
name: Julie
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/26
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<![CDATA[The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts]]> 101160753
When NASA sent astronauts to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s the agency excluded women from the corps, arguing that only military test pilots—a group then made up exclusively of men—had the right stuff. It was an era in which women were steered away from jobs in science and deemed unqualified for space flight. Eventually, though, NASA recognized its blunder and opened the application process to a wider array of hopefuls, regardless of race or gender. From a candidate pool of 8,000 six elite women were selected in 1978—Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Rhea Seddon.

In The Six , acclaimed journalist Loren Grush shows these brilliant and courageous women enduring claustrophobic—and sometimes deeply sexist—media attention, undergoing rigorous survival training, and preparing for years to take multi-million-dollar payloads into orbit. Together, the Six helped build the tools that made the space program run. One of the group, Judy Resnik, sacrificed her life when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded at 46,000 feet. Everyone knows of Sally Ride’s history-making first space ride, but each of the Six would make their mark.]]>
432 Loren Grush 1982172800 Julie 0 to-read 4.32 2023 The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts
author: Loren Grush
name: Julie
average rating: 4.32
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Black Ice 55678421

Four years later a single phone call is all it takes to bring back the terror of that day and to set in motion a plot for revenge. For Sandra it started as an unremarkable wintery day of shopping followed by a kind gesture from a stranger. For Jeanette it began with the thrill of an illicit rendezvous with her lover. Both women had driven past the same icy ravine, but only one was in the car that caused a deadly crash, and only one left a man to die alone in the snow.


Each carried a secret from that day, a secret that, if revealed, could connect them to a larger, more terrible transgression� And there is someone out there who knows the whole picture, and who would rather kill than allow it all to come to light.


Chilling and atmospheric, Black Ice is a gripping standalone novel of suspense from the author of the internationally-bestselling Hammarby series.]]>
376 Carin Gerhardsen 1613162235 Julie 4 3.66 2018 Black Ice
author: Carin Gerhardsen
name: Julie
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
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<![CDATA[Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult!)]]> 208840265 A deliciously witty and inspiring memoir by One Tree Hill star Bethany Joy Lenz about her decade in a cult and her quest to break free.

In the early 2000s, after years of hard work and determination to breakthrough as an actor, Bethany Joy Lenz was finally cast as one of the leads on the hit drama One Tree Hill. Her career was about to take off, but her personal life was slowly beginning to unravel. What none of the show’s millions of fans knew, hidden even from her costars, was her secret double life in a cult.

An only child who often had to fend for herself and always wanted a place to belong, Lenz found the safe haven she’d been searching for in a Bible study group with other Hollywood creatives. However, the group soon morphed into something more sinister—a slowly woven web of manipulation, abuse, and fear under the guise of a church covenant called The Big House Family. Piece by piece, Lenz began to give away her autonomy, ultimately relocating to the Family’s Pacific Northwest compound, overseen by a domineering minister who would convince Lenz to marry one of his sons and steadily drained millions of her TV income without her knowledge. Family “minders� assigned to her on set, “Maoist struggle session”–inspired meetings in the basement of a filthy house, and regular counseling with “Leadership� were just part of the tactics used to keep her loyal.

Only when she became a mother did Lenz find the courage to leave and spare her child from a similar fate. After nearly a decade (and with the unlikely help of a One Tree Hill superfan), she finally managed to escape the family’s grip and begin to heal from the deep trauma that forever altered her relationship with God and her understanding of faith. Written with powerful honesty and dark humor, Dinner for Vampires is an inspiring story about the importance of identity and understanding what you believe.]]>
303 Bethany Joy Lenz 1668067307 Julie 4 4.28 2024 Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult!)
author: Bethany Joy Lenz
name: Julie
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
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When We Ride 213395491 Rex Ogle explores bonds of loyalty and friendship and how they’re tested by drugs and violence in this propulsive novel-in-verse.


Diego Benevides works hard. His single mother encourages him to stay focused on school, on getting into college, on getting out of their crumbling neighborhood. That’s why she gave him her car.


Diego’s best friend, Lawson, needs a ride—because Lawson is dealing. As long as Diego’s not carrying, not selling, it’s cool. It’s just weed.


But when Lawson starts carrying powder and pills and worse, their friendship is tested and their lives are threatened. As the lines between dealer and driver blur, everything Diego has worked for is jeopardized, and he faces a deadly reckoning with the choices he and his best friend have made.


Award-winning memoirist and poet Rex Ogle’s searing first novel-in-verse is an unforgettable story of the power and price of loyalty.]]>
336 Rex Ogle 1324052821 Julie 0 to-read 4.50 When We Ride
author: Rex Ogle
name: Julie
average rating: 4.50
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<![CDATA[Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals]]> 54785515 The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.

Nobody needs to be told there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and ceaseless battle against distraction; we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient and life hacks to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern obsession with “getting everything done,� Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing that many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.]]>
271 Oliver Burkeman 0374159122 Julie 4 4.20 2021 Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
author: Oliver Burkeman
name: Julie
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
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<![CDATA[Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe]]> 205478743 A moving account of raising, then freeing, an orphaned owl, whose lasting friendship with the author illuminates humanity’s relationship with the world.


When ecologist Carl Safina and his wife, Patricia, took in a near-death baby owl, they expected that, like other wild orphans they’d rescued, she’d be a temporary presence. But Alfie’s feathers were not growing correctly, requiring prolonged care. And soon Carl and Patricia began to realize that the healing was mutual.


Alfie & Me is the story of the remarkable impact this little owl would have on their lives. The continuing bond of trust following her freedom—and her raising of her own wild brood—drew Carl and Patricia across the boundary into Alfie’s world, allowing them a view of existence from Alfie’s perspective. Interwoven with Safina’s reflections on humankind’s relationship with the living world across cultures and throughout history, Alfie & Me is a work of profound beauties and magical timing harbored within one upended year.]]>
384 Carl Safina 1324086483 Julie 0 to-read 4.00 2023 Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe
author: Carl Safina
name: Julie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)]]> 199347538 Somewhere Beyond the Sea is the hugely anticipated sequel to TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, one of the best-loved and best-selling fantasy novels of the past decade. Featuring gorgeous orange sprayed edges!

A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.

Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one.

He’s the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there’s the island’s sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it.]]>
416 T.J. Klune 125088120X Julie 3 4.17 2024 Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Julie
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[The Siege: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World]]> 203767605 A thrilling tick-tock recounting one of the most harrowing hostage situations and daring rescue attempts of our time—from true-life espionage master and New York Times bestselling author of Operation Mincemeat and The Spy and the Traitor Ben Macintyre.

As the American hostage crisis in Iran boiled into its seventh month in the spring of 1980, six heavily armed gunman barged into the Iranian embassy in London, taking twenty-six hostages. What followed over the next six days was an increasingly tense standoff, one that threatened at any moment to spill into a bloodbath.

Policeman Trevor Lock was supposed to have gone to the theater that night. Instead, he found himself overpowered and whisked into the embassy. The terrorists never noticed the gun hidden in his jacket. The drama that ensued would force him to find reserves of courage he didn’t know he had. The gunmen themselves were hardly one-dimensional—all Arabs, some highly educated, who hoped to force Britain to take their side in their independence battle against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Behind the scenes lurked the brutal Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who had bankrolled the whole affair as a salvo against Iran.

As police negotiators pressed the gunmen, rival protestors clashed violently outside the embassy, and as MI6 and the CIA scrambled for intelligence, Britain’s special forces strike team, the SAS, laid plans for a dangerous rescue mission. Inside, Lock and his fellow hostages used all the cunning they possessed to outwit and outflank their captors. Finally, on the sixth day, after the terrorists executed the embassy press attaché and dumped his body on the front doorstep, the SAS raid began, sparking a deadly high-stakes climax.

A story of ordinary men and women under immense pressure, The Siege takes readers minute-by-thrilling-minute through an event that would echo across the next two decades and provide a direct historical link to the tragedy on 9/11. Drawing on exclusive interviews and a wealth of never-before-seen files, Macintyre brilliantly reconstructs a week in which every day minted a new hero and every second spelled the potential for doom.]]>
400 Ben Macintyre 0593728092 Julie 4 4.36 2024 The Siege: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World
author: Ben Macintyre
name: Julie
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
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<![CDATA[Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures]]> 208430625 From the award-winning author Katherine Rundell comes a “rare and magical book� (Bill Bryson) reckoning with the vanishing wonders of our natural world.

The world is more astonishing, more miraculous, and more wonderful than our wildestimaginings. In this brilliant and passionately persuasive book, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction.

Consider the seahorse: couples mate for life and meet each morning for a dance, pirouetting and changing colors before going their separate ways, to dance again the next day. The American wood frog survives winter by allowing itself to freeze solid, its heartbeat slowing until it stops altogether. Come spring, the heart kick-starts itself spontaneously back to life. As for the lemur, it lives in matriarchal troops led by an alpha female (it’s not unusual for female ring-tailed lemurs to slap males across the face when they become aggressive). Whenever they are cold or frightened, they group together in what’s known as a lemur ball, paws and tails intertwined, to form a furry mass as big as a bicycle wheel.

But each of these extraordinary animals is endangered or holds a sub-species that is endangered. This urgent, inspiring book of essays dedicated to 23 unusual and underappreciated creatures is a clarion call insisting that we look at the world around us with new eyes—to see the magic of the animals we live among, their unknown histories and capabilities, and above all how lucky we are to tread the same ground as such vanishing treasures.

Beautifully illustrated, and full of inimitable wit and intellect, Vanishing Treasures is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck, to reckon with the beauty of the world, its fragility, and its strangeness.]]>
224 Katherine Rundell 0385550820 Julie 4 4.17 2024 Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures
author: Katherine Rundell
name: Julie
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/04
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<![CDATA[The Black Camel (Charlie Chan, #4)]]> 2117763 218 Earl Derr Biggers 0445402156 Julie 0 kindle 3.90 1929 The Black Camel (Charlie Chan, #4)
author: Earl Derr Biggers
name: Julie
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1929
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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The Passenger 49672276
Berlin, November 1938. Jewish shops have been ransacked and looted, synagogues destroyed. As storm troopers pound on his door, Otto Silbermann, a respected businessman who fought for Germany in the Great War, is forced to sneak out the back of his own home. Turned away from establishments he had long patronized, and fearful of being exposed as a Jew despite his Aryan looks, he boards a train.

And then another. And another . . . until his flight becomes a frantic odyssey across Germany, as he searches first for information, then for help, and finally for escape. His travels bring him face-to-face with waiters and conductors, officials and fellow outcasts, seductive women and vicious thieves, a few of whom disapprove of the regime while the rest embrace it wholeheartedly.

Clinging to his existence as it was just days before, Silbermann refuses to believe what is happening even as he is beset by opportunists, betrayed by associates, and bereft of family, friends, and fortune. As his world collapses around him, he is forced to concede that his nightmare is all too real.

Twenty-three-year-old Ulrich Boschwitz wrote The Passenger at breakneck speed in 1938, fresh in the wake of the Kristallnacht pogroms, and his prose flies at the same pace. Taut, immediate, infused with acerbic Kafkaesque humor, The Passenger is an indelible portrait of a man and a society careening out of control.]]>
266 Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz 1250317142 Julie 0 to-read 3.93 1939 The Passenger
author: Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
name: Julie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1939
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/03
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Liberalism as a Way of Life 199727328
Where do you get your values and sensibilities from? If you grew up in a Western democracy, the answer is probably liberalism. Conservatives are right about one liberalism is the ideology of our times, as omnipresent as religion once was. Yet, as Alexandre Lefebvre argues in Liberalism as a Way of Life , many of us are liberal without fully realizing it―or grasping what it means. Misled into thinking that liberalism is confined to politics, we fail to recognize that it’s the water we swim in, saturating every area of public and private life, shaping our psychological and spiritual outlooks, and influencing our moral and aesthetic values―our sense of what is right, wrong, good, bad, funny, worthwhile, and more. This eye-opening book shows how so many of us are liberal to the core, why liberalism provides the basis for a good life, and how we can make our lives better and happier by becoming more aware of, and more committed to, the beliefs we already hold.

A lively, engaging, and uplifting guide to living well, the liberal way, Liberalism as a Way of Life is filled with examples from television, movies, stand-up comedy, and social media―from Parks and Recreation and The Good Place to the Borat movies and Hannah Gadsby. Along the way, you’ll also learn about seventeen benefits of being a liberal―including generosity, humor, cheer, gratitude, tolerance, and peace of mind―and practical exercises to increase these rewards.

You’re probably already waist deep in the waters of liberalism. Liberalism as a Way of Life invites you to dive in.]]>
304 Alexandre Lefebvre 0691203741 Julie 0 have-not-finished 3.61 Liberalism as a Way of Life
author: Alexandre Lefebvre
name: Julie
average rating: 3.61
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rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Theft of the Iron Dogs: A Lancashire Mystery]]> 199124280
First published in 1946 and set in the fell country of Lunesdale over the course of a rainy September, The Theft of the Iron Dogs is the very picture of a cosy crime mystery and showcases Lorac’s masterful attention to detail and deep affection for both Lunesdale and its residents.]]>
266 E.C.R. Lorac 0712368310 Julie 4 3.99 1946 The Theft of the Iron Dogs: A Lancashire Mystery
author: E.C.R. Lorac
name: Julie
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1946
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/01
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Byron: A Life in Ten Letters 171745015 412 Andrew M. Stauffer 100920016X Julie 2 4.32 Byron: A Life in Ten Letters
author: Andrew M. Stauffer
name: Julie
average rating: 4.32
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
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The Girl Who Was Taken 55995639 A chilling thriller where nothing is at it seems and each reveal is more shocking than the last…right up to the jaw-dropping final twist.

Two abducted girls—one who returns, one who doesn't.

The night they go missing, high school seniors Nicole Cutty and Megan McDonald are at a beach party in their small town of Emerson Bay, North Carolina. Police launch a massive search, but hope is almost lost--until Megan escapes from a bunker deep in the woods...A year later, the bestselling account of her ordeal has made Megan a celebrity. It's a triumphant story, except for one inconvenient thing, Nicole is still missing.

Nicole's older sister, Livia, a fellow in forensic pathology, expects that one day soon Nicole's body will be found and her sister's fate determined. Instead, the first clue comes from another body--that of a young man connected to Nicole's past. Livia reaches out to Megan to learn more about that fateful night. Other girls have disappeared, and she's increasingly sure the cases are connected.

Megan knows more than she revealed in her book. Flashes of memory are pointing to something more monstrous than she described. And the deeper she and Livia dig, the more they realize that sometimes true terror lies in finding exactly what you've been looking for...]]>
416 Charlie Donlea 1496736982 Julie 0 to-read 4.09 2017 The Girl Who Was Taken
author: Charlie Donlea
name: Julie
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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The Girl Who Was Taken 39657755
The night they go missing, high school seniors Nicole Cutty and Megan McDonald are at a beach party in their small town of Emerson Bay, North Carolina. Police launch a massive search, but hope is almost lost—until Megan escapes from a bunker deep in the woods. . . . A year later, the bestselling account of her ordeal has made Megan a celebrity. It’s a triumphant story, except for one inconvenient Nicole is still missing.

Nicole’s older sister, Livia, a fellow in forensic pathology, expects that one day soon Nicole’s body will be found and her sister’s fate determined. Instead, the first clue comes from another body—that of a young man connected to Nicole’s past. Livia reaches out to Megan to learn more about that fateful night. Other girls have disappeared, and she’s increasingly sure the cases are connected.

Megan knows more than she revealed in her book. Flashes of memory are pointing to something more monstrous than she described. And the deeper she and Livia dig, the more they realize that sometimes true terror lies in finding exactly what you’ve been looking for . . .]]>
449 Charlie Donlea 0786041455 Julie 0 to-read 4.22 2017 The Girl Who Was Taken
author: Charlie Donlea
name: Julie
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/20
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The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie 59576013 The Enlightenment of Bees.

Lolly Blanchard's life only seems to give her lemons. Ten years ago, after her mother's tragic death, she broke up with her first love and abandoned her dream of opening a restaurant in order to keep her family's struggling Seattle diner afloat and care for her younger sister and grieving father. Now, a decade later, she dutifully whips up the diner's famous lemon meringue pies each morning while still pining for all she's lost.

As Lolly's thirty-third birthday approaches, her quirky great-aunt gives her a mysterious gift--three lemon drops, each of which allows her to live a single day in a life that might have been hers. What if her mom hadn't passed away? What if she had opened her own restaurant in England? What if she hadn't broken up with the only man she's ever loved? Surprising and empowering, each experience helps Lolly let go of her regrets and realize the key to transforming her life lies not in redoing her past but in having the courage to embrace her present.]]>
352 Rachel Linden 0593440196 Julie 3 3.99 2022 The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie
author: Rachel Linden
name: Julie
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/20
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<![CDATA[Delusion in Death (In Death, #35)]]> 13252406 After years on the force, Eve Dallas didn't think she could be shocked anymore... until now.

It was just another after-work happy-hour bar downtown, where business professionals unwound with a few drinks, complained about the boss, maybe hooked up with someone for the night. Until something went terribly wrong. At first it was just a friction in the air. The noise intensified. The crowd seemed oppressive. some sharp words were exchanged, some pushing and shoving.

Then the madness descended. And after twelve minutes of chaos and violence, eighty people lay dead.

Eve Dallas is trying to sort out the inexplicable events. Surviving witnesses talk about seeing things—monsters and swarms of bees. They describe sudden, overwhelming feelings of fear and rage and paranoia. When forensics makes its report, the mass delusions make more sense: it appears the bar patrons were exposed to a cocktail of chemicals and illegal drugs that could drive people to temporary insanity—if not kill them outright.

But that doesn't explain who would unleash such horror—or why. Eve's husband, Roarke, happens to own the bar, yet he's convinced the attack wasn't directed at him. It's bigger than that. And if Eve can't figure it out fast, it could happen again, anytime, anywhere. Because it's airborne....]]>
388 J.D. Robb 0399158812 Julie 0 to-read 4.29 2012 Delusion in Death (In Death, #35)
author: J.D. Robb
name: Julie
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Celebrity in Death (In Death, #34)]]> 13007638 389 J.D. Robb 0749955910 Julie 4 4.27 2012 Celebrity in Death (In Death, #34)
author: J.D. Robb
name: Julie
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
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<![CDATA[Hardy Women: Mother, Sisters, Wives, Muses]]> 201476252
How was it that the novelist who created some of the most memorable and modern female characters in literature had such troubled relationships with real women?

In this highly innovative book, acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne re-examines Hardy’s life through the eyes of the women who made him―mother, sisters, girlfriends, wives, muses. The story veers from shocking scenes such as his obsession with the sight of a woman hanged, to poignant vignettes of unfulfilled passion, to fascinating details of working women’s lives in the nineteenth century. Paula Byrne reveals that it is through hardy women that we can enter into the heart of the great novelist and poet.]]>
656 Paula Byrne 0008322252 Julie 3 4.05 Hardy Women: Mother, Sisters, Wives, Muses
author: Paula Byrne
name: Julie
average rating: 4.05
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rating: 3
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The Paradise Problem 214152483
Anna Green thought she was marrying Liam “West� Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she’d signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways.

Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch.

Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam won’t see a penny until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents—his unpolished, not-so-ex-wife.

But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.]]>
368 Christina Lauren 1668017733 Julie 0 to-read 4.13 2024 The Paradise Problem
author: Christina Lauren
name: Julie
average rating: 4.13
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rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food]]> 123979561 The world’s most sophisticated gastronomic culture, brilliantly presented through a banquet of thirty Chinese dishes.

Chinese was the earliest truly global cuisine. When the first Chinese laborers began to settle abroad, restaurants appeared in their wake. Yet Chinese has the curious distinction of being both one of the world’s best-loved culinary traditions and one of the least understood. For more than a century, the overwhelming dominance of a simplified form of Cantonese cooking ensured that few foreigners experienced anything of its richness and sophistication―but today that is beginning to change. In Invitation to a Banquet, award-winning cook and writer Fuchsia Dunlop explores the history, philosophy, and techniques of Chinese culinary culture. In each chapter, she examines a classic dish, from mapo tofu to Dongpo pork, knife-scraped noodles to braised pomelo pith, to reveal a distinctive aspect of Chinese gastronomy, whether it’s the importance of the soybean, the lure of exotic ingredients, or the history of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine. Meeting food producers, chefs, gourmets, and home cooks as she tastes her way across the country, Fuchsia invites readers to join her on an unforgettable journey into Chinese food as it is cooked, eaten, and considered in its homeland. Weaving together history, mouthwatering descriptions of food, and on-the-ground research conducted over the course of three decades, Invitation to a Banquet is a lively, landmark tribute to the pleasures and mysteries of Chinese cuisine.]]>
480 Fuchsia Dunlop 0393867137 Julie 0 have-not-finished 4.25 2023 Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food
author: Fuchsia Dunlop
name: Julie
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks]]> 123286433
People are always surprised that Black people reside in the hills of Appalachia. Those not surprised that we were there, are surprised that we stayed.

Years ago, when O. Henry Prize-winning writer Crystal Wilkinson was baking a jam cake, shefelt her late grandmother’s presence. She soon realized that she was not the only cook in herkitchen; there were her ancestors, too, stirring, measuring, and braising alongside her. These areher kitchen ghosts, five generations of Black women who settled in Appalachia and made a life,a legacy, and a cuisine.

An expert cook, Wilkinson shares nearly forty family recipes rooted deep in the past, full offlavor—delicious favorites including Corn Pudding, Chicken and Dumplings, GrannyChristine’s Jam Cake, and Praisesong Biscuits , brought to vivid life through stunningphotography. Together, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts honors the mothers who came before,the land that provided for generations of her family, and the untold heritage of Black Appalachia.

As the keeper of her family’s stories and treasured dishes,Wilkinson shares her inheritance in Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts. She found their stories in her apron pockets, floating inside the steam of hot mustard greens and tucked into the sweet scent of clove and cinnamon in her kitchen. Part memoir, part cookbook, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts weaves those stories together with recipes, family photos, and a lyrical imagination to present a culinary portrait of a family that has lived and worked the earth of the mountains for over a century.]]>
256 Crystal Wilkinson 0593236513 Julie 0 to-read 4.36 2024 Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks
author: Crystal Wilkinson
name: Julie
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Chateau D'Armor (Harlequin Romance #2018)]]> 7085995 188 Rebecca Stratton 037302018X Julie 1 2.78 1976 Chateau D'Armor (Harlequin Romance #2018)
author: Rebecca Stratton
name: Julie
average rating: 2.78
book published: 1976
rating: 1
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
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The Bones Beneath My Skin 211004023 A spine-tingling thriller by New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, about a 10-year-old girl with an impossible power, her father, and an unlikely stranger, who come together to confront the dangerous forces that want her at all costs. A strange story of family, love, comets, and bacon. Perfect for fans of Stranger Things.

In the spring of 1995, Nate Cartwright has lost everything: his parents are dead, his older brother wants nothing to do with him, and he's been fired from his job as a journalist in Washington DC. With nothing left to lose, he returns to his family's summer cabin outside the small mountain town of Roseland, Oregon to try and find some sense of direction. The cabin should be empty. It's not. Inside is a man named Alex. And with him is an extraordinary little girl who calls herself Artemis Darth Vader. Artemis, who isn't exactly as she appears.

Soon it becomes clear that Nate must make a choice: let himself drown in the memories of his past, or fight for a future he never thought possible. Because the girl is special. And forces are descending upon them who want nothing more than to control her.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]>
416 T.J. Klune 1250890438 Julie 0 to-read 4.12 2018 The Bones Beneath My Skin
author: T.J. Klune
name: Julie
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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Black Woods Blue Sky 213243955 An unforgettable dark fairy tale that asks, Can love save us from ourselves?

Birdie’s keeping it together; of course she is. So she’s a little hungover sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature.

Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie he represents everything she’s ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur and the land he knows so well. Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains on the far side of the Wolverine River.

It’s just the three of them in the vast black woods, far from roads, telephones, electricity, and outside contact, but Birdie believes she has come prepared. At first, it’s idyllic, but soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she could have imagined, and that like the Alaska wilderness, a fairy tale can be as dark as it is beautiful.]]>
306 Eowyn Ivey 0593231023 Julie 0 to-read 3.70 2025 Black Woods Blue Sky
author: Eowyn Ivey
name: Julie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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The Storm We Made 214151519 A novel about a Malayan mother who becomes an unlikely spy for the invading Japanese forces during WWII—and the shocking consequences that rain upon her community and family.

Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day.

Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth.

A decade prior, Cecily had been desperate to be more than a housewife to a low-level bureaucrat in British-colonized Malaya. A chance meeting with the charismatic General Fuijwara lured her into a life of espionage, pursuing dreams of an “Asia for Asians.� Instead, Cecily helped usher in an even more brutal occupation by the Japanese. Ten years later as the war reaches its apex, her actions have caught up with her. Now her family is on the brink of destruction—and she will do anything to save them.]]>
368 Vanessa Chan 1668015153 Julie 0 to-read 3.63 2024 The Storm We Made
author: Vanessa Chan
name: Julie
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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The Lion Women of Tehran 199798217 A heartfelt novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.�

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls� high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.]]>
327 Marjan Kamali 1668036584 Julie 5 4.48 2024 The Lion Women of Tehran
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Julie
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[The Best American Short Stories 2024]]> 199531928
Lauren Groff—bestselling author, three-time National Book Award finalist, and “one of our finest living writers� (New York Times)—selects twenty stories out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published in 2023.]]>
400 Lauren Groff 0063275953 Julie 0 currently-reading 3.74 2024 The Best American Short Stories 2024
author: Lauren Groff
name: Julie
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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The Stone Witch of Florence 203747795
1348. As the Black Plague ravages Italy, Ginevra di Gasparo is summoned to Florence after nearly a decade of lonely exile. Ginevra has a gift—harnessing the hidden powers of gemstones, she can heal the sick. But when word spread of her unusual abilities, she was condemned as a witch and banished. Now the same men who expelled Ginevra are begging for her return. Ginevra obliges, assuming the city’s leaders are finally ready to accept her unorthodox cures amid a pandemic. But upon arrival, she is tasked with a much different she must use her collection of jewels to track down a ruthless thief who is ransacking Florence’s churches for priceless relics—the city’s only hope for protection. If she succeeds, she’ll be a recognized physician and never accused of witchcraft again. But as her investigation progresses, Ginevra discovers she’s merely a pawn in a much larger scheme than the one she’s been hired to solve.And the dangerous men behind this conspiracy won’t think twice about killing a stone witch to get what they want…]]>
368 Anna Rasche 0778310450 Julie 4 3.62 2024 The Stone Witch of Florence
author: Anna Rasche
name: Julie
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
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<![CDATA[Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle (Mrs. Pollifax, #8)]]> 107047 208 Dorothy Gilman Julie 4 3.99 1988 Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle (Mrs. Pollifax, #8)
author: Dorothy Gilman
name: Julie
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
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Crying of Lot 49: A Novel 60916193 "The comedy crackles, the puns pop, the satire explodes."--New York Times

Thomas Pynchon's highly original, postmodernist classic, a satire of American life about a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a seeming international conspiracy.

?When her ex-lover, wealthy real-estate tycoon Pierce Inverarity, dies and designates her the coexecutor of his estate, California housewife Oedipa Maas is thrust into a paranoid mystery of metaphors, symbols, and the United States Postal Service. Traveling across Southern California, she meets some extremely interesting characters--including a teenage rock band called the Paranoids, a right-wing historian and critic of the postal system, and a former child actor with whom she has an affair--and begins to unravel conspiracies she suddenly sees all around her.

Written in 1966, The Crying of Lot 49 demonstrates the piquant wit and power of invention that are the hallmarks of Pynchon's acclaimed works. It is the shortest of his novels, and widely held to be the benchmark of this literary lion's career.]]>
176 Thomas Pynchon 0063289520 Julie 1 3.81 1966 Crying of Lot 49: A Novel
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: Julie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1966
rating: 1
read at: 2025/01/21
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<![CDATA[Clown in a Cornfield (Clown in a Cornfield, #1)]]> 49046268
Quinn and her father moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs to find a fresh start. But ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half. On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can.

Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It’s a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat, goes homicidal and decides that the only way for Kettle Springs to grow back is to cull the rotten crop of kids who live there now.]]>
346 Adam Cesare 0062854593 Julie 0 to-read 3.73 2020 Clown in a Cornfield (Clown in a Cornfield, #1)
author: Adam Cesare
name: Julie
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/15
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Three Days in June 213243949 A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life,Three Days in Juneis a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers

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165 Anne Tyler 0593803485 Julie 0 to-read 3.62 2025 Three Days in June
author: Anne Tyler
name: Julie
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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My Name Is Emilia del Valle 217245557 In this spellbinding historical novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea and The Wind Knows My Name, a young writer journeys to South America to uncover the truth about her father—and herself.

In San Francisco 1866, an Irish nun, left pregnant and abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia Del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman.

To pursue her passion for writing, she is willing to defy societal norms. At the age of sixteen, she begins to publish pulp fiction under a man’s pen name. When these fictional worlds can't contain her sense of adventure any longer, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at the San Francisco Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan.

As she proves herself, her restlessness returns, until an opportunity arises to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. She seizes it, along with Eric, and while there, begins to uncover the truth about her father and the country that represents her roots. But as the war escalates, Emilia finds herself in danger and at a crossroads, questioning both her identity and her destiny.

A riveting tale of self-discovery and love from one of the most masterful storytellers of our time, My Name is Emilia del Valle introduces a character who will never let hold of your heart.]]>
304 Isabel Allende 059397509X Julie 0 to-read 4.06 2025 My Name Is Emilia del Valle
author: Isabel Allende
name: Julie
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/14
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Independent People 77287 Kristin Lavransdatter. And if Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to achieve independence is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic.

Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to him. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail. Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, Independent People is simply a masterpiece]]>
482 Halldór Laxness 0679767924 Julie 0 currently-reading 4.13 1934 Independent People
author: Halldór Laxness
name: Julie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1934
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau]]> 220160204 Kristin Harmel, the New York Times bestselling author who “is the best there is at sweeping historical drama� (Kelly Harms, author of The Seven Day Switch), returns with an electrifying new novel about two jewel thieves, a priceless bracelet that disappears in 1940s Paris, and a quest for answers in a decades-old murder.

Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance.

But one night in 1942, it all went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared in the chaos of the raid, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine—but the bracelet was nowhere to be found.

Seventy years later, Colette—who has “redistributed� $30 million in jewels over the decades to fund many worthy organizations—has done her best to put her tragic past behind her, but her life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston. If Colette can discover where it has been all this time—and who owns it now—she may finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister. But she isn’t the only one for whom the bracelet holds answers, and when someone from her childhood lays claim to the diamonds, she’s forced to confront the ghosts of her past as never before. Against all odds, there may still be a chance to bring a murderer to justice—but first, Colette will have to summon the courage to open her own battered heart.]]>
384 Kristin Harmel 1982191732 Julie 0 to-read 4.51 The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau
author: Kristin Harmel
name: Julie
average rating: 4.51
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/14
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The Ferryman 61282437 New York Times bestselling author of The Passage comes a riveting standalone novel about a group of survivors on a hidden island utopia--where the truth isn't what it seems.

Founded by a mysterious genius, the archipelago of Prospera lies hidden from the horrors of a deteriorating outside world. In this island paradise, Prospera's lucky citizens enjoy long, fulfilling lives until the monitors embedded in their forearms, meant to measure their physical health and psychological well-being, fall below 10 percent. Then they retire themselves, embarking on a ferry ride to the island known as the Nursery, where their failing bodies are renewed, their memories are wiped clean, and they are readied to restart life afresh.

Proctor Bennett, of the Department of Social Contracts, has a satisfying career as a ferryman, gently shepherding people through the retirement process--and, when necessary, enforcing it. But all is not well with Proctor. For one thing, he's been dreaming--which is supposed to be impossible in Prospera. For another, his monitor percentage has begun to drop alarmingly fast. And then comes the day he is summoned to retire his own father, who gives him a disturbing and cryptic message before being wrestled onto the ferry.

Meanwhile, something is stirring. The Support Staff, ordinary men and women who provide the labor to keep Prospera running, have begun to question their place in the social order. Unrest is building, and there are rumors spreading of a resistance group--known as "Arrivalists"--who may be fomenting revolution.

Soon Proctor finds himself questioning everything he once believed, entangled with a much bigger cause than he realized--and on a desperate mission to uncover the truth.]]>
538 Justin Cronin 052561947X Julie 4 3.86 2023 The Ferryman
author: Justin Cronin
name: Julie
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
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The Librarian 24904007 War and Peace

As the introduction to this book will tell you, the books by Gromov, obscure and long forgotten propaganda author of the Soviet era, have such an effect on their readers that they suddenly enjoy supernatural powers. Understandably, their readers need to keep accessing these books at all cost and gather into groups around book-bearers, or, as they're called, librarians. Alexei, until now a loser, comes to collect an uncle's inheritance and unexpectedly becomes a librarian. He tells his extraordinary, unbelievable story.]]>
418 Mikhail Elizarov Julie 0 to-read 3.56 2000 The Librarian
author: Mikhail Elizarov
name: Julie
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
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No One Can Know 211003781
Emma has never told anyone what she saw the night her parents died, even when she became the prime suspect. But her presence in the house threatens to uncover secrets that have stayed hidden for years, and the sisters are drawn together once again. As they face their memories of the past, rivalries restart, connections are forged, and, for the first time, Emma starts to ask questions about what really happened that night.

The more Emma learns, the more riddles emerge. And Emma begins to wonder just what her siblings will do to keep the past buried, and whether she did the right thing staying quiet about what was whispered that night: “No one can know.”]]>
336 Kate Alice Marshall 1250859921 Julie 0 to-read 3.61 2024 No One Can Know
author: Kate Alice Marshall
name: Julie
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/06
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Kristin Lavransdatter 6217 Kristin Lavransdatter, set in fourteenth-century Norway, Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset tells the life story of one passionate and headstrong woman. Painting a richly detailed backdrop, Undset immerses readers in the day-to-day life, social conventions, and political and religious undercurrents of the period. Now in one volume, Tiina Nunnally's award-winning definitive translation brings this remarkable work to life with clarity and lyrical beauty.

As a young girl, Kristin is deeply devoted to her father, a kind and courageous man. But when as a student in a convent school she meets the charming and impetuous Erlend Nikulaussøn, she defies her parents in pursuit of her own desires. Her saga continues through her marriage to Erlend, their tumultuous life together raising seven sons as Erlend seeks to strengthen his political influence, and finally their estrangement as the world around them tumbles into uncertainty.

With its captivating heroine and emotional potency, Kristin Lavransdatter is the masterwork of Norway's most beloved author, one of the twentieth century's most prodigious and engaged literary minds and, in Nunnally's exquisite translation, a story that continues to enthrall.

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1144 Sigrid Undset 0143039164 Julie 3 4.32 1920 Kristin Lavransdatter
author: Sigrid Undset
name: Julie
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1920
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/31
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<![CDATA[The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries]]> 17288609
“Anyone who cares about the best mystery writing of the past century and beyond would be lucky to receive this thick volume during the holidays." � The Washington Post

This collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.

Included are puzzles by Mary Higgins Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Ngaio Marsh; uncanny tales in the tradition of A Christmas Carol by Peter Lovesey and Max Allan Collins; O. Henry-likestories by Stanley Ellin and Joseph Shearing, stories by pulp icons John D. MacDonald and Damon Runyon; comic gems from Donald E. Westlake and John Mortimer; and many, many more. Almost any kind of mystery you’re in the mood for--suspense, pure detection, humor, cozy, private eye, or police procedural—can be found in these pages.


� Unscrupulous Santas
� Crimes of Christmases Past and Present
� Festive felonies
� Deadly puddings
� Misdemeanors under the mistletoe
� Christmas cases for classic characters including Sherlock Holmes, Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Rumpole of the Bailey, Inspector Morse, Inspector Ghote, A.J. Raffles, and Nero Wolfe.]]>
654 Otto Penzler 0345802985 Julie 3 3.94 2013 The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries
author: Otto Penzler
name: Julie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
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Julia: A Novel 200677158 15 Sandra Newman Julie 3 3.72 2023 Julia: A Novel
author: Sandra Newman
name: Julie
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
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Locked In (Department Q, #10) 209455837
On the day after Christmas, head of Department Q, Detective Carl Mørck, finds himself handcuffed in a police car headed for Copenhagen's Vestre prison. After fifteen years, a violent case from his past has caught up with him. Charges of drug trafficking and murder threaten to destroy his life and career. But he is being framed. Someone has a million-dollar bounty on his head to make sure he doesn't talk, putting him in grave danger among the prison's incarcerated criminals and corrupt officers. The question that remains is, Why?

Carl's colleagues at the Copenhagen Police Department instantly turn their backs on him, leaving the ever-loyal Department Q team as his only hope. In search of answers, Rose, Assad, and Gordon must disobey direct orders from way up the chain to try to unravel case. With only one another to trust and Carl's battle against the unknown mastermind's henchmen worsening by the day, they must work faster than ever before if they are to clear his name—and save his life.]]>
512 Jussi Adler-Olsen 0593475690 Julie 5 4.17 2023 Locked In (Department Q, #10)
author: Jussi Adler-Olsen
name: Julie
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/18
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The Book Club Hotel 75692052 This Christmas, USA Today bestselling author Sarah Morgan returns with another heartfelt exploration of change, the power of books to heal, and the enduring strength of female friendship. Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Jennifer Weiner.

With its historic charm and picture-perfect library, the Maple Sugar Inn is considered the winter destination. As the holidays approach, the inn is fully booked with guests looking for their dream vacation. But widowed far too young, and exhausted from juggling the hotel with being a dedicated single mom, Hattie Coleman dreams only of making it through the festive season.

But when Erica, Claudia and Anna—lifelong friends who seem to have it all—check in for a girlfriends� book club holiday, it changes everything. Their close friendship and shared love of books have carried them through life's ups and downs. But Hattie can see they're also packing some major emotional baggage, and nothing prepares her for how deeply her own story is about to become entwined in theirs. In the span of a week over the most enchanting time of the year, can these four women come together to improve each other’s lives and make this the start of a whole new chapter?]]>
368 Sarah Morgan 1335005129 Julie 3 3.84 2023 The Book Club Hotel
author: Sarah Morgan
name: Julie
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
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Killing Mr. Griffin 510632
Well, Mark suggested, perhaps not kill him—just really frighten him. Kidnap him for a few hours and teach him that students could strike back.

No, they never actually intended to kill Mr. Griffin. But sometimes even the best-laid plans go wrong.]]>
223 Lois Duncan Julie 3 3.63 1978 Killing Mr. Griffin
author: Lois Duncan
name: Julie
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1978
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
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<![CDATA[The Last Days of Kira Mullan (Maud O'Connor, #2)]]> 214325839
Nancy North is ready to put her life back together. After suffering a psychotic break that ruined friendships, stalled her fledgling restaurant, and forced her to move out of her comfortable flat, she’ll do anything to get back to normal. She and her partner Felix—who has been a saint through her recent troubles—move into a new flat for a fresh start.

Nancy is taking her pills, seeing her therapist, and avoiding unnecessary stress. She’s doing absolutely everything right, but something is still very, very wrong. On the first day in the new flat, she hears them again; the mysterious voices that triggered her first episode. It could just be the unfamiliar sounds of water in the pipes, or the screaming baby across the hall, but deep down she knows something more sinister is going on. Her fears are confirmed when the young woman in the downstairs flat, Kira, is found dead. Felix, her neighbors, and even the police insist it’s a tragic suicide, but the pieces aren’t adding up for Nancy. Can she trust her own instincts, or is it all in her head?

Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Maud O’Connor has misgivings about her colleagues� investigation of Kira’s death. The boys club at the top seems intent on closing the case as quickly as possible, especially since the only person who thinks it could be anything other than suicide is known to be unreliable. But Maud knows what it’s like to be dismissed as an overemotional woman and isn’t so quick to discount Nancy’s claims. As tensions reach an explosive breaking point, the line between fact and delusion becomes dangerously blurred, but Maud will stop at nothing to ensure that the truth comes to light.]]>
464 Nicci French 0063298376 Julie 0 to-read 3.90 2024 The Last Days of Kira Mullan (Maud O'Connor, #2)
author: Nicci French
name: Julie
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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The Lotus Shoes 213888716 An empowering, uplifting tale of two women from opposite sides of society, and their extraordinary journey of sisterhood, betrayal, love and triumph.

1800s China. Tightly bound feet, or "golden lilies," are the mark of an honorable woman, eclipsing beauty, a rich dowry and even bloodline in the marriage stakes. When Little Flower is sold as a maidservant—a muizai—to Linjing, a daughter of the prominent Fong family, she clings to the hope that one day her golden lilies will lead her out of slavery.

Not only does Little Flower have bound feet, uncommon for a muizai, but she is extraordinarily gifted at embroidery, a skill associated with the highest class of a lady. Resentful of her talents, Linjing does everything in her power to thwart Little Flower's escape.

But when scandal strikes the Fongs, both women are cast out to the Celibate Sisterhood, where Little Flower’s artistic prowess catches the eye of a nobleman. His attention threatens not only her improved status, but her life—the Sisterhood punishes disobedience with death. And if Linjing finds out, will she sabotage Little Flower to reclaim her power, or will she protect her?]]>
368 Jane Yang 0778310671 Julie 0 to-read 4.22 2025 The Lotus Shoes
author: Jane Yang
name: Julie
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/11
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Under the Same Stars 200982339
In 1940s Germany, Sophie is excited to discover a message waiting for her in the Bridegroom's Oak from a mysterious suitor. Meanwhile, her best friend, Hanna, is sending messages too—but not to find love. As World War II unfolds in their small town of Kleinwald, the oak may hold the key to resistance against the Nazis.

In 1980s West Germany, American teen transplant Jenny feels suffocated by her strict parents and is struggling to fit in. Until she finds herself falling for Lena, a punk-rock girl hell-bent on tearing down the wall separating West Germany from East Germany, and meeting Frau Hermann, a kind old lady with secrets of her own.

In Spring 2020, New York City, best friends Miles and Chloe are slogging through the last few months of senior year when an unexpected package from Chloe’s grandmother leads them to investigate a cold case about two unidentified teenagers who went missing under the Bridegroom’s Oak eighty years ago.

Age Range: 12-18]]>
480 Libba Bray 0374388946 Julie 0 to-read 4.21 2025 Under the Same Stars
author: Libba Bray
name: Julie
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother]]> 29209
Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.

The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded good grades and commanded respect. As a young man, McBride saw his mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion--and reached thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and long-buried pain.

In The Color of Water, McBride retraces his mother's footsteps and, through her searing and spirited voice, recreates her remarkable story. The daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox rabbi, she was born Rachel Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara Zylska) in Poland on April 1, 1921. Fleeing pogroms, her family emigrated to America and ultimately settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high. With candor and immediacy, Ruth describes her parents' loveless marriage; her fragile, handicapped mother; her cruel, sexually-abusive father; and the rest of the family and life she abandoned.

At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black minister and founded the all-black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in her Red Hook living room. "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's values transcend race. Twice widowed, and continually confronting overwhelming adversity and racism, Ruth's determination, drive and discipline saw her dozen children through college--and most through graduate school. At age 65, she herself received a degree in social work from Temple University.

Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self-realization and professional success. The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.]]>
291 James McBride 1573225789 Julie 4 4.13 1995 The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
author: James McBride
name: Julie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1995
rating: 4
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James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]>
303 Percival Everett Julie 0 to-read 4.47 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Julie
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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The House of the Spirits 9328
The House of the Spirits is an enthralling saga that spans decades and lives, twining the personal and the political into an epic novel of love, magic, and fate.]]>
448 Isabel Allende 0553383809 Julie 4 4.26 1982 The House of the Spirits
author: Isabel Allende
name: Julie
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/02
date added: 2024/12/02
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<![CDATA[At Bertram's Hotel (Miss Marple, #10)]]> 16333
When Miss Marple comes up from the country for a holiday in London, she finds what she's looking for at Bertram's: traditional décor and impeccable service. But she senses an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer. Not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events set in motion when an eccentric hotel guest makes his way to the airport one day late!

Librarian's note: this entry is for the novel, "At Bertram's Hotel." Collections and other Miss Marple stories are located elsewhere on ŷ. The series includes 12 novels and 20 short stories. Entries for the short stories can be found by searching ŷ for: "a Miss Marple Short Story."]]>
223 Agatha Christie Julie 3 3.72 1965 At Bertram's Hotel (Miss Marple, #10)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Julie
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1965
rating: 3
read at: 2020/09/09
date added: 2024/11/29
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Crawl Space 21072800 320 Herbert Lieberman 0099071703 Julie 0 to-read 3.42 1971 Crawl Space
author: Herbert Lieberman
name: Julie
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/25
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<![CDATA[Moonbound: Apollo 11 and the Dream of Spaceflight]]> 41940282
Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of that journey, Moonbound tells the monumental story of the moon and the men who went there first. With vibrant images and meticulous attention to detail, Jonathan Fetter-Vorm conjures the long history of the visionaries, stargazers, builders, and adventurers who sent Apollo 11 on its legendary voyage.

From the wisdom of the Babylonians to the intrigues of the Cold War, from the otherworldly discoveries of Galileo to the dark legacy of Nazi atrocities, from the exhilarating trajectories of astronauts―recounted in their own words―to the unsung brilliance of engineers working behind the scenes, Moonbound captures the grand arc of the Space Age in a graphic history of unprecedented scope and profound lyricism.]]>
256 Jonathan Fetter-Vorm 0374537917 Julie 4 4.52 2019 Moonbound: Apollo 11 and the Dream of Spaceflight
author: Jonathan Fetter-Vorm
name: Julie
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/24
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<![CDATA[A Grim Reaper's Guide to Catching a Killer (S.C.Y.T.H.E. Mystery, #1)]]> 205064752 Sometimes it takes working with the dead to start living.

Kathy Valence is forty-two, mid-divorce, and pregnant with her ex's baby. She's also a modern-day grim reaper employed by S.C.Y.T.H.E. (Secure Collection, Yielding, and Transportation of Human Essences), but frankly that's the easiest part of her life right now. Or at least it was, until her latest client's soul goes missing.

When she finally tracks down seventeen-year-old Conner Ortiz, he angrily denies he died of natural causes, despite what his file says. He insists that someone at S.C.Y.T.H.E. murdered him, and he demands Kathy find out who and why.

Kathy has only forty-five days to figure out what happened to Conner and help him move on before the boy's soul is doomed to roam the Earth as a ghost forever. She’s forced to rely on the help of her retired mentor, her almost ex-husband—and some sneaky moves by Conner himself. This is the wildest case of her career. . .and one wrong move could cost Kathy her job, not to mention her life.]]>
352 Maxie Dara 0593815793 Julie 0 to-read 3.80 2024 A Grim Reaper's Guide to Catching a Killer (S.C.Y.T.H.E. Mystery, #1)
author: Maxie Dara
name: Julie
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Girl with the Louding Voice]]> 50214741 All you have are your words.

Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education.

As the only daughter of a broke father, she is a valuable commodity. Removed from school and sold as a third wife to an old man, Adunni's life amounts to this: four goats, two bags of rice, some chickens and a new TV. When unspeakable tragedy swiftly strikes in her new home, she is secretly sold as a domestic servant to a household in the wealthy enclaves of Lagos, where no one will talk about the strange disappearance of her predecessor, Rebecca. No one but Adunni...

As a yielding daughter, a subservient wife, and a powerless servant, fourteen-year-old Adunni is repeatedly told that she is nothing. But Adunni won't be silenced. She is determined to find her voice - in a whisper, in song, in broken English - until she can speak for herself, for the girls like Rebecca who came before, and for all the girls who will follow.

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371 Abi Daré 1524746029 Julie 4 4.40 2020 The Girl with the Louding Voice
author: Abi Daré
name: Julie
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/21
date added: 2024/11/21
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The Picture of Dorian Gray 5297
In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.]]>
272 Oscar Wilde Julie 4 4.13 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Julie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1890
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/13
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<![CDATA[The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue]]> 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 Julie 4 scifi-fantasy 4.16 2020 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Julie
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: scifi-fantasy
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Picnic at Hanging Rock 791345
Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three of the girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of Hanging Rock. Further, higher, till at last they disappeared.

They never returned.

Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is fact or fiction the reader must decide for themselves.]]>
189 Joan Lindsay 0099750619 Julie 0 to-read 3.65 1967 Picnic at Hanging Rock
author: Joan Lindsay
name: Julie
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy]]> 203956638
The figure of the American sheriff has loomed large in popular imagination, though given the outsize jurisdiction sheriffs have over people’s lives, the office of sheriffs remains a gravely under-examined institution. Locally elected, largely unaccountable, and difficult to remove, the country’s over three thousand sheriffs, mostly white men, wield immense power—making arrests, running county jails, enforcing evictions and immigration laws—with a quarter of all U.S. law enforcement officers reporting to them. In recent years there’s been a revival of “constitutional sheriffs,� who assert that their authority supersedes that of legislatures, courts, and even the president. They’ve protested federal mask and vaccine mandates and gun regulations, railed against police reforms, and, ultimately, declared themselves election police, with many endorsing the “Big Lie� of a stolen presidential election. They are embraced by far-right militia groups, white nationalists, the Claremont Institute, and former president Donald Trump, who sees them as allies in mass deportation and border policing.

How did a group of law enforcement officers decide that they were “above the law?� What are the stakes for local and national politics, and for America as a multi-racial democracy?

Blending investigative reporting, historical research, and political analysis, author Jessica Pishko takes us to the roots of why sheriffs have become a flashpoint in the current politics of toxic masculinity, guns, white supremacy, and rural resentment, and uncovers how sheriffs have effectively evaded accountability since the nation’s founding.

A must-read for fans of Michelle Alexander, Gilbert King, Elizabeth Hinton, and Kathleen Belew.]]>
480 Jessica Pishko 0593471318 Julie 0 to-read 3.99 The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy
author: Jessica Pishko
name: Julie
average rating: 3.99
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/09
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We 76171 The exhilarating dystopian novel that inspired George Orwell's 1984 and foreshadowed the worst excesses of Soviet Russia

Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand. In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, We is the classic dystopian novel and was the forerunner of works such as George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It was suppressed for many years in Russia and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom, yet is also a powerful, exciting and vivid work of science fiction. Clarence Brown's brilliant translation is based on the corrected text of the novel, first published in Russia in 1988 after more than sixty years' suppression.]]>
256 Yevgeny Zamyatin 0140185852 Julie 0 scifi-fantasy 3.91 1924 We
author: Yevgeny Zamyatin
name: Julie
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1924
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/07
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The House of the Seven Gables 90192 225 Nathaniel Hawthorne 0393924769 Julie 3 3.46 1851 The House of the Seven Gables
author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
name: Julie
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1851
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
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Sophie’s World 10959 An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here

One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.]]>
403 Jostein Gaarder 1857993284 Julie 0 currently-reading 3.94 1991 Sophie’s World
author: Jostein Gaarder
name: Julie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/07
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (Hercule Poirot, #23)]]> 16312
From the
What reason would an amiable dentist like Dr. Morely have for committing suicide? He didn't have emotional difficulties, money problems, or love trouble. What he did have was an appointment with Hercule Poirot, who is not persuaded by the suicide story and has therefore taken it upon himself to question the good doctor's patients, partners, and friends. All he's come up with is the numbing fear that Dr. Morely wasn't an unlikely victim at all. Nor the first.]]>
0 Agatha Christie 1572703857 Julie 0 kindle 3.79 1940 One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (Hercule Poirot, #23)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Julie
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1940
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/07
shelves: kindle
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Curdle Creek 203578885 For fans of “The Lottery� and The Hunger Games, this novel set in a small town with a sinister tradition is chilling in the best possible way.

Curdle Creek is a thoughtful, sinister tour-de-force.�
―Tananarive Due, L.A. Times Book Prize-winning author of The Reformatory



Welcome to Curdle Creek, a place just dying to make you feel at home. Osira, a forty-five-year-old widow, is an obedient follower of the strict conventions of Curdle Creek, an all-Black town in rural America stuck in the past and governed by a tradition of ominous rituals. Osira is considered blessed, but her luck changes when her children flee, she comes second to last in the Running of the Widows and her father flees when his name is called in the annual Moving On ceremony.

Forced into a test of allegiance, Osira finds herself transported back in time, then into another realm where she must answer for crimes committed by Curdle Creek. Exile forces her to jump realms again, landing Osira even farther away from home, in rural England. Safe as long as she sticks to the rules, she quickly learns there are consequences for every kindness. Each jump could lead Osira anywhere but back home.

Curdle Creek is a unique, inventive novel exploring themes of home, belonging, motherhood and what we inherit from society. This American gothic offers a mash-up of the surreal and literary horror that will appeal to fans of Ring Shout, The Underground Railroad and Lovecraft Country. Yvonne Battle-Felton’s fever dream of a tale is enthralling, layered and quite unlike anything else.]]>
304 Yvonne Battle-Felton 1250362016 Julie 0 to-read 2.83 2024 Curdle Creek
author: Yvonne Battle-Felton
name: Julie
average rating: 2.83
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/04
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The Book of Witching 205064706 A mother must fight for her daughter’s life in this fierce and haunting tale of witchcraft and revenge from the author of A Haunting in the Arctic.

Clem gets a call that is every mother’s worst nightmare. Her nineteen-year-old daughter Erin is unconscious in the hospital after a hiking trip with her friends on the remote Orkney Islands that met a horrifying end, leaving her boyfriend dead and her best friend missing. When Erin wakes, she doesn’t recognize her mother. And she doesn’t answer to her name, but insists she is someone named Nyx.

Clem travels the site of her daughter’s accident, determined to find out what happened to her. The answer may lie in a dark secret in the history of the Orkneys: a woman wrongly accused of witchcraft and murder four centuries ago. Clem begins to wonder if Erin’s strange behavior is a symptom of a broken mind, or the effects of an ancient curse?]]>
365 C.J. Cooke 059381696X Julie 4 3.74 2024 The Book of Witching
author: C.J. Cooke
name: Julie
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/03
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On the Road 70401 307 Jack Kerouac 0140042598 Julie 2 3.63 1957 On the Road
author: Jack Kerouac
name: Julie
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1957
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/02
date added: 2024/11/02
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The September House 64623481 A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.

Margaret is not most people.

Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.]]>
352 Carissa Orlando 0593548612 Julie 0 to-read 3.87 2023 The September House
author: Carissa Orlando
name: Julie
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/31
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The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Julie 0 to-read 4.17 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Julie
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/31
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<![CDATA[Hum If You Don't Know the Words]]> 28264701 Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy.

Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred...until the Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, and shatters their worlds when Robin’s parents are left dead and Beauty’s daughter goes missing.

After Robin is sent to live with her loving but irresponsible aunt, Beauty is hired to care for Robin while continuing the search for her daughter. In Beauty, Robin finds the security and family that she craves, and the two forge an inextricable bond through their deep personal losses. But Robin knows that if Beauty finds her daughter, Robin could lose her new caretaker forever, so she makes a desperate decision with devastating consequences. Her quest to make amends and find redemption is a journey of self-discovery in which she learns the harsh truths of the society that once promised her protection.

Told through Beauty and Robin's alternating perspectives, the interwoven narratives create a rich and complex tapestry of the emotions and tensions at the heart of Apartheid-era South Africa. Hum If You Don’t Know the Words is a beautifully rendered look at loss, racism, and the creation of family.]]>
432 Bianca Marais 0399575073 Julie 4 4.24 2017 Hum If You Don't Know the Words
author: Bianca Marais
name: Julie
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2020/06/05
date added: 2024/10/27
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<![CDATA[At Home: A Short History of Private Life]]> 7507825
Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.� The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has figured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.
(front flap)]]>
497 Bill Bryson 0767919386 Julie 0 3.98 2010 At Home: A Short History of Private Life
author: Bill Bryson
name: Julie
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Juniper’s Christmas (The Juniper Lane Adventures)]]> 123185413 368 Eoin Colfer 1250321948 Julie 0 to-read 3.94 2023 Juniper’s Christmas (The Juniper Lane Adventures)
author: Eoin Colfer
name: Julie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/24
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<![CDATA[Pieces and Players (Chasing Vermeer, #4)]]> 23013685 320 Blue Balliett 054529990X Julie 3 3.29 2015 Pieces and Players (Chasing Vermeer, #4)
author: Blue Balliett
name: Julie
average rating: 3.29
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/10/23
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<![CDATA[Hallowe'en Party (Hercule Poirot, #41)]]> 16307
That night, Hercule Poirot is called in to find the 'evil presence.' But first he must establish whether he is looking for a murderer or a double-murderer!]]>
336 Agatha Christie 0007120680 Julie 3 3.56 1969 Hallowe'en Party (Hercule Poirot, #41)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Julie
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1969
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/10/23
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<![CDATA[Cocaine Blues (Phryne Fisher, #1)]]> 41022009 Cocaine Blues charts a crescendo of steamy intrigue, culminating in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.]]> 185 Kerry Greenwood 161595354X Julie 0 to-read 3.86 1989 Cocaine Blues (Phryne Fisher, #1)
author: Kerry Greenwood
name: Julie
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/22
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<![CDATA[The Mistletoe Mystery (Molly the Maid, #2.5)]]> 210040063 Molly the Maid has a whole new mystery to solve in this heartwarming novella from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest.

Molly Gray has always loved the holidays. When Molly was a child, her gran went to great lengths to make the season merry and bright, full of cherished traditions. The first few Christmases without Gran were hard on Molly, but this year, her beloved boyfriend and fellow festive spirit, Juan Manuel, is intent on making the season Molly’s mofinst joyful yet.

But when a Secret Santa gift exchange at the Regency Grand Hotel raises questions about who Molly can and cannot trust, she dives headfirst into solving her most consequential—and personal—mystery yet. Molly has a bad feeling about things, and she starts to wonder: has she yet again mistaken a frog for a prince?

A heartwarming, magical story about the true spirit of the season, The Mistletoe Mystery reminds us that love is the greatest mystery of all.]]>
112 Nita Prose 0593875443 Julie 0 to-read 3.41 2024 The Mistletoe Mystery (Molly the Maid, #2.5)
author: Nita Prose
name: Julie
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/21
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<![CDATA[Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1)]]> 37781 Things Fall Apart is written with remarkable economy and subtle irony. Uniquely and richly African, at the same time it reveals Achebe's keen awareness of the human qualities common to men of all times and places.]]> 215 Chinua Achebe Julie 4 3.73 1958 Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1)
author: Chinua Achebe
name: Julie
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1958
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/18
date added: 2024/10/18
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The Berry Pickers 210367324 A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.]]>
307 Amanda Peters 1646222385 Julie 0 to-read 4.11 2023 The Berry Pickers
author: Amanda Peters
name: Julie
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/17
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The Lager Queen of Minnesota 42203363
Two sisters, one farm. A family is split when their father leaves their shared inheritance entirely to Helen, his younger daughter. Despite baking award-winning pies at the local nursing home, her older sister, Edith, struggles to make what most people would call a living. So she can't help wondering what her life would have been like with even a portion of the farm money her sister kept for herself.

With the proceeds from the farm, Helen builds one of the most successful light breweries in the country, and makes their company motto ubiquitous: "Drink lots. It's Blotz." Where Edith has a heart as big as Minnesota, Helen's is as rigid as a steel keg. Yet one day, Helen will find she needs some help herself, and she could find a potential savior close to home. . . if it's not too late.

Meanwhile, Edith's granddaughter, Diana, grows up knowing that the real world requires a tougher constitution than her grandmother possesses. She earns a shot at learning the IPA business from the ground up--will that change their fortunes forever, and perhaps reunite her splintered family?

Here we meet a cast of lovable, funny, quintessentially American characters eager to make their mark in a world that's often stacked against them. In this deeply affecting family saga, resolution can take generations, but when it finally comes, we're surprised, moved, and delighted.]]>
349 J. Ryan Stradal 0399563059 Julie 4 3.99 2019 The Lager Queen of Minnesota
author: J. Ryan Stradal
name: Julie
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/15
date added: 2024/10/15
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Ariel 395090 Sylvia Plath's celebrated collection.

When Sylvia Plath died, she not only left behind a prolific life but also her unpublished literary masterpiece, Ariel. Her husband, Ted Hughes, brought the collection to life in 1966, and its publication garnered worldwide acclaim. This collection showcases the beloved poet’s brilliant, provoking, and always moving poems, including "Ariel" and once again shows why readers have fallen in love with her work throughout the generations.]]>
128 Sylvia Plath 0060931728 Julie 0 currently-reading 4.22 1965 Ariel
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Julie
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1965
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/15
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The Downstairs Girl 33224061 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781524740955.

From the founding member of We Need Diverse Books comes a powerful novel about identity, betrayal, and the meaning of family.

By day, seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan works as a lady's maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night, Jo moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column for the genteel Southern lady, "Dear Miss Sweetie." When her column becomes wildly popular, she uses the power of the pen to address some of society's ills, but she's not prepared for the backlash that follows when her column challenges fixed ideas about race and gender. While her opponents clamor to uncover the secret identity of Miss Sweetie, a mysterious letter sets Jo off on a search for her own past and the parents who abandoned her as a baby. But when her efforts put her in the crosshairs of Atlanta's most notorious criminal, Jo must decide whether she, a girl used to living in the shadows, is ready to step into the light. With prose that is witty, insightful, and at times heartbreaking, Stacey Lee masterfully crafts an extraordinary social drama set in the New South.]]>
374 Stacey Lee Julie 0 to-read 3.92 2019 The Downstairs Girl
author: Stacey Lee
name: Julie
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/15
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My Sister, the Serial Killer 38819868
My Sister, the Serial Killer is a blackly comic novel about how blood is thicker - and more difficult to get out of the carpet - than water...]]>
226 Oyinkan Braithwaite 0385544235 Julie 4 3.65 2018 My Sister, the Serial Killer
author: Oyinkan Braithwaite
name: Julie
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/14
date added: 2024/10/14
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<![CDATA[The Talented Mr. Ripley (Ripley, #1)]]> 2247142
It’s here, in the first volume of Patricia Highsmith’s five-book Ripley series, that we are introduced to the suave Tom Ripley, a young striver seeking to leave behind his past as an orphan bullied for being a “sissy.� Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley’s fascination with Dickie’s debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie’s ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game.

“Sinister and strangely alluring,� (Mark Harris, Entertainment Weekly) The Talented Mr. Ripley serves as an unforgettable introduction to this smooth confidence man, whose talent for self-invention is as unnerving—and unnervingly revealing of the American psyche—as ever.]]>
271 Patricia Highsmith Julie 4 3.96 1955 The Talented Mr. Ripley (Ripley, #1)
author: Patricia Highsmith
name: Julie
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1955
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/07
date added: 2024/10/07
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<![CDATA[Polar Bear Dawn (Detective Bernadette Callahan Mystery #1)]]> 44436053 Murders happen. But not with employees of the same company in Oil Camps in the high Arctic and Northern Canada. Two detectives, one from Alaska and one from Canada, are given the case. They find the murders are connected. Now, they have to work together to find out why the victims were silenced. What secrets did their deaths conceal?

Frank Mueller, the Alaskan Detective, is close to retirement. He’s been through three marriages and two stints in rehab. He is on probation with the force. He knows the Anchorage Police department has given him this case because they don’t want it investigated fully and there’s no booze in the Arctic oil camps.

Bernadette Callahan, the Canadian Detective, is in her mid thirties with a lot to prove on the force. She is Cree Indian and Irish, raised on a native reservation in Northern Canada. She’s been ingrained with the ways of the ‘people,� by her grandmother that have given her instincts. Her instincts tell her there is something more than four dead people—someone is settling a score. The real crime will happen soon.

The oil companies think the deaths are bad for publicity and they want them solved quickly. The detectives are under pressure to come up with a verdict they know is wrong.

Callahan begins to unravel a series of unlikely suspects. A Chemistry Professor with a grudge against big oil, a Mexican low life gangster and Wall Street Executives. How are they connected?

Something is about to happen to oil supplies in the Arctic. The two Detectives can sense it. They know it’s real—can they convince others to act?]]>
332 Lyle Nicholson Julie 0 kindle 4.04 2013 Polar Bear Dawn (Detective Bernadette Callahan Mystery #1)
author: Lyle Nicholson
name: Julie
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/03
shelves: kindle
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<![CDATA[The Kaiju Preservation Society]]> 57693406
What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. They're the universe's largest and most dangerous panda and they're in trouble.

It's not just the Kaiju Preservation Society that's found its way to the alternate world. Others have, too--and their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.]]>
264 John Scalzi 0765389126 Julie 3 3.93 2022 The Kaiju Preservation Society
author: John Scalzi
name: Julie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/29
date added: 2024/09/29
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The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter 37380 359 Carson McCullers 0618084746 Julie 4 3.99 1940 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
author: Carson McCullers
name: Julie
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1940
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/28
date added: 2024/09/28
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<![CDATA[Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up)]]> 25899679 Spark Joy is an in-depth, line illustrated, room-by-room guide to decluttering and organising your home. It covers every room in the house from bedrooms and kitchens to bathrooms and living rooms as well as a wide range of items in different categories, including clothes, photographs, paperwork, books, cutlery, cosmetics, shoes, bags, wallets and valuables. Charming line drawings explain how to properly organise drawers, wardrobes, cupboards and cabinets. The illustrations also show Ms Kondo's unique folding method, clearly showing how to fold anything from shirts, trousers and jackets to skirts, socks and bras.

The secret to Marie Kondo's unique and simple KonMari tidying method is to focus on what you want to keep, not what you want to get rid of. Ask yourself if something 'sparks joy' and suddenly it becomes so much easier to understand if you really need it in your home and your life. When you surround yourself with things you love you will find that your whole life begins to change.

Marie Kondo's first book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying, presents her unique tidying philosophy and introduces readers to the basics of her KonMari method. It has already transformed the homes and lives of millions of people around the world. Spark Joy is Marie Kondo's in-depth tidying masterclass, focusing on the detail of how to declutter and organise your home.]]>
298 Marie Kondō 1607749734 Julie 3 4.11 2012 Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up)
author: Marie Kondō
name: Julie
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2016/05/30
date added: 2024/09/27
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The Stolen Queen 211025454 From New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis, an utterly addictive new novel that will transport you from New York City’s most glamorous party to the labyrinth streets of Cairo and back.

Egypt, 1936: When anthropology student Charlotte Cross is offered a coveted spot on an archaeological dig in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, she leaps at the opportunity. But after an unbearable tragedy strikes, Charlotte knows her future will never be the same.

New York City, 1978: Eighteen-year-old Annie Jenkins is thrilled when she lands an opportunity to work for iconic former Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who’s in the midst of organizing the famous Met Gala, hosted at the museum and known across the city as the “party of the year.� Though Annie soon realizes she’ll have her work cut out for her, scrambling to meet Diana’s capricious demands and exacting standards.

Meanwhile, Charlotte, now leading a quiet life as the associate curator of the Met’s celebrated Department of Egyptian Art, wants little to do with the upcoming gala. She’s consumed with her research on Hathorkare—a rare female pharaoh dismissed by most other Egyptologists as unimportant.

That is, until the night of the gala. When one of the Egyptian art collection’s most valuable artifacts goes missing . . . and there are signs Hathorkare’s legendary curse might be reawakening.

As Annie and Charlotte team up to search for the missing antiquity, a desperate hunch leads the unlikely duo to one place Charlotte swore she’d never return: Egypt. But if they’re to have any hope of finding the artifact, Charlotte will need to confront the demons of her past—which may mean leading them both directly into danger.]]>
352 Fiona Davis 0593474279 Julie 0 to-read 3.92 2025 The Stolen Queen
author: Fiona Davis
name: Julie
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/23
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<![CDATA[The Drowned (Quirke, #10 and St. John Strafford, #5)]]> 203647816 From the renowned Booker Prize winner and nationally bestselling author of Snow comes a richly atmospheric new mystery about a woman’s sudden disappearance in a small coastal town in Ireland, where nothing is as it seems.

"John Banville is one of my favorite writers alive, and I pick up his books whenever I need a reminder how to write a good sentence.”—R.F. Kuang

“He had seen drowned people. A sight not to be forgotten.�

1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn’t approach but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea.

Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally—the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke—a man he is linked to in increasingly complicated ways. But as the case unfolds, events from the past resurface that may have life-altering ramifications for all involved.

At once a searing mystery and a profound meditation on the hidden worlds we all inhabit,The Drownedis the next great Strafford and Quirkenovel from a beloved writer at the top of his game.]]>
336 John Banville 1335000593 Julie 0 to-read 3.51 2024 The Drowned (Quirke, #10 and St. John Strafford, #5)
author: John Banville
name: Julie
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/23
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The Jackal's Mistress 214537772 In this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she’s willing to risk for the life of a stranger, from the New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical fiction as Hour of the Witch and The Sandcastle Girls.

Virginia, 1864—Libby Steadman’s husband has been away for so long that she can barely conjure his voice in her dreams. While she longs for him in the night, fearing him dead in a Union prison camp, her days are spent running a gristmill with her teenage niece, a hired hand, and his wife, all the grain they can produce requisitioned by the Confederate Army. It’s an uneasy life in the Shenandoah Valley, the territory frequently changing hands, control swinging back and forth like a pendulum between North and South, and Libby awakens every morning expecting to see her land a battlefield.
And then she finds a gravely injured Union officer left for dead in a neighbor’s house, the bones of his hand and leg shattered. Captain Jonathan Weybridge of the Vermont Brigade is her enemy � but he’s also a human being, and Libby must make a terrible Does she leave him to die alone? Or does she risk treason and try to nurse him back to health? And if she succeeds, does she try to secretly bring him across Union lines, where she might negotiate a trade for news of her own husband?
A vivid and sweeping story of two people navigating the boundaries of love and humanity in a landscape of brutal violence, The Jackal’s Mistress is a heart-stopping new novel, based on a largely unknown piece of American history, from one of our greatest storytellers.]]>
336 Chris Bohjalian 0385547641 Julie 0 to-read 4.12 2025 The Jackal's Mistress
author: Chris Bohjalian
name: Julie
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: to-read
review:

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