Marilyn's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 05 Apr 2025 08:20:54 -0700 60 Marilyn's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Cutting for Stone 3591262
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

An unforgettable journey into one man’s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.
(front flap)]]> 560 Abraham Verghese 0375414495 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.32 2009 Cutting for Stone
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Foods That Cause You to Lose Weight: The Negative Calorie Effect]]> 31019053
No more counting calories—discover the foods that take the weight off and keep it off with this revolutionary plan.

Did you know that certain foods have an incredible negative calorie effect that actually melts fat? This revolutionary approach, outlined by Neal Barnard, M.D., and proven effective by thousands of men and women who have tried it, can bring about the permanent weight control every diet promises but seldom delivers.

Find out how, by following the negative calorie plan, you

Boost your metabolic rateBurn calories more effectivelyLower dangerous cholesterol levelsEnjoy better health—and protect your heartEat the delicious foods you love—in the quantities you wantWatch the pounds disappear—without stressful dieting or the temptation to bingeDr. Barnard also provides delicious negative calorie recipes that use foods most people already have in their home cupboards. Easy, effective, and satisfying, Foods That Cause You to Lose Weight will bring about the permanent weight control every diet promises but seldom delivers.]]> 352 Neal D. Barnard 0062652737 Marilyn 2 2020 3.69 1992 Foods That Cause You to Lose Weight: The Negative Calorie Effect
author: Neal D. Barnard
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1992
rating: 2
read at: 2020/12/07
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: 2020
review:
This is completely outdated. Fat free?? Went out with button shoes!
]]> <![CDATA[Leaping: Revelations & Epiphanies]]> 684207
Through the good and the bad, the serious and the hilarious, Doyle finds just the right story and just the right words to help us better understand life and love—and to help us see our faith in a whole new light.]]> 224 Brian Doyle 082941813X Marilyn 4 2025 4.35 2003 Leaping: Revelations & Epiphanies
author: Brian Doyle
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: 2025
review:
If I were a Catholic I might have appreciated this book more. The writing is excellent.
]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.12 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Complete Book of Greek Cooking: The Recipe Club of St. Paul's Orthodox Cathedral]]> 973322 352 0060921293 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.11 1990 The Complete Book of Greek Cooking: The Recipe Club of St. Paul's Orthodox Cathedral
author: Recipe Club of St. Paul's Church
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Seven Years in Tibet 8397916 The astonishing adventure classic about life in Tibet just before the Chinese Communist takeover is now repackaged for a new generation of readers.

In this vivid memoir that has sold millions of copies worldwide, Heinrich Harrer recounts his adventures as one of the first Europeans ever to enter Tibet and encounter the Dalai Lama.


]]> 363 Heinrich Harrer 1101135565 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.43 1953 Seven Years in Tibet
author: Heinrich Harrer
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> All But the Waltz 824697 236 Mary Clearman Blew 080613321X Marilyn 0 currently-reading 3.87 1991 All But the Waltz
author: Mary Clearman Blew
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Last Bus to Wisdom 24611732 The final novel from a great American storyteller.

Donal Cameron is being raised by his grandmother, the cook at the legendary Double W ranch in Ivan Doig’s beloved Two Medicine Country of the Montana Rockies, a landscape that gives full rein to an eleven-year-old’s imagination. But when Gram has to have surgery for “female troubleâ€� in the summer of 1951, all she can think to do is to ship Donal off to her sister in faraway Manitowoc, Wisconsin. There Donal is in for a rude surprise: Aunt Kate–bossy, opinionated, argumentative, and tyrannical—is nothing like her sister. She henpecks her good-natured husband, Herman the German, and Donal can’t seem to get on her good side either. After one contretemps too many, Kate Ěýpacks him back to the authorities in Montana on the next Greyhound. But as it turns out, Donal isn’t traveling solo: Herman the German has decided to fly the coop with him. In the immortal American tradition, the pair light out for the territory together, meeting a classic Doigian ensemble of characters and having rollicking misadventures along the way.

Charming, wise, and slyly funny, Last Bus to WisdomĚýis a last sweet gift from a writer whose books have bestowed untold pleasure on countless readers.Ěý]]> 453 Ivan Doig 1594632022 Marilyn 0 to-read 3.99 2015 Last Bus to Wisdom
author: Ivan Doig
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between)]]> 40411206
In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, “Did you, um, make it?� She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood (“Strangers were worried about me; that’s how long I was single!�), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway (“It’s like I had a fashion-induced blackout�).

In “What It Was Like, Part One,� Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay “What It Was Like, Part Two� reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her.

Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she’s aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls (“If you’re meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you’ve already set the bar too high�), and she’s a card-carrying REI shopper (“My bungee cords now earn points!�).

Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and—of course—talking as fast as you can.]]> 224 Lauren Graham 0425285189 Marilyn 4 2025 3.92 2016 Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between)
author: Lauren Graham
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: 2025
review:
A good read for a Gilmore Girls fan.
]]> The Excitements 145654359
Meet the Williamson sisters, Britain’s most beloved World War II veterans. Now in their late nineties, Josephine and Penny are in huge demand, beloved of journalists and producers, popping up on red carpets and at fundraisers and festivals all over the country. Despite their age, they’re still in great form—perfectly put together, sprightly and sparky, and always in search of their next “excitement.�

This time it’s a trip to Paris to receive the Légion d’Honneur for their part in liberating France. As always, they will be accompanied by their devoted gay nephew, Archie, who moved in with his aunts right after he came out. The press has always reported that these lady heroes worked for the Royal Navy and the nursing corps, but that’s their official cover. In reality, Josephine was an intelligence operative who drew maps used for the D-Day invasion while Penny was a spy and specialist at hand-to-combat, risking her teenage life in France. And this trip to Paris is not what it seems either. Scandal and crime have always quietly trailed the Williamson sisters, even in the decades after the war.

Now armed with new information about an old adversary, these much decorated (but admittedly ancient) veterans intend to settle scores, avenge lost friends, and pull off one last, daring heist before the curtain finally comes down on their illustrious careers.

A deliciously fast-paced and witty drama, The Excitements is the tale of two remarkably clever and brave women who helped save the world and survived the unthinkable, without ever losing their killer instinct... or their joie de vivre.]]> 304 C.J. Wray 0063337487 Marilyn 4 2025 3.83 2024 The Excitements
author: C.J. Wray
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: 2025
review:
A great audio version. This was a romp of a book!
]]> 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,ĚýThree Days in JuneĚýis a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers

]]> 165 Anne Tyler 0593803485 Marilyn 3 2025 3.64 2025 Three Days in June
author: Anne Tyler
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: 2025
review:
Not typical stellar Tyler, but this was a fast pleasant read. I have read all of Anne Tyler's book as well as a biography of her. A bit of a fan. I regret that I think she peaked out midpoint in her career.m
]]> Beartown (Beartown, #1) 33413128
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.]]> 432 Fredrik Backman Marilyn 4 2025 4.27 2016 Beartown (Beartown, #1)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/24
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: 2025
review:
This reminded me of We Were the Mulvaneys. Not at all what I expected, but good solid writing. Plot and characters were all sound and believable.
]]> <![CDATA[Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain]]> 62587676 Ěý
When Andrew McCarthy's eldest son began to take his first steps into adulthood, McCarthy found himself wishing time would slow down. Looking to create a more meaningful connection with Sam before he fled the nest, as well as recreate his own life-altering journey decades before, McCarthy decided the two of them should set out on a trek like few 500 miles across Spain's Camino de Santiago.
Ěý
Over the course of the journey, the pair traversed an unforgiving landscape, having more honest conversations in five weeks than they'd had in the preceding two decades. ĚýDiscussions of divorce, the trauma of school, McCarthy's difficult relationship with his own father, fame, and Flaming Hot Cheetos threatened to either derail their relationship or cement it. Ěý Walking With Sam Ěýcaptures this intimate, candid and hopeful expedition as the father son duo travel across the country and towards one another.]]> 256 Andrew McCarthy 1538709201 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 3.97 2023 Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain
author: Andrew McCarthy
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Housekeeping 11741 Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck, and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience.]]> 219 Marilynne Robinson 0312424094 Marilyn 4 2025 3.82 1980 Housekeeping
author: Marilynne Robinson
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: 2025
review:
Such an unusual book. The language seems to have been conceived before the plot. The characters were the plot.
]]> Heaven and the Afterlife 6192648 272 James L. Garlow 0764205765 Marilyn 2 2025 3.83 2009 Heaven and the Afterlife
author: James L. Garlow
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2009
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: 2025
review:

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

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

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Marilyn 0 to-read 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Nightingale 211003854 In love we find out who we want to be.
In war we find out who we are.

FRANCE, 1939

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.]]> 448 Kristin Hannah 1250370116 Marilyn 0 to-read 4.75 2015 The Nightingale
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.75
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Coolidge 12345967
Although Coolidge was sometimes considered old-fashioned, he was the most modern of presidents, advancing not only the automobile trade but also aviation, through his spirited support of Charles Lindbergh. Coolidge's discipline and composure, Shlaes reveals, represented not weakness but strength. First as governor of Massachusetts then as president, Coolidge proved unafraid to take on the divisive issues of this crucial period: reining in public-sector unions, unrelentingly curtailing spending, and rejecting funding for new interest groups.

Perhaps more than any other president, Coolidge understood that doing less could yield more. He reduced the federal budget during his time in office even as the economy grew, wages rose, tax rates fell, and unemployment dropped. As a husband, father, and citizen, the thirtieth president made an equally firm commitment to moderation, shunning lavish parties and special presidential treatment; to him the presidency was not a bully pulpit but a place for humble service. Overcoming private tragedy while in office, including the death of a son, Coolidge showed the nation how to persevere by persevering himself. For a nation looking for a steady hand, he was a welcome pilot.

In this illuminating, magisterial biography, AmityShlaes finally captures the remarkable story of Calvin Coolidge and the decade of extraordinary prosperity that grew from his leadership.]]> 536 Amity Shlaes 0061967556 Marilyn 5 2025, 5-stars 3.76 2013 Coolidge
author: Amity Shlaes
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/30
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: 2025, 5-stars
review:
Excellent! He appears to have been a man of integrity. Rare. Fascinating chapter in our history.
]]> The First State of Being 173956216
It's August 1999. For twelve-year-old Michael Rosario, life at Fox Run Apartments in Red Knot, Delaware, is as ordinary as ever—except for the looming Y2K crisis and his overwhelming crush on his fifteen-year-old babysitter, Gibby. But when a disoriented teenage boy named Ridge appears out of nowhere, Michael discovers there is more to life than stockpiling supplies and pining over Gibby.

It turns out that Ridge is carefree, confident, and bold, things Michael wishes he could be. Unlike Michael, however, Ridge isn’t where he belongs. When Ridge reveals that he’s the world’s first time traveler, Michael and Gibby are stunned but curious. As Ridge immerses himself in 1999—fascinated by microwaves, basketballs, and malls—Michael discovers that his new friend has a book that outlines the events of the next twenty years, and his curiosity morphs into something else: focused determination. Michael wants—no, needs—to get his hands on that book. How else can he prepare for the future? But how far is he willing to go to get it?]]> 272 Erin Entrada Kelly 0063337312 Marilyn 3 2025 4.08 2024 The First State of Being
author: Erin Entrada Kelly
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: 2025
review:
"Right here, right now. It's the best place to be."
]]> <![CDATA[The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning]]> 35297297 A charming, practical, and unsentimental approach to putting a home in order while reflecting on the tiny joys that make up a long life.

In Sweden there is a kind of decluttering called »ĺö˛őłŮä»ĺ˛Ôľ±˛Ô˛µ, »ĺö meaning “deathâ€� and ˛őłŮä»ĺ˛Ôľ±˛Ô˛µ meaning “cleaning.â€� This surprising and invigorating process of clearing out unnecessary belongings can be undertaken at any age or life stage but should be done sooner than later, before others have to do it for you. In The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, artist Margareta Magnusson, with Scandinavian humor and wisdom, instructs readers to embrace minimalism. Her radical and joyous method for putting things in order helps families broach sensitive conversations, and makes the process uplifting rather than overwhelming.

Margareta suggests which possessions you can easily get rid of (unworn clothes, unwanted presents, more plates than you’d ever use) and which you might want to keep (photographs, love letters, a few of your children’s art projects). Digging into her late husband’s tool shed, and her own secret drawer of vices, Margareta introduces an element of fun to a potentially daunting task. Along the way readers get a glimpse into her life in Sweden, and also become more comfortable with the idea of letting go.]]> 117 Margareta Magnusson 1501173243 Marilyn 3 2025 3.39 2017 The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning
author: Margareta Magnusson
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: 2025
review:
This book had some occasional bursts of charm, but half way through i thought to myself, "This could be a tri fold pamphlet or even a fridge magnet!" I was looking for a detailed checklist sort of book. This one just sort of wandered and meandered. Get rid of stuff. There. I summarized it.
]]> The Guncle (The Guncle, #1) 54508798
So when tragedy strikes and Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick’s brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian. Despite having a set of “Guncle Rules� ready to go, Patrick has no idea what to expect, having spent years barely holding on after the loss of his great love, a somewhat-stalled career, and a lifestyle not-so-suited to a six- and a nine-year-old. Quickly realizing that parenting—even if temporary—isn’t solved with treats and jokes, Patrick’s eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility, and the realization that, sometimes, even being larger than life means you’re unfailingly human.]]> 326 Steven Rowley 0525542280 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.09 2021 The Guncle (The Guncle, #1)
author: Steven Rowley
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> American Dirt 45046527
Lydia lives in Acapulco. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while cracks are beginning to show in Acapulco because of the cartels, Lydia’s life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. But after her husband’s tell-all profile of the newest drug lord is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.

Forced to flee, Lydia and Luca find themselves joining the countless people trying to reach the United States. Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?]]> 459 Jeanine Cummins Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.32 2020 American Dirt
author: Jeanine Cummins
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![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 Marilyn 0 to-read 4.16 2020 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Notes from a Small Island 28 "Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain-which is to say, all of it."

After nearly two decades spent on British soil, Bill Bryson - bestselling author of The Mother Tongue and Made in America-decided to return to the United States. ("I had recently read," Bryson writes, "that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, so it was clear that my people needed me.") But before departing, he set out on a grand farewell tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home.

Veering from the ludicrous to the endearing and back again, Notes from a Small Island is a delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation that has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie's Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey. The result is an uproarious social commentary that conveys the true glory of Britain, from the satiric pen of an unapologetic Anglophile.]]> 324 Bill Bryson 0380727501 Marilyn 5 5-stars, currently-reading 3.93 1995 Notes from a Small Island
author: Bill Bryson
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: 5-stars, currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain]]> 25489012 The hilarious and loving sequel to a hilarious and loving classic of travel writing: Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson’s valentine to his adopted country of England

In 1995 Bill Bryson got into his car and took a weeks-long farewell motoring trip about England before moving his family back to the United States. The book about that trip, Notes from a Small Island, is uproarious and endlessly endearing, one of the most acute and affectionate portrayals of England in all its glorious eccentricity ever written. Two decades later, he set out again to rediscover that country, and the result is The Road to Little Dribbling. Nothing is funnier than Bill Bryson on the road—prepare for the total joy and multiple episodes of unseemly laughter.]]> 380 Bill Bryson 0385539282 Marilyn 5 3.62 2015 The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain
author: Bill Bryson
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2016/02/19
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: 2016-reading-challenge, 2016, 5-stars, currently-reading
review:
All hail Bill Bryson! I'm so glad you were born!
]]> <![CDATA[The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid]]> 10538
Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century�1951—in the middle of the United States—Des Moines, Iowa—in the middle of the largest generation in American history—the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, he is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around his house and neighborhood with an old football jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel about his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing awful evildoers (and morons)—in his head—as "The Thunderbolt Kid."

Using this persona as a springboard, Bill Bryson re-creates the life of his family and his native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality—a life at once completely familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy. It was, he reminds us, a happy time, when automobiles and televisions and appliances (not to mention nuclear weapons) grew larger and more numerous with each passing year, and DDT, cigarettes, and the fallout from atmospheric testing were considered harmless or even good for you. He brings us into the life of his loving but eccentric family, including affectionate portraits of his father, a gifted sportswriter for the local paper and dedicated practitioner of isometric exercises, and OF his mother, whose job as the home furnishing editor for the same paper left her little time for practicing the domestic arts at home. The many readers of Bill Bryson’s earlier classic, A Walk in the Woods, will greet the reappearance in these pages of the immortal Stephen Katz, seen hijacking literally boxcar loads of beer. He is joined in the Bryson gallery of immortal characters by the demonically clever Willoughby brothers, who apply their scientific skills and can-do attitude to gleefully destructive ends.

Warm and laugh-out-loud funny, and full of his inimitable, pitch-perfect observations, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is as wondrous a book as Bill Bryson has ever written. It will enchant anyone who has ever been young.]]> 288 Bill Bryson 076791936X Marilyn 5 2025, 5-stars 3.92 2006 The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
author: Bill Bryson
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: 2025, 5-stars
review:
I bought this with Border's Rewards points. So much fun to read. Treat yourself or buy it as a gift for a Baby Boomer.
]]> All the Colors of the Dark 203019740 From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that spans decades.

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Mohammed Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.

When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy with one eye, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.

Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession, and the blinding light of hope.]]> 608 Chris Whitaker 0593798872 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.24 2024 All the Colors of the Dark
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Bambi 7986410 Disney Bambi 20 Walt Disney Company 2010063007 Marilyn 0 to-read 3.84 1900 Bambi
author: Walt Disney Company
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1900
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Killing Jesus: A History 17286958 Killing Kennedy and Killing Lincoln, page-turning works of nonfiction that have changed the way we read history.

Now the anchor of The O'Reilly Factor details the events leading up to the murder of the most influential man in history: Jesus of Nazareth. Nearly two thousand years after this beloved and controversial young revolutionary was brutally killed by Roman soldiers, more than 2.2 billion human beings attempt to follow his teachings and believe he is God. Killing Jesus will take readers inside Jesus's life, recounting the seismic political and historical events that made his death inevitable - and changed the world forever.]]> 293 Bill O'Reilly 0805098542 Marilyn 5 2025 This book was riveting. 3.93 2013 Killing Jesus: A History
author: Bill O'Reilly
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: 2025
review:
This book was riveting.
]]> <![CDATA[Old Faithful: Dogs of a Certain Age]]> 25817526 144 Pete Thorne 0062413457 Marilyn 5 2025 4.50 2015 Old Faithful: Dogs of a Certain Age
author: Pete Thorne
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: 2025
review:
I found this book loitering in my kindle--no clue when or how it got there. The cover caught my attention. Reading every entry has been an unanticipated treat.
]]> The Covenant of Water 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 724 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Marilyn 4 2025 4.34 2023 The Covenant of Water
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: 2025
review:
This was a splendid tale. It didn't take my breath away, but it enticed me to keep reading and compelled me to immerse myself in India.
]]> <![CDATA[The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America]]> 397483
Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison.

The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims.

Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing. - John Moe]]> 464 Erik Larson 0609608444 Marilyn 0 to-read 4.02 2003 The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
author: Erik Larson
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Truman 2279
The life of Harry S. Truman is one of the greatest of American stories, filled with vivid characters—Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Wallace Truman, George Marshall, Joe McCarthy, and Dean Acheson—and dramatic events. In this riveting biography, acclaimed historian David McCullough not only captures the man—a more complex, informed, and determined man than ever before imagined—but also the turbulent times in which he rose, boldly, to meet unprecedented challenges. The last president to serve as a living link between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Truman’s story spans the raw world of the Missouri frontier, World War I, the powerful Pendergast machine of Kansas City, the legendary Whistle-Stop Campaign of 1948, and the decisions to drop the atomic bomb, confront Stalin at Potsdam, send troops to Korea, and fire General MacArthur. Drawing on newly discovered archival material and extensive interviews with Truman’s own family, friends, and Washington colleagues, McCullough tells the deeply moving story of the seemingly ordinary “man from Missouri� who was perhaps the most courageous president in our history.]]> 1120 David McCullough 0671869205 Marilyn 0 to-read 4.15 1992 Truman
author: David McCullough
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Flight Behavior 17302754 Flight Behavior transfixes from its opening scene, when a young woman's narrow experience of life is thrown wide with the force of a raging fire. In the lyrical language of her native Appalachia, Barbara Kingsolver bares the rich, tarnished humanity of her novel's inhabitants and unearths the modern complexities of rural existence. Characters and reader alike are quickly carried beyond familiar territory here, into the unsettled ground of science, faith, and everyday truces between reason and conviction.

Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders, and the media. The bewildering emergency draws rural farmers into unexpected acquaintance with urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers, and a striking biologist with his own stake in the outcome. As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town, and a larger world, in a flight toward truth that could undo all she has ever believed.

Flight Behavior takes on one of the most contentious subjects of our time: climate change. With a deft and versatile empathy Kingsolver dissects the motives that drive denial and belief in a precarious world.]]> 610 Barbara Kingsolver 0062124285 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.06 2012 Flight Behavior
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance]]> 41014339 From the National Magazine Award-winning Runner’s World columnist, frequent New Yorker online contributor, and Cambridge-trained physicist: a fascinating and definitive exploration of the extraordinary science of human endurance and the secrets of human performance, for fans of The Sports Gene, Born to Run, and Grit.

From running a two-hour marathon to summiting Mount Everest, we’re fascinated by the extremes of human endurance, constantly testing both our physical and psychological limits.

How high or far or fast can humans go? And what about individual potential: what defines a person’s limits?

For years, physiology determined the answer: heart size, lung capacity, and muscle strength. But over the past decade, a wave of dramatic findings in the cutting-edge science of endurance has completely overturned our understanding of human limitation. Endure widely disseminates these findings for the first time: It’s the brain that dictates how far we can go—which means we can always push ourselves further.

Hutchinson presents an overview of science’s search for understanding human fatigue, from crude experiments with electricity and frogs� legs to sophisticated brain imaging technology. Going beyond the traditional mechanical view of human limits (like a car with a brick on its gas pedal, we go until the tank runs out of gas), he instead argues that a key element in endurance is how the brain responds to distress signals—whether heat, or cold, or muscles screaming with lactic acid—and reveals that we can train to improve brain response.

An elite distance runner himself, Hutchinson takes us to the forefront of the new sports psychology—brain electrode jolts, computer-based training, subliminal messaging—and presents startling new discoveries enhancing the performance of athletes today and shows how anyone can utilize these tactics to bolster their own performance—and get the most out of their bodies.]]> 333 Alex Hutchinson Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.11 2018 Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance
author: Alex Hutchinson
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Secret Book of Flora Lea 61964751
In the war-torn London of 1939, fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the kind Bridie Aberdeen and her teenage son, Harry, in a charming stone cottage along the River Thames, Hazel fills their days with walks and games to distract her young sister, including one that she creates for her sister and her sister alone—a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own.

But the unthinkable happens when young Flora suddenly vanishes while playing near the banks of the river. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, and she carries that guilt into adulthood as a private burden she feels she deserves.

Twenty years later, Hazel is in London, ready to move on from her job at a cozy rare bookstore to a career at Sotheby’s. With a charming boyfriend and her elegantly timeworn Bloomsbury flat, Hazel’s future seems determined. But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing an illustrated book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars . Hazel never told a soul about the imaginary world she created just for Flora. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive after all these years?

As Hazel embarks on a feverish quest, revisiting long-dormant relationships and bravely opening wounds from her past, her career and future hang in the balance. An astonishing twist ultimately reveals the truth in this transporting and refreshingly original novel about the bond between sisters, the complications of conflicted love, and the enduring magic of storytelling.]]> 355 Patti Callahan Henry 1668011832 Marilyn 0 to-read 4.03 2023 The Secret Book of Flora Lea
author: Patti Callahan Henry
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Broker 1110
What no one knows is that the President issued the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.

Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive, there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?]]> 422 John Grisham 0385340540 Marilyn 4 2025 3.79 2005 The Broker
author: John Grisham
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: 2025
review:
Always a good story from this author.
]]> <![CDATA[Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life]]> 9963483 199 Richard Rohr 0470907754 Marilyn 5 2024, 5-stars 4.21 2004 Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
author: Richard Rohr
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: 2024, 5-stars
review:
Best thing I've read this year--maybe in the past five years.
]]> <![CDATA[Whittling for Beginners: Step-by-Step Projects to Carve from Wood]]> 63946822 Carve out some time for whittling

Whittling is both a creative and meditative experience, transporting woodworkers into a calm and artistic headspace. Shave some time off the learning curve with this essential guide, and discover all you need to know about whittling for beginners.

Build your foundation—Learn where to find the best materials and tools, including sourcing wood in the wild, choosing the right knives, and buying safety gloves.Fundamental techniques—Discover the necessary cuts, finishing techniques, and safety practices to whittle almost anything.Practice with 24 projects—Step-by-step instructions help you build your skills with each chapter, with projects ranging from functional items like tent stakes to giftable creations like gnomes and whales.

Get a handle on a new hobby with this whittling book for beginners.]]> 282 Emilie Rigby 1638789894 Marilyn 4 4.17 Whittling for Beginners: Step-by-Step Projects to Carve from Wood
author: Emilie Rigby
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.17
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> London 1619011
A master of epic historical fiction, Edward Rutherford gives us a sweeping novel of London, a glorious pageant spanning two thousand years. He brings this vibrant city's long and noble history alive through his saga of ever-shifting fortunes, fates, and intrigues of a half-dozen families, from the age of Julius Caesar to the twentieth century. Generation after generation, these families embody the passion, struggle, wealth, and verve of the greatest city in the Old World.

Praise for London

“Remarkable . . . The invasion by Julius Caesar’s legions in 54 B.C. . . . The rise of chivalry and the Crusades . . . The building of the Globe theatre . . . and the coming of the Industrial Revolution. . . . What a delightful way to get the feel of London and of English history. . . . We witness first-hand the lust of Henry VIII. We overhear Geoffrey Chaucer deciding to write The Canterbury Tales. . . . Each episode is a punchy tale made up of bite-size chunks ending in tiny cliffhangers.� —The New York Times

“Hold-your-breath suspense, buccaneering adventure, and passionate tales of love and war.� � The Times (London)

“Fascinating . . . A sprawling epic.� � San Francisco Chronicle]]> 1124 Edward Rutherfurd 0449002632 Marilyn 3 2024 3.91 1997 London
author: Edward Rutherfurd
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: 2024
review:
So much. I could not keep the characters straight. But the history was fabulous.
]]> The Library Book 39507318
Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.

In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.

Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present—from Mary Foy, who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role, to Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as “The Human Encyclopedia� who roamed the library dispensing information; from Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library one of the best in the world, to the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves.

Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist’s reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever.]]> 317 Susan Orlean 1476740186 Marilyn 5 5-stars, books-about-books 3.88 2018 The Library Book
author: Susan Orlean
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves: 5-stars, books-about-books
review:
Yet another home run for this author. I think I own three more of her books that I need to read. She finds the most interesting details and brings you into a space you couldn't even have imagined. My love for libraries and librarians knows no bounds
]]> My Name Is Barbra 105584138
Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture. In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career, from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout performance in Funny Girl (musical and film) to the long string of successes in every medium in the years that followed. The book is, like Barbra herself, frank, funny, opinionated, and charming. She recounts her early struggles to become an actress, eventually turning to singing to earn a living; the recording of some of her acclaimed albums; the years of effort involved in making Yentl; her direction of The Prince of Tides; her friendships with figures ranging from Marlon Brando to Madeleine Albright; her political advocacy; and the fulfillment she’s found in her marriage to James Brolin.

No entertainer’s memoir has been more anticipated than Barbra Streisand’s, and this engrossing and delightful book will be eagerly welcomed by her millions of fans.

Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer and one of the most iconic figures in music and film, the only recording artist in history to have earned #1 albums over six consecutive decades. She has received the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Kennedy Center Honor, the National Medal of Arts, France’s Légion d’Honneur, and America’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She founded The Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai, helping to raise awareness and push for more research into women’s heart disease, the leading cause of death among women. Through the Streisand Foundation, which she established in 1986, she has supported national organizations working on preservation of the environment, voter education, the protection of civil liberties and civil rights, women’s issues, and nuclear disarmament. In 2021 she launched the Barbra Streisand Institute at UCLA, a forward-thinking institution dedicated to finding solutions to the most vital social issues.]]> 1040 Barbra Streisand 0525429522 Marilyn 4 4.13 2023 My Name Is Barbra
author: Barbra Streisand
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:
It became a bit much. This woman has certainly done it all and multiple times. She knew everyone, and she had no boundaries. It just became a bit much.
]]> In the Hands of the Potter 1996547 88 Camille Fronk 1590380894 Marilyn 5 2024, 5-stars 4.26 2003 In the Hands of the Potter
author: Camille Fronk
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: 2024, 5-stars
review:

]]> One Second After (After #1) 40192873
New York Times best selling author William R. Forstchen now brings us a story which can be all too terrifyingly real...a story in which one man struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina town after America loses a war, in one second, a war that will send America back to the Dark Ages...A war based upon a weapon, an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP). A weapon that may already be in the hands of our enemies.
Months before publication, One Second After has already been cited on the floor of Congress as a book all Americans should read, a book already being discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a truly realistic look at a weapon and its awesome power to destroy the entire United States, literally within one second. It is a weapon that the Wall Street Journal warns could shatter America. In the tradition of On the Beach, Fail Safe and Testament, this book, set in a typical American town, is a dire warning of what might be our future...and our end.
]]> 351 William R. Forstchen Marilyn 5 2022 4.28 2009 One Second After (After #1)
author: William R. Forstchen
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: 2022
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)]]> 50968 341 J.K. Rowling Marilyn 5 2024 4.46 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> Crime and Punishment 36116843
Although the murder and robbery are bungled, Raskolnikov manages to escape without being seen. And with nothing to prove his guilt and a mendacious confessor in police custody, Raskolnikov seems to have committed the perfect crime. But in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s world of moral transgressions, with its reason and its consequences, Raskolnikov’s plan has a devastating hitch: the feverish delirium of his own conscience.

AmazonClassics brings you timeless works from the masters of storytelling. Ideal for anyone who wants to read a great work for the first time or rediscover an old favorite, these new editions open the door to literature’s most unforgettable characters and beloved worlds.]]> 641 Fyodor Dostoevsky 1542099307 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.38 1866 Crime and Punishment
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1866
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Braid Hair: The Complete Guide to Braiding Hair in All the Most Popular Styles Today (Braids - Buns and Twists, Braiding Hair Braid Book, Sean Michael, Hairstyle, Braid Leather)]]> 22075195 52 Elizebeth Ashford Marilyn 0 currently-reading 3.81 2014 How to Braid Hair: The Complete Guide to Braiding Hair in All the Most Popular Styles Today (Braids - Buns and Twists, Braiding Hair Braid Book, Sean Michael, Hairstyle, Braid Leather)
author: Elizebeth Ashford
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky]]> 31658486
In “Who Will Greet You at Home,â€� a National Magazine Award finalist for The New Yorker, A woman desperate for a child weaves one out of hair, with unsettling results. In “Wild,â€� a disastrous night out shifts a teenager and her Nigerian cousin onto uneasy common ground. In "The Future Looks Good," three generations of women are haunted by the ghosts of war, while in "Light," a father struggles to protect and empower the daughter he loves. And in the title story, in a world ravaged by flood and riven by class, experts have discovered how to "fix the equation of a person" - with rippling, unforeseen repercussions.Ěý

Evocative, playful, subversive, and incredibly human,ĚýWhat It Means When a Man Falls from the SkyĚýheralds the arrival of a prodigious talent with a remarkable career ahead of her.]]> 240 Lesley Nneka Arimah 0735211043 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.07 2017 What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky
author: Lesley Nneka Arimah
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Danish Secret to Happy Kids: How the Viking Way of Raising Children Makes Them Happier, Healthier, and More Independent]]> 201275022 384 Helen Russell 1728297729 Marilyn 5 5-stars 3.99 The Danish Secret to Happy Kids: How the Viking Way of Raising Children Makes Them Happier, Healthier, and More Independent
author: Helen Russell
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.99
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/04
date added: 2024/10/04
shelves: 5-stars
review:
Entertaining, informative. Inspiring and delightful. I had read her first book right after it came out, so I was anxious to hear what ten years had taught her. Lots!!
]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)]]> 6 734 J.K. Rowling 0439139597 Marilyn 3 currently-reading 4.56 2000 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)]]> 5 435 J.K. Rowling 043965548X Marilyn 5 4.57 1999 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/29
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)]]> 15881
And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls� bathroom. But then the real trouble begins � someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects� Harry Potter himself!]]> 352 J.K. Rowling Marilyn 5 5-stars, 2017 4.42 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/22
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: 5-stars, 2017
review:

]]> The Berry Pickers 123036004 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 1646221958 Marilyn 3 2024 4.04 2023 The Berry Pickers
author: Amanda Peters
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/18
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Cook Everything: Summer: 20 Fresh, Seasonal Recipes and 32 Variations]]> 20204195 Summer cooking, simplified—with a recipe collection from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author.

Summer cooking is a breeze with this inspiring collection of easy recipes from Mark Bittman, author of the award-winning How to Cook Everything. This quick reference is the perfect companion for a weekend getaway, a stroll through the farmers' market, a casual outdoor party, and planning simple everyday meals. How to Cook Everything Summer includes 20 of Bittman's favorite seasonal recipes—plus 32 variations—designed to help you eat well on even the laziest days, all with hints for ways to improvise with new foods and flavors.

From garden-fresh salads, chilled soups, and picnic-portable sandwiches to mouthwatering ideas for the grill, quickly prepared fish and shellfish, and luscious fruit desserts, you'll find all you need to enjoy the most delicious summer ever.]]> 83 Mark Bittman 0544186923 Marilyn 4 2020
Merged review:

I am reading this in the wrong season! Sooo many tempting recipes in this book]]> 3.56 2012 How to Cook Everything: Summer: 20 Fresh, Seasonal Recipes and 32 Variations
author: Mark Bittman
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2020/12/07
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: 2020
review:
I am reading this in the wrong season! Sooo many tempting recipes in this book

Merged review:

I am reading this in the wrong season! Sooo many tempting recipes in this book
]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1)]]> 42844155 An alternative cover for this ASIN can be found here

"Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large letter 'H'."

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!]]> 333 J.K. Rowling Marilyn 5 2024 4.47 1997 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/14
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> The Law of Love in Action 209492182
It’s a lot to ask. How can we apply such a law to life’s challenges—from the smallest daily offenses to seemingly insurmountable sources of pain, like abuse, infidelity, or war?

Building on his best-selling book The Law of Love, Steve Young explores the depth and breadth of how others practice living the law of love. This volume brings together a wide variety of insights and firsthand experiences. Stories include a grandpa at a family reunion, a journalist visiting a prison before a big football game, a father with a temper, a bride diagnosed with terminal cancer the day before her wedding, a broadcaster comforting survivors at a crime scene, and more.

In every situation of life, the law of love is undefeated.]]> 240 Steve Young 1639932607 Marilyn 5 2024, 5-stars 4.65 The Law of Love in Action
author: Steve Young
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.65
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/07
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves: 2024, 5-stars
review:
Just wonderful. One of the most readable and life altering books I have had the pleasure of encountering.
]]> Atalanta 61884838
Princess, Warrior, Lover, Hero

When Princess Atalanta is born, a daughter rather than the son her parents hoped for, she is left on a mountainside to die. But even then, she is a survivor. Raised by a mother bear under the protective eye of the goddess Artemis, Atalanta grows up wild and free, with just one condition: if she marries, Artemis warns, it will be her undoing.

Although she loves her beautiful forest home, Atalanta yearns for adventure. When Artemis offers her the chance to fight in her name alongside the Argonauts, the fiercest band of warriors the world has ever seen, Atalanta seizes it. The Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece is filled with impossible challenges, but Atalanta proves herself equal to the men she fights alongside. As she is swept into a passionate affair, in defiance of Artemis's warning, she begins to question the goddess's true intentions. Can Atalanta carve out her own legendary place in a world of men, while staying true to her heart?

Full of joy, passion, and adventure, Atalanta is the story of a woman who refuses to be contained. Jennifer Saint places Atalanta in the pantheon of the greatest heroes in Greek mythology, where she belongs.]]> 291 Jennifer Saint 1250855578 Marilyn 5 2024, 5-stars 3.74 2023 Atalanta
author: Jennifer Saint
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/27
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: 2024, 5-stars
review:
I think I am at an advantage having not been reading mythology novels. I came into this fresh and naive and thoroughly enjoyed it.
]]> <![CDATA[This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage]]> 17349222 State ofĚýWonder, Run,ĚýandĚýBel Canto,Ěýexamines her deepest commitments â€� to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband â€� creating a resonant portrait of a life inĚýThis Is the Story of a Happy Marriage.

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage takes us into the very real world of Ann Patchett’s life. Stretching from her childhood to the present day, from a disastrous early marriage to a later happy one, it covers a multitude of topics, including relationships with family and friends, and charts the hard work and joy of writing, and the unexpected thrill of opening a bookstore.

As she shares stories of the people, places, ideals, and art to which she has remained indelibly committed, Ann Patchett brings into focus the large experiences and small moments that have shaped her as a daughter, wife, and writer.]]> 308 Ann Patchett 0062236679 Marilyn 5 2021, 5-stars 4.00 2013 This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
author: Ann Patchett
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/29
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: 2021, 5-stars
review:
I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a book this much. Truly. Her language is so very readable. She inspired me to write some essays myself. I loved the ones about her writing career and her relationships with her grandmother, a dog, her assortment of parents and a nun she loves. I picked this book up serendipitously in a Barnes and Nobles in Greensboro, NC, and completely devoured it in just a matter of days.
]]> The Little Liar 112975105 333 Mitch Albom 0062406655 Marilyn 0 to-read 4.54 2023 The Little Liar
author: Mitch Albom
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Blue Shoe 91700 New York Times Bestseller from the beloved author of Bird by Bird and Traveling Mercies.

Mattie Ryder is marvelously neurotic, well-intentioned, funny, religious, sarcastic, tender, angry, and broke. Her life at the moment is a wreck: her marriage has failed, her mother is failing, her house is rotting, her waist is expanding, her children are misbehaving, and she has a crush on a married man. Then she finds a small rubber blue shoe—nothing more than a gumball trinket—left behind by her father. For Mattie, it becomes a talisman—a chance to recognize the past for what it was, to see the future as she always hoped it could be, and to finally understand her family, herself, and the ever-unfolding mystery of her sweet, sad, and sometimes surprising life.]]> 336 Anne Lamott 1573223425 Marilyn 0 to-read 3.28 2002 Blue Shoe
author: Anne Lamott
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love]]> 61282538
From licensed therapist and popular Instagram relationship expert Vienna Pharaon (@mindfulmft, +683K followers) comes a profound guide to understanding and overcoming wounds from your Family of Origin—the foundation of how we relate to others, ourselves, and the world around us.

None of us had a perfect childhood; we are all carrying around behaviors that don’t serve us—and may in fact be hurting us. But it doesn’t have to be that way, says licensed marriage and family therapist Vienna Pharaon. Our past might create our patterns, but we can change those patterns for the better...with the right tools.

In The Origins of You , Pharaon has unlocked a healing process to help us understand our Family of Origin—the family and framework we grew up within—and examine what worked (and didn’t) in that system. Unhealed pain (or “wounds�) in that Family of Origin will manifest in our adult behaviors in surprising ways, from work challenges to interpersonal struggles. But the good armed with the knowledge about our past, we can actually rewire our programming to meaningfully improve our relationships and our lives, right now and in the future.

It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been in therapy for decades, or whether therapy isn’t for you. It doesn’t matter if you had a great childhood, or a terrible one. You can create change and resolve things from the past that need your attention. Complete with guided introspection, personal experiences, client stories, frameworks for having difficult conversations, and worksheets to complement each chapter, The Origins of You will teach you how to break family patterns and help you liberate the way you live and love.]]> 304 Vienna Pharaon 0593539915 Marilyn 0 to-read 4.43 The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love
author: Vienna Pharaon
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Rise and Shine 49501 A superb novel about two sisters, the true meaning of success, and the qualities in life that matter most.

From Anna Quindlen, acclaimed author of Blessings, Black and Blue, and One True Thing, a superb novel about two sisters, the true meaning of success, and the qualities in life that matter most.

It's an otherwise ordinary Monday when Meghan Fitzmaurice's perfect life hits a wall. A household name as the host of Rise and Shine, the country's highest-rated morning talk show, Meghan cuts to a commercial break–but not before she mutters two forbidden words into her open mike.

In an instant, it's the end of an era, not only for Meghan, who is unaccustomed to dealing with adversity, but also for her younger sister, Bridget, a social worker in the Bronx who has always lived in Meghan's long shadow. The effect of Meghan's on-air truth telling reverberates through both their lives, affecting Meghan's son, husband, friends, and fans, as well as Bridget's perception of her sister, their complex childhood, and herself. What follows is a story about how, in very different ways, the Fitzmaurice women adapt, survive, and manage to bring the whole teeming world of New York to heel by dint of their smart mouths, quick wits, and the powerful connection between them that even the worst tragedy cannot shatter.]]> 269 Anna Quindlen 0375502246 Marilyn 3 2024 3.28 2006 Rise and Shine
author: Anna Quindlen
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves: 2024
review:
Nothing to shout about with this book, but that being said it held my attention with all the New York "stuff" which interestingly was off-putting for some reviewers. This is not her best which probably explains its absence from movie theaters.
]]> <![CDATA[Love Is All You Need: The Revolutionary Bond-Based Approach to Educating Your Dog]]> 31587291 From the New York Times bestselling author of Through a Dog’s Eyes—the inspiration for the PBS documentary—a paradigm-shifting approach to living with and loving our dogsThere are few people who understand dogs better than Jennifer Arnold. Twenty-five years after she founded Canine Assistants, a nationally recognized nonprofit that raises and provides service dogs for people with disabilities, Arnold had an epiphany. She’d always approached the education of dogs with kindness and compassion—eschewing the faux science of fear and domination-based training methods. And she’d always understood dogs to be uniquely, uncannily attuned to their human companions; in fact she depended on it—she knew that the bond that developed between a person and their service dog was the single greatest predictor of that partnership’s success and, conversely, failure to bond brought about anxiety and distress in dogs. But it wasn’t until recent scientific findings confirmed her hands-on experience with dogsâ€� intuitive social skills that she was willing to put this bold idea to the Dogs who bond with us completely and unconditionally will seek to please us and, with minimal cues, can learn to make remarkably sophisticated decisions about their own behavior. Sure, dogs can be taught commands such as “sit,â€� “stay,â€� and “heel,â€� but even the kindest reward and punishment models were merely manipulating dogsâ€� behavior, rather than unleashing their unique social genius and innate ability to navigate the world. In this groundbreaking, persuasive, and heartfelt book, Arnold shows us how every dog—no matter their age—can thrive through Bond-Based Choice Teaching. Her proprietary method has been hailed by leading canine behavioral scientists and is being adopted by notable dog trainers, advocates, humane societies, and puppies behind bars programs across the country. For this liberating, revolutionary method to succeed, Arnold says, love really is all you need.Advance praise for Love Is All You Need Ěý “Jennifer Arnold, who has trained service dogs for the past twenty years for people with physical disabilities, offers a window into the world of â€man’s best friend.â€� Arnold, who believes that dogs are attuned to their owner’s needs and emotions, shares tips she thinks every dog owner should know.â€�—ABC News Ěý “[Arnold] takes pride in facilitating the powerful relationship between every service dog and its owner—a bond that is as much about companionship and comfort as it is about health and safety.â€�—Everyday Health Ěý “Within the world of dogs and canine behavior there are only a handful of people who truly â€move the needleâ€� when it comes to innovation, novel approaches, and intuitive thinking—Jennifer Arnold is one of those rare few. Constantly pushing boundaries of traditional thought, she not only provides fresh perspectives about how we interact with and learn from man’s best friend, she fearlessly forges new paths that stimulate and engage dog lovers as well as behavior experts and explores possibilities which previously may have seemed out of reach.â€�—Victoria Stilwell, star of Animal Planet’s It’s Me or the Dog and CEO of Victoria Stilwell Positively Dog Training]]> 194 Jennifer Arnold 0812996186 Marilyn 5 2018, 5-stars, read-in-china 4.26 2016 Love Is All You Need: The Revolutionary Bond-Based Approach to Educating Your Dog
author: Jennifer Arnold
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2018/01/18
date added: 2024/08/04
shelves: 2018, 5-stars, read-in-china
review:

]]> <![CDATA[American Duchess: A Novel of Consuelo Vanderbilt]]> 36300673
On a cold November day in 1895, a carriage approaches St Thomas Episcopal Church on New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Massive crowds surge forward, awaiting their glimpse of heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt. Just 18, the beautiful bride has not only arrived late, but in tears, yet her marriage to the aloof Duke of Marlborough proceeds. Bullied into the wedding by her indomitable mother, Alva, Consuelo loves another. But a deal was made, trading some of the vast Vanderbilt wealth for a title and prestige, and Consuelo, bred to obey, realizes she must make the best of things.

At Blenheim Palace, Consuelo is confronted with an overwhelming list of duties, including producing an “heir and a spare,� but her relationship with the duke quickly disintegrates. Consuelo finds an inner strength, charming everyone from debutantes to diplomats including Winston Churchill, as she fights for women’s suffrage. And when she takes a scandalous leap, can she hope to attain love at last�?

From the dawning of the opulent Gilded Age, to the battles of the Second World War, American Duchess is a riveting tale of one woman’s quest to attain independence—at any price.]]> 368 Karen Harper 0062748343 Marilyn 0 to-read 3.52 2019 American Duchess: A Novel of Consuelo Vanderbilt
author: Karen Harper
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[50 Secrets of the World's Longest Living People]]> 1716444 320 Sally Beare 1569243484 Marilyn 5 2024, 5-stars 3.91 2005 50 Secrets of the World's Longest Living People
author: Sally Beare
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/31
date added: 2024/07/31
shelves: 2024, 5-stars
review:
Excellent material in a very readable format. I took many notes and went off on some research tangents!
]]> <![CDATA[Searching for Tamsen Donner (American Lives)]]> 8500751 This book tells of Burton’s search to solve the mystery of Tamsen Donner for herself. A graceful mingling of history and memoir, Searching for Tamsen Donner follows Burton and her husband, with their five daughters, on her journey along Tamsen’s path. From Tamsen’s birthplace in Massachusetts to North Carolina, where she lost her first family in the space of three months; to Illinois, where she married George Donner; and finally to the fateful Oregon Trail, Burton recovers one woman’s compelling history through a modern-day family’s adventure into realms of ultimately timeless experiences.Ěý]]> 328 Gabrielle Burton 0803224435 Marilyn 0 to-read 3.76 2009 Searching for Tamsen Donner (American Lives)
author: Gabrielle Burton
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Feast of Sorrow 30753699
On a blistering day in the twenty-sixth year of Augustus Caesar’s reign, a young chef, Thrasius, is acquired for the exorbitant price of twenty thousand denarii. His purchaser is the infamous gourmet Marcus Gavius Apicius, wealthy beyond measure, obsessed with a taste for fine meals from exotic places, and a singular ambition: to serve as culinary advisor to Caesar, an honor that will cement his legacy as Rome's leading epicure.

Apicius rightfully believes that Thrasius is the key to his culinary success, and with Thrasius’s help he soon becomes known for his lavish parties and fantastic meals. Thrasius finds a family in Apicius’s household, his daughter Apicata, his wife Aelia, and her handmaiden, Passia whom Thrasius quickly falls in love with. But as Apicius draws closer to his ultimate goal, his reckless disregard for any who might get in his way takes a dangerous turn that threatens his young family and places his entire household at the mercy of the most powerful forces in Rome.]]> 416 Crystal King 1501145134 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.06 2017 Feast of Sorrow
author: Crystal King
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Plague and I (Betty MacDonald Memoirs, #2)]]> 37199 254 Betty MacDonald Marilyn 5 2024 4.19 1948 The Plague and I (Betty MacDonald Memoirs, #2)
author: Betty MacDonald
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1948
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves: 2024
review:
One woman's account of a year spent in a tuberculosis sanitorium. Doesn't sound like a "cuddle up" sort of book, but the author is such an engaging writer. I would use a year in bed!!
]]> Somehow: Thoughts on Love 186872335
“Love is our only hope,� Anne Lamott writes in this perceptive new book. “It is not always the easiest choice, but it is always the right one, the noble path, the way home to safety, no matter how bleak the future looks.�

In Thoughts on Love , Lamott explores the transformative power that love has in our how it surprises us, forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, reminds us of our humanity, and guides us forward. “Love just won't be pinned down,� she says. “It is in our very atmosphere� and lies at the heart of who we are. We are, Lamott says, creatures of love.

In each chapter of Somehow ,ĚýLamott refracts all the colors of the spectrum. She explores the unexpected love for a partner later in life. The bruised (and bruising) love for a child who disappoints, even frightens. The sustaining love among a group of sinners, for a community in transition, in the wider world. The lessons she underscores are that love enlightens as it educates, comforts as it energizes, sustains as it surprises.Ěý

Somehow is Anne Lamott’sĚýtwentieth book, and in it she draws from her own life and experience to delineate the intimate and elemental ways that love buttresses us in the face of despair as it galvanizes us to believe that tomorrow will be better than today. Full of the compassion and humanity that have made Lamott beloved by millions of readers, Somehow is classic Anne funny, warm, and wise.]]> 204 Anne Lamott 0593714415 Marilyn 4 2024 3.91 2024 Somehow: Thoughts on Love
author: Anne Lamott
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/28
date added: 2024/06/29
shelves: 2024
review:
I wanted to give this five stars. I couldn't help noticing in more than one spot that some factions of the human race who don't politically coincide with the author are less deserving of our love. Did anyone else catch that?
]]> The Eyes & the Impossible 63246652
Johannes, a free dog, lives in an urban park by the sea. His job is to be the Eyes—to see everything that happens within the park and report back to the park’s elders, three ancient Bison. His friends—a seagull, a raccoon, a squirrel, and a pelican—work with him as the Assistant Eyes, observing the humans and other animals who share the park and making sure the Equilibrium is in balance.Ěý

But changes are afoot. More humans, including Trouble Travelers, arrive in the park. A new building, containing mysterious and hypnotic rectangles, goes up. And then there are the goats—an actual boatload of goats—who appear, along with a shocking revelation that changes Johannes’s view of the world.]]> 256 Dave Eggers 152476423X Marilyn 4 2024 4.23 2023 The Eyes & the Impossible
author: Dave Eggers
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/29
date added: 2024/06/29
shelves: 2024
review:
This book has moments of literary clarity and brilliance. It ends heroically. But that being said, I didn't clutch it to me.
]]> <![CDATA[I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy]]> 72912
To Persians, the poems of Hafiz are not “classical literature� from a remote past but cherished wisdom from a dear and intimate friend that continues to be quoted in daily life. With uncanny insight, Hafiz captures the many forms and stages of love. His poetry outlines the stages of the mystic's “path of love”—a journey in which love dissolves personal boundaries and limitations to join larger processes of growth and transformation.

With this stunning collection, Ladinsky has succeeded brilliantly in capturing the essence of one of Islam’s greatest poetic and spiritual voices.

“If you haven’t yet had the delight of dining with Daniel Ladinsky’s sweet, playful renderings of the musings of the great saints, I Heard God Laughing is a perfect appetizer. . . . This newly released edition of his first playful foray into Hafiz’s divinely inspired poetry is essential reading. . . . Ladinsky is a master who will be remembered for finally bringing Hafiz alive in the West.� —Alexandra Marks, The Christian Science Monitor]]> 93 Hafez 0143037811 Marilyn 5 2024, 5-stars 4.47 1996 I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
author: Hafez
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/15
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: 2024, 5-stars
review:
No words. I tingled, I cried, I laughed. I loved.
]]> Both Things Are True 175352596
Both Things Are True is a guided walk through six sets of tensions that disciples must navigate in their practical efforts to become like Christ. Author Kate Holbrook draws on her lifetime of expertise as a historian of Latter-day Saint women’s history to examine the “contraries,� the fruitful tensions that have stretched Saints present and past, including the true Church, revelation, housework, forgiveness and accountability, and legacy. While the book is richly illustrated with personal and historical examples, its ideas are expressed in the simple, gently manner that is Kate’s trademark. Both Things Are True is remarkable in its ability to reach readers of every walk of life.]]> 152 Kate Holbrook 1649332203 Marilyn 4 2024 4.46 Both Things Are True
author: Kate Holbrook
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/09
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: 2024
review:
I agree with someone else that this didn't feel fleshed out. That sounds shallow in light of the death constraint she was working under. Oh, how I wish I'd have known Kate Holbrook...
]]> The Orchid Thief 228345 The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an endangered flower—the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii�a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man named John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture, through Florida’s swamps and beyond, along with the Seminoles who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean—and the reader—will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion.
Ěý
In this new edition, coming fifteen years after its initial publication and twenty years after she first met the “orchid thief,� Orlean revisits this unforgettable world, and the route by which it was brought to the screen in the film Adaptation, in a new retrospective essay.]]> 300 Susan Orlean 044900371X Marilyn 5 2024, 5-stars 3.66 1998 The Orchid Thief
author: Susan Orlean
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/26
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: 2024, 5-stars
review:
Phenomenol. I passed by a flower shop in NY the other day and lingered over a bouquet of orchids--seeing them in a whole new light
]]> <![CDATA[The Egg and I (Betty MacDonald Memoirs, #1)]]> 23770
A beloved literary treasure for more than half a century, Betty MacDonald's The Egg and I is a heartwarming and uproarious account of adventure and survival on an American frontier.]]> 288 Betty MacDonald 0704102471 Marilyn 5 3.90 1945 The Egg and I (Betty MacDonald Memoirs, #1)
author: Betty MacDonald
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1945
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/21
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves:
review:
This is probably among my top 5 books ever read. I keep used copies of it (when I can find them) on my shelf to give away! I've read it probably 9 or 10 times. The Ma and Pa Kettle characters were taken from real-life neighbors of Betty when she lived on a chicken farm in Washington in the 30's. Extremely charming and funny.
]]> Behind Closed Doors 29437949
But it’s difficult, because you realize Jack and Grace are inseparable.

Some might call this true love. Others might wonder why Grace never answers the phone. Or why she can never meet for coffee, even though she doesn’t work. How she can cook such elaborate meals but remain so slim. Or why she never seems to take anything with her when she leaves the house, not even a pen. Or why there are such high-security metal shutters on all the downstairs windows.

Some might wonder what’s really going on once the dinner party is over, and the front door has closed.]]> 293 B.A. Paris 1250121000 Marilyn 3 2024 3.96 2016 Behind Closed Doors
author: B.A. Paris
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/27
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: 2024
review:
This isn't normally a book I would pick up unrecommended, but our book group is reviewing it this month. That being said. I read it almost in one sitting. Kudos to the author for keeping it clean--it could have gone in bizarre raunchy directions. Also, I kept wondering how a mother of five came up with this!!
]]> The Best of Me 53487334 “Genius� It is miraculous to read these pieces� You must read The Best of Me.� —Andrew Sean Greer, New York Times Book Review

AĚýNew York Times Book Review Editorsâ€� Choice
A CNN andĚýChristian Science MonitorĚýBest Book of the Month

For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to read without laughing.
Ěý
Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work. In these stories, Sedaris shops for rare taxidermy, hitchhikes with a lady quadriplegic, and spits a lozenge into a fellow traveler’s lap. He drowns a mouse in a bucket, struggles to say “give it to me� in five languages, and hand-feeds a carnivorous bird.
Ěý
But if all you expect to find in Sedaris’s work is the deft and sharply observed comedy for which he became renowned, you may be surprised to discover that his words bring more warmth than mockery, more fellow-feeling than derision. Nowhere is this clearer than in his writing about his loved ones. In these pages, Sedaris explores falling in love and staying together, recognizing his own aging not in the mirror but in the faces of his siblings, losing one parent and coming to terms—at long last—with the other.
Ěý
Taken together, the stories in The Best of Me reveal the wonder and delight Sedaris takes in the surprises life brings him. No experience, he sees, is quite as he expected—it’s often harder, more fraught, and certainly weirder—but sometimes it is also much richer and more wonderful.
Ěý
Full of joy, generosity, and the incisive humor that has led David Sedaris to be called “the funniest man alive� (Time Out New York), The Best of Me spans a career spent watching and learning and laughing—quite often at himself—and invites readers deep into the world of one of the most brilliant and original writers of our time.]]> 387 David Sedaris 0316628247 Marilyn 4 2024 4.19 2020 The Best of Me
author: David Sedaris
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/26
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: 2024
review:
A small percentage offends me, but he captures so many things spot on
]]> <![CDATA[The Bean Trees (Greer Family, #1)]]> 30868 232 Barbara Kingsolver 0812474945 Marilyn 5 2024 4.00 1988 The Bean Trees (Greer Family, #1)
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/12
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: 2024
review:
Of all authors, Ms. Kingsolver tells a tale so well.
]]> <![CDATA[The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3)]]> 6876273 This an alternate cover for 9780385533133

What was lost will be found...

Washington DC: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned at the last minute to deliver an evening lecture in the Capitol Building. Within moments of his arrival, however, a disturbing object - gruesomely encoded with five symbols - is discovered at the epicentre of the Rotunda. It is, he recognises, an ancient invitation, meant to beckon its recipient towards a long-lost world of hidden esoteric wisdom.

When Langdon's revered mentor, Peter Solomon - philanthropist and prominent mason - is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes that his only hope of saving his friend's life is to accept this mysterious summons and follow wherever it leads him.

Langdon finds himself quickly swept behind the facade of America's most historic city into the unseen chambers, temples and tunnels which exist there. All that was familiar is transformed into a shadowy, clandestine world of an artfully concealed past in which Masonic secrets and never-before-seen revelations seem to be leading him to a single impossible and inconceivable truth.

A brilliantly composed tapestry of veiled histories, arcane icons and enigmatic codes, The Lost Symbol is an intelligent, lightning-paced thriller that offers surprises at every turn. For, as Robert Langdon will discover, there is nothing more extraordinary or shocking than the secret which hides in plain sight...]]> 559 Dan Brown Marilyn 5 3.35 2009 The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3)
author: Dan Brown
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2001/10/01
date added: 2024/06/23
shelves:
review:
Whew! Now I can get back to a normal life! This is by far the best of the three. Amazing information on all of the symbolism in Washington DC. I want to read it again extracting just the information! Dan Brown's books are not literature, but boy do they SNAP!
]]> Homer Price 766917 The comic genius of Robert McCloskey and his wry look at small-town America has kept readers in stitches for generations!

]]> 149 Robert McCloskey 0140309276 Marilyn 5 4.09 1943 Homer Price
author: Robert McCloskey
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1943
rating: 5
read at: 2016/11/11
date added: 2024/06/15
shelves: 2016, 2016-reading-challenge, read-in-china
review:
I read this as part of an extreme challenge--read a book from your childhood. Homer played a front and center part in my childhood. How can you ever let a donut pass over your lips without thinking of him?
]]> The Husbands 193781998 An exuberant debut, The Husbands delights in how do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options?

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.

As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actuallyĚýliving?]]> 352 Holly Gramazio 0385550618 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 3.50 2024 The Husbands
author: Holly Gramazio
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Virgil Wander 39027388 Virgil Wander is an all-American story that follows the inhabitants of a small Midwestern town in their quest to revive its flagging heart.

Midwestern movie house owner Virgil Wander is "cruising along at medium altitude" when his car flies off the road into icy Lake Superior. Virgil survives but his language and memory are altered and he emerges into a world no longer familiar to him. Awakening in this new life, Virgil begins to piece together his personal history and the lore of his broken town, with the help of a cast of affable and curious locals--from Rune, a twinkling, pipe-smoking, kite-flying stranger investigating the mystery of his disappeared son; to Nadine, the reserved, enchanting wife of the vanished man; to Tom, a journalist and Virgil's oldest friend; and various members of the Pea family who must confront tragedies of their own. Into this community returns a shimmering prodigal son who may hold the key to reviving their town.]]> 303 Leif Enger 0802128785 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 3.97 2018 Virgil Wander
author: Leif Enger
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Two Gardeners: Katharine S. White & Elizabeth Lawrence--A Friendship in Letters]]> 156663
Two Gardeners is a collection of these luminous letters, edited and introduced by Emily Herring Wilson. The letters bring to life the unique epistolary friendship between two intelligent women, the "formidable" Mrs. White and the "shy" Miss Lawrence, both avid gardeners and readers, both at a stage of life when to make a new friend was rare when they first wrote to one another, Katharine was sixty-two, Elizabeth, fifty-four.

More than 150 letters went back and forth during the course of their correspondence, though Katharine and Elizabeth would meet face-to-face only once. Whether talking about gardens or books, friends or family, each held a special place in the other's life.

Illustrated with photographs of both Katharine White and Elizabeth Lawrence, their families, gardens, and houses, this book is a special treat for gardeners, literature lovers, and anyone who delights in reading about women's friendships.]]> 273 Katharine S. White 0807085596 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 3.87 2002 Two Gardeners: Katharine S. White & Elizabeth Lawrence--A Friendship in Letters
author: Katharine S. White
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle]]> 43908863
In 1970s Argentina, mothers marched in headscarves embroidered with the names of their “disappeared� children. In Tudor, England, when Mary, Queen of Scots, was under house arrest, her needlework carried her messages to the outside world. From the political propaganda of the Bayeux Tapestry, World War I soldiers coping with PTSD, and the maps sewn by schoolgirls in the New World, to the AIDS quilt, Hmong story clothes, and pink pussyhats, women and men have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard, even in the most desperate of circumstances.

Threads of Life is a chronicle of identity, protest, memory, power, and politics told through the stories of needlework. Clare Hunter, master of the craft, threads her own narrative as she takes us over centuries and across continents—from medieval France to contemporary Mexico and the United States, and from a POW camp in Singapore to a family attic in Scotland—to celebrate the age-old, universal, and underexplored beauty and power of sewing. Threads of Life is an evocative and moving book about the need we have to tell our story.]]> 320 Clare Hunter 1419739530 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.11 2019 Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle
author: Clare Hunter
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Salt Path 38085814
They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.]]> 288 Raynor Winn 0241349648 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 3.97 2018 The Salt Path
author: Raynor Winn
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Marilla of Green Gables 36670752
Plucky and ambitious, Marilla Cuthbert is thirteen years old when her world is turned upside down. Her beloved mother dies in childbirth, and Marilla suddenly must bear the responsibilities of a farm wife: cooking, sewing, keeping house, and overseeing the day-to-day life of Green Gables with her brother, Matthew and father, Hugh.

In Avonlea—a small, tight-knit farming town on a remote island—life holds few options for farm girls. Her one connection to the wider world is Aunt Elizabeth “Izzy� Johnson, her mother’s sister, who managed to escape from Avonlea to the bustling city of St. Catharines. An opinionated spinster, Aunt Izzy’s talent as a seamstress has allowed her to build a thriving business and make her own way in the world.

Emboldened by her aunt, Marilla dares to venture beyond the safety of Green Gables and discovers new friends and new opportunities. Joining the Ladies Aid Society, she raises funds for an orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity in nearby Nova Scotia that secretly serves as a way station for runaway slaves from America. Her budding romance with John Blythe, the charming son of a neighbor, offers her a possibility of future happiness—Marilla is in no rush to trade one farm life for another. She soon finds herself caught up in the dangerous work of politics, and abolition—jeopardizing all she cherishes, including her bond with her dearest John Blythe. Now Marilla must face a reckoning between her dreams of making a difference in the wider world and the small-town reality of life at Green Gables.]]> 320 Sarah McCoy 0062697730 Marilyn 4 2024 4.02 2018 Marilla of Green Gables
author: Sarah McCoy
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves: 2024
review:
A pleasant believable read. Hats off to the author.
]]> <![CDATA[The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks]]> 8114303 Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2010: From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. And from that same life, and those cells, Rebecca Skloot has fashioned in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories? --Tom Nissley

 ]]> 310 Rebecca Skloot Marilyn 3 2024 4.24 2010 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
author: Rebecca Skloot
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/11
date added: 2024/04/11
shelves: 2024
review:
This became tedious, and then I tasted some sensationalism in it. Too long. I was wishing Laura Hillenbrand had written it. I never felt like we got to the author's essence of the tale.
]]> The Frozen River 112975658 A gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history.

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.]]> 432 Ariel Lawhon 0385546874 Marilyn 4 2024 4.38 2023 The Frozen River
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/18
date added: 2024/03/18
shelves: 2024
review:
Now I will go and read Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's book on Martha Ballard. Initially I had trouble keeping all the characters straight, but I persevered and am glad I did. The historical context was fascinating.
]]> <![CDATA[Rosie: Rosie O'Donnell's Biography]]> 643030 288 Robert James Parrish 0786704101 Marilyn 3 2024 3.19 1997 Rosie: Rosie O'Donnell's Biography
author: Robert James Parrish
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.19
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/16
date added: 2024/03/16
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> So Brave, Young, and Handsome 2306331 Peace Like a River, Leif Enger's new work is a rugged and nimble story about an aging train robber on a quest to reconcile the claims of love and judgment on his life, and the failed writer who goes with him.

In 1915 Minnesota, novelist Monte Becket has lost his sense of purpose. His only success long behind him, Monte lives simply with his wife and son. But when he befriends outlaw Glendon Hale, a new world of opportunity and experience presents itself. Glendon has spent years in obscurity, but the guilt he harbors for abandoning his wife, Blue, over two decades ago, has lured him from hiding. As the modern age marches swiftly forward, Glendon aims to travel back to his past--heading to California to seek Blue's forgiveness. Beguiled and inspired, Monte soon finds himself leaving behind his own family to embark for the unruly West with his fugitive guide. As they desperately flee from the relentless Charles Siringo, an ex-Pinkerton who's been hunting Glendon for years, Monte falls ever further from his family and the law, to be tempered by a fiery adventure from which he may never get home.]]> 287 Leif Enger 0871139855 Marilyn 5 2024, 5-stars 3.74 2008 So Brave, Young, and Handsome
author: Leif Enger
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/04
date added: 2024/03/05
shelves: 2024, 5-stars
review:
This book grew on me the more I read. The author weaves poetic descriptions of characters and spins fantastic tales.
]]> Spare 62296528
For Harry, this is that story at last.

Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness—and, because he blamed the press for his mother’s death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight.

At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn’t find true love.

Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple’s cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother. . . .

For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. A landmark publication, Spare is full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.]]> 410 Prince Harry 0593593804 Marilyn 3 2024 3.78 2023 Spare
author: Prince Harry
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/25
date added: 2024/02/25
shelves: 2024
review:
This started out as a romp--who doesn't like to peak into the life of the rich and famous. The military exploits bogged me down a bit, but I kept reading to get to the love story. And then all the drama and family dysfunction hit. Tragic story of disintegration, betrayal yadayadayada.
]]> <![CDATA[Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted]]> 50743767
In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter "the real world". She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone.

It started with an itch - first on her feet, then up her legs, like 1,000 invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her 23rd birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for The New York Times.

When Jaouad finally walked out of the cancer ward - after three and a half years of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant - she was, according to the doctors, cured. But as she would soon learn, a cure is not where the work of healing ends; it’s where it begins. She had spent the past 1,500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal - to survive. And now that she’d done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live.

How would she reenter the world and live again? How could she reclaim what had been lost? Jaouad embarked - with her new best friend, Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt - on a 100-day, 15,000-mile road trip across the country. She set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her during her years in the hospital: a teenage girl in Florida also recovering from cancer; a teacher in California grieving the death of her son; a death-row inmate in Texas who’d spent his own years confined to a room. What she learned on this trip is that the divide between sick and well is porous, that the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms throughout our lives. Between Two Kingdoms is a profound chronicle of survivorship and a fierce, tender, and inspiring exploration of what it means to begin again.]]> 352 Suleika Jaouad 0399588582 Marilyn 4 2024 4.40 2021 Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
author: Suleika Jaouad
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/19
date added: 2024/02/19
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War]]> 62919482
In This House We Believe

Parents Are the Bosses of Their Kids

Babies Are Good, More Babies Are Better

Two Sexes Are Plenty

Your Career Is Overrated

Feminism Is How the Unpopular and Undateable Cope with Life

Mainstream American Culture Destroys Families

We Are Going to Win

We’re in a culture war, and Peachy Keenan is not taking prisoners. This raucous new book is her rallying cry for normal people stuck in the foxholes and appalled by the status quo.

Mothers and fathers, regular American families, men and women, can win this battle together. But a lot of ground has been lost. For decades, we stood around and watched as feminists and progressives steamrolled through our institutions� those formerly robust, now comically inept, pillars of civilization like our government, our schools, and, crucially, our families.

With matchless insight and devastating humor, Peachy Keenan makes the case for domestic extremism—turning away from the diseased offerings of the elites, the media, Hollywood, your child’s school, and Big Tech, and embracing a more human way of life. The life-changing magic of domestic extremism will spark joy and help you build a legacy that will enrich the lives of your (many) descendants.]]> 347 Peachy Keenan 1684513529 Marilyn 5 2024, 5-stars 3.90 Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War
author: Peachy Keenan
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.90
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/11
date added: 2024/02/12
shelves: 2024, 5-stars
review:
Spot on and entertaining to read. She lives in lala land, unfortunately, because society has fallen. But a girl can hope.
]]> <![CDATA[Youre Never Too Old by Rowsell, Joe [Paperback]]]> 164816142 0 Joe.. Rowsell Marilyn 3 2024 3.00 Youre Never Too Old by Rowsell, Joe [Paperback]
author: Joe.. Rowsell
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/03
date added: 2024/02/09
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> If You Want to Write 12443938 188 Brenda Ueland 1614271356 Marilyn 5 4.04 2012 If You Want to Write
author: Brenda Ueland
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2022/11/08
date added: 2024/02/07
shelves: 2022, 5-stars, books-about-books
review:
One of the best things I've ever read and certainly the grandest book on writing I've encountered. She slips these magnificent truths in almost subconsciously. I need to cut this book apart and post it all over my house.
]]> The Liars' Club 14241 The Liars� Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly hilarious as any of J. D. Salinger’s—a hard-drinking daddy, a sister who can talk down the sheriff at age twelve, and an oft-married mother whose accumulated secrets threaten to destroy them all. This unsentimental and profoundly moving account of an apocalyptic childhood is as “funny, lively, and un-put-downable� (USA Today) today as it ever was.]]> 352 Mary Karr 0143035746 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 3.94 1995 The Liars' Club
author: Mary Karr
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Mormon Study Guide: Start to Finish, Revised Edition]]> 49020171 As we study this keystone of our religion, what help can we find to help us see and understand its doctrines more deeply?

The Book of Mormon Study Guide: Start to Finish is a comprehensive, question-and-answer commentary that draws from thousands of the very best insights on the scriptures, including those from General Authorities, Church magazines and manuals, the most respected scholarly commentaries, scripture reference books, and other publications. This comprehensive volume brings the most unique, most compelling, and most insightful comments on the Book of Mormon together into one place to help you get more out of your personal scripture study. As we ask inspired questions and seek a deeper understanding of the scriptures, we invite personal revelation to help us in our challenging and ever-changing journey of life.

]]> 3255 Thomas R. Valletta 1629739022 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.89 The Book of Mormon Study Guide: Start to Finish, Revised Edition
author: Thomas R. Valletta
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.89
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Young Forever: The Secrets to Living Your Longest, Healthiest Life (The Dr. Mark Hyman Library, 11)]]> 61108468
Dr. Mark Hyman presents the definitive guide to reversing disease, easing pain, and living younger longer that “will revolutionize how we approach agingâ€� (Jay Shetty, author ofĚý 8 Rules of Love ).Ěý

Aging has long been considered a normal process. We think disease, frailty, and gradual decline are inevitable parts of life. But they don’t have to be. Science today sees aging as a treatable disease. By addressing its root causes we can not only increase our health span and live longer but prevent and reverse the maladies of aging—including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and dementia.

InĚý Young Forever , Dr. Mark Hyman challenges us to reimagine our biology, health, and the process of aging. To uncover the secrets to longevity, he explores the biological hallmarks of aging, their causes, and their consequences—then shows us how to overcome them with simple dietary, lifestyle, and emerging longevity strategies. You’ll With dozens of science-based strategies and tips,Ěý Young Forever Ěýis a revolutionary, practical guide to creating and sustaining health—for life.]]> 352 Mark Hyman 0316453188 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 3.81 Young Forever: The Secrets to Living Your Longest, Healthiest Life (The Dr. Mark Hyman Library, 11)
author: Mark Hyman
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.81
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine]]> 53240367
Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric neuroendocrinologist who has long been on the cutting edge of medicine and science, challenges our current healthcare paradigm which has gone off the rails under the influence of Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Government.

Metabolical weaves the interconnected strands of nutrition, health/disease, medicine, environment, and society into a completely new fabric by proving on a scientific basis a series of iconoclastic revelations, among them:

Medicine for chronic disease treats symptoms, not the disease itself
You can diagnose your own biochemical profile
Chronic diseases are not druggable, but they are foodable
Processed food isn't just toxic, it's addictive
The war between vegan and keto is a false war--the combatants are on the same side
Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Government are on the other side
Making the case that food is the only lever we have to effect biochemical change to improve our health, Lustig explains what to eat based on two novel criteria: protect the liver, and feed the gut. He insists that if we do not fix our food and change the way we eat, we will continue to court chronic disease, bankrupt healthcare, and threaten the planet. But there is hope: this book explains what's needed to fix all three.]]> 416 Robert H. Lustig 0063027739 Marilyn 0 currently-reading 4.21 2021 Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine
author: Robert H. Lustig
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Marilyn 5 2024, 5-stars 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Marilyn
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/25
date added: 2024/02/03
shelves: 2024, 5-stars
review:

]]> Tom Lake 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Marilyn 4 2024 3.92 2023 Tom Lake
author: Ann Patchett
name: Marilyn
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/02
date added: 2024/02/02
shelves: 2024
review:
A good story with moments of brilliant writing. I listened to Meryl Streep reading it. That was a treat.
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