Erika's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 04 Apr 2025 18:41:03 -0700 60 Erika's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)]]> 150247395
Called in to investigate this mystery is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. His job is to observe and report, and act as his superior’s eyes and ears--quite literally, in this case, as among Ana’s quirks are her insistence on wearing a blindfold at all times, and her refusal to step outside the walls of her home.

Din is most perplexed by Ana’s ravenous appetite for information and her mind’s frenzied leaps—not to mention her cheerful disregard for propriety and the apparent joy she takes in scandalizing her young counterpart. Yet as the case unfolds and Ana makes one startling deduction after the next, he finds it hard to deny that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

Featuring an unforgettable Holmes-and-Watson style pairing, a gloriously labyrinthine plot, and a haunting and wholly original fantasy world, The Tainted Cup brilliantly reinvents the classic mystery tale.]]>
410 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820702 Erika 4 4.28 2024 The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Erika
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/04
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<![CDATA[Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents]]> 23129659 If you grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or selfish parent, you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, betrayal, or abandonment. You may recall your childhood as a time when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of responsibility in an effort to compensate for your parent’s behavior. These wounds can be healed, and you can move forward in your life.

In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect, and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents� emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you’ll learn how to create positive, new relationships so you can build a better life.

Discover the four types of difficult parents:



The emotional parent instills feelings of instability and anxiety

The driven parent stays busy trying to perfect everything and everyone

The passive parent avoids dealing with anything upsetting

The rejecting parent is withdrawn, dismissive, and derogatory
Ěý±Ő±Ő>
201 Lindsay C. Gibson 1626251703 Erika 0 to-read 4.36 2015 Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents
author: Lindsay C. Gibson
name: Erika
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales]]> 1269427
Fairy tales seem to be innocent stories, yet they contain profound lessons for those who would dive deep into their waters of meaning. In this book, Marie-Louise von Franz uncovers some of the important lessons concealed in tales from around the world, drawing on the wealth of her knowledge of folklore, her experience as a psychoanalyst and a collaborator with Jung, and her great personal wisdom. Among the many topics discussed in relation to the dark side of life and human psychology, both individual and collective,

• How different aspects of the “shadow”—all the affects and attitudes that are unconscious to the ego personality—are personified in the giants and monsters, ghosts, and demons, evil kings, and wicked witches of fairy tales
• How problems of the shadow manifest differently in men and women
• What fairy tales say about the kinds of behavior and attitudes that invite evil
• How Jung’s technique of Active imagination can be used to overcome overwhelming negative emotions
• How ghost stories and superstitions reflect the psychology of grieving
• What fairy tales advise us about whether to struggle against evil or turn the other cheek

Dr. von Franz concludes that every rule of behavior that we can learn from the unconscious through fairy tales and dreams is usually a sometimes there must be a physical struggle against evil and sometimes a contest of wits, sometimes a display of strength or magic and sometimes a retreat. Above all, she shows the importance of relying on the central, authentic core of our being—the innermost Self, which is beyond the struggle between the opposites of good and evil.]]>
352 Marie-Louise von Franz 0877739749 Erika 0 to-read 4.32 1974 Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales
author: Marie-Louise von Franz
name: Erika
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1974
rating: 0
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The Familiar 211004837
What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor.

Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the line between magic, science, and fraud is never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santángel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.]]>
400 Leigh Bardugo 1250884276 Erika 0 to-read 4.02 2024 The Familiar
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Erika
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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Sharp Objects 18045891
Librarian's Note: this is an alternate cover edition - ISBN 10: 0307341550 (ISBN 13: 9780307341556)]]>
254 Gillian Flynn 0297851535 Erika 0 to-read 4.05 2006 Sharp Objects
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Erika
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
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<![CDATA[Ella Enchanted (Ella Enchanted, #1)]]> 218038285 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

This beloved Newbery Honor-winning story about a feisty heroine is sure to enchant readers new and old.

At her birth, Ella of Frell receives a foolish fairy's gift—the “gift� of obedience. Ella must obey any order, whether it's to hop on one foot for a day and a half, or to chop off her own head! But strong-willed Ella does not accept her fate...

Against a bold backdrop of princes, ogres, giants, wicked stepsisters, and fairy godmothers, Ella goes on a quest to break the curse forever.

A tween favorite for 25 years—now shared with today's young readers by moms, teachers, and other adults who remember the pleasure of discovering this fun fairy-tale retelling themselves!]]>
Gail Carson Levine 0064407055 Erika 0 to-read 4.31 1997 Ella Enchanted (Ella Enchanted, #1)
author: Gail Carson Levine
name: Erika
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4)]]> 1162543 "Don't be afraid," I murmured. "We belong together."
I was abruptly overwhelmed by the truth of my own words.
This moment was so perfect, so right, there was no way to doubt it.
His arms wrapped around me,
holding me against him....
It felt like every nerve ending in my body was a live wire.
"Forever," he agreed.

WHEN YOU LOVED THE ONE WHO WAS KILLING YOU, IT LEFT YOU NO OPTIONS. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?

TO BE IRREVOCABLY IN LOVE WITH A VAMPIRE is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hangs.

NOW THAT BELLA HAS MADE HER DECISION, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating, and unfathomable, consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life - first discovered in Twilight, then scattered and torn in New Moon and Eclipse - seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed... forever?

THE ASTONISHING, BREATHLESSLY anticipated conclusion to the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.]]>
756 Stephenie Meyer 031606792X Erika 0 3.74 2008 Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Erika
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3)]]> 428263 "BELLA?"
Edward's soft voice came from behind me. I turned to see him spring lightly up the porch steps, his hair windblown from running. He pulled me into his arms at once, just like he had in the parking lot, and kissed me again.
This kiss frightened me. There was too much tension, too strong an edge to the way his lips crushed mine - like he was afraid we had only so much time left to us.

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

READERS CAPTIVATED BY Twilight AND New Moon will eagerly devour Eclipse, the much-anticipated third book in Stephenie Meyer's riveting vampire love saga.]]>
629 Stephenie Meyer 0316160202 Erika 0 3.73 2007 Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Erika
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2)]]> 49041 There is an alternate cover edition for ISBN13 9780316160193 here.

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

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

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

LEGIONS OF READERS ENTRANCED BY THE New York Times bestseller Twilight are hungry for the continuing story of star-crossed lovers Bell and Edward. In New Moon, Stephanie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural spin. passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.]]>
563 Stephenie Meyer 0316160199 Erika 0 3.61 2006 New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Erika
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Twilight (The Twilight Saga, #1)]]> 41865
First, Edward was a vampire.

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

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

Deeply seductive and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight is a love story with bite.]]>
498 Stephenie Meyer 0316015849 Erika 0 3.66 2005 Twilight (The Twilight Saga, #1)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Erika
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)]]> 45047384
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]>
394 T.J. Klune Erika 0 to-read 4.37 2020 The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Erika
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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A Sorceress Comes to Call 195790847 A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic

Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.

After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.

Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.]]>
327 T. Kingfisher 1250244072 Erika 0 to-read 4.07 2024 A Sorceress Comes to Call
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Erika
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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Martyr! 139400713 Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others—in which a newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.]]>
331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Erika 0 to-read 4.22 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Erika
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity]]> 13547504 Far from the Tree is that being exceptional is at the core of the human condition—that difference is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down's syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, and Solomon documents triumphs of love over prejudice in every chapter.

All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on ten years of research and interviews with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges.

Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker, Far from the Tree explores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other—a theme in every family’s life.]]>
962 Andrew Solomon Erika 0 to-read 4.25 2012 Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
author: Andrew Solomon
name: Erika
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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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 Erika 0 to-read 4.24 2024 All the Colors of the Dark
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Erika
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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Race the Sands 49950349 In this stand-alone fantasy, Durst introduces an imaginative new world in which a pair of strong and determined women risk their lives battling injustice, corruption, and deadly enemies in their quest to become monster-racing champions.

Life, death, and rebirth - in Becar, who you are in this life will determine your next life. Yet there is hope - you can change your destiny with the choices you make. But for the darkest individuals, there is no redemption: you come back as a kehok, a monster, and are doomed to be a kehok for the rest of time.

Unless you can win the Races.

After a celebrated career as an elite kehok rider, Tamra became a professional trainer. Then a tragic accident shattered her confidence, damaged her reputation, and left her nearly broke. Now, she needs the prize money to prevent the local temple from taking her daughter away from her, and that means she must once again find a winning kehok...and a rider willing to trust her.

Raia is desperate to get away from her domineering family and cruel fiancé. As a kehok rider, she could earn enough to buy her freedom. But she needs a first-rate trainer.

Impressed by the inexperienced young woman’s determination, Tamra hires Raia and pairs her with a strange new kehok with the potential to win - if he can be tamed.

But in this sport, if you forget you’re riding on the back of a monster, you die. Tamra and Raia will work harder than they ever thought possible to win the deadly Becaran Races - and in the process, discover what makes this particular kehok so special.]]>
528 Sarah Beth Durst 0062888617 Erika 0 to-read 4.30 2020 Race the Sands
author: Sarah Beth Durst
name: Erika
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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The Familiar 134059215
What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor.

Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the line between magic, science, and fraud is never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santángel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.]]>
400 Leigh Bardugo 1250884268 Erika 0 to-read 3.71 2024 The Familiar
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Erika
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/05
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The Spear Cuts Through Water 55868456 Two warriors shepherd an ancient god across a broken land to end the tyrannical reign of a royal family in this new epic fantasy from the author of The Vanished Birds.

The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family—the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors—hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.

But that god cannot be contained forever.

With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt-stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her unholy prison. And so it is that she embarks with her young companions on a five-day pilgrimage in search of freedom—and a way to end the Moon Throne forever. The journey ahead will be more dangerous than any of them could have imagined.

Both a sweeping adventure story and an intimate exploration of identity, legacy, and belonging, The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious and profound saga that will transport and transform you—and is like nothing you’ve ever read before.
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525 Simon Jimenez 0593156595 Erika 0 to-read 4.17 2022 The Spear Cuts Through Water
author: Simon Jimenez
name: Erika
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[This Is How You Lose the Time War]]> 43352954 Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.]]>
209 Amal El-Mohtar Erika 0 to-read 3.87 2019 This Is How You Lose the Time War
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: Erika
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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Howling Dark (Sun Eater, #2) 41564599
Hadrian Marlowe is lost.

For half a century, he has searched the farther suns for the lost planet of Vorgossos, hoping to find a way to contact the elusive alien Cielcin. He has not succeeded, and for years has wandered among the barbarian Normans as captain of a band of mercenaries.

Determined to make peace and bring an end to nearly four hundred years of war, Hadrian must venture beyond the security of the Sollan Empire and among the Extrasolarians who dwell between the stars. There, he will face not only the aliens he has come to offer peace, but contend with creatures that once were human, with traitors in his midst, and with a meeting that will bring him face to face with no less than the oldest enemy of mankind.

If he succeeds, he will usher in a peace unlike any in recorded history. If he fails...the galaxy will burn.]]>
688 Christopher Ruocchio Erika 0 to-read 4.35 2019 Howling Dark (Sun Eater, #2)
author: Christopher Ruocchio
name: Erika
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Empire of Silence (The Sun Eater, #1)]]> 36454667 Hadrian Marlowe, a man revered as a hero and despised as a murderer, chronicles his tale in the galaxy-spanning debut of the Sun Eater series, merging the best of space opera and epic fantasy.

It was not his war.
On the wrong planet, at the right time, for the best reasons, Hadrian Marlowe started down a path that could only end in fire. The galaxy remembers him as a the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives—even the Emperor himself—against Imperial orders.
But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier.
Fleeing his father and a future as a torturer, Hadrian finds himself stranded on a strange, backwater world. Forced to fight as a gladiator and into the intrigues of a foreign planetary court, he will find himself fight a war he did not start, for an Empire he does not love, against an enemy he will never understand.]]>
753 Christopher Ruocchio 0756413028 Erika 0 to-read 4.01 2018 Empire of Silence (The Sun Eater, #1)
author: Christopher Ruocchio
name: Erika
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Little Women (Little Women, #1)]]> 1934 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780451529305.

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

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

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449 Louisa May Alcott Erika 0 to-read 4.16 1868 Little Women (Little Women, #1)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Erika
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1868
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Middlemarch 19089 "People are almost always better than their neighbours think they are"

George Eliot’s most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose pioneering medical methods, combined with an imprudent marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamond, threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama, hailed by Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people".]]>
912 George Eliot 0451529170 Erika 0 currently-reading 4.00 1872 Middlemarch
author: George Eliot
name: Erika
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1872
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2)]]> 32085
Delve into the magical, unforgettable world of James Herriot, the world's most beloved veterinarian, and his menagerie of heartwarming, funny, and tragic animal patients.

For over forty years, generations of readers have thrilled to Herriot's marvelous tales, deep love of life, and extraordinary storytelling abilities. For decades, Herriot roamed the remote, beautiful Yorkshire Dales, treating every patient that came his way from smallest to largest, and observing animals and humans alike with his keen, loving eye.

In All Creatures Great and Small, we meet the young Herriot as he takes up his calling and discovers that the realities of veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire are very different from the sterile setting of veterinary school. Some visits are heart-wrenchingly difficult, such as one to an old man in the village whose very ill dog is his only friend and companion, some are lighthearted and fun, such as Herriot's periodic visits to the overfed and pampered Pekinese Tricki Woo who throws parties and has his own stationery, and yet others are inspirational and enlightening, such as Herriot's recollections of poor farmers who will scrape their meager earnings together to be able to get proper care for their working animals. From seeing to his patients in the depths of winter on the remotest homesteads to dealing with uncooperative owners and critically ill animals, Herriot discovers the wondrous variety and never-ending challenges of veterinary practice as his humor, compassion, and love of the animal world shine forth.

James Herriot's memoirs have sold 80 million copies worldwide, and continue to delight and entertain readers of all ages]]>
437 James Herriot 0312965788 Erika 0 to-read 4.30 1972 All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2)
author: James Herriot
name: Erika
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)]]> 203578847 The long-awaited explosive climax to the first arc of the #1 New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive―the iconic epic fantasy masterpiece that has sold more than 10 million copies, from acclaimed bestselling author Brandon Sanderson.

Dalinar Kholin challenged the evil god Odium to a contest of champions with the future of Roshar on the line. The Knights Radiant have only ten days to prepare―and the sudden ascension of the crafty and ruthless Taravangian to take Odium’s place has thrown everything into disarray.

Desperate fighting continues simultaneously worldwide―Adolin in Azimir, Sigzil and Venli at the Shattered Plains, and Jasnah at Thaylen City. The former assassin, Szeth, must cleanse his homeland of Shinovar from the dark influence of the Unmade. He is accompanied by Kaladin, who faces a new battle helping Szeth fight his own demons . . . and who must do the same for the insane Herald of the Almighty, Ishar.

At the same time, Shallan, Renarin, and Rlain work to unravel the mystery behind the Unmade Ba-Ado-Mishram and her involvement in the enslavement of the singer race and in the ancient Knights Radiants killing their spren. And Dalinar and Navani seek an edge against Odium’s champion that can be found only in the Spiritual Realm, where memory and possibility combine in chaos. The fate of the entire Cosmere hangs in the balance.]]>
1344 Brandon Sanderson 1250319188 Erika 0 currently-reading 4.36 2024 Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Erika
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Dawnshard (The Stormlight Archive, #3.5)]]> 54511226
When a ghost ship is discovered, its crew presumed dead after trying to reach the storm-shrouded island Akina, Navani Kholin must send an expedition to make sure the island hasn't fallen into enemy hands. Knights Radiant who fly too near find their Stormlight suddenly drained, so the voyage must be by sea.

Shipowner Rysn Ftori lost the use of her legs but gained the companionship of Chiri-Chiri, a Stormlight-ingesting winged larkin, a species once thought extinct. Now Rysn's pet is ill, and any hope for Chiri-Chiri’s recovery can be found only at the ancestral home of the larkin: Akinah. With the help of Lopen, the formerly one-armed Windrunner, Rysn must accept Navani's quest and sail into the perilous storm from which no one has returned alive. If the crew cannot uncover the secrets of the hidden island city before the wrath of its ancient guardians falls upon them, the fate of Roshar and the entire Cosmere hangs in the balance.]]>
171 Brandon Sanderson 193857026X Erika 0 4.39 2020 Dawnshard (The Stormlight Archive, #3.5)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Erika
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
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Witchcraft for Wayward Girls 207611566 There’s power in a book�

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.

Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who knows she’s going to go home and marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.

Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.

In Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, the author of How to Sell a Haunted House and The Final Girl Support Group delivers another searing, completely original novel and further cements his status as a “horror master� (NPR).]]>
482 Grady Hendrix 0593548981 Erika 0 to-read 4.01 2025 Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Erika
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/28
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<![CDATA[The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires]]> 44074800 Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.]]>
410 Grady Hendrix Erika 0 to-read 3.78 2020 The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Erika
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/28
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The Bewitching 220458657 Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

“Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches�: That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva—stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.

In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.

Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.]]>
368 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0593874323 Erika 0 to-read 4.36 2025 The Bewitching
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Erika
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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The Sunlit Man 60531420 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson―creator of The Stormlight Archive, the Mistborn Saga, and countless bestselling works of science fiction and fantasy―comes this standalone novel showing a rare glimpse of a future Cosmere universe.

Running. Putting distance between himself and the relentless Night Brigade has been Nomad’s strategy for years. Staying one or two steps ahead of his pursuers by skipping through the Cosmere from one world to the next.

But now, his powers too depleted to escape, Nomad finds himself trapped on Canticle, a planet that will kill anyone who doesn’t keep moving. Fleeing the fires of a sunrise that melts the very stones, he is instantly caught up in the struggle between a heartless tyrant and the brave rebels who defy him.

Failure means a quick death, incinerated by the sun� or a lifetime as a mindless slave. Tormented by the consequences of his past, Nomad must fight not only for his survival―but also for his very soul.]]>
447 Brandon Sanderson 1938570391 Erika 0 4.28 2023 The Sunlit Man
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Erika
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
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The Genius of Birds 25938481
As she travels around the world to the most cutting-edge frontiers of research, Ackerman not only tells the story of the recently uncovered genius of birds but also delves deeply into the latest findings about the bird brain itself that are shifting our view of what it means to be intelligent. At once personal yet scientific, richly informative and beautifully written, The Genius of Birds celebrates the triumphs of these surprising and fiercely intelligent creatures.]]>
352 Jennifer Ackerman 1594205213 Erika 0 to-read 4.03 2016 The Genius of Birds
author: Jennifer Ackerman
name: Erika
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000]]> 141304499
New edition of popular account of the first 1000 years of Christianity.

Thoroughly rewritten, with extensive new preface of author's current thinking.

Includes new maps, substantial bibliography, and numerous chronological tables.]]>
0 Peter Brown Erika 0 4.75 1995 The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000
author: Peter Brown
name: Erika
average rating: 4.75
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/24
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<![CDATA[The Two Princesses of Bamarre (The Two Princesses of Bamarre, #1)]]> 183656
But when Meryl falls ill with the dreaded Gray Death, Addie must gather her courage and set off alone on a quest to find the cure and save her beloved sister. Addie takes the seven-league boots and magic spyglass left to her by her mother and the enchanted tablecloth and cloak given to her by Rhys - along with a shy declaration of his love. She prevails in encounters with tricky specters (spiders too) and outwits a wickedly personable dragon in adventures touched with romance and a bittersweet ending.]]>
304 Gail Carson Levine 0060575808 Erika 0 to-read 4.06 2001 The Two Princesses of Bamarre (The Two Princesses of Bamarre, #1)
author: Gail Carson Levine
name: Erika
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Not Broken: An Approachable Guide to Miscarriage and Recurrent Pregnancy Loss]]> 34744894 “I have one word to describe this fabulous FINALLY. Women with recurrent pregnancy loss have been needing this book for years.� � Dr. Alice Domar, associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School and author of Conquering Infertility and Finding Calm for the Expectant Mom]]> 154 Lora Shahine 0998714615 Erika 0 to-read 4.39 Not Broken: An Approachable Guide to Miscarriage and Recurrent Pregnancy Loss
author: Lora Shahine
name: Erika
average rating: 4.39
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: to-read
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Buried Deep and Other Stories 203956677 A thrilling collection of thirteen short stories that span the worlds of the New York Times bestselling author of the Scholomance Trilogy, including a sneak peek at the land where her next novel will be set.

From the dragon-filled Temeraire series and the gothic, magical halls of the Scholomance trilogy to the fairy tale worlds of Spinning Silver and Uprooted, this stunning collection takes us from fairy tale to fantasy, myth to history, and mystery to science fiction as we travel through Naomi Novik’s most beloved stories.

In Buried Deep, we move from ancient Greece and Rome, through the Middle Ages and the Black Death, and into the modern era. We meet Mark Antony, Sherlock Holmes, and Elizabeth Bennet, in ways we have never seen them before. We visit exotic fantasy cities and alien civilizations among the stars.

Though the stories are vastly different, there is a unifying theme: the act of finding and seizing one’s destiny, and the lengths one will go to achieve that—be it turning pirate, captaining a fighting dragon, or shifting from marriage to seek your destiny with a sword.

And in the two tales original to this collection, we first reenter the remade Scholomance in the wake of El’s revolution and see what life is like for the new crop of students. Then, we get a glimpse at the world of Novik’s upcoming series, a deserted land, populated only by silent and enigmatic architectural behemoths whose secrets are yet to be unlocked.]]>
430 Naomi Novik 0593600355 Erika 0 3.99 2024 Buried Deep and Other Stories
author: Naomi Novik
name: Erika
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/27
date added: 2024/11/27
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Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Erika 0 to-read, classics 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Erika
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: to-read, classics
review:

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<![CDATA[Leviathan Falls (The Expanse, #9)]]> 28335699
In the dead system of Adro, Elvi Okoye leads a desperate scientific mission to understand what the gate builders were and what destroyed them, even if it means compromising herself and the half-alien children who bear the weight of her investigation. Through the wide-flung systems of humanity, Colonel Aliana Tanaka hunts for Duarte’s missing daughter. . . and the shattered emperor himself. And on the Rocinante, James Holden and his crew struggle to build a future for humanity out of the shards and ruins of all that has come before.

As nearly unimaginable forces prepare to annihilate all human life, Holden and a group of unlikely allies discover a last, desperate chance to unite all of humanity, with the promise of a vast galactic civilization free from wars, factions, lies, and secrets if they win.

But the price of victory may be worse than the cost of defeat.]]>
528 James S.A. Corey 0356510395 Erika 0 4.48 2021 Leviathan Falls (The Expanse, #9)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Erika
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/31
date added: 2024/10/31
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<![CDATA[I am thinking of ending things]]> 57194256 224 Iain Reid Erika 0 to-read 3.45 2016 I am thinking of ending things
author: Iain Reid
name: Erika
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/10
shelves: to-read
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Klara and the Sun 54120408
In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?]]>
340 Kazuo Ishiguro 059331817X Erika 0 to-read 3.71 2021 Klara and the Sun
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Erika
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/03
shelves: to-read
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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 337113 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful depiction of a woman's fight for domestic independence and creative freedom.]]> 576 Anne Brontë 0140434747 Erika 4 4.00 1848 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
author: Anne Brontë
name: Erika
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1848
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/09/08
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<![CDATA[The Book of Life (All Souls, #3)]]> 18892998 The #1 New York Times bestselling series finale and sequel to A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night

Bringing the magic and suspense of the All Souls Trilogy to a deeply satisfying conclusion, this highly anticipated finale went straight to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In The Book of Life, Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London to make a dramatic return to the present—facing new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home, Sept-Tours, they reunite with the beloved cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency.]]>
564 Deborah Harkness Erika 1 dnf 4.36 2014 The Book of Life (All Souls, #3)
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Erika
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2014
rating: 1
read at: 2016/01/29
date added: 2024/09/04
shelves: dnf
review:
I got 1/3 of the way through, and then I decided not to punish myself any further. An absolute mess.
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Dogsbody 18932 The Dog Star, Sirius, is tried for murder by his heavenly peers and found guilty. His sentence: to be reborn on Earth as a dog until such time as he carries out the seemingly impossible mission imposed on him.

In his Earth guise, Sirius, renamed Leo, truly lives a dog's life. Although he is the pet of a girl who loves him, both child and dog are mistreated by the family with whom they live. But the worldly obstacles Leo faces are minor when compared with his chilling encounters with the Dark Powers that are set against him. His quest seems hopeless until at last Sol, Moon, and Earth itself come to his aid.

Dogsbody is a tense, exciting, sciencefiction fantasy, a thriller, and a touching dog story all in one.

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272 Diana Wynne Jones 0064410382 Erika 0 to-read 4.09 1975 Dogsbody
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Erika
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1975
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/30
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Dark Lord of Derkholm (Derkholm, #1)]]> 47587
A humorous fantasy from Diana Wynne Jones. In a world next door to ours, the tourist industry is devastating the population by its desire to experience all the fantasy clichés - Dark Lords, impoverished villages, dragons etc.

The Head of the University resolves to shut the tours down; the only problem being the ruthless tour-master - and his all-powerful demons. To save them all, the incompetent wizard Derk is appointed as Dark Lord in the hope that he will ruin the tours, and sure enough proceeds to fail at everything due to his general uselessness. But can failing at everything lead to a win this time?]]>
328 Diana Wynne Jones 0575075368 Erika 0 to-read 4.12 1998 Dark Lord of Derkholm (Derkholm, #1)
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Erika
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Charmed Life (Chrestomanci, #1)]]> 244572 252 Diana Wynne Jones 000710653X Erika 0 to-read 3.96 1977 Charmed Life (Chrestomanci, #1)
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Erika
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/30
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Acceptance (Southern Reach, #3)]]> 18077752
Meanwhile, Acceptance tunnels ever deeper into the circumstances surrounding the creation of Area X—what initiated this unnatural upheaval? Among the many who have tried, who has gotten close to understanding Area X—and who may have been corrupted by it?

In this last installment of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, the mysteries of Area X may be solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound—or terrifying.]]>
341 Jeff VanderMeer 0374104115 Erika 0 to-read 3.66 2014 Acceptance (Southern Reach, #3)
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Erika
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/10
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<![CDATA[Authority (Southern Reach, #2)]]> 18077769 The bone-chilling, hair-raising second installment of the Southern Reach Trilogy

After thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X—a seemingly malevolent landscape surrounded by an invisible border and mysteriously wiped clean of all signs of civilization—has been a series of expeditions overseen by a government agency so secret it has almost been forgotten: the Southern Reach. Following the tumultuous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the agency is in complete disarray.

John RodrĂ­guez (aka "Control") is the Southern Reach's newly appointed head. Working with a distrustful but desperate team, a series of frustrating interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, Control begins to penetrate the secrets of Area X. But with each discovery he must confront disturbing truths about himself and the agency he's pledged to serve.

In Authority, the second volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, Area X's most disturbing questions are answered . . . but the answers are far from reassuring.]]>
341 Jeff VanderMeer 0374104107 Erika 0 to-read 3.54 2014 Authority (Southern Reach, #2)
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Erika
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/10
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)]]> 17934530 Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.

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

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.]]>
195 Jeff VanderMeer 0374104093 Erika 3 3.79 2014 Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Erika
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/10
date added: 2024/08/10
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Happy Place 61718053
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends� hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week� in front of those who know you best?

A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.]]>
400 Emily Henry 0593441273 Erika 0 3.95 2023 Happy Place
author: Emily Henry
name: Erika
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/26
date added: 2024/07/28
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<![CDATA[Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse, #8)]]> 28335698
In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.

At the heart of the empire, Teresa Duarte prepares to take on the burden of her father's godlike ambition. The sociopathic scientist Paolo Cortázar and the Mephistophelian prisoner James Holden are only two of the dangers in a palace thick with intrigue, but Teresa has a mind of her own and secrets even her father the emperor doesn't guess.

And throughout the wide human empire, the scattered crew of the Rocinante fights a brave rear-guard action against Duarte's authoritarian regime. Memory of the old order falls away, and a future under Laconia's eternal rule -- and with it, a battle that humanity can only lose - seems more and more certain. Because against the terrors that lie between worlds, courage and ambition will not be enough...]]>
534 James S.A. Corey 0316332879 Erika 0 4.54 2019 Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse, #8)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Erika
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/15
date added: 2024/04/15
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<![CDATA[Ship of Destiny (Liveship Traders, #3)]]> 45102 here.

As Bingtown slides toward disaster, clan matriarch Ronica Vestrit, branded a traitor, searches for a way to bring the city's inhabitants together against a momentous threat. Meanwhile, Althea Vestrit, unaware of what has befallen Bingtown and her family, continues her perilous quest to track down and recover her liveship, the Vivacia, from the ruthless pirate Kennit.

Bold though it is, Althea's scheme may be in vain. For her beloved Vivacia will face the most terrible confrontation of all as the secret of the liveships is revealed. It is a truth so shattering, it may destroy the Vivacia and all who love her, including Althea's nephew, whose life already hangs in the balance.]]>
789 Robin Hobb Erika 0 4.27 2000 Ship of Destiny (Liveship Traders, #3)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Erika
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/15
date added: 2024/04/15
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The Pit and the Pendulum 10380971 19 Edgar Allan Poe Erika 0 4.08 1842 The Pit and the Pendulum
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Erika
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1842
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/10
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<![CDATA[A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)]]> 50659467
At least, he’s not a beast all the time.

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

From bestselling author Sarah J. Maas comes a seductive, breathtaking book that blends romance, adventure, and faerie lore into an unforgettable read.]]>
419 Sarah J. Maas 1635575567 Erika 0 to-read 4.16 2015 A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Erika
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/01
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness]]> 43306206
The Courage to Be Disliked shows you how to unlock the power within yourself to become your best and truest self, change your future and find lasting happiness. Using the theories of Alfred Adler, one of the three giants of 19th-century psychology alongside Freud and Jung, the authors explain how we are all free to determine our own future free of the shackles of past experiences, doubts and the expectations of others. It’s a philosophy that’s profoundly liberating, allowing us to develop the courage to change, and to ignore the limitations that we and those around us can place on ourselves.

The result is a book that is both highly accessible and profound in its importance. Millions have already read and benefited from its wisdom. Now that The Courage to Be Disliked has been published for the first time in English, so can you.]]>
288 Ichiro Kishimi Erika 0 to-read 3.90 2013 The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
author: Ichiro Kishimi
name: Erika
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/31
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II]]> 32905382 A long-awaited English translation of the classic oral history of women in World War II across Europe and Russia from Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich
Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style, Svetlana Alexievich shares stories of women's experiences during World War II on the front lines, on the home front, and in occupied territories. The Unwomanly Face of War is a powerful history of the central conflict of the twentieth century, a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human side of war."]]>
331 Svetlana Alexievich Erika 0 to-read 4.53 1983 The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II
author: Svetlana Alexievich
name: Erika
average rating: 4.53
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/18
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[The Narrow Road Between Desires (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #0.6)]]> 157265081
From dawn to midnight over the course of a single day, follow the Kingkiller Chronicle's most charming fae as he schemes and sneaks, dancing into trouble and back out again with uncanny grace.

The Narrow Road Between Desires is Bast's story. In it he traces the old ways of making and breaking, following his heart even when doing so goes against his better judgement.

After all, what good is caution if it keeps him from danger and delight?]]>
240 Patrick Rothfuss 0756419182 Erika 1 4.01 2023 The Narrow Road Between Desires (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #0.6)
author: Patrick Rothfuss
name: Erika
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 1
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date added: 2023/11/15
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Agnes Grey 298230 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

Drawing heavily from personal experience, Anne Brontë wrote Agnes Grey in an effort to represent the many 19th Century women who worked as governesses and suffered daily abuse as a result of their position.

Having lost the family savings on risky investments, Richard Grey removes himself from family life and suffers a bout of depression. Feeling helpless and frustrated, his youngest daughter, Agnes, applies for a job as a governess to the children of a wealthy, upper-class, English family.

Ecstatic at the thought that she has finally gained control and freedom over her own life, Agnes arrives at the Bloomfield mansion armed with confidence and purpose. The cruelty with which the family treat her however, slowly but surely strips the heroine of all dignity and belief in humanity.

A tale of female bravery in the face of isolation and subjugation, Agnes Grey is a masterpiece claimed by Irish writer, George Moore, to be possessed of all the qualities and style of a Jane Austen title. Its simple prosaic style propels the narrative forward in a gentle yet rhythmic manner which continuously leaves the listener wanting to know more.

Anne Brontë, the somewhat lesser known sister, was in fact the first to finish and publish Agnes Grey under the pseudonym of Acton Bell. Charlotte and Emily followed shortly after with Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

As Anne passed away from what is now known to be pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of just 29, she only published one further title; The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. As feminist in nature as Agnes Grey, Anne's brave voice resonates and permeates during one of the most prejudiced and patriarchal times of English history.]]>
226 Anne Brontë 0140432108 Erika 0 to-read 3.71 1847 Agnes Grey
author: Anne Brontë
name: Erika
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1847
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Master and Commander (Aubrey & Maturin, #1)]]> 53597791 Sophie. Meanwhile—after a heated first encounter that nearly comes to a duel—Aubrey and a brilliant but down-on-his-luck physician, Stephen Maturin, strike up an unlikely rapport. On a whim, Aubrey invites Maturin to join his crew as the Sophie’s surgeon. And so begins the legendary friendship that anchors this beloved saga set against the thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.


Through every ensuing adventure on which Aubrey and Maturin embark, from the witty parley of their lovers and enemies to the roar of broadsides as great ships close in battle around them, O’Brian “provides endlessly varying shocks and surprises—comic, grim, farcical and tragic.� [A] whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit� (A. S. Byatt).]]>
384 Patrick O'Brian 0393541584 Erika 3 4.00 1969 Master and Commander (Aubrey & Maturin, #1)
author: Patrick O'Brian
name: Erika
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1969
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/14
date added: 2023/11/14
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<![CDATA[The Mad Ship (Liveship Traders, #2)]]> 45101
Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here]]>
906 Robin Hobb 0006498868 Erika 0 4.29 1999 The Mad Ship (Liveship Traders, #2)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Erika
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at: 2023/11/08
date added: 2023/11/08
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Mexican Gothic 53152636
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

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

And NoemĂ­, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]>
320 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0525620788 Erika 0 3.66 2020 Mexican Gothic
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Erika
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2023/11/01
date added: 2023/11/01
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<![CDATA[Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder]]> 33911349 Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls—the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true saga of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser—the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series—masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books.

The Little House books, for all the hardships they describe, are paeans to the pioneer spirit, portraying it as triumphant against all odds. But Wilder’s real life was harder and grittier than that, a story of relentless struggle, rootlessness, and poverty. It was only in her sixties, after losing nearly everything in the Great Depression, that she turned to children’s books, recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a celebratory vision of homesteading—and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches episodes in American letters.

Spanning nearly a century of epochal change, from the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl, Wilder’s dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national mythology of self-reliance. With fresh insights and new discoveries, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman whose classic stories grip us to this day.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
WINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR

One of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year

The first comprehensive historical biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie books]]>
640 Caroline Fraser 1627792767 Erika 0 to-read 3.93 2017 Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
author: Caroline Fraser
name: Erika
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/07
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Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Erika 0 to-read 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Erika
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/04
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Evelina 37638
As she describes her heroine's entry into society, womanhood and, inevitably, love, Burney exposes the vulnerability of female innocence in an image-conscious and often cruel world where social snobbery and sexual aggression are played out in the public arenas of pleasure-gardens, theatre visits, and balls. But Evelina's innocence also makes her a shrewd commentator on the excesses and absurdities of manners and social ambitions—as well as attracting the attention of the eminently eligible Lord Orville.

Evelina, comic and shrewd, is at once a guide to fashionable London, a satirical attack on the new consumerism, an investigation of women's position in the late eighteenth century, and a love story. The new introduction and full notes to this edition help make this richness all the more readily available to a modern reader.]]>
455 Frances Burney 0192840312 Erika 0 to-read 3.69 1778 Evelina
author: Frances Burney
name: Erika
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1778
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/03
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<![CDATA[The Golden Enclaves (The Scholomance, #3)]]> 55858638 New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate.

The one thing you never talk about while you're in the Scholomance is what you'll do when you get out. Not even the richest enclaver would tempt fate that way. But it's all we dream about, the hideously slim chance we'll survive to make it out the gates and improbably find ourselves with a life ahead of us, a life outside the Scholomance halls.

And now the impossible dream has come true. I'm out, we're all out--and I didn't even have to turn into a monstrous dark witch to make it happen. So much for my great-grandmother's prophecy of doom and destruction. I didn't kill enclavers, I saved them. Me, and Orion, and our allies. Our graduation plan worked to perfection: we saved everyone and made the world safe for all wizards and brought peace and harmony to all the enclaves of the world.

Ha, only joking! Actually it's gone all wrong. Someone else has picked up the project of destroying enclaves in my stead, and probably everyone we saved is about to get killed in the brewing enclave war on the horizon. And the first thing I've got to do now, having miraculously got out of the Scholomance, is turn straight around and find a way back in.]]>
407 Naomi Novik 0593158369 Erika 3 4.08 2022 The Golden Enclaves (The Scholomance, #3)
author: Naomi Novik
name: Erika
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/29
date added: 2023/08/31
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Solaris 95558
When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others examining the planet, Kelvin learns, are plagued with their own repressed and newly corporeal memories. The Solaris ocean may be a massive brain that creates these incarnate memories, though its purpose in doing so is unknown, forcing the scientists to shift the focus of their quest and wonder if they can truly understand the universe without first understanding what lies within their hearts.]]>
204 Stanisław Lem Erika 3 4.00 1961 Solaris
author: Stanisław Lem
name: Erika
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1961
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/27
date added: 2023/08/31
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<![CDATA[Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)]]> 28335696 In the vast space between Earth and Jupiter, the inner planets and the Belt have formed a tentative and uncertain alliance, still haunted by a history of wars and prejudices. On the lost colony world of Laconia, a hidden enemy has a new vision for all of humanity � and the power to enforce it.
New technologies clash with old, as the history of human conflict returns to its ancient pattern of war and subjugation. But human nature is not the only enemy, and the forces being unleashed have their own price. A price that will change the shape of humanity � and of the Rocinante � unexpectedly and for ever �

The seventh novel in James S. A. Corey's New York Times bestselling Expanse series--now a major television series.
The Expanse Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, Abaddon's Gate, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon's Ashes, Persepolis Rising,
The Expanse Short Fiction The Butcher of Anderson Station, Gods of Risk, The Churn, The Vital Abyss, Strange Dogs.]]>
608 James S.A. Corey 0316332828 Erika 0 4.34 2017 Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Erika
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2023/08/17
date added: 2023/08/17
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<![CDATA[The Last Graduate (The Scholomance, #2)]]> 55559887 A budding dark sorceress determined not to use her formidable powers uncovers yet more secrets about the workings of her world in the stunning sequel to A Deadly Education, the start of Naomi Novik’s groundbreaking crossover series.

At the Scholomance, El, Orion, and the other students are faced with their final year—and the looming specter of graduation, a deadly ritual that leaves few students alive in its wake. El is determined that her chosen group will survive, but it is a prospect that is looking harder by the day as the savagery of the school ramps up. Until El realizes that sometimes winning the game means throwing out all the rules . . .]]>
388 Naomi Novik 0593128869 Erika 4 4.21 2021 The Last Graduate (The Scholomance, #2)
author: Naomi Novik
name: Erika
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/15
date added: 2023/08/15
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The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Erika 0 to-read 4.17 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Erika
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/04
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self]]> 55120630 304 Michael Easter 0593138767 Erika 0 to-read 4.21 2021 The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self
author: Michael Easter
name: Erika
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/01
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The Master and Margarita 117833 The first complete, annotated English Translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's comic masterpiece.

An audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, The Master and Margarita is recognized as one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature. The novel's vision of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during its author's lifetime and appeared only in a censored edition in the 1960s. Its truths are so enduring that its language has become part of the common Russian speech.

One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, a work whose nuances emerge for the first time in Diana Burgin's and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's splendid English version.]]>
372 Mikhail Bulgakov 0679760806 Erika 0 to-read 4.31 1967 The Master and Margarita
author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: Erika
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/02
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse, #6)]]> 25877663 The sixth book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series.

NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES

A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood.

The Free Navy - a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships - has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets. The colony ships heading for the thousand new worlds on the far side of the alien ring gates are easy prey, and no single navy remains strong enough to protect them.

James Holden and his crew know the strengths and weaknesses of this new force better than anyone. Outnumbered and outgunned, the embattled remnants of the old political powers call on the Rocinante for a desperate mission to reach Medina Station at the heart of the gate network.

But the new alliances are as flawed as the old, and the struggle for power has only just begun. As the chaos grows, an alien mystery deepens. Pirate fleets, mutiny and betrayal may be the least of the Rocinante's problems. And in the uncanny spaces past the ring gates, the choices of a few damaged and desperate people may determine the fate of more than just humanity.

]]>
532 James S.A. Corey 0356504263 Erika 0 4.22 2016 Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse, #6)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Erika
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2023/03/19
date added: 2023/03/19
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<![CDATA[Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5)]]> 22886612
A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle.

Ships are disappearing without a trace. Private armies are being secretly formed. The sole remaining protomolecule sample is stolen. Terrorist attacks previously considered impossible bring the inner planets to their knees. The sins of the past are returning to exact a terrible price.

And as a new human order is struggling to be born in blood and fire, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante must struggle to survive and get back to the only home they have left.]]>
536 James S.A. Corey 031621759X Erika 0 4.44 2015 Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Erika
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/28
date added: 2023/02/28
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<![CDATA[A River Enchanted (Elements of Cadence, #1)]]> 58132544
As Jack and Adaira reluctantly work together, they find they make better allies than rivals as their partnership turns into something more. But with each passing song, it becomes apparent the trouble with the spirits is far more sinister than they first expected, and an older, darker secret about Cadence lurks beneath the surface, threatening to undo them all.]]>
480 Rebecca Ross 0063055988 Erika 0 to-read 4.06 2022 A River Enchanted (Elements of Cadence, #1)
author: Rebecca Ross
name: Erika
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/02/19
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<![CDATA[Attack on Titan: No Regrets Complete Color Edition]]> 34713645
The Complete, Color Saga of the Thief and the Soldier

In Attack on Titan, Erwin Smith and Captain Levi are an inseparable duo, the calculating brain and pumping heart of the Survey Corps. But their past was a mystery, until the release of the globally-acclaimed bestseller Attack on Titan: No Regrets. Years earlier, the young Erwin was an ambitious military ladder-climber and political prodigy, while Levi lived in another world under the elite’s feet, the Underground. In this place, humans are born and die surrounded by the garbage the Capital throws away, and only the lucky or the ruthless have a chance to emerge onto the surface and see the Sun. Under a fierce exterior, Levi longs for a life of dignity for himself and his friends, while Erwin’s lifelong obsession with the Titans drives him to depths of moral ambiguity. The two men’s collision course will lead to tension, tragedy, and the greatest team of Titan-fighters humanity will ever know.

Direct from Japan in a newly-colorized edition
Includes never-before-published bonus stories and illustrations]]>
384 Hajime Isayama 1632365324 Erika 0 4.57 2017 Attack on Titan: No Regrets Complete Color Edition
author: Hajime Isayama
name: Erika
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/10
date added: 2023/02/17
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Cibola Burn (The Expanse, #4) 18656030 The fourth novel in James S.A. Corey’s New York Times bestselling Expanse series

The gates have opened the way to thousands of habitable planets, and the land rush has begun. Settlers stream out from humanity's home planets in a vast, poorly controlled flood, landing on a new world. Among them, the Rocinante, haunted by the vast, posthuman network of the protomolecule as they investigate what destroyed the great intergalactic society that built the gates and the protomolecule.

But Holden and his crew must also contend with the growing tensions between the settlers and the company which owns the official claim to the planet. Both sides will stop at nothing to defend what's theirs, but soon a terrible disease strikes and only Holden - with help from the ghostly Detective Miller - can find the cure.]]>
581 James S.A. Corey Erika 0 4.18 2014 Cibola Burn (The Expanse, #4)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Erika
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/05
date added: 2023/02/05
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<![CDATA[A Deadly Education (The Scholomance, #1)]]> 50548197
A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death (for real) � until one girl, El, begins to unlock its many secrets.

There are no teachers, no holidays, and no friendships, save strategic ones. Survival is more important than any letter grade, for the school won’t allow its students to leave until they graduate� or die! The rules are deceptively simple: Don’t walk the halls alone. And beware of the monsters who lurk everywhere.

El is uniquely prepared for the school’s dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out millions. It would be easy enough for El to defeat the monsters that prowl the school. The problem? Her powerful dark magic might also kill all the other students.]]>
320 Naomi Novik 0593128486 Erika 3 3.93 2020 A Deadly Education (The Scholomance, #1)
author: Naomi Novik
name: Erika
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/14
date added: 2023/01/14
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<![CDATA[The Dispossessed (Hainish Cycle, #6)]]> 54297097 From the brilliant and award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin comes a classic tale of two planets torn apart by conflict and mistrust � and the man who risks everything to reunite them.

A bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth. Now Shevek, a brilliant physicist, is determined to reunite the two planets, which have been divided by centuries of distrust. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have kept them apart.

To visit Urras—to learn, to teach, to share—will require great sacrifice and risks, which Shevek willingly accepts. But the ambitious scientist's gift is soon seen as a threat, and in the profound conflict that ensues, he must reexamine his beliefs even as he ignites the fires of change.

]]>
400 Ursula K. Le Guin Erika 0 to-read 4.32 1974 The Dispossessed (Hainish Cycle, #6)
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Erika
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/05
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The Song of Achilles 13623848 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062060624.

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

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.]]>
408 Madeline Miller Erika 5 4.30 2011 The Song of Achilles
author: Madeline Miller
name: Erika
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/05
date added: 2023/01/05
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<![CDATA[Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World]]> 40718726
Fighting his way to power on the remote steppes of Mongolia, Genghis Khan developed revolutionary military strategies and weaponry that emphasized rapid attack and siege warfare, which he then brilliantly used to overwhelm opposing armies in Asia, break the back of the Islamic world, and render the armored knights of Europe obsolete. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongol army never numbered more than 100,000 warriors, yet it subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans conquered in four hundred. With an empire that stretched from Siberia to India, from Vietnam to Hungary, and from Korea to the Balkans, the Mongols dramatically redrew the map of the globe, connecting disparate kingdoms into a new world order.

But contrary to popular wisdom, Weatherford reveals that the Mongols were not just masters of conquest, but possessed a genius for progressive and benevolent rule. On every level and from any perspective, the scale and scope
of Genghis Khan’s accomplishments challenge the limits of imagination. Genghis Khan was an innovative leader, the first ruler in many conquered countries to put the power of law above his own power, encourage religious freedom, create public schools, grant diplomatic immunity, abolish torture, and institute free trade. The trade routes he created became lucrative pathways for commerce, but also for ideas, technologies, and expertise that transformed the way people lived. The Mongols introduced the first international paper currency and postal system and developed and spread revolutionary technologies like printing, the cannon, compass, and abacus. They took local foods and products like lemons, carrots, noodles, tea, rugs, playing cards, and pants and turned them into staples of life around the world. The Mongols were the architects of a new way of life at a pivotal time in history.

In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford resurrects the true history of Genghis Khan, from the story of his relentless rise through Mongol tribal culture to the waging of his devastatingly successful wars and the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed. This dazzling work of revisionist history doesn’t just paint an unprecedented portrait of a great leader and his legacy, but challenges us to reconsider how the modern world was made.


From the Hardcover edition.]]>
352 Jack Weatherford Erika 0 to-read 4.08 2004 Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
author: Jack Weatherford
name: Erika
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/30
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Heracles' Bow 63912246 About the Author

Madeline Miller is an American novelist, whose debut novel was The Song of Achilles.
Miller spent ten years writing the book while she worked as a Latin and Greek teacher. The novel, set in Greece, tells the story of the love between Achilles and Patroclus.
The Song of Achilles won the Orange Prize for Fiction, making Miller the fourth debut novelist to win the prize.]]>
10 Madeline Miller Erika 0 to-read 3.18 2012 Heracles' Bow
author: Madeline Miller
name: Erika
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
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Galatea 18162954 An enchanting short story from Madeline Miller that boldly reimagines the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion.

In ancient Greece, a skilled marble sculptor has been blessed by a goddess who has given his masterpiece � the most beautiful woman the town has ever seen � the gift of life. Now his wife, he expects Galatea to please him, to be obedience and humility personified. But she has desires of her own and yearns for independence.

In a desperate bid by her obsessive husband to keep her under control, Galatea is locked away under the constant supervision of doctors and nurses. But with a daughter to rescue, she is determined to break free, whatever the cost...]]>
27 Madeline Miller 1408848147 Erika 0 to-read 3.93 2013 Galatea
author: Madeline Miller
name: Erika
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
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<![CDATA[Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders, #1)]]> 45100
For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy unjustly denied her--a legacy she will risk anything to reclaim. For Althea's young nephew Wintrow, wrenched from his religious studies and forced to serve aboard ship, Vivacia is a life sentence.

But the fate of the Vestrit family--and the ship--may ultimately lie in the hands of an outsider. The ruthless pirate Kennit seeks a way to seize power over all the denizens of the Pirate Isles...and the first step of his plan requires him to capture his own liveship and bend it to his will....


From the Paperback edition.]]>
880 Robin Hobb 000649885X Erika 5 4.20 1998 Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders, #1)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Erika
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/12
date added: 2022/12/12
shelves:
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Robin Hobb’s gift for characterization is still unmatched. Every single character is fascinating, particularly the antagonists. I don’t think it’s possible for her to write a bad book.
]]>
<![CDATA[Abaddon’s Gate (The Expanse, #3)]]> 16131032
For generations, the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt - was humanity's great frontier. Until now. The alien artefact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has emerged to build a massive structure outside the orbit of Uranus: a gate that leads into a starless dark.

Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are part of a vast flotilla of scientific and military ships going out to examine the artefact. But behind the scenes, a complex plot is unfolding, with the destruction of Holden at its core. As the emissaries of the human race try to find whether the gate is an opportunity or a threat, the greatest danger is the one they brought with them.]]>
539 James S.A. Corey Erika 0 4.26 2013 Abaddon’s Gate (The Expanse, #3)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Erika
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/30
date added: 2022/11/30
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<![CDATA[The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade]]> 116477 Roe v. Wade

In this deeply moving work, Ann Fessler brings to light the lives of hundreds of thousands of young single American women forced to give up their newborn children in the years following World War II and before Roe v. Wade. The Girls Who Went Away tells a story not of wild and carefree sexual liberation, but rather of a devastating double standard that has had punishing long-term effects on these women and on the children they gave up for adoption. Based on Fessler's groundbreaking interviews, it brings to brilliant life these women's voices and the spirit of the time, allowing each to share her own experience in gripping and intimate detail. Today, when the future of the Roe decision and women's reproductive rights stand squarely at the front of a divisive national debate, Fessler brings to the fore a long-overlooked history of single women in the fifties, sixties, and early seventies.

In 2002, Fessler, an adoptee herself, traveled the country interviewing women willing to speak publicly about why they relinquished their children. Researching archival records and the political and social climate of the time, she uncovered a story of three decades of women who, under enormous social and family pressure, were coerced or outright forced to give their babies up for adoption. Fessler deftly describes the impossible position in which these women found themselves: as a sexual revolution heated up in the postwar years, birth control was tightly restricted, and abortion proved prohibitively expensive or life endangering. At the same time, a postwar economic boom brought millions of American families into the middle class, exerting its own pressures to conform to a model of family perfection. Caught in the middle, single pregnant women were shunned by family and friends, evicted from schools, sent away to maternity homes to have their children alone, and often treated with cold contempt by doctors, nurses, and clergy.

The majority of the women Fessler interviewed have never spoken of their experiences, and most have been haunted by grief and shame their entire adult lives. A searing and important look into a long-overlooked social history, The Girls Who Went Away is their story.]]>
354 Ann Fessler 1594200947 Erika 0 to-read 4.23 2006 The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
author: Ann Fessler
name: Erika
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/07/01
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<![CDATA[The Baby Scoop Era: Unwed Mothers, Infant Adoption, and Forced Surrender]]> 36046396 435 Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh Erika 0 to-read 3.77 The Baby Scoop Era: Unwed Mothers, Infant Adoption, and Forced Surrender
author: Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh
name: Erika
average rating: 3.77
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/07/01
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Sea of Tranquility 58446227 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

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

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

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

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

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

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]>
259 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321448 Erika 3 4.04 2022 Sea of Tranquility
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Erika
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/06/27
date added: 2022/06/27
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My Evil Mother 60497502 32 Margaret Atwood 1662504497 Erika 0 to-read 3.88 2022 My Evil Mother
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Erika
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/04/16
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Caliban’s War (The Expanse, #2)]]> 12591698
In the vast wilderness of space, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante have been keeping the peace for the Outer Planets Alliance. When they agree to help a scientist search war-torn Ganymede for a missing child, the future of humanity rests on whether a single ship can prevent an alien invasion that may have already begun . . .]]>
624 James S.A. Corey 1841499900 Erika 4 4.36 2012 Caliban’s War (The Expanse, #2)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Erika
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/15
date added: 2022/04/15
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<![CDATA[Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1)]]> 8855321
Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.]]>
592 James S.A. Corey 1841499889 Erika 0 4.30 2011 Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Erika
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/18
date added: 2022/02/18
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Dune (Dune, #1) 234225 Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the "spice" melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for...

When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul's family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.]]>
604 Frank Herbert 0340839937 Erika 4 sci-fi-fantasy
I'm having trouble getting over the radically abrupt ending. This alone bumped the book down at least one star. In fact, for all the build-up and care the author takes setting up the final confrontation, he rushes through the actual climax: villains are easily dispatched, marriages are arranged, people are dead. ]]>
4.21 1965 Dune (Dune, #1)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Erika
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1965
rating: 4
read at: 2016/09/03
date added: 2022/02/07
shelves: sci-fi-fantasy
review:
*spoilers*

I'm having trouble getting over the radically abrupt ending. This alone bumped the book down at least one star. In fact, for all the build-up and care the author takes setting up the final confrontation, he rushes through the actual climax: villains are easily dispatched, marriages are arranged, people are dead.
]]>
Circe 35959740
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts, and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from or with the mortals she has come to love.]]>
393 Madeline Miller 0316556343 Erika 5 4.22 2018 Circe
author: Madeline Miller
name: Erika
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/27
date added: 2022/01/27
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The Story of Human Language 3328218
* How did different languages come to be?
* Why isn’t there just a single language?
* How does a language change, and when it does, is that change indicative of decay or growth?
* How does a language become extinct?

Dr. John McWhorter, one of America’s leading linguists and a frequent commentator on network television and National Public Radio, addresses these and other questions as he takes you on an in-depth, 36-lecture tour of the development of human language, showing how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago has evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today.

An accomplished scholar, Professor McWhorter is also a skilled popularizer, whose book The Power of Babel was called "startling, provocative, and remarkably entertaining," by the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The London Times called him "a born teacher." And Steven Pinker, best known as the author of The Language Instinct, offered this praise for the book: "McWhorter’s arguments are sharply reasoned, refreshingly honest, and thoroughly original."

Course Lecture Titles
1. What Is Language?
2. When Language Began
3. How Language Changes—Sound Change
4. How Language Changes—Building New Material
5. How Language Changes—Meaning and Order
6. How Language Changes—Many Directions
7. How Language Changes—Modern English
8. Language Families—Indo-European
9. Language Families—Tracing Indo-European
10. Language Families—Diversity of Structures
11. Language Families—Clues to the Past
12. The Case Against the World’s First Language
13. The Case For the World’s First Language
14. Dialects—Subspecies of Species
15. Dialects—Where Do You Draw the Line?
16. Dialects—Two Tongues in One Mouth
17. Dialects—The Standard as Token of the Past
18. Dialects—Spoken Style, Written Style
19. Dialects—The Fallacy of Blackboard Grammar
20. Language Mixture—Words
21. Language Mixture—Grammar
22. Language Mixture—Language Areas
23. Language Develops Beyond the Call of Duty
24. Language Interrupted
25. A New Perspective on the Story of English
26. Does Culture Drive Language Change?
27. Language Starts Over—Pidgins
28. Language Starts Over—Creoles I
29. Language Starts Over—Creoles II
30. Language Starts Over—Signs of the New
31. Language Starts Over—The Creole Continuum
32. What Is Black English?
33. Language Death—The Problem
34. Language Death—Prognosis
35. Artificial Languages
36. Finale—Master Class]]>
19 John McWhorter 1565859472 Erika 0 to-read 4.40 2004 The Story of Human Language
author: John McWhorter
name: Erika
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/14
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<![CDATA[Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America]]> 58133534 People of good will on both the left and the right are secretly asking themselves the same question: how has the conversation on race gone so crazy?

Bestselling author and acclaimed linguist John McWhorter argues that an illiberal neoracism, disguised as antiracism, is hurting black communities and weakening the social fabric.

We're told to read books and listen to music by people of colour but that wearing certain clothes is 'appropriation.' We hear that being white automatically gives you privilege and that being black makes you a victim. We want to speak up but fear we'll be seen as unwoke, or worse, labelled a racist. According to John McWhorter, the problem is that a well-meaning but pernicious form of antiracism has become, not a progressive ideology, but a religion - and one that's illogical, unreachable, and unintentionally neoracist.

In Woke Racism, McWhorter reveals the workings of this new religion, from the original sin of 'white privilege' and the weaponization of cancel culture to ban heretics, to the evangelical fervour of the 'woke mob.' He shows how this religion that claims to 'dismantle racist structures' is actually harming his fellow black Americans by infantilizing black people, setting black students up for failure, and passing policies that disproportionately damage black communities. The new religion might be called 'antiracism, ' but it features a racial essentialism that's barely distinguishable from racist arguments of the past.

Fortunately, for all of us, it's not too late to push back against woke racism. McWhorter shares scripts and encouragement with those trying to deprogramme friends and family. And most importantly, he offers a roadmap to justice that actually will help, not hurt, black people.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER]]>
224 John McWhorter 0593423062 Erika 0 to-read 3.87 2021 Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America
author: John McWhorter
name: Erika
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic]]> 27485
In her 20 years of clinical experience, Perel has treated hundreds of couples whose home lives are empty of passion. They describe relationships that are open and loving, yet sexually dull. What is going on?

In this explosively original book, Perel explains that our cultural penchant for equality, togetherness, and absolute candor is antithetical to erotic desire for both men and women. Sexual excitement doesn't always play by the rules of good citizenship. It is politically incorrect. It thrives on power plays, unfair advantages, and the space between self and other. More exciting, playful, even poetic sex is possible, but first we must kick egalitarian ideals and emotional housekeeping out of our bedrooms.

While Mating in Captivity shows why the domestic realm can feel like a cage, Perel's take on bedroom dynamics promises to liberate, enchant, and provoke. Flinging the doors open on erotic life and domesticity, she invites us to put the "X" back in sex.

©2006 Esther Perel (P)2006 HarperCollins Publishers]]>
272 Esther Perel 0060753633 Erika 2 4.17 2006 Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic
author: Esther Perel
name: Erika
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at: 2021/03/11
date added: 2021/12/27
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<![CDATA[Assassin's Fate (The Fitz and the Fool, #3)]]> 30688013
Fitz’s young daughter, Bee, has been kidnapped by the Servants, a secret society whose members not only dream of possible futures but use their prophecies to add to their wealth and influence. Bee plays a crucial part in these dreams—but just what part remains uncertain.

As Bee is dragged by her sadistic captors across half the world, Fitz and the Fool, believing her dead, embark on a mission of revenge that will take them to the distant island where the Servants reside—a place the Fool once called home and later called prison. It was a hell the Fool escaped, maimed and blinded, swearing never to return.

For all his injuries, however, the Fool is not as helpless as he seems. He is a dreamer too, able to shape the future. And though Fitz is no longer the peerless assassin of his youth, he remains a man to be reckoned with—deadly with blades and poison, and adept in Farseer magic. And their goal is simple: to make sure not a single Servant survives their scourge.]]>
847 Robin Hobb 0553392956 Erika 5 4.61 2017 Assassin's Fate (The Fitz and the Fool, #3)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Erika
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2021/03/07
date added: 2021/12/27
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<![CDATA[House of Many Ways (Howl's Moving Castle, #3)]]> 2173611
By opening that door, Charmain has become responsible for not only the house, but for an extremely magical stray dog, a muddled young apprentice wizard, and a box of the king's most treasured documents. She has encountered a terrifying beast called a lubbock, irritated a clan of small blue creatures, and wound up smack in the middle of an urgent search. The king and his daughter are desperate to find the lost, fabled Elfgift—so desperate that they've even called in an intimidating sorceress named Sophie to help. And where Sophie is, can the Wizard Howl and fire demon Calcifer be far behind?

Of course, with that magical family involved, there's bound to be chaos—and unexpected revelations. No one will be more surprised than Charmain by what Howl and Sophie discover.]]>
404 Diana Wynne Jones 0061477958 Erika 5 4.05 2008 House of Many Ways (Howl's Moving Castle, #3)
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Erika
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2021/06/24
date added: 2021/12/27
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The Elephant Whisperer 6375561
As Lawrence risked his life to create a bond with the troubled elephants and persuade them to stay on his reserve, he came to realize what a special family they were, from the wise matriarch Nana, who guided the herd, to her warrior sister Frankie, always ready to see off any threat, and their children who fought so hard to survive.

With unforgettable characters and exotic wildlife, this is an enthralling book that will appeal to animal lovers and adventurous souls everywhere.]]>
368 Lawrence Anthony 0283070870 Erika 4 4.46 2009 The Elephant Whisperer
author: Lawrence Anthony
name: Erika
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/09
date added: 2021/12/27
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<![CDATA[The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined]]> 13543093 New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has actually been in decline over long stretches of history. Exploding myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly enlightened world.]]> 806 Steven Pinker 0143122010 Erika 0 to-read 4.12 2010 The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
author: Steven Pinker
name: Erika
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/12/27
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<![CDATA[A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking]]> 54369251
But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…]]>
306 T. Kingfisher 1614505241 Erika 0 to-read 4.03 2020 A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Erika
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/12/27
shelves: to-read
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The School for Good Mothers 57846320 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781982156121 can be found here.

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

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

Until Frida has a horrible day.

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

This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect� upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.]]>
336 Jessamine Chan Erika 0 to-read 3.51 2022 The School for Good Mothers
author: Jessamine Chan
name: Erika
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/12/27
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The Midnight Library 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

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

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]>
288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Erika 0 to-read 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Erika
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/27
shelves: to-read
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