Ian's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 21 Apr 2025 18:26:39 -0700 60 Ian's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith]]> 10847
A multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. This is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.

Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this "divinely inspired" crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. Along the way, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest-growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some forty-thousand Mormon Fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five "plural wives," several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamentalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers, and preach that any day now the world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents.

Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism’s violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.]]> 400 Jon Krakauer 0330419129 Ian 4 4.01 2003 Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Ian
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/21
date added: 2025/04/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage]]> 139069 The harrowing tale of British explorer Ernest Shackleton's 1914 attempt to reach the South Pole, one of the greatest adventure stories of the modern age.

In August 1914, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton boarded the Endurance became locked in an island of ice. Thus began the legendary ordeal of Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men. When their ship was finally crushed between two ice floes, they attempted a near-impossible journey over 850 miles of the South Atlantic's heaviest seas to the closest outpost of civilization.

In Endurance, the definitive account of Ernest Shackleton's fateful trip, Alfred Lansing brilliantly narrates the harrowing and miraculous voyage that has defined heroism for the modern age.

First edition: here.]]> 282 Alfred Lansing Ian 0 to-read 4.42 1959 Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
author: Alfred Lansing
name: Ian
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> The Glass Castle 7445 THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

The Glass Castle is truly astonishing--a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.]]> 288 Jeannette Walls 074324754X Ian 5 4.32 2005 The Glass Castle
author: Jeannette Walls
name: Ian
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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]]> Crying in H Mart 54814676
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band � and meeting the man who would become her husband � her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.]]> 243 Michelle Zauner 0525657746 Ian 0 to-read 4.25 2021 Crying in H Mart
author: Michelle Zauner
name: Ian
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> One Hundred Years of Solitude 7597 One Hundred Years of Solitude remains a dazzling and original achievement by the masterful Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendiá family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad and alive with unforgettable men and women—brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul—this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.]]> 429 Gabriel García Márquez Ian 0 to-read 4.08 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Ian
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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]]> Dune (Dune, #1) 44767458
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.]]> 658 Frank Herbert 059309932X Ian 0 to-read 4.33 1965 Dune (Dune, #1)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Ian
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1965
rating: 0
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]]> The Overstory 40180098 The Overstory is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of - and paean to - the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

A New York Times Bestseller.]]> 502 Richard Powers 039335668X Ian 0 to-read 4.10 2018 The Overstory
author: Richard Powers
name: Ian
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Ian 3 4.61 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Ian
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness]]> 3450744 From the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics, Richard H. Thaler, and Cass R. Sunstein: a revelatory look at how we make decisions

New York Times bestseller
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist and the Financial Times

Every day we make choices—about what to buy or eat, about financial investments or our children’s health and education, even about the causes we champion or the planet itself. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. Nudge is about how we make these choices and how we can make better ones. Using dozens of eye-opening examples and drawing on decades of behavioral science research, Nobel Prize winner Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein show that no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way, and that we are all susceptible to biases that can lead us to make bad decisions. But by knowing how people think, we can use sensible “choice architecture� to nudge people toward the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society, without restricting our freedom of choice.]]> 260 Richard H. Thaler 014311526X Ian 3 3.86 2008 Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
author: Richard H. Thaler
name: Ian
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
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Meh. Subject matter was interesting, but as others the examples, discussion, and writing were rather simplistic and not incredibly well-organized. It felt less like a complete finished linear product, and more like a draft list of ideas to be discussed in no particular order. That said, some interesting pieces throughout!
]]> <![CDATA[The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom]]> 561909
Corrie ten Boom and her family became leaders in the Dutch Underground, hiding Jewish people in their home in a specially built room and aiding their escape from the Nazis. For their help, all but Corrie found death in a concentration camp. The Hiding Place is their story.]]> 242 Corrie ten Boom 0553256696 Ian 0 to-read 4.46 1971 The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom
author: Corrie ten Boom
name: Ian
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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]]> A Story of Yesterday 58913358 Under a sky of different colors germinates a magical story of survival, where the result of each choice, enclosed in this particular tale, will snatch the whereabouts of each story forever.]]> 70 Sergio Cobo Ian 0 to-read 4.43 2014 A Story of Yesterday
author: Sergio Cobo
name: Ian
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption]]> 8664353
The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he'd been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.]]> 475 Laura Hillenbrand 1400064163 Ian 0 to-read 4.38 2010 Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption
author: Laura Hillenbrand
name: Ian
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty]]> 210454076 Power, privilege, and blood—this is the definitive and thrilling true story of Alex Murdaugh’s violent downfall, from a veteran Wall Street Journal reporter who has become an authority on the case.
Ěý
Alex Murdaugh was a benevolent dictator—the president of the South Carolina trial lawyers� association, a political boss, a part-time prosecutor, and a partner in his family’s law firm. He was always ready with a favor, a drink, and an invitation to Moselle, his family’s 1,700-acre hunting estate. The Murdaugh name ignited respect—and fear—for a hundred miles.

When he murdered his wife, Maggie, and son Paul at Moselle on a dark summer night, the fragile façade of Alex’s world could no longer hold. His forefathers had covered up a midnight suicide at a remote railroad crossing, a bootlegging ring run from a courthouse, and the attempted murder of a pregnant lover. Alex, too, almost walked away from his unspeakable crimes with his reputation intact, but his downfall was secured by a twist of fate, some stray mistakes, and a fateful decision by an old friend who’d finally seen enough.

Why would a man who had everything kill his wife and grown son? To unwind the roots of Alex’s ruin, award-winning journalist Valerie Bauerlein reported not just from the courthouse every day but also along the backroads and through the tidal marshes of South Carolina’s Lowcountry. When the jurors made their pilgrimage to the crime scene, trying to envision Maggie and Paul’s last moments, she walked right behind them, sensing the ghosts that haunt the Murdaughs� now-shattered legacy.

Through masterful research and cinematic writing, The Devil at His Elbow is a transporting journey through Alex’s life, the night of the murders, and the investigation that culminated in a trial that held tens of millions spellbound. With her stunning insights and fearless instinct for the truth, Bauerlein uncovers layers of the Murdaugh murder case that have not been told.]]> 480 Valerie Bauerlein 059350058X Ian 0 to-read 4.46 2024 The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty
author: Valerie Bauerlein
name: Ian
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> There Are Rivers in the Sky 202468422 From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time.

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains.

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.

A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.�]]> 464 Elif Shafak 0593801717 Ian 0 to-read 4.38 2024 There Are Rivers in the Sky
author: Elif Shafak
name: Ian
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land]]> 199393033 A powerful work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation’s earliest days, and a small-town murder in the 1990s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land more than a century later

Before 2020, American Indian reservations made up roughly 55 million acres of land in the United States. Nearly 200 million acres are reserved for National Forests—in the emergence of this great nation, our government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples.

In the 1830s, Muscogee people were rounded up by the US military at gunpoint and forced into exile halfway across the continent. At the time, they were promised this new land would be theirs for as long as the grass grew and the waters ran. But that promise was not kept. When Oklahoma was created on top of Muscogee land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed. Over a century later, a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen on tribal land. His defense attorneys argued the murder occurred on the reservation of his tribe, and therefore Oklahoma didn’t have the jurisdiction to execute him. Oklahoma asserted that the reservation no longer existed. In the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court settled the dispute. Its ruling that would ultimately underpin multiple reservations covering almost half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle’s own Cherokee Nation.

Here Rebecca Nagle recounts the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed and the Native-led battle for justice that has shaped our country.]]> 352 Rebecca Nagle 0063112043 Ian 0 to-read 4.43 2024 By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land
author: Rebecca Nagle
name: Ian
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Martyr! 139400713 A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

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 the Persian Gulf 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.

Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Ian 0 to-read 4.22 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Ian
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Meditations 1168191 Meditations remains profoundly relevant for anyone seeking to lead a meaningful life.

Few ancient works have been as influential as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, philosopher and emperor of Rome (A.D. 161�180). A series of spiritual exercises filled with wisdom, practical guidance, and profound understanding of human behavior, it remains one of the greatest works of spiritual and ethical reflection ever written. Marcus’s insights and advice—on everything from living in the world to coping with adversity and interacting with others—have made the Meditations required reading for statesmen and philosophers alike, while generations of ordinary readers have responded to the straightforward intimacy of his style. For anyone who struggles to reconcile the demands of leadership with a concern for personal integrity and spiritual well-being, the Meditations remains as relevant now as it was two thousand years ago.

In Gregory Hays’s new translation—the first in thirty-five years—Marcus’s thoughts speak with a new immediacy. In fresh and unencumbered English, Hays vividly conveys the spareness and compression of the original Greek text. Never before have Marcus’s insights been so directly and powerfully presented.

With an Introduction that outlines Marcus’s life and career, the essentials of Stoic doctrine, the style and construction of the Meditations, and the work’s ongoing influence, this edition makes it possible to fully rediscover the thoughts of one of the most enlightened and intelligent leaders of any era.]]> 256 Marcus Aurelius 0812968255 Ian 0 to-read 4.41 180 Meditations
author: Marcus Aurelius
name: Ian
average rating: 4.41
book published: 180
rating: 0
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]]> Autobiography of Red 18945375
Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is.]]> 162 Anne Carson 0345807014 Ian 0 to-read 3.94 1998 Autobiography of Red
author: Anne Carson
name: Ian
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

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

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

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Ian 2 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Ian
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
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Meh. This book felt like it was having an identity crisis between a romcom and a spiritual examination of depression. Characters felt flat, writing was unremarkable, in my opinion. Glad others have enjoyed so thoroughly though, maybe just not for me!
]]> The Poisonwood Bible 7244 The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.]]> 546 Barbara Kingsolver 0060786507 Ian 0 to-read 4.10 1998 The Poisonwood Bible
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Ian
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> The Remains of the Day 28921 Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN 0571225381 here.

In the summer of 1956, Stevens, a long-serving butler at Darlington Hall, decides to take a motoring trip through the West Country. The six-day excursion becomes a journey into the past of Stevens and England, a past that takes in fascism, two world wars, and an unrealised love between the butler and his housekeeper.]]> 258 Kazuo Ishiguro Ian 0 to-read 4.14 1989 The Remains of the Day
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Ian
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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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 Ian 3 3.71 2021 Klara and the Sun
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Ian
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/26
date added: 2025/02/26
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In an apparently uncontroversial take (based on other reviews), I absolutely adored this book for the first 200 pages. It felt new, mysterious, and I was captivated by the style and perspective. Unfortunately, this feeling did not last and it really didn’t feel like the last half had much of note. I thought the ending was *fine* but unlike Never Let me Go, I was left feeling unsatisfied after putting it down for the last time.
]]> Middlesex 6624506 A dazzling triumph from the bestselling author of The Virgin Suicides--the astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl.

In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond clasmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them--along with Callie's failure to develop--leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.

The explanation for this shocking state of affairs takes us out of suburbia- back before the Detroit race riots of 1967, before the rise of the Motor City and Prohibition, to 1922, when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Callie's grandparents fled for their lives. Back to a tiny village in Asia Minor where two lovers, and one rare genetic mutation, set in motion the metamorphosis that will turn Callie into a being both mythical and perfectly a hermaphrodite.

Spanning eight decades--and one unusually awkward adolescence- Jeffrey Eugenides's long-awaited second novel is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire. It marks the fulfillment of a huge talent, named one of America's best young novelists by both Granta and The New Yorker.

Middlesex is the winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.]]> 544 Jeffrey Eugenides 1429956275 Ian 3 4.27 2002 Middlesex
author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: Ian
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2002
rating: 3
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]]> We Begin at the End 50279680
Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids.

Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.

Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released. And Duchess and Walk must face the trouble that comes with his return. We Begin at the End is an extraordinary novel about two kinds of families—the ones we are born into and the ones we create.]]> 384 Chris Whitaker 1250759668 Ian 0 to-read 4.10 2020 We Begin at the End
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Ian
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/03
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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 Ian 0 to-read 4.23 2024 All the Colors of the Dark
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Ian
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Outline 21400742
Beginning with the neighbouring passenger on the flight out and his tales of fast boats and failed marriages, the storytellers talk of their loves and ambitions and pains, their anxieties, their perceptions and daily lives. In the stifling heat and noise of the city the sequence of voice begins to weave a complex human tapestry. The more they talk the more elliptical their listener becomes, as she shapes and directs their accounts until certain themes begin to emerge: the experience of loss, the nature of family life, the difficulty of intimacy and the mystery of creativity itself.

Outline is a novel about writing and talking, about self-effacement and self-expression, about the desire to create and the human art of self-portraiture in which that desire finds its universal form.]]> 249 Rachel Cusk 0571233627 Ian 0 to-read 3.68 2014 Outline
author: Rachel Cusk
name: Ian
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Thinking, Fast and Slow 11468377 Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.

Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will transform the way you think about thinking.]]> 499 Daniel Kahneman 0374275637 Ian 0 to-read 4.17 2011 Thinking, Fast and Slow
author: Daniel Kahneman
name: Ian
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity]]> 61153739 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � A groundbreaking manifesto on living better and longer that challenges the conventional medical thinking on aging and reveals a new approach to preventing chronic disease and extending long-term health, from a visionary physician and leading longevity expert

Wouldn’t you like to live longer? And better? In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health.

For all its successes, mainstream medicine has failed to make much progress against the diseases of aging that kill most people: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and type 2 diabetes. Too often, it intervenes with treatments too late to help, prolonging lifespan at the expense of healthspan, or quality of life. Dr. Attia believes we must replace this outdated framework with a personalized, proactive strategy for longevity, one where we take action now, rather than waiting.

This is not “biohacking,� it’s science: a well-founded strategic and tactical approach to extending lifespan while also improving our physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Dr. Attia’s aim is less to tell you what to do and more to help you learn how to think about long-term health, in order to create the best plan for you as an individual. In Outlive, readers will discover:

� Why the cholesterol test at your annual physical doesn’t tell you enough about your actual risk of dying from a heart attack.
� That you may already suffer from an extremely common yet underdiagnosed liver condition that could be a precursor to the chronic diseases of aging.
� Why exercise is the most potent pro-longevity “drug”—and how to begin training for the “Centenarian Decathlon.�
� Why you should forget about diets, and focus instead on nutritional biochemistry, using technology and data to personalize your eating pattern.
� Why striving for physical health and longevity, but ignoring emotional health, could be the ultimate curse of all.

Aging and longevity are far more malleable than we think; our fate is not set in stone. With the right roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before.]]> 496 Peter Attia 0593236599 Ian 0 to-read 4.33 2023 Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity
author: Peter Attia
name: Ian
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Ian 0 to-read 4.15 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Ian
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Covenant of Water 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

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

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 715 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Ian 0 to-read 4.34 2023 The Covenant of Water
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Ian
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Road 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Ian 5
While I can understand that some deemed parts repetitive, I’m really not sure how else one would communicate the themes of persistent survival and moral ambiguity found throughout the book. The brief but impactful dialogue between the man and the boy, the showcasing of the types of decisions a desperate person is capable of making, I thought it was all impeccably well-done.

Even the ending, which I was told was incredibly sad, I found to be full of hope and optimism. The man, in the end, got his wish.]]> 3.99 2006 The Road
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Ian
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves:
review:
Bleak but at the same time incredibly beautiful, McCarthy does a lot with a little here, crafting a succinct summary of humanity’s frailty in about 300 pages (and with no named characters).

While I can understand that some deemed parts repetitive, I’m really not sure how else one would communicate the themes of persistent survival and moral ambiguity found throughout the book. The brief but impactful dialogue between the man and the boy, the showcasing of the types of decisions a desperate person is capable of making, I thought it was all impeccably well-done.

Even the ending, which I was told was incredibly sad, I found to be full of hope and optimism. The man, in the end, got his wish.
]]> 1984 40961427 Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmarish vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life—the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language—and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written.]]> 298 George Orwell Ian 5 4.24 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Ian
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1949
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves:
review:
It’s 1984�. And one of the recognized novels of all time for a reason. Even through bland characters and a middling plot, Orwell’s essay on totalitarianism and investigation into the cyclical nature of human society is as prophetic in nature as ever.
]]> Intermezzo 208932385 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family, from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 464 Sally Rooney 0374602646 Ian 3
On the positive side of things, I did think that the shift in writing style when the POV changed kept me reading. So while the subject matter didn’t resonate at times, the style I thought was unique and interesting.

Overall, it was enjoyable enough that I’ll take a look at Normal People and some of Rooney’s other work, but had enough problems that it likely won’t make any lists for me.]]> 3.89 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: Ian
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves:
review:
There were pieces I enjoyed quite a bit, but overall score was dragged down a bit by how neat (?) the ending was. Both brothers are in such complex situationships, but somehow everything ended up perfectly for both? And this despite a LOT of flaws for both. It felt odd that one, an addict and clearly labeled by both women in his life as manipulative, and the other, a social outcast who was accused of having controversial views regarding women amongst other topics, somehow both ended as the objects of infatuation for the women in their lives. One could probably argue that there is a silver lining of how love can overcome all obstacles etc., but this was one too many obstacles to feel feasible to me. I honestly felt like Sylvia, Naomi, AND Margaret all deserved better.

On the positive side of things, I did think that the shift in writing style when the POV changed kept me reading. So while the subject matter didn’t resonate at times, the style I thought was unique and interesting.

Overall, it was enjoyable enough that I’ll take a look at Normal People and some of Rooney’s other work, but had enough problems that it likely won’t make any lists for me.
]]> Beowulf 35386594 The great drinking hall, Heorot, provides merriment for warriors and wenches alike. But it provokes only avenging rage from swamp creature Grendel. Now, in sixth-century Denmark’s darkest hour, a light of hope comes in the warrior Beowulf of the Geats. With his quest to defeat Grendel and his vengeful demon mother, Beowulf embarks on a journey from the murky lagoon to the throne of the Geats.

Beowulf, the Old English epic poem published anonymously centuries ago, remains one of the most influential pieces of English literature, inspiring generations of writers from J. R. R. Tolkien to George R. R. Martin.

AmazonClassics brings you timeless works from the masters of storytelling. Ideal for anyone who wants to read a great work for the first time or rediscover an old favorite, these new editions open the door to literature’s most unforgettable characters and beloved worlds.

Revised edition: Previously published as Beowulf, this edition of Beowulf (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.

]]> 180 Unknown 1542097517 Ian 0 to-read 3.59 1000 Beowulf
author: Unknown
name: Ian
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> My Friends 217163697 #1ĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.]]> 448 Fredrik Backman 1982112824 Ian 0 to-read 4.58 2025 My Friends
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Ian
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Short Stay in Hell 13456414
In this haunting existential novella, author, philosopher, and ecologist Steven L. Peck explores a subversive vision of eternity, taking the reader on a journey through the afterlife of a world where everything everyone believed in turns out to be wrong.]]> 110 Steven L. Peck 098374842X Ian 4 4.17 2011 A Short Stay in Hell
author: Steven L. Peck
name: Ian
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves:
review:
What’s not to love about 108 pages of continuous existential dread? Certainly gives an interesting twist to the concept of eternity and still manages to touch on a few profound questions of life all while coming in just over a hundred pages.
]]> Never Let Me Go 6334 288 Kazuo Ishiguro 1400078776 Ian 5
The exploration of racism and bias at a genetic level was fascinating, with Iziguro crafting one of the bleakest perspectives of modern day humanity I have come across to date. I thoroughly enjoyed how this was, somehow, done subtlety yet overtly at the same time. I think the exploration of the meaning of a soul and what defines us as “human� is, in many ways, a philosophical exercise that deserves an incredible amount of praise and consideration from the broader population around us.

Similar to Demon Copperhead and other books I have rated 5-stars, it was the depth of the characters (ironic, in a way) and my connections to and emotions towards them that put this book over the top for me. The simultaneous sadness and anger at Ruth for what she purposefully prevented between Tommy and Kathy, the usage of Norfolk as the “lost corner� of the world and the vision in the final paragraphs, and the malleability and complacency of the broader population outside the confines of the novel were all fantastic examples of how Iziguro adds more than a little realism to this science-fiction novel. ]]> 3.85 2005 Never Let Me Go
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Ian
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves:
review:
Easily one of the greatest final acts / conclusions I have ever read. Even though Iziguro supplies you with plenty of information throughout the book that allows you to draw many of your own conclusions, the final chapters of Kathy and Tommy’s journey were absolutely masterful in how they tied together all the threads of their collective childhood. I truly don’t think I have ever been as concurrently intrigued and uncomfortable at the same time reading many of the more explanatory sections in this book.

The exploration of racism and bias at a genetic level was fascinating, with Iziguro crafting one of the bleakest perspectives of modern day humanity I have come across to date. I thoroughly enjoyed how this was, somehow, done subtlety yet overtly at the same time. I think the exploration of the meaning of a soul and what defines us as “human� is, in many ways, a philosophical exercise that deserves an incredible amount of praise and consideration from the broader population around us.

Similar to Demon Copperhead and other books I have rated 5-stars, it was the depth of the characters (ironic, in a way) and my connections to and emotions towards them that put this book over the top for me. The simultaneous sadness and anger at Ruth for what she purposefully prevented between Tommy and Kathy, the usage of Norfolk as the “lost corner� of the world and the vision in the final paragraphs, and the malleability and complacency of the broader population outside the confines of the novel were all fantastic examples of how Iziguro adds more than a little realism to this science-fiction novel.
]]> A Little Life 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride.ĚýYet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Ian 5
For what I liked:
1.) The juxtaposition of good and evil

I enjoyed the exploration of the range that every human is capable of, from a morality standpoint, showcasing some of the lowest lows and highest highs that we are collectively capable of.

2.) The power of friendship

This one, I think, will affect everyone very differently depending on where they are in their lives, and what their own situation looks like. For me, this book served as a reminder to what is most important in life - the people you surround yourself with. While it certainly wasn’t subtle, the theme of friendship and love was incredibly pure and beautiful.

3.) The depiction of trauma and the lifelong effects it has on not only an individual, but everyone around them as well

This could go in either category� Many argue that the descriptions of what Jude went through were excessive. And they were, painful to read and often disturbing to a point I had to stop reading for the day/night. But they were also raw, and real, and evoked a visceral reaction that is not easily forgotten. The things that happen to Jude were vile and abhorrent, but they were also, unfortunately, things that happen every day in the world we live in, and being reminded of this, again and again, strengthened my personal resolve (see number one on this list) in how I live my life and continuously reminded me of the importance to practice empathy, compassion, and kindness at every turn.

Things I didn’t like:
1.) As many have noted, the lack of historical context

I understand that it is intended as a self-contained story, but the lack of reaction to any world-events, in my opinion, makes the characters, and in turn the novel, lose credibility and power. Even with the time skips making it “plausible�, I found myself disappointed that the characters seemingly never had external pressures placed upon them by the world (only by each other / other characters introduced to play a certain role, @Caleb).

2.) The unrealistic depiction of success

ALL four of them are incredibly successful, world famous, in their relative areas of expertise? Really? I know it’s a story, but for a novel so obsessed with pain and misery it felt like this was just a crutch to make the highs seem higher and the lows seem lower. Somehow, the book managed to make me feel self-conscious about my own success in the reflection of how seemingly easy it was for the main ensemble to find success.

3.) Jude’s ability to thrive in everything

I’m not sure if this was just intended to make the permanent emotional and physical damage from the abuse even more salient, but it felt like every chapter we were introduced to a new talent that Jude has. Ruthless corporate lawyer, incredible mathematician, baker, pianist, singer� The list goes on and on. Where did he learn these things? When? How, with his constant need for self-harm, his longstanding depression, is he so driven to better himself in so many ways that 99% of the population struggle to find the motivation to do so? It just felt odd. To have this prodigy in everything he touches. I’m not saying he should’ve been an uninteresting character with no habits or hobbies, but again, it made me feel� less than, with how talented he was. I suppose a better outlook would be to find this inspiring, but it just didn’t come across to me that way.

4.) Jude’s popularity

I’m really not sure if this is controversial, but I felt as if Jude’s popularity with everyone in the story was, in a way, unrealistic. Although more of a continuation of #2 and #3 on this list, it just felt off that someone who was only ever described as shy, damaged, and quiet, was able to find lifelong friends anywhere he went. Maybe that’s a ME problem, but as someone who struggled to meet people in college, it felt like the description of Jude’s immediate success on day one in college, in grad school, at work, contrasted with his actual personality. It felt like most of what he offered others was anger and then an inevitable apology, yet he was loved unconditionally by everyone he met, even without them understanding what he had gone through. Sometimes I was left wondering who they loved, if Jude himself was communicating that he didn’t offer or share any information about himself.

All in all, I hated it, I loved it, and everything in between. While this is NOT something I will reread for a long, long time (if ever), I also won’t forget these characters or the emotions I felt reading Jude’s story.
]]> 4.28 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Ian
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:
My thoughts on this book (as all reviews are, I suppose) are greatly skewed by subjectivity. I completely understand that while very highly regarded by most/many, this is still a very divisive book. After all, it is ~900 pages of pain, loss, and misery, but I really do think as a whole it is one of the more powerful and impactful pieces I have read in a long, long time, and the themes Hanya returns to (repeatedly) will stay with me for even longer. Perhaps very mild spoilers below if you are not familiar with the general plot.

For what I liked:
1.) The juxtaposition of good and evil

I enjoyed the exploration of the range that every human is capable of, from a morality standpoint, showcasing some of the lowest lows and highest highs that we are collectively capable of.

2.) The power of friendship

This one, I think, will affect everyone very differently depending on where they are in their lives, and what their own situation looks like. For me, this book served as a reminder to what is most important in life - the people you surround yourself with. While it certainly wasn’t subtle, the theme of friendship and love was incredibly pure and beautiful.

3.) The depiction of trauma and the lifelong effects it has on not only an individual, but everyone around them as well

This could go in either category� Many argue that the descriptions of what Jude went through were excessive. And they were, painful to read and often disturbing to a point I had to stop reading for the day/night. But they were also raw, and real, and evoked a visceral reaction that is not easily forgotten. The things that happen to Jude were vile and abhorrent, but they were also, unfortunately, things that happen every day in the world we live in, and being reminded of this, again and again, strengthened my personal resolve (see number one on this list) in how I live my life and continuously reminded me of the importance to practice empathy, compassion, and kindness at every turn.

Things I didn’t like:
1.) As many have noted, the lack of historical context

I understand that it is intended as a self-contained story, but the lack of reaction to any world-events, in my opinion, makes the characters, and in turn the novel, lose credibility and power. Even with the time skips making it “plausible�, I found myself disappointed that the characters seemingly never had external pressures placed upon them by the world (only by each other / other characters introduced to play a certain role, @Caleb).

2.) The unrealistic depiction of success

ALL four of them are incredibly successful, world famous, in their relative areas of expertise? Really? I know it’s a story, but for a novel so obsessed with pain and misery it felt like this was just a crutch to make the highs seem higher and the lows seem lower. Somehow, the book managed to make me feel self-conscious about my own success in the reflection of how seemingly easy it was for the main ensemble to find success.

3.) Jude’s ability to thrive in everything

I’m not sure if this was just intended to make the permanent emotional and physical damage from the abuse even more salient, but it felt like every chapter we were introduced to a new talent that Jude has. Ruthless corporate lawyer, incredible mathematician, baker, pianist, singer� The list goes on and on. Where did he learn these things? When? How, with his constant need for self-harm, his longstanding depression, is he so driven to better himself in so many ways that 99% of the population struggle to find the motivation to do so? It just felt odd. To have this prodigy in everything he touches. I’m not saying he should’ve been an uninteresting character with no habits or hobbies, but again, it made me feel� less than, with how talented he was. I suppose a better outlook would be to find this inspiring, but it just didn’t come across to me that way.

4.) Jude’s popularity

I’m really not sure if this is controversial, but I felt as if Jude’s popularity with everyone in the story was, in a way, unrealistic. Although more of a continuation of #2 and #3 on this list, it just felt off that someone who was only ever described as shy, damaged, and quiet, was able to find lifelong friends anywhere he went. Maybe that’s a ME problem, but as someone who struggled to meet people in college, it felt like the description of Jude’s immediate success on day one in college, in grad school, at work, contrasted with his actual personality. It felt like most of what he offered others was anger and then an inevitable apology, yet he was loved unconditionally by everyone he met, even without them understanding what he had gone through. Sometimes I was left wondering who they loved, if Jude himself was communicating that he didn’t offer or share any information about himself.

All in all, I hated it, I loved it, and everything in between. While this is NOT something I will reread for a long, long time (if ever), I also won’t forget these characters or the emotions I felt reading Jude’s story.

]]> James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

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

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

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Ian 5 4.46 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Ian
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves:
review:

]]> The Princess Bride 21787
As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad's recitation, and only the "good parts" reached his ears.

Now Goldman does Dad one better. He's reconstructed the "Good Parts Version" to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.

What's it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.

In short, it's about everything.]]> 429 William Goldman 0345418263 Ian 3 4.27 1973 The Princess Bride
author: William Goldman
name: Ian
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1973
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/03
date added: 2024/12/03
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]]> Schindler’s List 375013 Thomas Keneally's Booker Prize-winning novel recreates the story of Oskar Schindler, an Aryan who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland, who conrinually defied and outwitted the SS, and who was transformed by the war into an angel of mercy. It is an unforgettable tale, all the more extraordinary for being true.]]> 429 Thomas Keneally 0340606517 Ian 4 4.34 1982 Schindler’s List
author: Thomas Keneally
name: Ian
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/30
date added: 2024/11/30
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]]> Pachinko 34051011
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters—strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis—survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.]]> 496 Min Jin Lee Ian 3 4.35 2017 Pachinko
author: Min Jin Lee
name: Ian
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/21
date added: 2024/10/21
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]]> A Tale for the Time Being 15811545
Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao's drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.Ěý

Full of Ozeki's signature humour and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.]]> 432 Ruth Ozeki 0670026638 Ian 3 4.06 2013 A Tale for the Time Being
author: Ruth Ozeki
name: Ian
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/20
date added: 2024/10/21
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]]> Station Eleven 20170404 An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

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

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.]]> 333 Emily St. John Mandel 0385353308 Ian 2 4.05 2014 Station Eleven
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Ian
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2024/09/07
date added: 2024/09/08
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]]> The Plague 11989
It tells the story from the point of view of a narrator of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The narrator remains unknown until the start of the last chapter, chapter 5 of part 5. The novel presents a snapshot of life in Oran as seen through the author's distinctive absurdist point of view.

The book tells a gripping tale of human unrelieved horror, of survival and resilience, and of the ways in which humankind confronts death, The Plague is at once a masterfully crafted novel, eloquently understated and epic in scope, and a parable of ageless moral resonance, profoundly relevant to our times. In Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, the plague begins as a series of portents, unheeded by the people. It gradually becomes an omnipresent reality, obliterating all traces of the past and driving its victims to almost unearthly extremes of suffering, madness, and compassion.

The Plague is considered an existentialist classic despite Camus' objection to the label. The novel stresses the powerlessness of the individual characters to affect their destinies. The narrative tone is similar to Kafka's, especially in The Trial, whose individual sentences potentially have multiple meanings; the material often pointedly resonating as stark allegory of phenomenal consciousness and the human condition.]]> 308 Albert Camus Ian 4 4.05 1947 The Plague
author: Albert Camus
name: Ian
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1947
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/12
date added: 2024/09/08
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]]> The Great Believers 45304101 A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris

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

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

The Great Believers has become a critically acclaimed, indelible piece of literature; it was selected as one of New York Times Best 10 Books of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, a Buzzfeed Book of the Year, a Skimm Reads pick, and a pick for the New York Public Library's Best Books of the year.]]> 421 Rebecca Makkai 073522353X Ian 3 4.26 2018 The Great Believers
author: Rebecca Makkai
name: Ian
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/24
date added: 2024/08/24
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]]> The Night Circus 9361589
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.]]> 506 Erin Morgenstern Ian 2 4.00 2011 The Night Circus
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Ian
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at: 2024/07/05
date added: 2024/07/05
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]]> 11/22/63 10644930
In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sets out on an insane � and insanely possible � mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping, the sound of Elvis, and the taste of root beer.

In this haunting world, Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian. And, as the ominous date of 11/22/63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald...]]> 849 Stephen King 1451627289 Ian 4 4.33 2011 11/22/63
author: Stephen King
name: Ian
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2024/06/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store]]> 65678550
Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood's quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town's first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming that the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill's residents—roused by Chona's kindess and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin—banded together to keep the boy safe.

As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear how much the people of Chicken Hill have to struggle to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community. When the truth is revealed about the skeleton, the boy, and the part the town’s establishment played in both, McBride shows that it is love and community—heaven and earth—that ultimately sustain us.]]> 385 James McBride 0593422945 Ian 2 3.83 2023 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
author: James McBride
name: Ian
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/06/18
date added: 2024/06/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Moment of freedom: The Heiligenberg manuscript]]> 1870140 217 Jens Bjørneboe 0393087190 Ian 0 to-read 4.47 1966 Moment of freedom: The Heiligenberg manuscript
author: Jens Bjørneboe
name: Ian
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1966
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel 936818 824 Nikos Kazantzakis 0671530801 Ian 0 to-read 4.62 1938 The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel
author: Nikos Kazantzakis
name: Ian
average rating: 4.62
book published: 1938
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard]]> 61239374 From the magical moments on set as Draco Malfoy to the challenges of growing up in the spotlight, get a backstage pass into Tom Felton’s life on and off the big screen in this #1 New York Times bestseller.

Tom Felton’s adolescence was anything but ordinary. His early rise to fame in beloved films like The Borrowers catapulted him into the limelight, but nothing could prepare him for what was to come after he landed the iconic role of the Draco Malfoy, the bleached blonde villain of the Harry Potter movies. For the next ten years, he was at the center of a huge pop culture phenomenon and yet, in between filming, he would go back to being a normal teenager trying to fit into a normal school.

Speaking with great candor and his signature humor, Tom shares his experience growing up as part of the wizarding world while also trying to navigate the muggle world. He tells stories from his early days in the business like his first acting gig where he was mistaken for fellow blonde child actor Macaulay Culkin and his Harry Potter audition where, in a very Draco-like move, he fudged how well he knew the books the series was based on (not at all). He reflects on his experiences working with cinematic greats such as Alan Rickman, Sir Michael Gambon, Dame Maggie Smith, and Ralph Fiennes (including that awkward Voldemort hug). And, perhaps most poignantly, he discusses the lasting relationships he made over that decade of filming, including with Emma Watson, who started out as a pesky nine-year-old whom he mocked for not knowing what a boom mic was but who soon grew into one of his dearest friends. Then, of course, there are the highs and lows of fame and navigating life after such a momentous and life-changing experience.

Tom Felton’s Beyond the Wand is an entertaining, funny, and poignant must-read for any Harry Potter fan. Prepare to meet a real-life wizard.]]> 288 Tom Felton Ian 2 4.35 2022 Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard
author: Tom Felton
name: Ian
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2024/06/02
date added: 2024/06/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed]]> 37570546 From a psychotherapist, and national advice columnist comes a thought-provoking new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist's world -- where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).

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

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

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

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is revolutionary in its candor, offering a deeply personal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly revealing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.]]> 415 Lori Gottlieb 1328662055 Ian 3 4.36 2019 Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed
author: Lori Gottlieb
name: Ian
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/09
date added: 2024/04/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, #1)]]> 13538873
Clay Jannon tells how serendipity, sheer curiosity, and the ability to climb a ladder like a monkey has sent him from Web Drone to night shift at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. After just a few days on the job, Clay realizes just how curious this store is.

A few customers come in repeatedly without buying anything. Instead they “check out� obscure volumes from strange corners of the store. All runs according to some elaborate, long-standing arrangement with the gnomic Mr. Penumbra. The store must be a front for something larger, Clay concludes.

He embarks on a complex analysis of the customers� behavior and ropes in friends to help. Once they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, it turns out the secrets extend far outside the walls of the bookstore. A quest to New York City dips in a world conspiracy for eternal life. The current of romance pulls Clay onward.]]> 288 Robin Sloan 0374214913 Ian 3 3.71 2012 Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, #1)
author: Robin Sloan
name: Ian
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2023/04/09
date added: 2024/04/08
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]]> Just Mercy 20342617
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned.

Just Mercy tells the story of EJI, from the early days with a small staff facing the nation’s highest death sentencing and execution rates, through a successful campaign to challenge the cruel practice of sentencing children to die in prison, to revolutionary projects designed to confront Americans with our history of racial injustice.

One of EJI’s first clients was Walter McMillian, a young Black man who was sentenced to die for the murder of a young white woman that he didn’t commit. The case exemplifies how the death penalty in America is a direct descendant of lynching � a system that treats the rich and guilty better than the poor and innocent.]]> 336 Bryan Stevenson Ian 5 4.62 2014 Just Mercy
author: Bryan Stevenson
name: Ian
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/30
date added: 2024/03/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster]]> 1898
Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.

Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.]]> 368 Jon Krakauer Ian 4 4.24 1997 Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Ian
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/24
date added: 2024/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor]]> 35510008 Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know � and more than a few things you didn't � about life on and off the hospital ward.

As seen on ITV's Zoe Ball Book Club

This edition includes extra diary entries and a new afterword by the author.

]]> 285 Adam Kay Ian 5 4.40 2017 This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
author: Adam Kay
name: Ian
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/16
date added: 2024/02/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World � and Why Things Are Better Than You Think]]> 34890015 Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.

When asked simple questions about global trends�what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers.

In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse).

Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases.

It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most.

Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. ]]> 342 Hans Rosling 1473637465 Ian 0 to-read 4.34 2018 Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
author: Hans Rosling
name: Ian
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/11
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]]> Greenwood 39328584
It's 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, fallen from a ladder and sprawled on his broken back, calling out from the concrete floor of an empty mansion.

It's 1974 and Willow Greenwood is out of jail, free after being locked up for one of her endless series of environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father's once vast and violent timber empire.

It's 1934 and Everett Greenwood is alone, as usual, in his maple syrup camp squat when he hears the cries of an abandoned infant and gets tangled up in the web of a crime that will cling to his family for decades.

And throughout, there are trees: thrumming a steady, silent pulse beneath Christie's effortless sentences and working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival.

A shining, intricate clockwork of a novel, Greenwood is a rain-soaked and sun-dappled story of the bonds and breaking points of money and love, wood and blood—and the hopeful, impossible task of growing toward the light.]]> 528 Michael Christie 1984822004 Ian 0 to-read 4.34 2019 Greenwood
author: Michael Christie
name: Ian
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> Fresh Water for Flowers 52649136
Violette’s routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of a man—Julien Sole, local police chief—who insists on depositing the ashes of his recently departed mother on the gravesite of a complete stranger. It soon becomes clear that the grave Julien is looking for belongs to his mother’s one-time lover, and that his mother’s story of clandestine love is intertwined with Violette’s own secret past.

With Fresh Water for Flowers, Valérie Perrin has given readers a funny, moving, intimately told story of a woman who believes obstinately in happiness. Perrin has the rare talent of illuminating what is exceptional and poetic in what seems ordinary. A #1 best-seller in France, Fresh Water for Flowers is a delightful, atmospheric, absorbing fairy tale full of poetry, generosity, and warmth.]]> 476 Valérie Perrin 1609455959 Ian 0 to-read 4.25 2018 Fresh Water for Flowers
author: Valérie Perrin
name: Ian
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> Small Things Like These 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Ian 0 to-read 4.13 2021 Small Things Like These
author: Claire Keegan
name: Ian
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Story of the Lost Child (Neapolitan Novels, #4)]]> 25242224 The Guardian about the Neapolitan novels in 2014. Against the backdrop of a Naples that is as seductive as it is perilous and a world undergoing epochal change, Elena Ferrante tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two women with unmatched honesty and brilliance.

The Story of the Lost Child is the concluding volume in the dazzling saga of two women � the brilliant, bookish Elena, and the fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both are now adults, with husbands, lovers, aging parents, and children. Their friendship has been the gravitational center of their lives. Both women fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up � a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. In this final novel she has returned to Naples, drawn back as if responding to the city's obscure magnetism. Lila, on the other hand, could never free herself from the city of her birth. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect the neighborhood. Proximity to the world she has always rejected only brings her role as its unacknowledged leader into relief. For Lila is unstoppable, unmanageable, unforgettable.

The four volumes in this series constitute a long remarkable story that readers will return to again and again, and each return will bring with it new revelations.]]> 473 Elena Ferrante 1609452860 Ian 5 4.47 2014 The Story of the Lost Child (Neapolitan Novels, #4)
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Ian
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/03
date added: 2024/02/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI]]> 193388249
Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And this was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered.

As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.]]> 338 David Grann 0593470834 Ian 2 4.12 2017 Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
author: David Grann
name: Ian
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2023/12/14
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Win Friends & Influence People]]> 4865
Since its release in 1936, How to Win Friends and Influence People has sold more than 30 million copies. Dale Carnegie's first book is a timeless bestseller, packed with rock-solid advice that has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives.

As relevant as ever before, Dale Carnegie's principles endure, and will help you achieve your maximum potential in the complex and competitive modern age.

Learn the six ways to make people like you, the twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking, and the nine ways to change people without arousing resentment.]]> 288 Dale Carnegie Ian 3 4.22 1936 How to Win Friends & Influence People
author: Dale Carnegie
name: Ian
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1936
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/05
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End]]> 20696006 In Being Mortal, author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.]]> 282 Atul Gawande 0805095152 Ian 3 4.47 2014 Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
author: Atul Gawande
name: Ian
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/25
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Neapolitan Novels, #3)]]> 23156040 418 Elena Ferrante Ian 5 4.38 2013 Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Neapolitan Novels, #3)
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Ian
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/01
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Story of a New Name (Neapolitan Novels, #2)]]> 17465515 My Brilliant Friend introduced readers to the unforgettable Elena and Lila, whose lifelong friendship provides the backbone for the Neapolitan Novels. The Story of a New Name is the second book in this series. With these books, which the New Yorker's James Wood described as "large, captivating, amiably peopled ... a beautiful and delicate tale of confluence and reversal," Ferrante proves herself to be one of Italy's most accomplished storytellers. She writes vividly about a specific neighborhood of Naples from the late-1950s through to the current day and about two remarkable young women who are very much the products of that place and time. Yet in doing so she has created a world in which readers will recognize themselves and has drawn a marvelously nuanced portrait of friendship.

In The Story of a New Name, Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighborhood that she so often finds stifling. Love, jealousy, family, freedom, commitment, and above all friendship: these are signs under which both women live out this phase in their stories. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and is a source of strength in the face of life's challenges. In these Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante, the acclaimed author of The Days of Abandonment, gives readers a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging.]]> 471 Elena Ferrante Ian 5 4.47 2012 The Story of a New Name (Neapolitan Novels, #2)
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Ian
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/15
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels, #1)]]> 35036409 My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighbourhood, a city and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her two protagonists.]]> 331 Elena Ferrante Ian 5 4.08 2011 My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels, #1)
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Ian
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/12
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> The Silent Patient 40097951
Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....

The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.]]> 336 Alex Michaelides 1250301696 Ian 3 4.17 2019 The Silent Patient
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Ian
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2022/03/18
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> American Dirt 45721673
Lydia Quixano PĂ©rez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable.

Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy—two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.

Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia—trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier’s reach doesn’t extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?]]> 389 Jeanine Cummins Ian 3 4.52 2020 American Dirt
author: Jeanine Cummins
name: Ian
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/04
date added: 2024/02/02
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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 Ian 3 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Ian
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2021/03/10
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> A Tree Grows in Brooklyn 14891 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.]]> 496 Betty Smith 0061120073 Ian 2 4.29 1943 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
author: Betty Smith
name: Ian
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1943
rating: 2
read at: 2021/01/16
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> Fahrenheit 451 13079982 Sixty years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.� But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.]]> 194 Ray Bradbury Ian 3 3.97 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Ian
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1953
rating: 3
read at:
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]]> 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 Ian 3 4.22 2018 Circe
author: Madeline Miller
name: Ian
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> A Naked Singularity 6643543
Funny, smart and always surprising, A Naked Singularity speaks a language all of its own and reads like nothing else ever written. Casi’s beautiful mind and planetary intelligence make him an inimitable and unforgettable narrator.

In De La Pava’s hands, the labyrinthine miseries of the New York Justice System are as layered and diabolical as Dante’s nine circles of Hell. But the Devil doesn’t hog the best lines. There are plenty here to go around.]]> 689 Sergio de la Pava 1436341981 Ian 3 4.14 2008 A Naked Singularity
author: Sergio de la Pava
name: Ian
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2020/07/15
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)]]> 51901147
The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined -- every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute... and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.]]> 541 Suzanne Collins Ian 2 3.99 2020 The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Ian
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2020/07/15
date added: 2024/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1)]]> 28187 Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can't seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse - Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy's mom finds out, she knows it's time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he'll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends—one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena - Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.]]> 377 Rick Riordan 0786838655 Ian 3 4.31 2005 The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1)
author: Rick Riordan
name: Ian
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2005
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[The Perks of Being a Wallflower]]> 22628 offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see
what it looks like from the dance floor.

This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction: The Perks of Being A WALLFLOWER

This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that the perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.

(back cover)]]> 213 Stephen Chbosky Ian 3 4.24 1999 The Perks of Being a Wallflower
author: Stephen Chbosky
name: Ian
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1999
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue]]> 50623864
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.]]> 448 Victoria E. Schwab 0765387565 Ian 3 4.16 2020 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Ian
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Ian 3 4.12 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Ian
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/02
date added: 2024/01/15
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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 Ian 3 4.37 2020 The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Ian
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2023/04/17
date added: 2024/01/15
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]]> Little Fires Everywhere 51704136 Everything I Never Told You, a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned--from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren--an enigmatic artist and single mother--who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town--and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood--and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.

Named a Best Book of the Year by: People, The Washington Post, Bustle, Esquire, Southern Living, The Daily Beast, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Audible, Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ, Library Reads, Book of the Month, Paste, Kirkus Reviews, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and many more...

Perfect for book clubs! Visit celesteng.com for discussion guides and more. ]]> 368 Celeste Ng 0143135163 Ian 3 4.06 2017 Little Fires Everywhere
author: Celeste Ng
name: Ian
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2020/07/15
date added: 2024/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)]]> 63219094 Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from #1 New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Yarros.

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile� humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.]]> 665 Rebecca Yarros Ian 3 4.74 2023 Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Ian
average rating: 4.74
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/18
date added: 2024/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Outliers: The Story of Success]]> 3228917 Learn what sets high achievers apart � from Bill Gates to the Beatles � in this #1 bestseller from "a singular talent" (New York Times Book Review).

In this stunning book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"—the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.]]> 309 Malcolm Gladwell 0316017922 Ian 3 4.19 2008 Outliers: The Story of Success
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Ian
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/11
date added: 2024/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)]]> 23437156 Alternate cover of ISBN 9781627792127

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone...

A convict with a thirst for revenge

A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager

A runaway with a privileged past

A spy known as the Wraith

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.]]> 480 Leigh Bardugo 1627792120 Ian 3 4.47 2015 Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Ian
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/18
date added: 2024/01/15
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]]> Project Hail Mary 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Ian 3 4.49 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Ian
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/14
date added: 2024/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Chalice of the Gods (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Senior Year Adventures, #1)]]> 63035432
Unfortunately, the gods aren’t quite done with him yet. Poseidon breaks the bad news that if Percy expects to get into New Rome University, he will have to fulfill three quests in order to earn the necessary three letters of recommendation from Mount Olympus.

The first task is to help Ganymede, Zeus’s cupbearer, retrieve his golden goblet before it falls into the wrong hands. You see, one sip from it can turn a mortal into a god, and Zeus would not be pleased with that result. Can Percy and his friends Grover and Annabeth find the precious cup in time? And if they do, will they be able to resist its special power?

Readers new to Percy Jackson universe and fans who have been awaiting this reunion for more than a decade will delight equally in this latest hilarious take on Greek mythology by the "storyteller of the gods."]]> 288 Rick Riordan 1368098177 Ian 2 4.27 2023 The Chalice of the Gods (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Senior Year Adventures, #1)
author: Rick Riordan
name: Ian
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/01/03
date added: 2024/01/13
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]]> <![CDATA[The Color Purple (Movie Tie-In)]]> 198637902
A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early-twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance, and silence. Through a series of letters spanning nearly thirty years, first from Celie to God, then from the sisters to each other, the novel draws readers into a rich and memorable portrayal of Black women—their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery.

Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, The Color Purple breaks the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, and carries readers on an epic and spirit-affirming journey toward transformation, redemption, and love.]]> 304 Alice Walker 0593512359 Ian 0 to-read 4.27 1982 The Color Purple (Movie Tie-In)
author: Alice Walker
name: Ian
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> Educated 35133922
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.]]> 352 Tara Westover 0399590501 Ian 5 4.46 2018 Educated
author: Tara Westover
name: Ian
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/30
date added: 2023/10/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones]]> 40121378 Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving—every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.

If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.

Learn how to:
-ĚýMake time for new habits (even when life gets crazy);
-ĚýOvercome a lack of motivation and willpower;
- Design your environment to make success easier;
- Get back on track when you fall off course;
...and much more.

Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.]]> 319 James Clear Ian 3 4.34 2018 Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
author: James Clear
name: Ian
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/04
date added: 2023/10/04
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]]> Tom Lake 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

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

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Ian 3 3.92 2023 Tom Lake
author: Ann Patchett
name: Ian
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/01
date added: 2023/10/04
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]]> We Should All Be Feminists 22738563 We Should All Be Feminists, a personal, eloquently-argued essay—adapted from her much-viewed TEDx talk of the same name—by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award-winning author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun.

With humor and levity, here Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century—one rooted in inclusion and awareness. She shines a light not only on blatant discrimination, but also the more insidious, institutional behaviors that marginalize women around the world, in order to help readers of all walks of life better understand the often masked realities of sexual politics. Throughout, she draws extensively on her own experiences—in the U.S., in her native Nigeria, and abroad—offering an artfully nuanced explanation of why the gender divide is harmful for women and men, alike.

Argued in the same observant, witty and clever prose that has made Adichie a bestselling novelist, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman today—and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.]]> 52 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Ian 3 4.42 2012 We Should All Be Feminists
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Ian
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/01
date added: 2023/09/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams]]> 34466963 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781501144318.

Neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker provides a revolutionary exploration of sleep, examining how it affects every aspect of our physical and mental well-being. Charting the most cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and marshalling his decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, regulate hormones, prevent cancer, Alzheimer's and diabetes, slow the effects of aging, and increase longevity. He also provides actionable steps towards getting a better night's sleep every night.]]> 368 Matthew Walker Ian 0 to-read 4.37 2017 Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
author: Matthew Walker
name: Ian
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals]]> 3109 What should we have for dinner? For omnivore like ourselves, this simple question has always posed a dilemma. When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods on offer might shorten your life. Today, buffered by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. The omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.
The Omnivore's Dilemma is groundbreaking book, in which one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species. Should we eat a fast-food hamburger? Something organic? Or perhaps something we hunt, gather, or grow ourselves?
To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.
The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us. Ultimately, this is a book as much about visionary solutions as it is about problems, and Pollan contends that, when it comes to food, doing the right thing often turns out to be the tastiest thing an eater can do. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore’s Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same.]]> 450 Michael Pollan 1594200823 Ian 0 4.18 2006 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
author: Michael Pollan
name: Ian
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis]]> 27161156 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062300546.

Hillbilly Elegy recounts J.D. Vance's powerful origin story...

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio and the Republican Vice Presidential candidate for the 2024 election, an incisive account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class.

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.]]> 264 J.D. Vance Ian 0 to-read 3.81 2016 Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
author: J.D. Vance
name: Ian
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/31
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]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo]]> 32620332
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the �80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 Ian 3 4.39 2017 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Ian
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/31
date added: 2023/08/31
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]]> Flowers for Algernon 18373 Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.
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Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence � a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?]]> 311 Daniel Keyes 015603008X Ian 5 4.19 1966 Flowers for Algernon
author: Daniel Keyes
name: Ian
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1966
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/30
date added: 2023/08/24
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]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 Ian 5 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Ian
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/20
date added: 2023/08/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds]]> 41721428 New York Times Best SellerOver 5 million copies soldFor David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare -- poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him "The Fittest (Real) Man in America."In Can't Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.]]> 366 David Goggins 1544512260 Ian 2 4.30 2018 Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
author: David Goggins
name: Ian
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2023/08/01
date added: 2023/08/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)]]> 6 734 J.K. Rowling 0439139597 Ian 5 4.56 2000 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Ian
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/12
date added: 2023/06/29
shelves:
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