cas's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 20 Sep 2026 04:52:13 -0700 60 cas's bookshelf: all 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Pale Fire 7805
Nabokov's darkly witty, richly inventive masterpiece is a suspenseful whodunit, a story of one-upmanship and dubious penmanship, and a glorious literary conundrum.

Part of a major new series of the works of Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita and Pale Fire, in Penguin Classics.]]> 246 Vladimir Nabokov cas 0 to-read 4.17 1962 Pale Fire
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: cas
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays]]> 56870671 305 Christa Wolf cas 0 to-read 4.08 1983 Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays
author: Christa Wolf
name: cas
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Koimonogatari: Love Stories, Volume 1]]> 50488284 208 Tohru Tagura 1427863210 cas 0 to-read 3.92 2015 Koimonogatari: Love Stories, Volume 1
author: Tohru Tagura
name: cas
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> Tampa 17225311 "Smart and biting" —New York Journal of Books

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

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

"Impeccably written, full of smart cultural observations, and no small amount of wit . . . A very bold book." —Daily Beast]]> 266 Alissa Nutting 0062280562 cas 4 3.35 2013 Tampa
author: Alissa Nutting
name: cas
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger, #1)]]> 43448 Such wonderful children. Such a beautiful mother. Such a lovely house. Such endless terror! It wasn't that she didn't love her children. She did. But there was a fortune at stake—a fortune that would assure their later happiness if she could keep the children a secret from her dying father. So she and her mother hid her darlings away in an unused attic. Just for a little while. But the brutal days swelled into agonizing years. Now Cathy, Chris, and the twins wait in their cramped and helpless world, stirred by adult dreams, adult desires, served a meager sustenance by an angry, superstitious grandmother who knows that the Devil works in dark and devious ways. Sometimes he sends children to do his work—children who—one by one—must be destroyed.... 'Way upstairs there are four secrets hidden. Blond, beautiful, innocent struggling to stay alive....']]> 389 V.C. Andrews 0743496310 cas 0 to-read 3.84 1979 Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger, #1)
author: V.C. Andrews
name: cas
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1979
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> 文豪ストレイドッグス　太宰を拾った日 231180589
郵便配達員の織田作之助は、瀕死の青年を拾う。
名は太宰治、闇と暴力の代名詞・ポートマフィアの一員。
ごく人道的に看護をする織田と、死を望む太宰の奇妙な共同生活は、とある“絵”を追う《48》という組織の来襲で終わりを告げ!?
「あの場所に一度も行かずに死ぬ人間は、愚かとしか云いようがない」
これは「黒の時代」を生きた二人の黎明と終焉の物語。
2022年公開の実写映画入場者特典冊子2種が1冊になって登場!]]> 164 Kafka Asagiri 4041144914 cas 0 to-read 4.70 2023 文豪ストレイドッグス　太宰を拾った日
author: Kafka Asagiri
name: cas
average rating: 4.70
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/10
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]]> <![CDATA[文豪ストレイドッグス ＳＴＯＲＭ ＢＲＩＮＧＥＲ [Bungō Stray Dogs: Storm Bringer]]]> 57302436
太宰治とともに『荒覇吐事件』を終息させ、ポートマフィアに加入して1年。
幹部の座を狙う中原中也の前に現れたのは、中也を弟と呼ぶ暗殺王ポール・ヴェルレエヌだった!
「お前の心に関わる人間を、全員暗殺する」
彼の計画を阻止するため、中也は欧州の人造知能捜査官・アダムと手を組む。
それは横浜をふたたび呑みこむ嵐の予兆。
中原中也とは一体“何”なのか。射干玉の闇に包まれた過去の真実が今、明らかになる――!]]> 484 Kafka Asagiri 4041085179 cas 0 to-read 4.72 2021 文豪ストレイドッグス ＳＴＯＲＭ ＢＲＩＮＧＥＲ [Bungō Stray Dogs: Storm Bringer]
author: Kafka Asagiri
name: cas
average rating: 4.72
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> Putney 36421256 Notes on a Scandal and Tom Perrotta’s Mrs. Fletcher, an explosive and thought-provoking novel about the far-reaching repercussions of an illicit relationship between a young girl and a man twenty years her senior.

A rising star in the London arts scene of the early 1970s, gifted composer Ralph Boyd is approached by renowned novelist Edmund Greenslay to score a stage adaptation of his most famous work. Welcomed into Greenslay’s sprawling bohemian house in Putney, an artistic and prosperous district in southwest London, the musical wunderkind is introduced to Edmund’s beautiful activist wife Ellie, his aloof son Theo, and his nine-year old daughter Daphne, who quickly becomes Ralph’s muse.

Ralph showers Daphne with tokens of his affection—clandestine gifts and secret notes. In a home that is exciting but often lonely, Daphne finds Ralph to be a dazzling companion. Their bond remains strong even after Ralph becomes a husband and father, and though Ralph worships Daphne, he does not touch her. But in the summer of 1976, when Ralph accompanies thirteen-year-old Daphne alone to meet her parents in Greece, their relationship intensifies irrevocably. One person knows of their passionate trysts: Daphne’s best friend Jane, whose awe of the intoxicating Greenslay family ensures her silence.

Forty years later Daphne is back in London. After years lost to decadence and drug abuse, she is struggling to create a normal, stable life for herself and her adolescent daughter. When circumstances bring her back in touch with her long-lost friend, Jane, their reunion inevitably turns to Ralph, now a world-famous musician also living in the city. Daphne’s recollections of her childhood and her growing anxiety over her own young daughter eventually lead to an explosive realization that propels her to confront Ralph and their years spent together.

Masterfully told from three diverse viewpoints—victim, perpetrator, and witness—Putney is a subtle and enormously powerful novel about consent, agency, and what we tell ourselves to justify what we do, and what others do to us.]]> 384 Sofka Zinovieff 0062847597 cas 0 to-read 3.90 2018 Putney
author: Sofka Zinovieff
name: cas
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/01
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]]> <![CDATA[イケボ配信者は俺狙い!? 1 (Ikebo Haishinsha wa Ore Nerai!?, #1)]]> 195980469 そんな彼の癒しは、SNSで人気のBLシチュエーションボイス配信者・ソウジロウの配信を聞くこと。
ソウジロウの声やプレイは、空の理想そのものだった。
そんなある日、なんとソウジロウから「リアルで会わないか」とのお誘いが!
待ち合わせ場所に向かうと、そこにいたのは…!?
溺愛イケボ配信者×流され系大学生のウブでエッチなハッピーラブコメBL!
2023年4月刊]]> 160 あぺこ 4592721209 cas 0 to-read 3.00 2023 イケボ配信者は俺狙い!? 1 (Ikebo Haishinsha wa Ore Nerai!?, #1)
author: あぺこ
name: cas
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/21
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]]> I Who Have Never Known Men 60811826 Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.

As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.

Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]> 173 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492600 cas 0 to-read 3.99 1995 I Who Have Never Known Men
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: cas
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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]]> Sour Heart 32956008 Sour Heart, establishing Jenny Zhang as a frank and subversive interpreter of the immigrant experience in America. In this debut collection, she conjures the disturbing and often hilarious experience of adolescence through the eyes of Chinese American girls growing up in New York City. Her stories cut across generations and continents, moving from the fraught halls of a public school in Flushing, Queens, to the tumultuous streets of Shanghai, China, during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. In the absence of grown-ups, latchkey kids experiment on each other until one day the experiments turn violent; an overbearing mother abandons her artistic aspirations to come to America but relives her glory days through karaoke; and a shy loner struggles to master English so she can speak to God.

Narrated by the daughters of Chinese immigrants who fled imperiled lives as artists back home only to struggle to stay afloat — dumpster diving for food and scamming Atlantic City casino buses to make a buck — these seven stories showcase Zhang's compassion and moral courage, and a perverse sense of humor reminiscent of Portnoy's Complaint. A darkly funny and intimate rendering of girlhood, Sour Heart examines what it means to belong to a family, to find your home, leave it, reject it, and return again.]]> 307 Jenny Zhang 0399589384 cas 0 to-read 3.68 2017 Sour Heart
author: Jenny Zhang
name: cas
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/12
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]]> Written on the Body 15054 The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. Winterson chronicles the consuming affair between the narrator, who is given neither name nor gender, and the beloved, a complex and confused married woman.

“At once a love story and a philosophical meditation.” — New York Times Book Review]]> 190 Jeanette Winterson 0679744479 cas 0 to-read 4.12 1992 Written on the Body
author: Jeanette Winterson
name: cas
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[水神の生贄 1 [Suijin no Hanayome 1]]]> 26190815 ムラの豪族の息子、翠葉流に助けられるが翠葉流の母によって水神への生贄として湖へと沈められてしまう…。
無慈悲な水神の妻となることを約束させられた有紗陽は…！？

「こんな幼子とは愚かな」

「いいだろう妻にしてやる」

少女の数奇な運命がいま動き出す――。]]> 182 Rei Tōma 4091377270 cas 0 to-read 4.00 2015 水神の生贄 1 [Suijin no Hanayome 1]
author: Rei Tōma
name: cas
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre]]> 7946255 280 Antonia Levi 078644195X cas 0 to-read 3.98 2010 Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre
author: Antonia Levi
name: cas
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/08
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]]> カラーレシピ 1 [Kara reshipi. 1] 29433890 182 Harada 4041041007 cas 0 to-read 3.70 2018 カラーレシピ 1 [Kara reshipi. 1]
author: Harada
name: cas
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/08
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review:

]]> We Need to Talk About Kevin 80660 The gripping international bestseller about motherhood gone awry.

Eva never really wanted to be a mother - and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

]]> 400 Lionel Shriver 006112429X cas 0 to-read 4.06 2003 We Need to Talk About Kevin
author: Lionel Shriver
name: cas
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Only the Good Spy Young (Gallagher Girls, #4)]]> 6950688
Now the danger follows her everywhere, and even Cammie “The Chameleon” can’t hide. When a terrifying encounter in London reveals that one of her most-trusted allies is actually a rogue double-agent, Cammie no longer knows if she can trust her classmates, her teachers—or even her own heart.

In this fourth installment of the New York Times best-selling series, the Gallagher Girls must hack, spy, steal, and lie their way to the truth.as they go searching for answers, recognizing that the key to Cammie’s future may lie deep in the past.]]> 265 Ally Carter 1423128206 cas 3 to-read 4.29 2010 Only the Good Spy Young (Gallagher Girls, #4)
author: Ally Carter
name: cas
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2026/06/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Woman Destroyed 141421 254 Simone de Beauvoir cas 0 to-read 4.00 1967 The Woman Destroyed
author: Simone de Beauvoir
name: cas
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/06
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]]> The Lover 275 117 Marguerite Duras cas 4 to-read 3.76 1984 The Lover
author: Marguerite Duras
name: cas
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1984
rating: 4
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date added: 2026/06/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Lovely Bones 12232938
So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.]]> 372 Alice Sebold 0316166685 cas 0 to-read 3.87 2002 The Lovely Bones
author: Alice Sebold
name: cas
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/31
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]]> 美しい彼 24386877
無口で友達もいない、クラス最底辺の高校生・平良。そんな彼が一目で恋に堕ちたのは、人気者の清居だ。誰ともつるまず平等に冷酷で、クラスの頂点に君臨する王――。自分の気配に気づいてくれればいいと、昼食の調達に使いっ走りと清居に中誠を尽くす平良だけど!?

絶対君主への信仰が、欲望に堕ちる時――スクールカーストLOVE!!

電子限定版のみ書き下ろし番外編収録！
※電子書籍版には、紙版に収録されている口絵・挿絵は収録されていません。]]> 320 Yuu Nagira 4199007814 cas 0 to-read 4.24 2014 美しい彼
author: Yuu Nagira
name: cas
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/25
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]]> <![CDATA[구름이 피워낸 꽃 1 [Gureumi Piwonaen Kkot 1] (The Flower That Was Bloomed By A Cloud, Season 1)]]> 50671755
궁녀에게조차 홀대받는 어린 왕녀 홍련. 갑작스런 화재 속에서 누군가의 도움으로 겨우 살아남지만 여전히 차가운 대우에 처음으로 자신의 상황에 분개한다. 그러던 중 우연히 만난 또래의 남자아이 도운과 함께하며 처음으로 소중한 사람을 갖게 되지만 그 순간도 잠깐. 홍련은 필사적으로 도운의 손을 놓지 않기 위해 그의 제안을 받아들이고, 진정한 왕녀로 거듭나기 위한 길을 걷게 되는데…!]]> 비온후 cas 0 to-read 3.95 2019 구름이 피워낸 꽃 1 [Gureumi Piwonaen Kkot 1] (The Flower That Was Bloomed By A Cloud, Season 1)
author: 비온후
name: cas
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/25
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]]> The Beautiful Ones 55311334 From the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic comes a sweeping romance with a dash of magic.

They are the Beautiful Ones, Loisail’s most notable socialites, and this spring is Nina’s chance to join their ranks, courtesy of her well-connected cousin and his calculating wife. But the Grand Season has just begun, and already Nina’s debut has gone disastrously awry. She has always struggled to control her telekinesis—neighbors call her the Witch of Oldhouse—and the haphazard manifestations of her powers make her the subject of malicious gossip.

When entertainer Hector Auvray arrives to town, Nina is dazzled. A telekinetic like her, he has traveled the world performing his talents for admiring audiences. He sees Nina not as a witch, but ripe with potential to master her power under his tutelage. With Hector’s help, Nina’s talent blossoms, as does her love for him.

But great romances are for fairytales, and Hector is hiding a truth from Nina—and himself—that threatens to end their courtship before it truly begins. The Beautiful Ones is a charming tale of love and betrayal, and the struggle between conformity and passion, set in a world where scandal is a razor-sharp weapon.]]> 299 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 125078557X cas 0 to-read 3.83 2017 The Beautiful Ones
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: cas
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/25
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]]> Butter 200776812 The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story.

There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine.

Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Center convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back.

Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?

Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, "The Konkatsu Killer," Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.]]> 464 Asako Yuzuki 0063236400 cas 0 to-read 3.40 2017 Butter
author: Asako Yuzuki
name: cas
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/14
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]]> Paradise, Piece by Piece 415808 352 Molly Peacock 1573227307 cas 0 to-read 4.03 1998 Paradise, Piece by Piece
author: Molly Peacock
name: cas
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/09
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]]> The Baby Trap 1554623 0 Ellen Peck 0523009038 cas 0 to-read 3.70 1971 The Baby Trap
author: Ellen Peck
name: cas
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/09
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]]> Orientalism 355190
In this wide-ranging, intellectually vigorous study, Said traces the origins of "orientalism" to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East and, from its position of power, defined "the orient" simply as "other than" the occident. This entrenched view continues to dominate western ideas and, because it does not allow the East to represent itself, prevents true understanding. Essential, and still eye-opening, Orientalism remains one of the most important books written about our divided world.]]> 424 Edward W. Said cas 0 to-read 4.14 1978 Orientalism
author: Edward W. Said
name: cas
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise]]> 226390625 288 Emily Callaci 024150290X cas 0 to-read 4.12 Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise
author: Emily Callaci
name: cas
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl]]> 14367458
The Young-Girl is not always young; more and more frequently, she is not even female. She is the figure of total integration in a disintegrating social totality.
—from Theory of the Young-Girl

First published in France in 1999, Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl dissects the impossibility of love under Empire. The Young-Girl is consumer society's total product and model citizen: whatever “type” of Young-Girl she may embody, whether by whim or concerted performance, she can only seduce by consuming. Filled with the language of French women's magazines, rooted in Proust's figure of Albertine and the amusing misery of (teenage) romance in Witold Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke, and informed by Pierre Klossowski's notion of “living currency” and libidinal economy, Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl diagnoses—and makes visible—a phenomenon that is so ubiquitous as to have become transparent.

In the years since the book's first publication in French, the worlds of fashion, shopping, seduction plans, makeover projects, and eating disorders have moved beyond the comparatively tame domain of paper magazines into the perpetual accessibility of Internet culture. Here the Young-Girl can seek her own reflection in corporate universals and social media exchanges of “personalities” within the impersonal realm of the marketplace. Tracing consumer society's colonization of youth and sexuality through the Young-Girl's “freedom” (in magazine terms) to do whatever she wants with her body, Tiqqun exposes the rapaciously competitive and psychically ruinous landscape of modern love.]]> 144 Tiqqun 158435108X cas 0 currently-reading 3.68 1999 Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl
author: Tiqqun
name: cas
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/01
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Flat Earth 228895503
Meanwhile her wealthy best friend, Frances, drops out of grad school, gets married, and somehow still manages to finish an experimental documentary about rural isolation and right-wing conspiracy theories. Frances's triumphant return to New York as the toast of the art world sends Avery into a tailspin, pushing her to make a series of dangerous decisions.]]> 224 Anika Jade Levy 1646222814 cas 0 to-read 3.10 2025 Flat Earth
author: Anika Jade Levy
name: cas
average rating: 3.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> Simulacra and Simulation 22613 Simulacra et Simulation in 1981 marked Jean Baudrillard's first important step toward theorizing the postmodern. Moving away from the Marxist/Freudian approaches that had concerned him earlier, Baudrillard developed in this book a theory of contemporary culture that relies on displacing economic notions of cultural production with notions of cultural expenditure.

Baudrillard uses the concepts of the simulacra—the copy without an original—and simulation. These terms are crucial to an understanding of the postmodern, to the extent that they address the concept of mass reproduction and reproduceability that characterizes our electronic media culture.

Baudrillard's book represents a unique and original effort to rethink cultural theory from the perspective of a new concept of cultural materialism, one that radically redefines postmodern formulations of the body.

Sheila Glaser is an editor at Artforum magazine.]]> 164 Jean Baudrillard 0472065211 cas 0 to-read 4.02 1981 Simulacra and Simulation
author: Jean Baudrillard
name: cas
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature]]> 239293 312 Donna J. Haraway 0415903874 cas 0 to-read 4.17 1990 Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature
author: Donna J. Haraway
name: cas
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Perfume: The Story of a Murderer]]> 343 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.

In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.]]> 263 Patrick Süskind cas 0 to-read 4.06 1985 Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
author: Patrick Süskind
name: cas
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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]]> Notes from Underground 49455 Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov — Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) penned the darkly fascinating Notes from the Underground. Its nameless hero is a profoundly alienated individual in whose brooding self-analysis there is a search for the true and the good in a world of relative values and few absolutes. Moreover, the novel introduces themes — moral, religious, political and social — that dominated Dostoyevsky's later works. Notes from the Underground, then, aside from its own compelling qualities, offers readers an ideal introduction to the creative imagination, profundity and uncanny psychological penetration of one of the most influential novelists of the nineteenth century. Constance Garnett's authoritative translation is reprinted here, with a new introduction.]]> 136 Fyodor Dostoevsky 067973452X cas 0 to-read 4.20 1864 Notes from Underground
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: cas
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1864
rating: 0
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]]> Desperate Characters 23316532
First published in 1970 to wide acclaim, Desperate Characters stands as one of the most dazzling and rigorous examples of the storyteller's craft in postwar American literature.]]> 192 Paula Fox 0393351106 cas 0 to-read 3.49 1970 Desperate Characters
author: Paula Fox
name: cas
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1970
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Impossible Vacation (Vintage Contemporaries)]]> 33306
Brewster North witnesses his mother's madness but misses her suicide; searches frantically for enlightenment in the Poconos and zipless sex in India; suffers family ennui in Rhode Island and a nervous breakdown in Amsterdam. In the process he emerges as a hilariously complex everyman. And as Gray narrates his hero's free fall, he confirms his own stature as one of our funniest, most eccentric, and most engaging storytellers.]]> 228 Spalding Gray 0679745238 cas 0 to-read 3.76 1992 Impossible Vacation (Vintage Contemporaries)
author: Spalding Gray
name: cas
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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]]> The Green Mile 11566
There are more wonders in heaven and hell than anyone at Cold Mountain can imagine and one of those wonders might just have stepped in amongst them.]]> 592 Stephen King 0451933028 cas 0 to-read 4.48 1996 The Green Mile
author: Stephen King
name: cas
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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]]> Carrie 10592
Make a date with terror and live the nightmare that is...Carrie
--back cover]]> 272 Stephen King 1416524304 cas 0 to-read 4.00 1974 Carrie
author: Stephen King
name: cas
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1974
rating: 0
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]]> White Nights 1772910 82 Fyodor Dostoevsky cas 0 to-read 4.11 1848 White Nights
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: cas
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1848
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Slightly Dangerous (Bedwyn Saga, #6)]]> 71648 Paula Klug, A Romance Review

When Viscount Mowbury invites Wulfric Bedwyn, Duke of Bewcastle, to his sister’s country house party, Lady Renable has to scramble to find another lady guest to balance numbers. Christine Derrick, widow and part-time schoolteacher, is persuaded much against her will to be that lady.

The cold, aloof duke and the fun-loving, accident-prone Christine are about as mismatched as a couple could possibly be, and they dislike each other from the start. But there is a definite attraction between them too, and soon Wulfric, much to his surprise, is in determined pursuit of an elusive Christine–even after the house party is over.]]> 365 Mary Balogh 044024112X cas 0 to-read 4.17 2005 Slightly Dangerous (Bedwyn Saga, #6)
author: Mary Balogh
name: cas
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> A Study in Drowning 77783264 Angharad—Emrys Myrddin's epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, then destroys him—is the only thing keeping her afloat. So when Myrddin's family announces a contest to redesign the late author's estate, Effy feels certain it's her destiny.

But musty, decrepit Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task, and its residents are far from welcoming. Including Preston Héloury, a stodgy young literature scholar determined to expose Myrddin as a fraud. As the two rivals piece together clues about Myrddin's legacy, dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspire against them—and the truth may bring them both to ruin.]]> 373 Ava Reid 0063211521 cas 0 to-read 3.77 2023 A Study in Drowning
author: Ava Reid
name: cas
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> The Master and Margarita 117833 The first complete, annotated English Translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's comic masterpiece.

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

One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, a work whose nuances emerge for the first time in Diana Burgin's and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's splendid English version.]]> 372 Mikhail Bulgakov 0679760806 cas 0 to-read 4.30 1925 The Master and Margarita
author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: cas
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1925
rating: 0
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]]> One Hundred Years of Solitude 50420 One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of a mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgettable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strike the soul. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of the art of fiction.]]> 458 Gabriel García Márquez 0060929790 cas 0 to-read 4.10 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: cas
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unbearable Lightness of Being]]> 9717 The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places, brilliant and playful reflections, and a variety of styles, to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world’s truly great writers.]]> 314 Milan Kundera 0571224385 cas 0 to-read 4.11 1984 The Unbearable Lightness of Being
author: Milan Kundera
name: cas
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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]]> Rejection 199635125
Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet.

In “The Feminist,” a young man’s passionate allyship turns to furious nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that it isn’t getting him laid. A young woman’s unrequited crush in “Pics” spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of her sense of self. And in “Ahegao; or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression,” a shy late bloomer’s flailing efforts at a first relationship leads to a life-upending mistake. As the characters pop up in each other’s dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection.

These brilliant satires explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a manifesto. Audacious and unforgettable, Rejection is a stunning mosaic that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society, and oneself.]]> 272 Tony Tulathimutte 0063337878 cas 0 to-read 3.74 2024 Rejection
author: Tony Tulathimutte
name: cas
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)]]> 11 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.

Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox—the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!]]> 216 Douglas Adams cas 0 to-read 4.21 1979 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)
author: Douglas Adams
name: cas
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1979
rating: 0
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]]> The Old Man and the Sea 2165 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

The last novel Ernest Hemingway saw published, The Old Man and the Sea has proved itself to be one of the most enduring works of American fiction. It is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal: a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.

Using the simple, powerful language of a fable, Hemingway takes the timeless themes of courage in the face of defeat and personal triumph won from loss and transforms them into a magnificent twentieth-century classic. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novel confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.]]> 96 Ernest Hemingway 0684830493 cas 0 to-read 3.82 1952 The Old Man and the Sea
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: cas
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1)]]> 102868
But it's not long before Sherlock Holmes, with Watson in tow, is working with Scotland Yard investigating the murder of two Americans whose deaths have some mysterious connection to sinister groups gathering power in both Britain and America.

Here's where it all began - 'A Study in Scarlet.' Meet Sherlock Holmes, one of the world's leading consulting detectives - fictional of course!]]> 123 Arthur Conan Doyle 1420925539 cas 0 to-read 4.16 1887 A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1)
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: cas
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1887
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetics of Girl’s Culture in Japan]]> 13798472
Passionate Friendship answers these questions by reviewing Japanese girls’ print culture from its origins in 1920s and 1930s girls’ literary magazines to the 1970s “revolution” shōjo manga, when young women artists took over the genre. It looks at the narrative and aesthetic features of girls’ literature and illustration across the twentieth century, both pre- and postwar, and discusses how these texts addressed and formed a reading community of girls, even as they were informed by competing political and social ideologies.

The author traces the development of girls’ culture in pre–World War II magazines and links it to postwar teenage girls’ comics and popular culture. Within this culture, as private and cloistered as the schools most readers attended, a discourse of girlhood arose that avoided heterosexual romance in favor of “S relationships,” passionate friendships between girls. This preference for homogeneity is echoed in the postwar genre of boys’ love manga written for girls. Both prewar S relationships and postwar boys’ love stories gave girls a protected space to develop and explore their identities and sexuality apart from the pressures of a patriarchal society. Shōjo manga offered to a reading community of girls a place to share the difficulties of adolescence as well as an alternative to the image of girls purveyed by the media to boys and men.]]> 181 Deborah Shamoon 0824836383 cas 0 to-read 3.78 2012 Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetics of Girl’s Culture in Japan
author: Deborah Shamoon
name: cas
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> Boy meets Maria 55495813 244 Peyo . 8418222441 cas 0 to-read 4.31 2018 Boy meets Maria
author: Peyo .
name: cas
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> Gone Girl 13643133 What are you thinking, Amy? The question I've asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?

Just how well can you ever know the person you love? This is the question that Nick Dunne must ask himself on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police immediately suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they aren't his. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife? And what was in that half-wrapped box left so casually on their marital bed? In this novel, marriage truly is the art of war...]]> 512 Gillian Flynn cas 0 to-read 4.10 2012 Gone Girl
author: Gillian Flynn
name: cas
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[水神の生贄 2 [Suijin no Hanayome 2] (The Water Dragon's Bride, #2)]]> 29928180 生死をさまよう有紗陽を救った水神に
今まで抱くことのなかった慈悲の心が芽生えはじめる。
「賢くならなきゃ」
「強くならなきゃ」
一方、元の世界へ戻る術を見つけるべく
ある場所へとむかった有紗陽が目にしたものとは―？]]> 183 Rei Tōma 4091380468 cas 0 to-read 4.10 2015 水神の生贄 2 [Suijin no Hanayome 2] (The Water Dragon's Bride, #2)
author: Rei Tōma
name: cas
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> The King's Beast, Vol. 1 54396853
Prince Tenyou is not what Rangetsu expected, and the political currents in the palace run deep and strange. Does Rangetsu have any chance of finding justice for her brother, or will she become just another Ajin casualty in the game of kings?]]> 168 Rei Tōma 1974720543 cas 0 to-read 4.06 2019 The King's Beast, Vol. 1
author: Rei Tōma
name: cas
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> Sleeping Beauty 8500155
Beauty Awakens

But that hard-taught lesson is about to unravel because of Sir James Stoker. Back in England with a treasure of gold from his adventures, newly knighted by Queen Victoria herself, and feted everywhere, the handsome explorer has the world at his feet. He's exactly the man Coco might have dreamed about when she was a tall, fair hero with a charming smile. Now he's turned his energy toward winning her, the most desirable and the least attainable woman he knows; and Coco's aft-aid James may just find his way past the thorns that have so long protected her from the world, and awaken her slumbering heart...with just one kiss.]]> 388 Judith Ivory cas 0 to-read 3.97 1998 Sleeping Beauty
author: Judith Ivory
name: cas
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Requiem of the Rose King, Vol. 1]]> 22545974 192 Aya Kanno 1421567784 cas 0 to-read 3.89 2014 Requiem of the Rose King, Vol. 1
author: Aya Kanno
name: cas
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> Babel 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

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

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

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

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 cas 0 to-read 4.13 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: cas
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> A Dowry of Blood 60521937
This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession. . .

Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things.

Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband's dark secrets. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.]]> 292 S.T. Gibson 0316501077 cas 0 to-read 3.87 2021 A Dowry of Blood
author: S.T. Gibson
name: cas
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Last Hellion (Scoundrels, #4)]]> 958521 A ferocious conflict of wills...

Vere Mallory, the Duke of Ainswood, has everything--he's titled, he's rich, he's devastatingly good looking--and he seems determined to throw it all away. Disreputable, reckless, and wild, the last of the Mallory hellions is racing headlong to self-destruction...until a mind numbingly beautiful blonde Amazon knocks him off his feet--literally.

An incendiary passion...

Lydia Grenville is dedicated to protecting London's downtrodden. Dissolute noblemen like Ainswood are part of the problem, not the solution. She would like him to get his big, gorgeous carcass out of her way so that she can carry on with her work. The problem is, Ainswood can no more resist a challenge, especially in female form, than he can resist the trouble she seems to attract.

If they can only weather their personal firestorm...
they might survive the real danger that threatens all they hold dear.]]> 379 Loretta Chase 0380776170 cas 0 to-read 3.98 1998 The Last Hellion (Scoundrels, #4)
author: Loretta Chase
name: cas
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings]]> 34845395 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.

Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.]]> 317 Maya Angelou cas 0 to-read 4.42 1969 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
author: Maya Angelou
name: cas
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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]]> Restoration 216783312 258 Ave Barrera 1917260024 cas 0 to-read 3.93 Restoration
author: Ave Barrera
name: cas
average rating: 3.93
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]]> Innocents 217605 Innocents is a taut, wickedly clever descent into the anatomy of an obsession, the debut of a precociously assured and provocative young literary voice. Forcing someone vulnerable and naive into a sexual relationship to satisfy a twisted desire is perverted, even evil. But when the perpetrator is a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, is she culpable? And if the victim is her thirty-four-year-old teacher, shouldn't he have known better? When the nameless young narrator of Innocents decides to seduce her teacher, she immediately realizes that the power of her sexuality is greater than she ever imagined. She leaves the aunt and uncle who are her guardians and moves in with her teacher; together, they quickly embark on a journey into their darkest desires. Unforgettable, disturbing, and morally complex, Innocents permanently unsettles our notions of innocence, experience, and power, and suggests that we all are culpable.]]> 248 Cathy Coote 0802139272 cas 0 to-read 3.35 1999 Innocents
author: Cathy Coote
name: cas
average rating: 3.35
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Spring Snow (The Sea of Fertility, #1)]]> 62793 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780099282990

Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders - rich provincial familes, a new and powerful political and social elite. Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family - members of the waning aristocracy - but he is not one of them. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between old and new, and his feelings for the exquisite, spirited Satoko, observed from the sidelines by his devoted friend Honda. When Satoko is engaged to a royal prince, Kiyoaki realises the magnitude of his passion.]]> 389 Yukio Mishima cas 0 to-read 4.19 1967 Spring Snow (The Sea of Fertility, #1)
author: Yukio Mishima
name: cas
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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]]> Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 cas 0 to-read 3.71 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: cas
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1954
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/03/16
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]]> Gray 2931120 Sometimes, late at night in the hotel room, after the lights have gone out and the mistakes have already been made, when it is heavy and silent and still, I lie awake and listen to my pulse on the pillow…

Imagine you are on a tour bus, the miles whistling away beneath you as you sleep. Tomorrow you will wake up in downtown Somewhere. It doesn’t matter. All the skylines look the same. Time is only marked by events. The world is on a first-name basis with you.

But you…you barely even know yourself. There are those who give in completely to the idea of what it means to be famous. And those who can’t ever seem to leave the past behind. Life is a deep and contemplative story stuck on repeat—love, loss, self-destruction, self-discovery.

If you could go back to the way things were before you made it…would everything still be gray?]]> 240 Pete Wentz 1416567828 cas 0 to-read 4.10 2013 Gray
author: Pete Wentz
name: cas
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/03/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire]]> 36352480
Covering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, Natives speaks directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain's racialised empire.]]> 352 Akala 1473661218 cas 0 to-read 4.54 2018 Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire
author: Akala
name: cas
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/03/06
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]]> Brave New World 5129 Brave New World is a dystopian social science fiction novel by English author Aldous Huxley. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by only a single individual: the story's protagonist.]]> 288 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 cas 0 to-read 3.99 1932 Brave New World
author: Aldous Huxley
name: cas
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[関根くんの恋 1 [Sekine-kun no Koi 1]]]> 11311492 関根圭一郎、三十路。仕事が出来て男にも女にもモテるイケメンエリートだが、
「鈍感・受け身・器用貧乏」の三重苦がたたって、どこかピントのずれた人生を送ってきた。
一念発起した関根君が向かったのは、小さな手芸用品店。
編み目を数えるうちに思い出すのは、過去の忌まわしい記憶と、数音先輩の細い細い身体の感触……!?
そして出会った手芸屋の孫娘・サラ。ついに関根くんの恋が始まる……かも。

◆マンガ界のアンファン・テリブル、河内遙が描く「三十路男の恋と受難の日々」。
2009年、「河内遙デビュー・4社合同フェア!」で颯爽とマンガ界に登場した河内遙。
続く2010年は「河内遙5社リレーフェア!」開催と快進撃を続け、更なる人気と注目を一身に集めている。
読めば読むほど虜になる独創派・河内遙、待望の最新刊!

Sekine Keiichiro is handsome, intelligent, and popular. He's a jack-of-all-trades who's loved by women. Loved, that is, until they find out he's passionless and stoic and completely lacking in conviction. In a moment of self-reflection he starts hunting: can anything make him feel? He's about to find out.]]> 176 Haruka Kawachi 4778321073 cas 0 to-read 3.80 2010 関根くんの恋 1 [Sekine-kun no Koi 1]
author: Haruka Kawachi
name: cas
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/03/06
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]]> The Dharma Bums 412732 On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums is sparked by Kerouac's expansiveness, humor, and a contagious zest for life.]]> 244 Jack Kerouac cas 0 to-read 3.94 1958 The Dharma Bums
author: Jack Kerouac
name: cas
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1958
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/03/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> A Touch of Jen 55867897
Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try (a little too hard) to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beach-side paradise, threatening to erupt. As small disturbances escalate into outright horror, Remy and Alicia tumble into an uncanny alternate reality, one shaped by their most unspeakable, deviant, and intoxicating fantasies. Is this what “self-actualization” looks like?

Part millennial social comedy, part psychedelic horror, and all wildly entertaining, A Touch of Jen is a sly, unflinching examination of the hidden drives that lurk just outside the frame of our carefully curated selves.]]> 320 Beth Morgan 0316704261 cas 0 to-read 3.22 2021 A Touch of Jen
author: Beth Morgan
name: cas
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/03/06
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]]> 違国日記 1 (Ikoku nikki, #1) 36576292 少女小説家の高代槙生（こうだいまきお）(35)は姉夫婦の葬式で遺児の・朝（あさ）(15)が親戚間をたらい回しにされているのを見過ごせず、勢いで引き取ることにした。しかし姪を連れ帰ったものの、翌日には我に返り、持ち前の人見知りが発動。槙生は、誰かと暮らすのには不向きな自分の性格を忘れていた……。対する朝は、人見知りもなく、“大人らしくない大人”・槙生との暮らしをもの珍しくも素直に受け止めていく。不器用人間と子犬のような姪がおくる年の差同居譚、手さぐり暮らしの第1巻！]]> 176 Tomoko Yamashita 439676717X cas 0 to-read 4.29 2017 違国日記 1 (Ikoku nikki, #1)
author: Tomoko Yamashita
name: cas
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/02/14
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]]> Our Lady of the Flowers 53003 216 Jean Genet 1596541369 cas 0 to-read 4.05 1943 Our Lady of the Flowers
author: Jean Genet
name: cas
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1943
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954]]> 46971 Windblown World, distinguished Americanist Douglas Brinkley has gathered a selection of journal entries from the most pivotal period of Kerouac’s life, 1947 to 1954. Here is Kerouac as a hungry young writer finishing his first novel while forging crucial friendships with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady. Truly a self-portrait of the artist as a young man, this unique and indispensable volume is sure to become an integral element of the Beat oeuvre.]]> 480 Jack Kerouac 0143036068 cas 0 to-read 4.21 1947 Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954
author: Jack Kerouac
name: cas
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1947
rating: 0
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]]> On the Road 70401 307 Jack Kerouac 0140042598 cas 0 to-read 3.63 1957 On the Road
author: Jack Kerouac
name: cas
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1957
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Heaven Official's Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu (Novel) Vol. 2]]> 58705562 THE TOUCH OF A HAND, A ROLL OF THE DICE

Xie Lian has confirmed that the bewitching youth San Lang is actually Hua Cheng, one of the Four Calamities and a supreme ghost despised by all heavenly officials. Still, he has trouble matching the terror of his companion's reputation with the charming, clever, and protective young man he's come to know.

When a distress signal leads Xie Lian into Ghost City, a bustling metropolis containing all the horrors and delights of the dead, he sees Hua Cheng in his element--and his true form--for the first time. But despite their chemistry and care for one another, there are missions to fulfill and secrets to uncover, and Xie Lian's centuries of troubled history are never far behind.]]> 438 Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù 164827918X cas 0 4.63 2017 Heaven Official's Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu (Novel) Vol. 2
author: Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù
name: cas
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/01/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Heaven Official's Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu, Vol. 1]]> 58701949
Eight hundred years after his mortal life, Xie Lian has ascended to godhood for the third time, angering most of the gods in the process. To repay his debts, he is sent to the Mortal Realm to hunt down violent ghosts and troublemaking spirits who prey on the living. Along his travels, he meets the fascinating and brilliant San Lang, a young man with whom he feels an instant connection. Yet San Lang is clearly more than he appears... What mysteries lie behind that carefree smile?

This Chinese xianxia fantasy novel series built around the romanticized love between two men (danmei) is the newest work from author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, and has spawned an ongoing multimedia franchise that's beloved across the world--including the animated series (donghua) that amassed 100+ million views in just its first month. The Seven Seas English-language edition will include covers from 日出的小太陽 (tai3_3), and exclusive, all-new interior illustrations from ZeldaCW.]]> 417 Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù 1648279171 cas 0 4.59 2020 Heaven Official's Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu, Vol. 1
author: Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù
name: cas
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[水神の生贄 3 [Suijin no Hanayome 3] (The Water Dragon's Bride, #3)]]> 29928186 176 Rei Tōma 4091384528 cas 0 to-read 4.15 2016 水神の生贄 3 [Suijin no Hanayome 3] (The Water Dragon's Bride, #3)
author: Rei Tōma
name: cas
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/01/25
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]]> 王の獣 10 [Ō no Kemono 10] 60502269
皇帝の企てを阻止し、蘇月奪還に成功した藍月たち。
しかし――
今の自分は、救われるべき“本来の蘇月”ではない、
”別人格”の一人に過ぎないと苦悩する蘇月は、思わぬ行動を…!?

そして近づく次代皇帝の継承戦…!
亜人と人が共に歩める世界を実現するため、重傷を抱えながらも
地位を求めると決めた天耀は…
「遠い話だとしても、いずれ藍月を私の――」

それぞれの傷ついた心と身体に、安息は訪れるのか――?
新章・第10巻!]]> 168 Rei Tōma 4098716453 cas 0 to-read 4.19 2022 王の獣 10 [Ō no Kemono 10]
author: Rei Tōma
name: cas
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/01/25
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Think Like a Woman: Four Women Philosophers Who Taught Me How to Love the Life of the Mind]]> 62819115 320 Regan Penaluna 0802158803 cas 0 to-read 3.96 How to Think Like a Woman: Four Women Philosophers Who Taught Me How to Love the Life of the Mind
author: Regan Penaluna
name: cas
average rating: 3.96
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/01/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Notes from Underground & The Double]]> 17881 Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter sarcasm, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the ‘ant-hill’ of society and his gradual withdrawal to an existence ‘underground’. The seemingly ordinary world of St Petersburg takes on a nightmarish quality in The Double when a government clerk encounters a man who exactly resembles him – his double perhaps, or possibly the darker side of his own personality. Like Notes from Underground, this is a masterly study of human consciousness.Jessie Coulson’s introduction discusses the stories’ critical reception and the themes they share with Dostoyevksy’s great novels.
]]> 287 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0140442529 cas 0 to-read 4.18 1864 Notes from Underground & The Double
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: cas
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1864
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/01/15
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]]> Kafka on the Shore 239775146 Kafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom.

Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky.

There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle - yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.]]> 467 Haruki Murakami 1400079276 cas 0 to-read 4.04 2002 Kafka on the Shore
author: Haruki Murakami
name: cas
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/01/11
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]]> Norwegian Wood 11297
A magnificent blending of the music, the mood, and the ethos that was the sixties with the story of one college student's romantic coming of age, Norwegian Wood brilliantly recaptures a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.]]> 296 Haruki Murakami cas 0 to-read 3.99 1987 Norwegian Wood
author: Haruki Murakami
name: cas
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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]]> Thus Spoke Zarathustra 51893 Friedrich Nietzsche’s most accessible and influential philosophical work, misquoted, misrepresented, brilliantly original and enormously influential

Nietzsche was one of the most revolutionary and subversive thinkers in Western philosophy, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra remains his most famous and influential work. It describes how the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra descends from his solitude in the mountains to tell the world that God is dead and that the Superman, the human embodiment of divinity, is his successor. Nietzsche’s utterance ‘God is dead’, his insistence that the meaning of life is to be found in purely human terms, and his doctrine of the Superman and the will to power were all later seized upon and unrecognisably twisted by, among others, Nazi intellectuals. With blazing intensity and poetic brilliance, Nietzsche argues that the meaning of existence is not to be found in religious pieties or meek submission to authority, but in an all-powerful life force: passionate, chaotic and free.]]> 327 Friedrich Nietzsche cas 0 to-read 4.10 1883 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: cas
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1883
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/12/29
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]]> Paradise Lost and Other Poems 449008 416 John Milton 0451628268 cas 0 to-read 4.02 1674 Paradise Lost and Other Poems
author: John Milton
name: cas
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1674
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future]]> 1930941
(Translated by Walter Kaufmann.)]]> 256 Friedrich Nietzsche cas 0 to-read 4.22 1886 Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: cas
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1886
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov]]> 5693  
Considered the greatest short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. From characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as “The Huntsman” and the tour de force “A Boring Story,” to his best-known stories such as “The Lady with the Little Dog” and his own personal favorite, “The Student,” Chekhov’s short fiction possesses the transcendent power of art to awe and change the reader. This monumental edition, expertly translated, is especially faithful to the meaning of Chekhov’s prose and the unique rhythms of his writing, giving readers an authentic sense of his style and a true understanding of his greatness.]]> 467 Anton Chekhov 0553381008 cas 0 to-read 4.37 1903 Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
author: Anton Chekhov
name: cas
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1903
rating: 0
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]]> The Brothers Karamazov 4934
This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal inventiveness of Dostoevsky’s prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel.]]> 796 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0374528373 cas 0 to-read 4.38 1879 The Brothers Karamazov
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: cas
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1879
rating: 0
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]]> SCUM Manifesto 52263
The focus of this edition is not on the nostalgic appeal of the work, but on Avital Ronell’s incisive introduction, “Deviant The Aims of Valerie Solanas.” Here is a reconsideration of Solanas’s infamous text in light of her social milieu, Derrida’s “The Ends of Man” (written in the same year), Judith Butler’s Excitable Speech , Nietzsche’s Ubermensch and notorious feminist icons from Medusa, Medea and Antigone, to Lizzie Borden, Lorenna Bobbit and Aileen Wournos, illuminating the evocative exuberance of Solanas’s dark tract.]]> 96 Valerie Solanas 1859845533 cas 0 to-read 3.80 1967 SCUM Manifesto
author: Valerie Solanas
name: cas
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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]]> Crime and Punishment 7144 671 Fyodor Dostoevsky cas 0 to-read 4.27 1866 Crime and Punishment
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: cas
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1866
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/09/07
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]]> Schoolgirl 12483882 Schoolgirl gained notoriety for its ironic and inventive use of language. Now it illuminates the prevalent social structures of a lost time, as well as the struggle of the individual against "them" -- a theme that occupied Dazai's life both personally and professionally. This new translation preserves the playful language of the original and offers the reader a new window into the mind of one of the greatest Japanese authors of the 20th century.]]> 103 Osamu Dazai 1935548085 cas 0 to-read 3.98 1939 Schoolgirl
author: Osamu Dazai
name: cas
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1939
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/09/07
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]]> Convenience Store Woman 36739755 Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura.

Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction―many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual―and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action…

A brilliant depiction of a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures we all feel to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.]]> 163 Sayaka Murata 0802128254 cas 0 to-read 3.63 2016 Convenience Store Woman
author: Sayaka Murata
name: cas
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/09/07
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]]> The Picture of Dorian Grey 12346651
In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.]]> 254 Oscar Wilde 1463703538 cas 0 to-read 4.08 1890 The Picture of Dorian Grey
author: Oscar Wilde
name: cas
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1890
rating: 0
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]]> Wuthering Heights 32929156
Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before. What unfolds is the tale of the intense love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. Catherine, forced to choose between passionate, tortured Heathcliff and gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton, surrenders to the expectations of her class. As Heathcliff's bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.

In this edition, a new preface by Lucasta Miller, author of The Brontë Myth, looks at the ways in which the novel has been interpreted, from Charlotte Brontë onwards. This complements Pauline Nestor's introduction, which discusses changing critical receptions of the novel, as well as Emily Brontë's influences and background.]]> 359 Emily Brontë 0141439556 cas 0 to-read 3.88 1847 Wuthering Heights
author: Emily Brontë
name: cas
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1847
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/23
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]]> Pride and Prejudice 129915654 400 Jane Austen cas 0 to-read 4.35 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: cas
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1813
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/23
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]]> The Stranger 49552 The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."]]> 123 Albert Camus cas 0 to-read 4.04 1942 The Stranger
author: Albert Camus
name: cas
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1942
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/15
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]]> The End of Alice 75479 From the 2013 Orange Prize-winning author of May We Be Forgiven

Only a work of such searing, meticulously controlled brilliance could provoke such a wide range of visceral responses. Here is the incredible story of an imprisoned pedophile who is drawn into an erotically charged correspondence with a nineteen-year-old suburban coed. As the two reveal—and revel in—their obsessive desires, Homes creates in The End of Alice a novel that is part romance, part horror story, at once unnerving and seductive.]]> 272 A.M. Homes 0684827107 cas 0 to-read 3.48 1996 The End of Alice
author: A.M. Homes
name: cas
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> Democracy 425 Democracy is a tour de force from a writer who can dissect an entire society with a single phrase.]]> 234 Joan Didion 0679754857 cas 0 to-read 3.86 1984 Democracy
author: Joan Didion
name: cas
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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]]> The Wings of the Dove 124272 The Wings of the Dove is the story of Milly Theale, a naïve, doomed American heiress, and a pair of lovers, Kate Croy and Merton Densher, who conspire to obtain her fortune. In this witty tragedy of treachery, self-deception, and betrayal, Henry James weaves together three ill-fated and wholly human destinies unexpectedly linked by desire, greed, and salvation. As Amy Bloom writes in her Introduction, “The Wings of the Dove is a novel of intimacy. . . . [James] gives us passion, he gives us love in its terrible and enchanting forms.”]]> 741 Henry James 0812967194 cas 0 to-read 3.81 1902 The Wings of the Dove
author: Henry James
name: cas
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1902
rating: 0
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]]> Of Human Bondage 31548
Marked by countless similarities to Maugham’s own life, his masterpiece is “not an autobiography,” as the author himself once contended, “but an autobiographical novel; fact and fiction are inexorably mingled; the emotions are my own.”]]> 684 W. Somerset Maugham 0451530179 cas 0 to-read 4.14 1915 Of Human Bondage
author: W. Somerset Maugham
name: cas
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1915
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Adolescent (Vintage Classics)]]> 5700 The Adolescent (first published in English as A Raw Youth) is Arkady Dolgoruky, a naive 19-year-old boy bursting with ambition and opinions. The illegitimate son of a dissipated landowner, he is torn between his desire to expose his father’s wrongdoing and the desire to win his love. He travels to St. Petersburg to confront the father he barely knows, inspired by an inchoate dream of communion and armed with a mysterious document that he believes gives him power over others. This new English version by the most acclaimed of Dostoevsky’s translators is a masterpiece of pathos and high comedy.]]> 580 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0375719008 cas 0 to-read 3.94 1875 The Adolescent (Vintage Classics)
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: cas
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1875
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Invitation to a Beheading (Vintage International)]]> 376561 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude", an imaginary crime that defies definition. Cincinnatus spends his final days in an absurd jail, where he is visited by chimerical jailers, an executioner who masquerades as a fellow prisoner, and by his in-laws, who lug their furniture with them into his prison cell.]]> 223 Vladimir Nabokov 0679725318 cas 0 to-read 3.95 1938 Invitation to a Beheading (Vintage International)
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: cas
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1938
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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]]>