Jackson's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 31 Aug 2026 16:07:58 -0700 60 Jackson's bookshelf: all 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Roots: The Saga of an American Family]]> 546018 her grandparents, and their grandparents, down through the generations all the way to a man she called "the African." She said he had lived across the ocean near what he called the "Kamby Bolongo" and had been out in the forest one day chopping wood to make a drum when he was set upon by four men, beaten, chained and dragged aboard a slave ship bound for Colonial America.

Still vividly remembering the stories after he grew up and became a writer, Haley began to search for documentation that might authenticate the narrative. It took ten years and a half a million miles of travel across three continents to find it, but finally, in an astonishing feat of genealogical detective work, he discovered not only the name of "the African"—Kunta Kinte—but the precise location of Juffure, the very village in The Gambia, West Africa, from which he was abducted in 1767 at the age of sixteen and taken on the Lord Ligonier to Maryland and sold to a Virginia planter.

Haley has talked in Juffure with his own African sixth cousins. On September 29, 1967, he stood on the dock in Annapolis where his great-great-great-great-grandfather was taken ashore on September 29, 1767. Now he has written the monumental two-century drama of Kunta Kinte and the six generations who came after him—slaves and freedmen, farmers and blacksmiths, lumber mill workers and Pullman porters, lawyers and architects—and one author.

But Haley has done more than recapture the history of his own family. As the first black American writer to trace his origins back to their roots, he has told the story of 25,000,000 Americans of African descent. He has rediscovered for an entire people a rich cultural heritage that slavery took away from them, along with their names and their identities. But Roots speaks, finally, not just to blacks, or to whites, but to all people and all races everywhere, for the story it tells is one of the most eloquent testimonials ever written to the indomitability of the human spirit.]]> 729 Alex Haley 0440174643 Jackson 0 to-read 4.45 1976 Roots: The Saga of an American Family
author: Alex Haley
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1976
rating: 0
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]]> The Autobiography of Malcom X 714314
His autobiography is now an established classic of modern America, a book that expresses like none other the crucial truth about our times.]]> 460 Malcolm X 0345294203 Jackson 0 to-read 4.57 1965 The Autobiography of Malcom X
author: Malcolm X
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1965
rating: 0
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]]> 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 Jackson 0 currently-reading 4.17 1962 Pale Fire
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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]]> Of Mice and Men 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.”

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]> 107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 Jackson 5 favorites 3.89 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1937
rating: 5
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]]> The Pearl 5308
A story of classic simplicity, based on a Mexican folk tale, The Pearl explores the secrets of man’s nature, greed, the darkest depths of evil, and the luminous possibilities of love.]]> 96 John Steinbeck 0142000698 Jackson 0 3.56 1947 The Pearl
author: John Steinbeck
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1947
rating: 0
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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 Jackson 0 4.02 1981 Simulacra and Simulation
author: Jean Baudrillard
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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]]> Stoner 166997
John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.]]> 292 John Williams 1590171993 Jackson 5 favorites 4.36 1965 Stoner
author: John Williams
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1965
rating: 5
read at: 2026/08/31
date added: 2026/08/31
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]]> A Confederacy of Dunces 310612 Set in the French Quarter of 1960s New Orleans, this cult-classic satire follows unforgettable misfit Ignatius J. Reilly as his misadventures ricochet from hot dog carts to Bourbon Street, and collide with the city’s politics, vice, and absurdity.

A wildly outrageous, darkly hilarious portrait of America, still razor-sharp and painfully relevant, reimagined in stunning visual form for lifelong fans and new readers.

For fans of the darkly funny counter-culture satire of Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five.]]> 394 John Kennedy Toole 0802130208 Jackson 5 favorites 3.89 1980 A Confederacy of Dunces
author: John Kennedy Toole
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at: 2026/07/27
date added: 2026/08/08
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]]> The Death of Ivan Ilych 18386
How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

This short novel was an artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction.
A thoroughly absorbing, and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.]]> 86 Leo Tolstoy Jackson 0 to-read 4.13 1886 The Death of Ivan Ilych
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1886
rating: 0
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]]> Period 51589 Period earned its author the accolades “[a] disquieting genius” by Vanity Fair and praise for his “elegant prose and literary lawlessness” by The New York Times. The culmination of Cooper’s explorations into sex and death, youth culture, and the search for the ineffable object of desire, Period is a mesmerizing final statement to the five-book cycle it completes. Cooper has taken his familiar themes – strangely irresistible and interchangeable young men, passion that crosses into murder, the lure of drugs, the culpability of authorship, and the inexact, haunting communication of feeling – and melded them into a novel of flawless form and immense power. Set in a spare, smoke-and-mirror-filled world of secret Web sites, Goth bands, Satanism, pornography, and outsider art, Period is a literary disappearing act as mysterious as it is logical. Obsessive, beautiful, and darkly comic, Period is a crowning achievement from one of America’s finest writers.]]> 109 Dennis Cooper 0802137830 Jackson 0 to-read 3.88 2000 Period
author: Dennis Cooper
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2000
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.]]> 332 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Jackson 0 to-read 4.15 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Intermezzo 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—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 0374602638 Jackson 0 to-read 3.77 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> A Country Doctor 221524
1. The New Advocate
2. A Country Doctor
3. Up in the Gallery
4. A Leaf from an Old Manuscript
5. Before the Law
6. Jackals and Arabs
7. A Visit to the Mine
8. The Next Village
9. A Message from the Emperor
10. A Problem for the Father of the Family
11. Eleven Sons
12. A Fratricide
13. A Dream
14. Report to the Academy]]> 92 Franz Kafka 8090217141 Jackson 0 to-read 3.71 1918 A Country Doctor
author: Franz Kafka
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1918
rating: 0
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]]> J R 28434 The Recognitions, that tremendous book which, in the twenty years since its publication, has come to be acknowledged as an American masterpiece. And J R is a book of comparable magnitude, substance, and humor--a rushing, raucous look at money and its influence, at love and its absence, at success and its failures, in the magnificently orchestrated circus of all its larger- and smaller-than-life characters; a frantic, forlorn comedy about who uses -- and misuses -- whom.

At the center: J R, ambitious sixth-grader in torn sneakers, bred on the challenge of "free enterprise" and fired by heady mail-order promises of "success." His teachers would rather be elsewhere, his principal doubles as a bank president, his Long Island classroom mirrors the world he sees around him -- a world of public relations and private betrayals where everything (and everyone) wears a price tag, a world of "deals" where honesty is no substitute for experience, and the letter of the law flouts its spirit at every turn. Operating from the remote anonymity of phone booths and the local post office, with beachheads in a seedy New York cafeteria and a catastrophic, carton-crammed tenement on East 96th Street, J R parlays a deal for thousands of surplus Navy picnic forks through penny stock flyers and a distant textile-mill bankruptcy into a nationwide, hydra-headed "family of companies."

The J R Corp and its Boss engulf brokers, lawyers, Congressmen, disaffected school teachers and disenfranchised Indians, drunks, divorcées, second-hand generals, and a fledgling composer hopelessly entangled in a nightmare marriage of business and the arts. Their bullish ventures -- shaky mineral claims and gas leases, cost-plus defense contracts, a string of nursing homes cum funeral parlors, a formula for frozen music -- burgeon into a paper empire ranging from timber to textiles, from matchbooks to (legalized) marijuana, from prostheses to publishing, inadvertently crushing hopes, careers, an entire town, on a collision course with the bigger world . . . the pragmatic Real World where the business of America is business, where the stock market exists as a convenience, and the tax laws make some people more equal than others . . . the world that makes the rules because it plays to win, and plays for keeps.

Absurdly logical, mercilessly real, gathering its own tumultuous momentum for the ultimate brush with commodity trading when the drop in pork belly futures masks the crumbling of our own, J R captures the reader in the cacophony of voices that revolves around this young captive of his own myths -- voices that dominate the book, talking to each other, at each other, into phones, on intercoms, from TV screens and radios -- a vast mosaic of sound that sweeps the reader into the relentless "real time" of spoken words in a way unprecedented in modern fiction. The disturbing clarity with which this finished writer captures the ways in which we deal, dissemble, stumble through our words -- through our lives -- while the real plans are being made elsewhere makes J R the extraordinary novel that it is.

--From the first-edition dustjacket]]> 752 William Gaddis 0140187073 Jackson 0 to-read 4.29 1975 J R
author: William Gaddis
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1975
rating: 0
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]]> Omensetter's Luck 156188 Omensetter's Luck is the quirky, impressionistic, and breathtakingly original story of an ordinary community galvanized by the presence of an extraordinary man. Set in a small Ohio town in the 1890s, it chronicles - through the voices of various participants and observers - the confrontation between Brackett Omensetter, a man of preternatural goodness, and the Reverend Jethro Furber, a preacher crazed with a propensity for violent thoughts. Omensetter's Luck meticulously brings to life a specific time and place as it illuminates timeless questions about life, love, good and evil.]]> 315 William H. Gass 0141180102 Jackson 0 to-read 4.00 1966 Omensetter's Luck
author: William H. Gass
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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]]> Libra 400
In this powerful, unsettling novel, Don DeLillo chronicles Lee Harvey Oswald's odyssey from troubled teenager to a man of precarious stability who imagines himself an agent of history. When "history" presents itself in the form of two disgruntled CIA operatives who decide that an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the president will galvanize the nation against communism, the scales are irrevocably tipped.

A gripping, masterful blend of fact and fiction, alive with meticulously portrayed characters both real and created, Libra is a grave, haunting, and brilliant examination of an event that has become an indelible part of the American psyche.]]> 480 Don DeLillo 0140156046 Jackson 0 to-read 4.09 1988 Libra
author: Don DeLillo
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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]]> On Bullshit 385
Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.

Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.]]> 67 Harry G. Frankfurt 0691122946 Jackson 0 to-read 3.58 2005 On Bullshit
author: Harry G. Frankfurt
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures]]> 20863042 232 Mark Fisher Jackson 0 to-read 3.98 2014 Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures
author: Mark Fisher
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/24
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]]> Giant 149150 The basis for the classic film starring James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson, Giant is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Ferber's sweeping generational tale of power, love, cattle barons, and oil tycoons, set in Texas during the first half of the twentieth century.

When larger-than-life cattle rancher Jordan "Bick" Benedict arrives at the family home of sharp-witted but genteel Virginia socialite Leslie Lynnton to purchase a racehorse, the two are instantly drawn to each other. But for Leslie, falling in love with a Texan was a lot simpler than falling in love with Texas. Upon their arrival at Bick's ranch, Leslie is confronted not only with the oppressive heat and vastness of Texas but also by the disturbing inequity between runaway riches and the poverty and racism suffered by the Mexican workers on the ranch. Leslie and Bick's loving union endures against all odds, but a reckoning is coming and a price will have to be paid.

A sensational and enthralling saga, Ferber masterfully captures the essence of Texas with all its wealth and excess, cruelty and prejudice, pride and violence.]]> 432 Edna Ferber 0060956704 Jackson 0 to-read 3.99 1952 Giant
author: Edna Ferber
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A Year With Swollen Appendices]]> 160117 424 Brian Eno 0571179959 Jackson 0 currently-reading 4.12 1996 A Year With Swollen Appendices
author: Brian Eno
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/12
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]]> Meditations 233411514 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. Ranging from doubt and despair to conviction and exaltation, they cover such diverse topics as the nature of moral virtue, human rationality, divine providence, and Marcus' own emotions. But while the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, in developing his beliefs Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of a timeless collection of extended meditations and short aphorisms that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and readers through the centuries.]]> 288 Marcus Aurelius 132409639X Jackson 5
As an entry point into philosophy it’s perfect. Its structure is immediately digestible for a young reader while the text itself often positions your control and value of virtue as a core reason of life.

Meditations often comes back to reason, judgement, compassion, kindness and focus as your tools against inevitable struggle. Never interested in explaining the curves of life’s path, but only acknowledging your placement among them.

Personally, his ideas on fame might have had the greatest impact on me. Often Aurelius views validation and praise from a macro level, always within context of the history of the past and the infinite stretch of the future. In this view, present day praise is the echo of applause, the sound of speech and not much else. A helpful reminder considering how much we are bombarded with comparison in modern culture

Will likely be revisiting this my entire life]]> 4.29 180 Meditations
author: Marcus Aurelius
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.29
book published: 180
rating: 5
read at: 2026/07/10
date added: 2026/07/10
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I spent 4 years in my young adult life searching for answers in self help books preaching efficiency slop and habit behavior, but what I may have really needed to read was Meditations.

As an entry point into philosophy it’s perfect. Its structure is immediately digestible for a young reader while the text itself often positions your control and value of virtue as a core reason of life.

Meditations often comes back to reason, judgement, compassion, kindness and focus as your tools against inevitable struggle. Never interested in explaining the curves of life’s path, but only acknowledging your placement among them.

Personally, his ideas on fame might have had the greatest impact on me. Often Aurelius views validation and praise from a macro level, always within context of the history of the past and the infinite stretch of the future. In this view, present day praise is the echo of applause, the sound of speech and not much else. A helpful reminder considering how much we are bombarded with comparison in modern culture

Will likely be revisiting this my entire life
]]> No Country for Old Men 23515727 No Country for Old Men is a triumph.]]> 309 Cormac McCarthy 0375706674 Jackson 0 to-read 4.25 2005 No Country for Old Men
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/03
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]]> Suttree 394469 471 Cormac McCarthy 0679736328 Jackson 0 to-read 4.21 1979 Suttree
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1979
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/03
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]]> Beverly 25664507 Beverly struggle with sexual anxieties that are just barely repressed and social insecurities that undermine every word they speak.

A group of teenagers pick up trash on the side of the highway--flirting, preening, and ignoring a potentially violent loner in their midst. A college student brings her sort-of boyfriend to a disastrous house party with her high-school acquaintances. A young woman experiences a traumatic incident at the pizza shop where she works and the fallout reveals the racial tensions simmering below the surface. Again and again, the civilized façade of Drnaso's pitch-perfect surburban sprawl and pasty Midwestern protagonists cracks in the face of violence and quiet brutality.

Drnaso's bleak social satire in Beverly reveals a brilliant command of the social milieu of twenty-first-century existence, echoing the black comic work of Todd Solondz, Sam Lipsyte, and Daniel Clowes. Precisely and hauntingly recounted, each chapter of Beverly reveals something new--and yet familiar--about the world in which we live.]]> 136 Nick Drnaso 1770462252 Jackson 0 to-read 3.97 2016 Beverly
author: Nick Drnaso
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/02
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]]> Sabrina 37533587 How many hours of sleep did you get last night? Rate your overall mood from 1 to 5, 1 being poor. Rate your stress level from 1 to 5, 5 being severe. Are you experiencing depression or thoughts of suicide? Is there anything in your personal life that is affecting your duty?

When Sabrina disappears, an airman in the U.S. Air Force is drawn into a web of suppositions, wild theories, and outright lies. He reports to work every night in a bare, sterile fortress that serves as no protection from a situation that threatens the sanity of Teddy, his childhood friend and the boyfriend of the missing woman. Sabrina’s grieving sister, Sandra, struggles to fill her days as she waits in purgatory. After a videotape surfaces, we see devastation shown through a cinematic lens, as true tragedy is distorted when fringe thinkers and conspiracy theorists begin to interpret events to fit their own narratives.

The follow-up to Nick Drnaso’s Beverly, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Sabrina depicts a modern world devoid of personal interaction and responsibility, where relationships are stripped of intimacy through glowing computer screens. Presenting an indictment of our modern state, Drnaso contemplates the dangers of a fake-news climate. Timely and articulate, Sabrina leaves you gutted, searching for meaning in the aftermath of disaster.]]> 204 Nick Drnaso 177046316X Jackson 0 to-read 3.83 2018 Sabrina
author: Nick Drnaso
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> Acting Class 56375568 A brilliant and suspenseful follow-up to the Booker-nominated graphic novel Sabrina.

"Every single person has something unique to them which is impossible to re-create, without exception." —John Smith, acting coach

From the acclaimed author of Sabrina, Nick Drnaso’s Acting Class creates a tapestry of disconnect, distrust, and manipulation. Ten strangers are brought together under the tutelage of John Smith, a mysterious and morally questionable leader. The group of social misfits and restless searchers have one thing in common: they are out of step with their surroundings and desperate for change.

A husband and wife, four years into their marriage and simmering in boredom. A single mother, her young son showing disturbing signs of mental instability. A peculiar woman with few if any friends and only her menial job keeping her grounded. A figure model, comfortable in his body and ready for a creative challenge. A worried grandmother and her adult granddaughter; a hulking laborer and gym nut; a physical therapist; an ex-con.

With thrumming unease, the class sinks deeper into their lessons as the process demands increasing devotion. When the line between real life and imagination begins to blur, the group’s deepest fears and desires are laid bare. Exploring the tension between who we are and how we present, Drnaso cracks open his characters’ masks and takes us through an unsettling American journey.]]> 272 Nick Drnaso Jackson 0 to-read 4.19 2022 Acting Class
author: Nick Drnaso
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/02
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]]> Raised by Wolves 683172 315 Jim Goldberg 1881616509 Jackson 5 favorites
The first 5 pages alone, show just how much emotion and life can be contained in a specific image. ]]> 4.72 1995 Raised by Wolves
author: Jim Goldberg
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.72
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2026/06/30
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review:
One of the most fulfilling experiences I've ever had with a piece of art. It opened my eyes to a completely new way of telling a story. A beautiful, beautiful project and quite possibly one of the best artistic experiences I've ever had.

The first 5 pages alone, show just how much emotion and life can be contained in a specific image.
]]> <![CDATA[Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West]]> 394535
Loosely based on fact, the novel represents a vision of the historical West.]]> 351 Cormac McCarthy Jackson 5 favorites 4.16 1985 Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at: 2026/03/01
date added: 2026/06/30
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]]> V. 5809 640 Thomas Pynchon 2020418770 Jackson 0 to-read 3.97 1963 V.
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1963
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/30
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]]> Gravity’s Rainbow 415 776 Thomas Pynchon 0143039946 Jackson 0 to-read 4.02 1973 Gravity’s Rainbow
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1973
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/30
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]]> Paradise Lost 15997 Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his band of rebel angels plot their revenge against God. At the center of the conflict are Adam and Eve, who are motivated by all too human temptations but whose ultimate downfall is unyielding love.

Marked by Milton's characteristic erudition, Paradise Lost is a work epic both in scale and, notoriously, in ambition. For nearly 350 years, it has held generation upon generation of audiences in rapt attention, and its profound influence can be seen in almost every corner of Western culture.]]> 453 John Milton 0140424393 Jackson 0 to-read 3.85 1667 Paradise Lost
author: John Milton
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1667
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Lunar Park (Vintage Contemporaries)]]> 4031 Lunar Park, is a writer whose first novel Less Than Zero catapulted him to international stardom while he was still in college. In the years that followed, he found himself adrift in a world of wealth, drugs, and fame, as well as dealing with the unexpected death of his abusive father. After a decade of decadence, a chance for salvation arrives; the chance to reconnect with an actress he was once involved with, and their son. But almost immediately his new life is threatened by a freak sequence of events and a bizarre series of murders that all seem to connect to Ellis’s past.

Reality, memoir, and fantasy combine to create not only a fascinating version of this most controversial writer but also a deeply moving novel about love and loss, parents and children, and ultimately forgiveness.]]> 404 Bret Easton Ellis 0375727272 Jackson 4
In contrast to the acidic moralist work of Less Than Zero, Rules of Attraction and American Psycho, all which may serve as necessary prior reading to Lunar Park, the meta-narrative of Ellis in the later novel serves as steady enough ground before a genre trapping caves in the rest of the novel, intentionally so. As the back half of the book falls more and more into a haunted house, paranormal exercise, we lose the Ellis introspection (or lack thereof) that infects his prose with an indelible, reprehensible addictive quality.

Though Lunar Park can feel meandering at times (by the fifth mention of 2:40am I began to expect its presence), Ellis' excavation of his creative work is nothing short of fascinating. As described by himself in the novel, Ellis' early work was written before he faced mortality and in turn displays an ugly, privileged view of life and death. Ellis doesn't muse on creative regret as much as he does on his past work and their moral consequences.

And when his early work, filled and written with the hate and judgement of his late Father, comes back to life, so does the shadow of an influence he's been trying to shake in the decade's wake of American Psycho. What results is a late career reflection on guilt, inherited sin and creative culpability. ]]> 3.65 2005 Lunar Park (Vintage Contemporaries)
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2026/06/29
date added: 2026/06/29
shelves:
review:
Literary culture performer turned disinterested suburbanite Bret Easton Ellis muses on his creative and family legacy as the spiritually poisoned characters of his past veer their ugly head.

In contrast to the acidic moralist work of Less Than Zero, Rules of Attraction and American Psycho, all which may serve as necessary prior reading to Lunar Park, the meta-narrative of Ellis in the later novel serves as steady enough ground before a genre trapping caves in the rest of the novel, intentionally so. As the back half of the book falls more and more into a haunted house, paranormal exercise, we lose the Ellis introspection (or lack thereof) that infects his prose with an indelible, reprehensible addictive quality.

Though Lunar Park can feel meandering at times (by the fifth mention of 2:40am I began to expect its presence), Ellis' excavation of his creative work is nothing short of fascinating. As described by himself in the novel, Ellis' early work was written before he faced mortality and in turn displays an ugly, privileged view of life and death. Ellis doesn't muse on creative regret as much as he does on his past work and their moral consequences.

And when his early work, filled and written with the hate and judgement of his late Father, comes back to life, so does the shadow of an influence he's been trying to shake in the decade's wake of American Psycho. What results is a late career reflection on guilt, inherited sin and creative culpability.
]]> The Nickel Boys 42270835 Author of The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in 1960s Florida.

Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide 'physical, intellectual and moral training' which will equip its inmates to become 'honorable and honest men'.

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear 'out back'. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King's ringing assertion, 'Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.' But Elwood's fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors.

The tension between Elwood's idealism and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions.

Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped and destroyed the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative by a great American novelist whose work is essential to understanding the current reality of the United States.]]> 213 Colson Whitehead Jackson 0 to-read 4.25 2019 The Nickel Boys
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/25
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]]> Beloved 6149 Previous cover edition of ISBN 9781400033416

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.

Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.]]> 325 Toni Morrison Jackson 0 to-read 3.99 1987 Beloved
author: Toni Morrison
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/25
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]]> Play It As It Lays 428 Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil - literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul - it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis and stunning in the still-startling intensity of its prose.
]]> 231 Joan Didion 0374529949 Jackson 0 to-read 3.92 1970 Play It As It Lays
author: Joan Didion
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/06/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)]]> 79766 A Pattern Language is the philosophy that in designing their environments people always rely on certain ‘languages,’ which, like the languages we speak, allow them to articulate and communicate an infinite variety of designs within a formal system which gives them coherence.

This book provides a language of this kind. It will enable making a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment. ‘Patterns,’ the units of this language, are answers to design problems: how high should a window sill be?; how many stories should a building have?; how much space in a neighborhood should be devoted to grass and trees?

More than 250 of the patterns in this language are outlined, each consisting of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seems likely that they will be a part of human nature and human action as much in five hundred years as they are today.

A Pattern Language is related to Alexander’s other works in the Center for Environmental Structure series: The Timeless Way of Building (introductory volume) and The Oregon Experiment.]]> 1171 Christopher W. Alexander 0195019199 Jackson 0 to-read 4.42 1977 A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
author: Christopher W. Alexander
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/06/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> Printing and the Mind of Man 39410245 308 0304926434 Jackson 0 to-read 0.0 Printing and the Mind of Man
author: John Carter & Percy H. Muir; Introductory Essay by Denys Hay
name: Jackson
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/23
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]]> Printing and the mind of man 2774479 280 John Carter 3980004732 Jackson 0 to-read 4.00 1983 Printing and the mind of man
author: John Carter
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat]]> 128461 A Season in Hell is here added Rimbaud's longest & possibly greatest single poem The Drunken Boat, with the original French en face Illuminations, Rimbaud's major works are available as bilingual New Directions Paperbooks. The reputation of A Season in Hell, which is a poetic record of a man's examination of his own depths, has steadily increased over the years. Upon the 1st publication of Varese's translation by New Directions, the Saturday Review wrote: "One may at last suggest that the translation of A Season in Hell has reached a conclusive point..." Concerning the 25-stanza The Drunken Boat, Dr Enid Starkie of Oxford University has written: "(It's) an anthology of separate lines of astonishing evocative magic which linger in the mind like isolated jewels." Rimbaud's life was so extraordinary that it has taken on the quality of a myth. A biographical chronology is included.]]> 103 Arthur Rimbaud 0811201856 Jackson 0 to-read 4.34 1872 A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat
author: Arthur Rimbaud
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1872
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/22
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]]> Illuminations 565149 182 Arthur Rimbaud 0811201848 Jackson 0 to-read 4.36 1875 Illuminations
author: Arthur Rimbaud
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1875
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Silence: Lectures and Writings]]> 765651
"There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. Sounds occur whether intended or not; the psychological turning in direction of those not intended seems at first to be a giving up of everything that belongs to humanity. But one must see that humanity and nature, not separate, are in this world together, that nothing was lost when everything was given away."]]> 276 John Cage 0819560286 Jackson 0 to-read 4.22 1961 Silence: Lectures and Writings
author: John Cage
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1961
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/22
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]]> Mysterious Skin 92365 At the age of eight Brian Lackey is found bleeding under the crawl space of his house, having endured something so traumatic that he cannot remember an entire five-hour period of time.

During the following years he slowly recalls details from that night, but these fragments are not enough to explain what happened to him, and he begins to believe that he may have been the victim of an alien encounter. Neil McCormick is fully aware of the events from that summer of 1981. Wise beyond his years, curious about his developing sexuality, Neil found what he perceived to be love and guidance from his baseball coach. Now, ten years later, he is a teenage hustler, a terrorist of sorts, unaware of the dangerous path his life is taking. His recklessness is governed by idealized memories of his coach, memories that unexpectedly change when Brian comes to Neil for help and, ultimately, the truth.]]> 292 Scott Heim 0060841699 Jackson 0 to-read 4.18 1995 Mysterious Skin
author: Scott Heim
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/06/16
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]]> Ham on Rye 38501 288 Charles Bukowski 006117758X Jackson 0 to-read 4.16 1982 Ham on Rye
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> Collected Fictions 17961 Alternate cover edition of ISBN-13: 978-0140286809, ISBN-10/ASIN: 0140286802

For the first time in English, all the fiction by the writer who has been called “the greatest Spanish-language writer of our century” collected in a single volume

A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with flaps and deckle-edged paper

For some fifty years, in intriguing and ingenious fictions that reimagined the very form of the short story—from his 1935 debut with A Universal History of Iniquity through his immensely influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, the enigmatic prose poems of The Maker, up to his final work in the 1980s, Shakespeare’s Memory—Jorge Luis Borges returned again and again to his celebrated themes: dreams, duels, labyrinths, mirrors, infinite libraries, the manipulations of chance, gauchos, knife fighters, tigers, and the elusive nature of identity itself. Playfully experimenting with ostensibly subliterary genres, he took the detective story and turned it into metaphysics; he took fantasy writing and made it, with its questioning and reinventing of everyday reality, central to the craft of fiction; he took the literary essay and put it to use reviewing wholly imaginary books.

Bringing together for the first time in English all of Borges’s magical stories, and all of them newly rendered into English in brilliant translations by Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions is the perfect one-volume compendium for all who have long loved Borges, and a superb introduction to the master’s work for all who have yet to discover this singular genius.]]> 565 Jorge Luis Borges Jackson 0 to-read 4.57 1998 Collected Fictions
author: Jorge Luis Borges
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/15
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]]> Silence 25200 "In my opinion one of the finest novels of our time." - Graham Greene

Shusaku Endo is Japan's foremost novelist, and Silence is generally regarded to be his masterpiece. In a perfect fusion of treatment and theme, this powerful novel tells the story of a seventeenth-century Portuguese priest in Japan at the height of the fearful persecution of the small Christian community.]]> 294 Shūsaku Endō 0800871863 Jackson 0 to-read 4.12 1966 Silence
author: Shūsaku Endō
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/08
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]]> The Picture of Dorian Gray 489732 'The horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that marvellous beauty'

Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The Picture of Dorian Gray was a succès de scandale. Early readers were shocked by its hints at unspeakable sins, and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895.

This definitive edition includes a selection of contemporary reviews condemning the novel's immorality, and the introduction to the first Penguin Classics edition by Peter Ackroyd.]]> 253 Oscar Wilde 0141439572 Jackson 4
Wanted to mark down here, just how brilliant the opening scene between Lord Henry and Basil Hallward I found it to be. While discussing Basil Hallward's new portrait and muse--an aristocrat by the name of Dorian Gray, he pleads to Lord Henry to leave him the one thing he's found so inspiring, so beautiful and so rewarding: Dorian Gray's companionship.

As the novel unfolds, Basil falls into the background and Dorian is enraptured by the cynicism of Lord Henry which slowly too chips at his vanity and search for secular pleasure. Though the bulk of the novel's narrative rests on this later theme (that being Dorian's destructive clinging to beauty), I can't help but be entirely moved by the tragedy of Basil Hallward. Someone who saw a light of brilliance in a companion, a pure beauty that pushed him to create and create well, only for his pleas to be ignored and his companion to be absent.

Good luck holding onto something beautiful. ]]> 4.19 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1890
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2026/06/04
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review:
Interesting read. Though personally, I found the back third a bit predictable (can you really fault a classic for being territory you've seen retread in the decades since), the unassuming descent of Dorian Gray is nonetheless handled with superb graduality.

Wanted to mark down here, just how brilliant the opening scene between Lord Henry and Basil Hallward I found it to be. While discussing Basil Hallward's new portrait and muse--an aristocrat by the name of Dorian Gray, he pleads to Lord Henry to leave him the one thing he's found so inspiring, so beautiful and so rewarding: Dorian Gray's companionship.

As the novel unfolds, Basil falls into the background and Dorian is enraptured by the cynicism of Lord Henry which slowly too chips at his vanity and search for secular pleasure. Though the bulk of the novel's narrative rests on this later theme (that being Dorian's destructive clinging to beauty), I can't help but be entirely moved by the tragedy of Basil Hallward. Someone who saw a light of brilliance in a companion, a pure beauty that pushed him to create and create well, only for his pleas to be ignored and his companion to be absent.

Good luck holding onto something beautiful.
]]> The Sound of the Mountain 59950 Librarian's note: An alternate cover of this ISBN can be found here.

From the Nobel Prize-winning writer and acclaimed author of Snow Country comes a beautiful rendering of the predicament of old age—about an elderly Tokyo businessman who must face the failures of his memory and the sudden upsurges of passion that illuminate the end of a life.

“A rich, complicated novel…. Of all modern Japanese fiction, Kawabata’s is the closest to poetry.” —The New York Times Book Review

By day Ogata Shingo, an elderly Tokyo businessman, is troubled by small failures of memory. At night he associates the distant rumble he hears from the nearby mountain with the sounds of death. In between are the complex relationships that were once the foundations of Shingo’s life: his trying wife; his philandering son; and his beautiful daughter-in-law, who inspires in him both pity and the stirrings of desire. Out of this translucent web of attachments, Kawabata has crafted a novel that is a powerful, serenely observed meditation on the relentless march of time.

Translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker]]> 276 Yasunari Kawabata 0679762647 Jackson 0 to-read 3.91 1954 The Sound of the Mountain
author: Yasunari Kawabata
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1954
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> Technofeudalism 75560037
Capitalism's demise began in 2008, as Wall Street's house of cards tumbled, until, aided by the pandemic and abetted by Big Tech, a new exploitative system took hold. This new system, technofeudalism, is our new, harsh realm. It is fascinating but also uniquely cruel. The technologies that support it are already mindboggling, as is the threat the new system poses to our liberty and, even, to our chances of survival as a species. Whether humanity manages to survive, let alone develop sustainably on a planet that is already rejecting us, will very much depend on our grasping the nature of this technofeudalism and finding ways to defang it.

The book's claim that capitalism is finished will, inevitably, prove hugely controversial. Commentators from the Right and the Left will laugh at it. Both sides have a vested interest in believing that we are witnessing a new variant of capitalism, not a transformation of capitalism into something distinct, something even worse. The Right, because they need to believe that capitalism is eternal and, ultimately, good - the natural system that humanity was primed for since the Garden of Eden. As for the Left, we leftists find it almost impossible to live with the idea that it was not we, the self-styled rational rebels, who overthrew capitalism in order to replace it with a functioning democratic socialism, but it was capitalism that overthrew itself - to bring on an even more exploitative system. The very notion that History bypassed us, plunges the Left into an existentialist angst which makes it hard to engage with reality.

Why does it matter whether capitalism begat technofeudalism or is going through one more of its many mutations? It matters for the same reasons it was crucial for late 18th century liberal reformists, anti-slavery campaigners etc. to grasp the importance of capitalism's blossoming within Without the realisation of capitalism's dynamic, and its capacity to transform everything, their efforts, struggles, policies and campaigns stood no chance. Similarly Understanding the nature and ways of technofeudalism matters because, if I am right, campaigns, struggles and policies like President Biden's Green New Deal, which had a chance to work ten or twenty years ago, cannot work under the technofeudal order that is now us over.]]> 224 Yanis Varoufakis 1847927289 Jackson 0 to-read 3.91 2023 Technofeudalism
author: Yanis Varoufakis
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/04
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]]> Augustus 89231 Augustus is a sweeping narrative that brings vividly to life a compelling cast of historical figures through their letters, dispatches, and memoirs.

A mere eighteen years of age when his uncle, Julius Caesar, is murdered, Octavius Caesar prematurely inherits rule of the Roman Republic. Surrounded by men who are jockeying for power–Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, and Mark Antony–young Octavius must work against the powerful Roman political machinations to claim his destiny as first Roman emperor. Sprung from meticulous research and the pen of a true poet, Augustus tells the story of one man’s dream to liberate a corrupt Rome from the fancy of the capriciously crooked and the wildly wealthy.]]> 336 John Williams 1400076730 Jackson 0 to-read 4.24 1972 Augustus
author: John Williams
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/06/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Butcher's Crossing 457228 Butcher’s Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America.

It is the 1870s, and Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek “an original relation to nature,” drops out of Harvard and heads west. He washes up in Butcher’s Crossing, a small Kansas town on the outskirts of nowhere. Butcher’s Crossing is full of restless men looking for ways to make money and ways to waste it. Before long Andrews strikes up a friendship with one of them, a man who regales Andrews with tales of immense herds of buffalo, ready for the taking, hidden away in a beautiful valley deep in the Colorado Rockies. He convinces Andrews to join in an expedition to track the animals down. The journey out is grueling, but at the end is a place of paradisal richness. Once there, however, the three men abandon themselves to an orgy of slaughter, so caught up in killing buffalo that they lose all sense of time. Winter soon overtakes them: they are snowed in. Next spring, half-insane with cabin fever, cold, and hunger, they stagger back to Butcher’s Crossing to find a world as irremediably changed as they have been.]]> 274 John Williams 1590171985 Jackson 0 to-read 4.19 1960 Butcher's Crossing
author: John Williams
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/06/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Letter to His Father 187569 127 Franz Kafka 0805204261 Jackson 0 4.14 1919 Letter to His Father
author: Franz Kafka
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1919
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/05/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Hello Chaos A Love Story: The disorder of Seeing and Being Seen]]> 211484292 182 Charlie Engman 1739606736 Jackson 4
A unique meditation on identity and codependency in the age of sloganeering, branded plastic trash. "Hello Chaos" personifies Mickey and Hello Kitty, creating an all new (at least to me) idea of sentient branded material. What does it mean to be replicated? Merchandized? And most interestingly, how has this life changed from their inception (in Kitty's case the 80's) to modern age, where now likeness has been more or less democratized, fan-fiction eroticism and co-opted for any one user's deepest desires. As generative AI and modern fast fashion landscapes sneak into the book's later pages, it really rounds out its chaos cycle.

Definitely at times steps into tumblr-esque melodrama, which imo can be forgiven since it adopts this gaudy landscape so sincerely. If it weren't for the 2014 pintrest/wattpad culture, this book may not exist in the first place, therefore, I feel like it should be given the clearance to add a lil bit of tumblr pastiche to its text. Though, this may be mileage varies

Kitty had no mouth, and no one to object to. ]]> 4.51 Hello Chaos A Love Story: The disorder of Seeing and Being Seen
author: Charlie Engman
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.51
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2026/05/18
shelves:
review:
Really enjoyed. Even if someone were to never read the text or narrative, the design and evocative nature of its images would be enough to leave a lingering presence. As for the text...

A unique meditation on identity and codependency in the age of sloganeering, branded plastic trash. "Hello Chaos" personifies Mickey and Hello Kitty, creating an all new (at least to me) idea of sentient branded material. What does it mean to be replicated? Merchandized? And most interestingly, how has this life changed from their inception (in Kitty's case the 80's) to modern age, where now likeness has been more or less democratized, fan-fiction eroticism and co-opted for any one user's deepest desires. As generative AI and modern fast fashion landscapes sneak into the book's later pages, it really rounds out its chaos cycle.

Definitely at times steps into tumblr-esque melodrama, which imo can be forgiven since it adopts this gaudy landscape so sincerely. If it weren't for the 2014 pintrest/wattpad culture, this book may not exist in the first place, therefore, I feel like it should be given the clearance to add a lil bit of tumblr pastiche to its text. Though, this may be mileage varies

Kitty had no mouth, and no one to object to.
]]> A Shining 78311985 Listening Length: 1 hour and 33 minutes

A man starts driving without knowing where he is going. He alternates between turning right and left, and finally he gets stuck at the end of a forest road. Soon it gets dark and starts to snow, but instead of going back to find help, he ventures, foolishly, into the dark forest. Inevitably, the man gets lost, and as he grows cold and tired, he encounters a glowing being amid the obscurity.]]> 48 Jon Fosse 1804270636 Jackson 3
would love for this to keep growing on me over time. we'll see]]> 3.45 2023 A Shining
author: Jon Fosse
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2026/05/05
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review:
mas o menos

would love for this to keep growing on me over time. we'll see
]]> Septology 60246552
Jon Fosse’s ​Septology is a transcendent exploration of the human condition, and a radically other reading experience – incantatory, hypnotic, and utterly unique.]]> 825 Jon Fosse 1804270067 Jackson 0 to-read 4.45 2022 Septology
author: Jon Fosse
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol]]> 252981
More than a century and a half later, Nikolai Gogol's stories continue to delight readers the world over. Now a stunning new translation--from an award-winning team of translators--presents these stories in all their inventive, exuberant glory to English-speaking readers. For the first time, the best of Gogol's short fiction is brought together in a single volume: from the colorful Ukrainian tales that led some critics to call him "the Russian Dickens" to the Petersburg stories, with their black humor and wonderfully demented attitude toward the powers that be. All of Gogol's most memorable creations are here: the minor official who misplaces his nose, the downtrodden clerk whose life is changed by the acquisition of a splendid new overcoat, the wily madman who becomes convinced that a dog can tell him everything he needs to know.

These fantastic, comic, utterly Russian characters have dazzled generations of readers and had a profound influence on writers such as Dostoevsky and Nabokov. Now they are brilliantly rendered in the first new translation in twenty-five years--one that is destined to become the definitive edition of Gogol's most important stories.

Contains:
-St. John's Eve
-The Night Before Christmas
-The Terrible Vengeance
-Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt
-Old World Landowners
-Viy
-The Story of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich
-Nevsky Prospect
-The Diary of a Madman
-The Nose
-The Carriage
-The Portrait
-The Overcoat]]> 435 Nikolai Gogol 0375706151 Jackson 0 to-read 4.35 1835 The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol
author: Nikolai Gogol
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1835
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/05
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]]> This Is How You Lose Her 13503109
In prose that is endlessly energetic, inventive, tender, and funny, the stories in This Is How You Lose Her lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weakness of the human heart. They remind us that passion always triumphs over experience, and that “the half-life of love is forever.”]]> 217 Junot Díaz 1594487367 Jackson 0 to-read 3.74 2010 This Is How You Lose Her
author: Junot Díaz
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Metamorphosis 485894 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 0553213695 / 9780553213690

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."

With it's startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first opening, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote, "Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man."]]> 201 Franz Kafka 0553213695 Jackson 5 favorites 3.92 1915 The Metamorphosis
author: Franz Kafka
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1915
rating: 5
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the weight of burdening the world, i can only continue to apologize until I no longer busy myself breathing your rightful air.
]]> Man's Search for Meaning 4069 Man's Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.]]> 165 Viktor E. Frankl 080701429X Jackson 0 4.38 1946 Man's Search for Meaning
author: Viktor E. Frankl
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1946
rating: 0
read at: 2026/04/20
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]]> The Recognitions 395058 Catch-22 and V., managed to anticipate the spirit of both”—The Recognitions is a masterwork about art and forgery, and the increasingly thin line between the counterfeit and the fake. Gaddis anticipates by almost half a century the crisis of reality that we currently face, where the real and the virtual are combining in alarming ways, and the sources of legitimacy and power are often obscure to us.]]> 976 William Gaddis 0140187081 Jackson 0 to-read 4.18 1955 The Recognitions
author: William Gaddis
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1955
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/04/20
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]]> Mother Night 9592 Librarian note: Alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.]]> 288 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385334141 Jackson 5 favorites
"we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be". This quote opens Vonnegut's preface for "Mother Night" and sets up a staunch position on the fence of individual morality while the narrative's main conflict is less about the atrocities, the crimes or the war itself, and more about a man's attempt to find a place to call home.

As the story of Campbell's past unfolds, Vonnegut rattles us across decades and borders creating a dizzying focus on the complicated life of Howard Campbell, a Nazi radio broadcaster who claims to have been an American spy sending coded information out through his agitprop broadcast. Though while he is heralded as a hero in the minds of post-war Nazi's, the country he claimed to serve, doesn't claim him at all. Campbell's story is that of cultural and personal stagnation as seen through life before, during and after wartime.

Highly recommend. I was particularly moved by the culmination of Howard's "nemesis" O'Hare and his pathetic vilification as a means to existential motivation. We hate to live. Live to hate, same thing same thing.

Another great vignette near the end of the book revolves around a husband and wife taking shelter in a bunker. And while I'll save it for the book, it's contemplation on God, the consistency of war and the ever-effecting emotion of desperation, suffice it to say has been stuck in my head.]]> 4.24 1962 Mother Night
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2026/04/20
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review:
Olly Olly Oxen Free!

"we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be". This quote opens Vonnegut's preface for "Mother Night" and sets up a staunch position on the fence of individual morality while the narrative's main conflict is less about the atrocities, the crimes or the war itself, and more about a man's attempt to find a place to call home.

As the story of Campbell's past unfolds, Vonnegut rattles us across decades and borders creating a dizzying focus on the complicated life of Howard Campbell, a Nazi radio broadcaster who claims to have been an American spy sending coded information out through his agitprop broadcast. Though while he is heralded as a hero in the minds of post-war Nazi's, the country he claimed to serve, doesn't claim him at all. Campbell's story is that of cultural and personal stagnation as seen through life before, during and after wartime.

Highly recommend. I was particularly moved by the culmination of Howard's "nemesis" O'Hare and his pathetic vilification as a means to existential motivation. We hate to live. Live to hate, same thing same thing.

Another great vignette near the end of the book revolves around a husband and wife taking shelter in a bunker. And while I'll save it for the book, it's contemplation on God, the consistency of war and the ever-effecting emotion of desperation, suffice it to say has been stuck in my head.
]]> <![CDATA[Snark: A Polemic in Seven Fits (It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation)]]> 4778797 144 David Denby 1416599452 Jackson 0 to-read 2.77 2009 Snark: A Polemic in Seven Fits (It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation)
author: David Denby
name: Jackson
average rating: 2.77
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/03/23
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]]> Antkind 45013049 Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Synecdoche, New York.

B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, neurotic and underappreciated film critic (failed academic, film-maker, paramour, shoe salesman who sleeps in a sock drawer), stumbles upon a hitherto unseen film made by an enigmatic outsider—a film he's convinced will change his career trajectory and rock the world of cinema to its core. His hands on what is possibly the greatest movie ever made—a three-month-long stop-motion masterpiece that took its reclusive auteur ninety years to complete—B. knows that it is his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: The film is destroyed, leaving him the sole witness to its inadvertently ephemeral genius.

All that's left of this work of art is a single frame from which B. must somehow attempt to recall the film that just might be the last great hope of civilization. Thus begins a mind-boggling journey through the hilarious nightmarescape of a psyche as lushly Kafkaesque as it is atrophied by the relentless spew of Twitter. Desperate to impose order on an increasingly nonsensical existence, trapped in a self-imposed prison of aspirational victimhood and degeneratively inclusive language, B. scrambles to recreate the lost masterwork while attempting to keep pace with an ever-fracturing culture of "likes" and arbitrary denunciations that are simultaneously his bete noire and his raison d'etre.

A searing indictment of the modern world, Antkind is a richly layered meditation on art, time, memory, identity, comedy, and the very nature of existence itself—the grain of truth at the heart of every joke.]]> 720 Charlie Kaufman Jackson 0 3.75 2020 Antkind
author: Charlie Kaufman
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2026/03/14
date added: 2026/03/14
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]]> House of Leaves 24800
Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.]]> 709 Mark Z. Danielewski Jackson 5 favorites
A postmodern behemoth that stretches the limit of its own scope before intentionally crashing underneath its own weight. A story about obsession for the obsessed!

If it's not clear already, I have an enormous soft spot for House of Leaves. It was one of the first novels that ever challenged my expectations of what literature can be and some trace of it will forever remain in me. Somewhere deep within, nestled in the back of my head. Just like the obsession that consumes each narrator.

Pretty polarizing but I remain convinced that an adaptation is possible. Even if not through a literal retelling, the spirit of its dissected, unreliable narrators can be visualized. ]]> 4.11 2000 House of Leaves
author: Mark Z. Danielewski
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2026/03/14
date added: 2026/03/14
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review:
One of the most spellbinding, exhaustive works I've ever experienced. Both deeply concerned with the scale and the details that occupy every inch of its misaligned format.

A postmodern behemoth that stretches the limit of its own scope before intentionally crashing underneath its own weight. A story about obsession for the obsessed!

If it's not clear already, I have an enormous soft spot for House of Leaves. It was one of the first novels that ever challenged my expectations of what literature can be and some trace of it will forever remain in me. Somewhere deep within, nestled in the back of my head. Just like the obsession that consumes each narrator.

Pretty polarizing but I remain convinced that an adaptation is possible. Even if not through a literal retelling, the spirit of its dissected, unreliable narrators can be visualized.
]]> The Beast in the Jungle 517570 The Beast in the Jungle was first published in London by Henry James in 1903 by Methuen Publishing in the collection "The Better Sort".
It is the story of John Marcher, a man who, for as long as he can remember, has been obsessed by the feeling that some life-changing - even catastrophic - event lies in wait for him like a jungle animal. Then the tragic day arrives on which the terrible true nature of the beast is revealed.

Excerpt:
speech that startled him in the course of their encounter scarcely matters, being probably but some words spoken by himself quite without intention—spoken as they lingered and slowly moved together after their renewal of acquaintance. He had been conveyed by friends an hour or two before to the house at which she was staying; the party of visitors at the other house, of whom he was one, and thanks to whom it was his theory, as always, that he was lost in the crowd, had been invited over to luncheon. There had been after luncheon much dispersal, all in the interest of the original motive, a view of Weatherend itself and the fine things, intrinsic features, pictures, heirlooms, treasures of all the arts, that made the place almost famous; and the great rooms were so numerous that guests could wander at their will, hang back from the principal group and in cases where they took such matters with the last seriousness give themselves up to mysterious appreciations and measurements.]]> 48 Henry James 1419153765 Jackson 0 to-read 3.64 1903 The Beast in the Jungle
author: Henry James
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1903
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This]]> 213870084 From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in the heart of an Empire which doesn’t consider you fully human.

On Oct 25th, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet was viewed over 10 million times. 

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This chronicles the deep fracture which has occurred for Black, brown, indigenous Americans, as well as the upcoming generation, many of whom had clung to a thread of faith in western ideals, in the idea that their countries, or the countries of their adoption, actually attempted to live up to the values they espouse. 

This book is a reckoning with what it means to live in the west, and what it means to live in a world run by a small group of countries—America, the UK, France and Germany.  It will be The Fire Next Time for a generation that understands we’re undergoing a shift in the so-called ‘rules-based order,’ a generation that understands the west can no longer be trusted to police and guide the world, or its own cities and campuses. It draws on intimate details of Omar’s own story as an emigrant who grew up believing in the western project, who was catapulted into journalism by the rupture of 9/11. 

This book is his heartsick breakup letter with the west. It is a breakup we are watching all over the U.S., on college campuses, on city streets, and the consequences of this rupture will be felt by all of us. His book is for all the people who want something better than what the west has served up. This is the book for our time.]]> 208 Omar El Akkad 0593804147 Jackson 0 to-read 4.56 2025 One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
author: Omar El Akkad
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/03/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones]]> 40136
The good, the bad, and the ugly, served up Bourdain-style.

Bestselling chef and No Reservations host Anthony Bourdain has never been one to pull punches. In The Nasty Bits , he serves up a well-seasoned hellbroth of candid, often outrageous stories from his worldwide misadventures. Whether scrounging for eel in the backstreets of Hanoi, revealing what you didn't want to know about the more unglamorous aspects of making television, calling for the head of raw food activist Woody Harrelson, or confessing to lobster-killing guilt, Bourdain is as entertaining as ever. Bringing together the best of his previously uncollected nonfiction--and including new, never-before-published material-- The Nasty Bits is a rude, funny, brutal and passionate stew for fans and the uninitiated alike. Anthony Bourdain is the author of seven books including the bestselling Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour . A thirty-year veteran of professional kitchens, he is the host of No Reservations on the Discovery Channel, and the executive chef at Les Halles in Manhattan. He lives in New York City.

Praise for Anthony Bourdain: "Bourdain's enthusiasm is so intense that it practically explodes off the page . . . Bourdain shows himself to be one of the country's best food writers. His opinions are as strong as his language, and his tastes as infectious as his joy."-- New York Times Book Review

"[Writes] the kind of book you read in one sitting, then rush about annoying your coworkers by declaiming whole passages."-- USA Today

"Bourdain's prose is utterly riveting, swaggering with stylish machismo and a precise ear for kitchen patois."-- New York magazine]]> 288 Anthony Bourdain 1582344515 Jackson 0 to-read 3.87 2005 The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Screwtape Letters (Screwtape, #1)]]> 8130077
C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the unique vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to “Our Father Below.” At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the wordly-wise devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging account of temptation—and triumph over it—ever written. ]]> 222 C.S. Lewis Jackson 0 to-read 4.35 1942 The Screwtape Letters (Screwtape, #1)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1942
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/12/04
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]]> Mere Christianity 40792344 Mere Christianity is C.S. Lewis's forceful and accessible doctrine of Christian belief. First heard as informal radio broadcasts and then published as three separate books — The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality — Mere Christianity brings together what Lewis saw as the fundamental truths of the religion.

Rejecting the boundaries that divide Christianity's many denominations, C.S. Lewis finds a common ground on which all those who have Christian faith can stand together, proving that "at the centre of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks the same voice."]]> 98 C.S. Lewis Jackson 0 to-read 4.43 1952 Mere Christianity
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man]]> 7588 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel of sexual awakening, religious rebellion and the essential search for voice and meaning that every nascent artist must face in order to blossom fully into themselves.]]> 329 James Joyce 0142437344 Jackson 0 to-read 3.64 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
author: James Joyce
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1916
rating: 0
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]]> The Complete Maus 15195
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.]]> 296 Art Spiegelman 0141014083 Jackson 0 4.58 1992 The Complete Maus
author: Art Spiegelman
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.58
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/12/03
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]]> The Beach 607639
The Khao San Road, Bangkok -- first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveller slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach."

The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among young travellers in Asia: a lagoon hidden from the sea, with white sand and coral gardens, freshwater falls surrounded by jungle, plants untouched for a thousand years. There, it is rumoured, a carefully selected international few have settled in a communal Eden.

Haunted by the figure of Mr. Duck -- the name by which the Thai police have identified the dead man -- and his own obsession with Vietnam movies, Richard sets off with a young French couple to an island hidden away in an archipelago forbidden to tourists. They discover the Beach, and it is as beautiful and idyllic as it is reputed to be. Yet over time it becomes clear that Beach culture, as Richard calls it, has troubling, even deadly, undercurrents.

Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, The Beach by Alex Garland -- both a national bestseller and his debut -- is a highly accomplished and suspenseful novel that fixates on a generation in their twenties, who, burdened with the legacy of the preceding generation and saturated by popular culture, long for an unruined landscape, but find it difficult to experience the world first hand.]]> 436 Alex Garland 1573226521 Jackson 0 to-read 4.00 1996 The Beach
author: Alex Garland
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/12/03
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]]> The Double 210190 Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot, Dostoyevsky also wrote much superb short fiction. The Double is one of the finest of his shorter works. It appeared in 1846 (his second published work) and is by far the most significant of his early stories, not least for its successful, straight-faced treatment of a hallucinatory theme.

In The Double, the protagonist, Golyadkin senior, is persecuted by his double, Golyadkin junior, who resembles him closely in almost every detail. The latter abuses the former with mounting scorn and brutality as the tale proceeds toward its frightening denouement. Characteristic Dostoyevskyan themes of helplessness, victimization, and scandal are beautifully handled here with an artistry that qualifies the story as a small masterpiece.

Students of literature, admirers of Dostoyevsky, and general readers will all be delighted to have this classic work available in this inexpensive but high-quality edition.]]> 144 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0486295729 Jackson 0
A classic story of individuality loss, set against a bureaucratic society further stifling any larger chance at individual expression. Like an unconvincing mother staring in your eyes, recognizing more than one man…

The Double argues this mirror gaze will result in gradual implosion. Whether that be insanity or a tangible doppelgänger, literally convincing yourself of your own ubiquity.

Seems that a majority of Golyadkin’s character was borrowed or—more literally—lifted from Nikolai Gogol’s work. Nonetheless, these moments of social slights, cringe tragedy and interpersonal destruction are by far my favorite characteristics of Dostoyevsky’s work so far. ]]> 3.69 1846 The Double
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1846
rating: 0
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I’ll tell him this and that, such and such—

A classic story of individuality loss, set against a bureaucratic society further stifling any larger chance at individual expression. Like an unconvincing mother staring in your eyes, recognizing more than one man…

The Double argues this mirror gaze will result in gradual implosion. Whether that be insanity or a tangible doppelgänger, literally convincing yourself of your own ubiquity.

Seems that a majority of Golyadkin’s character was borrowed or—more literally—lifted from Nikolai Gogol’s work. Nonetheless, these moments of social slights, cringe tragedy and interpersonal destruction are by far my favorite characteristics of Dostoyevsky’s work so far.
]]> 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 Jackson 5 favorites
One of the greater takeaways I've been sitting with has been the structure of the book, and in particular how the storytelling in the second half contrasts with the philosophy of the first.

Echo chambers of certainty paralleled with crushing, social anxiety. I really shouldn't have drank that much at the group dinner last night. I've found its greatest personal significance to come at this intersection of mundane social embarrassment and a greater existential nihilism.]]> 4.20 1864 Notes from Underground
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1864
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/11/15
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two things can be true at once

One of the greater takeaways I've been sitting with has been the structure of the book, and in particular how the storytelling in the second half contrasts with the philosophy of the first.

Echo chambers of certainty paralleled with crushing, social anxiety. I really shouldn't have drank that much at the group dinner last night. I've found its greatest personal significance to come at this intersection of mundane social embarrassment and a greater existential nihilism.
]]> The Rules of Attraction 9912 From the bestselling author of American Psycho comes this satirical black comedy about the death of romance.

Set at an affluent liberal arts college during the height of the Reagan eighties, The Rules of Attraction follows a handful of rowdy, spoiled, sexually promiscuous students with no plans for the future—or even the present. Three of them—Sean, Paul, and Lauren—become involved in a love triangle of sorts within a sequence of drug runs, "Dressed to Get Screwed" parties, and "End of the World" parties.

As Bret Easton Ellis trains his incisive gaze on the kids at the self-consciously bohemian Camden College, treating their sexual posturing and agonies with a mixture of acrid hilarity and compassion, he exposes the moral vacuum at the center of their lives.]]> 283 Bret Easton Ellis 067978148X Jackson 0
and he always stuttered. he had this absolute stammer when he tried to talk, his ideas were miscommunicated but he confused himself even. tried to talk too fast, to keep up with us, he was a very insecure boy. but i just told him "yeah"

either way, i got over it. i didnt want to go home alone and try to wake up my neighbor again. so i walked up and touched the small of his back, he turned around and said]]> 3.74 1987 The Rules of Attraction
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at: 2025/08/30
date added: 2025/11/15
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i liked the way she looked at me, but i always hated her eyes. it was this combination of colors, a muddy brown and black but always put me off. she looked better with the lights off

and he always stuttered. he had this absolute stammer when he tried to talk, his ideas were miscommunicated but he confused himself even. tried to talk too fast, to keep up with us, he was a very insecure boy. but i just told him "yeah"

either way, i got over it. i didnt want to go home alone and try to wake up my neighbor again. so i walked up and touched the small of his back, he turned around and said
]]> <![CDATA[The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future]]> 58701854 Theodore John Kaczynski Jackson 0 to-read 3.83 1995 The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future
author: Theodore John Kaczynski
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/11/10
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]]> Pi: The Guerilla Diaries 215579788 324 Darren Aronofsky 1960078070 Jackson 5
Decoration aside, Pi’s always been an inspiration and this book only furthered my fixation with this world.

FAITH IN CHAOS]]> 4.48 Pi: The Guerilla Diaries
author: Darren Aronofsky
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.48
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/08/12
date added: 2025/08/12
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review:
Beautifully compiled, essentially a coffee book with gorgeous textured paper.

Decoration aside, Pi’s always been an inspiration and this book only furthered my fixation with this world.

FAITH IN CHAOS
]]> The Bonfire of the Vanities 2666 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780553381344.

The Bonfire of the Vanities is a 1987 satirical novel by Tom Wolfe. The story is a drama about ambition, racism, social class, politics, and greed in 1980s New York City, and centers on three main characters: WASP bond trader Sherman McCoy, Jewish assistant district attorney Larry Kramer, and British expatriate journalist Peter Fallow.

The novel was originally conceived as a serial in the style of Charles Dickens' writings: It ran in 27 installments in Rolling Stone starting in 1984. Wolfe heavily revised it before it was published in book form. The novel was a bestseller and a phenomenal success, even in comparison with Wolfe's other books. It has often been called the quintessential novel of the 1980s.]]> 690 Tom Wolfe Jackson 0 to-read 3.91 1987 The Bonfire of the Vanities
author: Tom Wolfe
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/22
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]]> Glamorama 9913 “Impeccable . . . cold and pitiless and modern.” —The Village Voice

“Compelling and scary. A political thriller bursting with conspiracies, double agents and international terrorism. Glamorama is like a Semtex attack on our superficialities.” —The Face

The author of American Psycho continues to shock and haunt us with his incisive and brilliant dissection of the modern world. In his most ambitious and gripping book yet, Bret Easton Ellis delivers a gripping and brilliant dissection of our celebrity-obsessed culture.

Victor Ward, a twenty-something model in fashion- and celebrity-obsessed Manhattan, is gradually, imperceptibly drawn into a shadowy looking-glass of that society, there and in London and Paris, and then finds himself trapped on the other side, in a much darker place where fame and terrorism and family and politics are inextricably linked and sometimes indistinguishable. At once implicated and horror-stricken, his ways of escape blocked at every turn, he ultimately discovers—back on the other, familiar side—that there was no mirror, no escape, no world but this one in which hotels implode and planes fall from the sky.]]> 546 Bret Easton Ellis 0375703845 Jackson 0 to-read 3.56 1998 Glamorama
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Hunter (Parker, #1) 618399
University of Chicago Press has embarked on a project to return the early volumes of this series to print.]]> 208 Richard Stark Jackson 0 to-read 3.99 1962 The Hunter (Parker, #1)
author: Richard Stark
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> Five Decembers 57522883
This extraordinary novel is so much more than just a gripping crime story—it’s a story of survival against all odds, of love and loss and the human cost of war. Spanning the entirety of World War II, Five Decembers is a beautiful, masterful, powerful novel that will live in your memory forever.]]> 429 James Kestrel 1789096111 Jackson 0 to-read 4.36 2021 Five Decembers
author: James Kestrel
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/12
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]]> One Hundred Years of Solitude 320 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.]]> 417 Gabriel García Márquez Jackson 0 to-read 4.10 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know]]> 43848929 Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers -- and why they often go wrong.

How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true?

While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you'll hear the voices of people he interviewed--scientists, criminologists, military psychologists. Court transcripts are brought to life with re-enactments. You actually hear the contentious arrest of Sandra Bland by the side of the road in Texas. As Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, and the suicide of Sylvia Plath, you hear directly from many of the players in these real-life tragedies. There's even a theme song - Janelle Monae's "Hell You Talmbout."

Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don't know. And because we don't know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world.]]> 388 Malcolm Gladwell 0316478520 Jackson 4
Amanda Knox is proof the world just wants to keep quirky white girls down ]]> 4.00 2019 Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/07/05
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Favorite vignette author thank you Malcom

Amanda Knox is proof the world just wants to keep quirky white girls down
]]> Scorsese on Scorsese 641355 254 David Thompson 0571178278 Jackson 0 4.11 1989 Scorsese on Scorsese
author: David Thompson
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/30
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]]> Less Than Zero 9915
Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs, and into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.]]> 208 Bret Easton Ellis Jackson 0
Incredibly blunt climatic scenes dampen a loosely structured, vignette of moral entropy. A feedback loop of apathy.

I grabbed him by his neck and stared into his eyes until he looked away. ]]> 3.65 1985 Less Than Zero
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
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People are afraid to merge. Don't combine and do not share, because no one may be listening and there is no place for you here.

Incredibly blunt climatic scenes dampen a loosely structured, vignette of moral entropy. A feedback loop of apathy.

I grabbed him by his neck and stared into his eyes until he looked away.
]]> Mr. Texas 78086724
Sonny Lamb is an affable, if floundering, rancher with the unfortunate habit of becoming a punchline in his Texas hometown. Most recently, he bought his own bull at auction, saving it from being sold to a slaughterhouse. But when a fire breaks out at a neighbor’s farm, Sonny makes headlines in another way: Not waiting for help, he bolts to the farm and heroically saves the family’s daughter and her horse, riding the animal out of their burning barn. Within days of the event, he attracts the notice of a mysterious man named L.D. who arrives at his door and asks if he’d like to run as a Republican for his district’s representative seat. Though Sonny has zero experience and doesn’t consider himself political in the least, he decides to throw his hat in the ring . . . and he wins.

As Sonny navigates life in politics—from running a campaign to negotiating in the capitol—he must learn the ropes, weighing his own ethics and environmental concerns against the pressures of veteran politicians, savvy lobbyists, and his own party. In tracing Sonny’s attempt to balance his marriage and morality with an increasingly volatile professional life, Lawrence Wright has crafted a hilarious, immensely clever rollercoaster ride about one man’s pursuit of goodness in the Lonestar State.]]> 323 Lawrence Wright 0593537378 Jackson 0 to-read 3.91 2023 Mr. Texas
author: Lawrence Wright
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/16
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]]> Under the Volcano 31072
Under the Volcano remains one of literature's most powerful and lyrical statements on the human condition, and a brilliant portrayal of one man's constant struggle against the elemental forces that threaten to destroy him.]]> 423 Malcolm Lowry 0060955228 Jackson 0 to-read 3.78 1947 Under the Volcano
author: Malcolm Lowry
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1947
rating: 0
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]]> Wise Blood 48467 The American short story master Flannery O'Connor's haunting first novel of faith, false prophets, and redemptive wisdom.

Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's astonishing and haunting first novel, is a classic of twentieth-century literature. It is the story of Hazel Motes, a twenty-two-year-old caught in an unending struggle against his inborn, desperate fate. He falls under the spell of a "blind" street preacher named Asa Hawks and his degenerate fifteen-year-old daughter, Sabbath Lily. In an ironic, malicious gesture of his own non-faith, and to prove himself a greater cynic than Hawks, Motes founds the Church Without Christ, but is still thwarted in his efforts to lose God. He meets Enoch Emery, a young man with "wise blood," who leads him to a mummified holy child and whose crazy maneuvers are a manifestation of Motes's existential struggles.

This tale of redemption, retribution, false prophets, blindness, blindings, and wisdom gives us one of the most riveting characters in American fiction.]]> 256 Flannery O'Connor 0374530637 Jackson 0 to-read 3.83 1952 Wise Blood
author: Flannery O'Connor
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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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.
 
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 Jackson 0 favorites 4.21 1966 Flowers for Algernon
author: Daniel Keyes
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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]]> The Crying of Lot 49 2794 The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executrix of a former lover's estate. The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her. But gradually, death, drugs, madness, and marriage combine to leave Oedipa in isolation on the threshold of revelation, awaiting the Crying of Lot 49.]]> 152 Thomas Pynchon Jackson 0
where's the fun in solving the puzzle? satisfaction, sure, but nothing is more reflective than looking at the world in utter confusion. We're all just living in a scatter-brained mess, so we can choose to apply reason to conspiracy or ignore the contradictions in the first place. Ignorance is a blessing]]> 3.70 1965 The Crying of Lot 49
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1965
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/23
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oedipa you and me both

where's the fun in solving the puzzle? satisfaction, sure, but nothing is more reflective than looking at the world in utter confusion. We're all just living in a scatter-brained mess, so we can choose to apply reason to conspiracy or ignore the contradictions in the first place. Ignorance is a blessing
]]> The Monk 93157 'He now saw himself stained with the most loathed and monstrous sins, the object of universal execration ... doomed to perish in tortures the most severe'

Shocking, erotic and violent, The Monk is the story of Ambrosio, torn between his spiritual vows and the temptations of physical pleasure. His internal battle leads to sexual obsession, rape and murder, yet this book also contains knowing parody of its own excesses as well as social comedy. Written by Matthew Lewis when he was only nineteen, it was a ground-breaking novel in the Gothic Horror genre and spawned hundreds of imitators, drawn in by its mixture of bloodshed, sex and scandal.]]> 385 Matthew Gregory Lewis 0140436030 Jackson 0 to-read 3.86 1796 The Monk
author: Matthew Gregory Lewis
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1796
rating: 0
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]]> 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 Jackson 0 to-read 4.06 2003 We Need to Talk About Kevin
author: Lionel Shriver
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> The Trial 17690
In his brilliant translation, Breon Mitchell masterfully reproduces the distinctive poetics of Kafka's prose, revealing a novel as full of energy and power as when it was first written.]]> 255 Franz Kafka Jackson 0 to-read 3.99 1925 The Trial
author: Franz Kafka
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1925
rating: 0
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]]> Story of the Eye 436806
Story of the Eye, written in 1928, is his best-known work; it is unashamedly surrealistic, both disgusting and fascinating, and packed with seemingly endless violations. It's something of an underground classic, rediscovered by each new generation. Most recently, the Icelandic pop singer Björk Guðdmundsdóttir cites Story of the Eye as a major inspiration: she made a music video that alludes to Bataille's erotic uses of eggs, and she plans to read an excerpt for an album.

Warning: Story of the Eye is graphically sexual, and is only suited for adults who are not easily offended.]]> 103 Georges Bataille 0872862097 Jackson 0 to-read 3.69 1928 Story of the Eye
author: Georges Bataille
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1928
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Child of God (Vintage International)]]> 293625 197 Cormac McCarthy 0679728740 Jackson 0 to-read 3.81 1973 Child of God (Vintage International)
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1973
rating: 0
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]]> Heart of Darkness 4900 Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government. Preceded by his reputation as a brilliant emissary of progress, Kurtz has now established himself as a god among the natives in “one of the darkest places on earth.” Marlow suspects something else of Kurtz: he has gone mad.

A reflection on corruptive European colonialism and a journey into the nightmare psyche of one of the corrupted, Heart of Darkness is often considered one of the most influential works ever written.]]> 188 Joseph Conrad 1892295490 Jackson 0 to-read 3.44 1899 Heart of Darkness
author: Joseph Conrad
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.44
book published: 1899
rating: 0
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]]> Jude the Obscure 50798 310 Thomas Hardy 0486452433 Jackson 0 to-read 3.83 1895 Jude the Obscure
author: Thomas Hardy
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1895
rating: 0
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]]> In the Penal Colony 581552 The Penal Colony: Stories and Short Pieces is a collection of short stories and recollections by Franz Kafka, with additional writings by Max Brod. First published in 1948 by Schocken Books, this volume includes all the works Kafka intended for publication, and published during his lifetime (the only exception in The Stoker which serves as a first chapter for the novel Amerika). It also includes critical pieces by Kafka, "The First Long Train Journey" by Kafka and Brod (which was initially intended to be the first chapter of a book), and an Epilogue by Brod. This collection was translated by Willa and Edwin Muir.]]> 52 Franz Kafka Jackson 0 to-read 4.00 1918 In the Penal Colony
author: Franz Kafka
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1918
rating: 0
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]]> Sanctuary 18789 326 William Faulkner 0679748148 Jackson 0 to-read 3.64 1931 Sanctuary
author: William Faulkner
name: Jackson
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1931
rating: 0
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]]> Johnny Got His Gun 51606
This is no ordinary novel. This is a novel that never takes the easy way out: it is shocking, violent, terrifying, horrible, uncompromising, brutal, remorseless and gruesome... but so is war.

Winner of the National Book Award.]]> 309 Dalton Trumbo 0806512814 Jackson 0 to-read 4.21 1939 Johnny Got His Gun
author: Dalton Trumbo
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1939
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Butterfly Garden (The Collector, #1)]]> 29981261
In this garden grow luscious flowers, shady trees…and a collection of precious “butterflies”—young women who have been kidnapped and intricately tattooed to resemble their namesakes. Overseeing it all is the Gardener, a brutal, twisted man obsessed with capturing and preserving his lovely specimens.

When the garden is discovered, a survivor is brought in for questioning. FBI agents Victor Hanoverian and Brandon Eddison are tasked with piecing together one of the most stomach-churning cases of their careers. But the girl, known only as Maya, proves to be a puzzle herself.

As her story twists and turns, slowly shedding light on life in the Butterfly Garden, Maya reveals old grudges, new saviors, and horrific tales of a man who’d go to any length to hold beauty captive. But the more she shares, the more the agents have to wonder what she’s still hiding...]]> 280 Dot Hutchison 1503989712 Jackson 0 to-read 4.09 2016 The Butterfly Garden (The Collector, #1)
author: Dot Hutchison
name: Jackson
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/09
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]]>