Amr's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 12 Sep 2026 06:17:27 -0700 60 Amr's bookshelf: all 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Trust 58210933 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593420317.

An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly boundless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.

Hernan Diaz's TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another—and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.

At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.]]> 402 Hernan Diaz Amr 0 to-read 3.75 2022 Trust
author: Hernan Diaz
name: Amr
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/12
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]]> 화이트 블러드 1 [White Blood 1] 56351969 10년 전 어느 날,

뱀파이어로 변하는 사람들이 나타나기 시작했다

인간처럼 평범한 삶을 살고 싶은 순혈 뱀파이어 박하얀. 세상에 적응하기위한 노력에도 불구하고 뱀파이어를 향한 시민들의 적개심은 높아져만 간다. 이 모든 원흉의 중심은 바로 혼혈 뱀파이어들! 살인을 저지르며 사회를 공포로 몰아넣는 그들은 힘, 권력, 돈 모든 것을 가지고 대한민국을 잠식해 가고 있다. 하지만 그들에게도 치명적인 단점이 있으니, 바로 5년이라는 짧은 수명! 이 수명을 채우기 위해 필요한 건 단 하나. 순혈의 피!

성인이 된 하얀의 심장을 노리는 혼혈 뱀파이어들의 습격이 시작된다! 하얀의 운명은 어디로 향하게 될까?


1-12]]> 304 Lina Lim Amr 0 to-read 4.47 2020 화이트 블러드 1 [White Blood 1]
author: Lina Lim
name: Amr
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/31
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]]> The Hundred Light-Year Diary 56884600 Greg Egan Amr 0 to-read 3.48 The Hundred Light-Year Diary
author: Greg Egan
name: Amr
average rating: 3.48
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/23
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]]> God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater 33290408 Slaughterhouse-Five in the Vonnegut canon in its prominence and influence, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater(1965) presents Eliot Rosewater, an itinerant, semi-crazed millionaire wandering the country in search of heritage and philanthropic outcome, introducing the science fiction writer Kilgore Trout to the world and Vonnegut to the collegiate audience which would soon make him a cult writer. Trout, modeled according to Vonnegut on the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (with whom Vonnegut had an occasional relationship) is a desperate, impoverished but visionary hack writer who functions for Eliot Rosewater as both conscience and horrid example. Rosewater, seeking to put his inheritance to some meaningful use (his father was an entrepreneur), tries to do good within the context of almost illimitable cynicism and corruption. It is in this novel that Rosewater wanders into a science fiction conference — an actual annual event in Milford, Pennsylvania — and at the motel delivers his famous monologue evoked by science fiction writers and critics for almost half a century: "None of you can write for sour apples... but you're the only people trying to come to terms with the really terrific things which are happening today." Money does not drive Mr. Rosewater (or the corrupt lawyer who tries to shape the Rosewater fortune) so much as outrage at the human condition. The novel is primarily an episodic collection of Eliot's interactions with the citizens of Rosewater County punctuated by episodes from the point of view of the corrupt lawyer, Mushari, as he tries to enrich himself. The interactions reveal different hypocrisies of humankind in a darkly humorous fashion.
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater was adapted as a musical by Alan Menken in 1979.]]> 290 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Amr 3 4.03 1965 God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Amr
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1965
rating: 3
read at: 2026/05/27
date added: 2026/05/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly]]> 33313 A deluxe, annotated edition of Kitchen Confidential to celebrate the life of Anthony Bourdain, featuring new photo inserts

Over two decades ago, the New Yorker published a now infamous article, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” by then little-known chef Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain spared no one’s appetite as he revealed what happens behind the kitchen door. The article was a sensation, and the book it spawned, the now iconic Kitchen Confidential, became an even bigger sensation and megabestseller. Frankly confessional, addictively acerbic, and utterly unsparing, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business.

Fans will love to return to this deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade, laying out Bourdain’s more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute cuisine. Including a handwritten introduction and annotations done by Bourdain about a decade after the book was originally published, this edition also features previously unpublished photos to accompany the now-classic text.]]> 312 Anthony Bourdain 0060899220 Amr 0 to-read 4.19 2000 Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: Amr
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World]]> 52686790 From Neanderthal string to 3D knitting, an “expansive” global history that highlights “how textiles truly changed the world” (Wall Street Journal)The story of humanity is the story of textiles—as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture.

In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world. Textiles funded the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; they gave us banks and bookkeeping, Michelangelo’s David and the Taj Mahal. The cloth business spread the alphabet and arithmetic, propelled chemical research, and taught people to think in binary code.
 
Assiduously researched and deftly narrated, The Fabric of Civilization tells the story of the world’s most influential commodity.

“We are taken on a journey as epic, and varying, as the Silk Road itself.… [The Fabric of Civilization is] like a swatch of a Florentine Renaissance brocade: carefully woven, the technique precise, the colors a mix of shade and shine and an accurate representation of the whole cloth."

—New York Times

“Textile-making hasn’t gotten enough credit for its own sophistication, and for all the ways it undergirds human technological innovation—an error Virginia Postrel’s erudite and complete book goes a long way toward correcting at last.”

—Wired]]> 320 Virginia Postrel 1541617606 Amr 0 to-read 4.11 2020 The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World
author: Virginia Postrel
name: Amr
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/07
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]]> Seveneves 22816087
A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . .

Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.]]> 872 Neal Stephenson Amr 0 to-read 4.00 2015 Seveneves
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Amr
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined]]> 11107244 Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year. The author of The New York Times bestseller The Stuff of Thought offers a controversial history of violence.

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, pogroms, gruesome punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened?

This groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic motives- the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away-and how changing circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail. Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we think about our society.]]> 802 Steven Pinker 0670022950 Amr 0 to-read 4.16 2010 The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
author: Steven Pinker
name: Amr
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/04/04
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]]> <![CDATA[There Is No Antimemetics Division]]> 54870256 220 qntm Amr 0 to-read 3.98 2020 There Is No Antimemetics Division
author: qntm
name: Amr
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/03/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Discovery of Dynamics: A Study from a Machian Point of View of the Discovery and the Structure of Dynamical Theories]]> 997475 Written by the world's leading expert on Mach's Principle, The Discovery of Dynamics is a highly original account of the development of notions about space, time, and motion. Widely praised in its hardback version, it is one of the fullest and most readable accounts of the astronomical studies that culminated in Kepler's laws of planetary motion and of the creation of dynamics by Galileo, Descartes, Huygens, and Newton. Originally published as Absolute or Relative Motion?, Vol. 1: The Discovery of Dynamics (Cambridge), The Discovery of Dynamics provides the technical background to Barbour's recently published The End of Time , in which he argues that time disappears from the description of the quantum universe.]]> 784 Julian Barbour 0195132025 Amr 0 to-read 4.07 2001 The Discovery of Dynamics: A Study from a Machian Point of View of the Discovery and the Structure of Dynamical Theories
author: Julian Barbour
name: Amr
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/03/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Night Watch (Discworld, #29; City Watch, #6)]]> 47989
Living in the past is hard. Dying in the past is incredibly easy. But he must survive, because he has a job to do. He must track down a murderer, teach his younger self how to be a good copper, and change the outcome of a bloody rebellion. There's a problem: if he wins, he's got no wife, no child, no future.

A Discworld Tale of One City, with a full chorus of street urchins, ladies of negotiable affection, rebels, secret policemen, and other children of the revolution.

Truth! Justice! Freedom!
And a Hard-boiled Egg!]]> 480 Terry Pratchett 055215430X Amr 0 to-read 4.49 2002 Night Watch (Discworld, #29; City Watch, #6)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Amr
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/02/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Mort (Discworld, #4; Death, #1)]]> 386372
Death is the Grim Reaper of the Discworld, a black-robed skeleton with a scythe who ushers souls into the next world. He is also fond of cats and endlessly baffled by humanity. Soon Death is yearning to experience what humanity really has to offer, but to do that, he'll need to hire some help.

It's an offer Mort can't refuse. As Death's apprentice he'll have free board, use of the company horse—and being dead isn't compulsory. It's a dream job—until Mort falls in love with Death's daughter, Ysabell, and discovers that your boss can be a killer on your love life…]]> 243 Terry Pratchett 0061020680 Amr 0 to-read 4.24 1987 Mort (Discworld, #4; Death, #1)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Amr
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/02/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Equal Rites (Discworld, #3; Witches, #1)]]> 34507 228 Terry Pratchett 0060855908 Amr 0 to-read 4.06 1987 Equal Rites (Discworld, #3; Witches, #1)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Amr
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/02/14
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]]> <![CDATA[The Light Fantastic (Discworld, #2; Rincewind, #2)]]> 34506 277 Terry Pratchett 0061020702 Amr 0 to-read 3.98 1986 The Light Fantastic (Discworld, #2; Rincewind, #2)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Amr
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/02/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Memory Police 37004370
When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.

A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.]]> 274 Yōko Ogawa 1101870605 Amr 0 to-read 3.68 1994 The Memory Police
author: Yōko Ogawa
name: Amr
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/02/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Strata: Stories from Deep Time]]> 218569829 A revelatory journey through four moments in Earth’s deep past, and their lessons for our future.

The epic stories of our planet’s 4.54-billion-year history are written in strata—ages-old remnants of ancient seafloors, desert dunes, and riverbeds striping landscapes around the world. In this brilliantly original debut work, science writer Laura Poppick decodes strata to lead us on a journey through four global transformations that made our lives on Earth possible: the first accumulations of oxygen in the atmosphere; the deep freezes of "Snowball Earth"; the rise of mud on land and accompanying proliferation of plants; and the dinosaurs’ reign on a hothouse planet

Poppick introduces us to the researchers who have devoted their careers to understanding the events of deep time, including the world’s leading stegosaur scientist. She travels to sites as various as a Minnesotan iron mine that runs half a mile deep and a corner of the Australian Outback where glacial deposits date from the coldest times on Earth. Ultimately, she demonstrates that the planet’s oceans, continents, atmosphere, life, and ice have always conspired to bring stability to Earth, even if we are only just beginning to understand how these different facets interact.

A work in the tradition of John McPhee, Strata allows us to observe how the planet has responded to past periods of environmental upheaval, and shows how Earth’s ancient narratives could hold lessons for our present and future.]]> 288 Laura Poppick 1324021608 Amr 0 to-read 4.01 2025 Strata: Stories from Deep Time
author: Laura Poppick
name: Amr
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
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]]> <![CDATA[Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life]]> 207579898 The fascinating story of how private life was won, and how it might just as easily be lost . . .

Private life is in mortal danger, following decades in which it has been relinquished and ransacked. It is threatened by a three-headed state and corporate surveillance, a confessional, ’tell-all’ culture that makes people complicit in the invasion of their own privacy, and the intense politicization of private life.

Tiffany Jenkins’s groundbreaking book traces the emergence of private sanctuaries from authority and public opinion to show that private life is a very recent – and hard-won – achievement. It also warns that, if we’re not careful, it will be a temporary one.

Strangers and Intimates is animated by dramatic human from the political struggles in the seventeenth century that led to Edmund Coke’s rallying cry that ‘an Englishman’s home is his castle’; to the first modern privacy panic in 1844, when the British government opened private letters sent to the exiled Italian republican Giuseppe Mazzini; and from the embrace by the public of reality TV to the Chinese government’s social credit system.

A private life is a precious, sustaining resource that is of profound intrinsic value, and it must be defended. We won’t know what we have lost until it has gone . . .]]> 463 Tiffany Jenkins 1529034191 Amr 0 to-read 3.71 Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life
author: Tiffany Jenkins
name: Amr
average rating: 3.71
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]]> <![CDATA[Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power]]> 37133029 Exploring how neoliberalism has discovered the productive force of the psyche

Byung-Chul Han, a star of German philosophy, continues his passionate critique of neoliberalism, trenchantly describing a regime of technological domination that, in contrast to Foucault’s biopower, has discovered the productive force of the psyche. In the course of discussing all the facets of neoliberal psychopolitics fueling our contemporary crisis of freedom, Han elaborates an analytical framework that provides an original theory of Big Data and a lucid phenomenology of emotion. But this provocative essay proposes counter models too, presenting a wealth of ideas and surprising alternatives at every turn.

]]> 96 Byung-Chul Han 1784785784 Amr 0 to-read 4.07 2014 Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power
author: Byung-Chul Han
name: Amr
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/02/11
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]]> Half His Age 240424526 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes a sad, funny, thrilling novel about sex, consumerism, class, desire, loneliness, the internet, rage, intimacy, power, and the (oftentimes misguided) lengths we’ll go to in order to get what we want.

Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Forceful. Hurting. Perceptive. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of all: Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films and things that she doesn’t? Or is it purer than that, rooted in their unlikely connection, their kindred spirits, the similar filter with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it’s just enough that he sees her when no one else does.

Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is a rich character study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles—or attempts to overcome them—in her effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved.]]> 288 Jennette McCurdy 0593723732 Amr 0 to-read 3.20 2026 Half His Age
author: Jennette McCurdy
name: Amr
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/02/11
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]]> <![CDATA[When We Cease to Understand the World]]> 62069739
Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize and the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature

A fictional examination of the lives of real-life scientists and thinkers whose discoveries resulted in moral consequences beyond their imagining.

When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. 

Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger—these are some of luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the reader, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, alienate friends and lovers, descend into isolation and insanity. Some of their discoveries reshape human life for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear.

At a breakneck pace and with a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.]]> 193 Benjamín Labatut Amr 0 to-read 4.06 2020 When We Cease to Understand the World
author: Benjamín Labatut
name: Amr
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/12/06
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]]> <![CDATA[I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream]]> 415459 I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream contains seven stories with copyrights ranging from 1958 through 1967. This edition contains the original introduction by Theodore Sturgeon and the original foreword by Harlan Ellison, along with a brief update comment by Ellison that was added in the 1983 edition. Among Ellison's more famous stories, two consistently noted as among his very best ever are the title story and the volume's concluding one, Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.

Since Ellison himself strongly resists categorization of his work, we won't call them science fiction, or SF, or speculative fiction or horror or anything else except compelling reading experiences that are sui generis. They could only have been written by Harlan Ellison and they are incomparably original.

CONTENTS
"I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream"
"Big Sam Was My Friend"
"Eyes of Dust"
"World of the Myth"
"Lonelyache"
"Delusion for Dragonslayer"
"Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"]]> 134 Harlan Ellison 0441363954 Amr 0 to-read 3.91 1967 I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
author: Harlan Ellison
name: Amr
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/11/01
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]]> Sharp Objects 18045891
Librarian's Note: this is an alternate cover edition - ISBN 10: 0307341550 (ISBN 13: 9780307341556)]]> 254 Gillian Flynn 0297851535 Amr 0 to-read 4.03 2006 Sharp Objects
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Amr
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/08/12
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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 Amr 0 to-read 4.56 2025 One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
author: Omar El Akkad
name: Amr
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/08/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Uncontrollability of the World]]> 52592768
Our lives are played out on the border between what we can control and that which lies outside our control. But because we late-modern human beings seek to make the world controllable, we tend to encounter the world as a series of objects that we have to conquer, master or exploit. And precisely because of this, 'life, ' the experience of feeling alive and truly encountering the world, always seems to elude us. This in turn leads to frustration, anger and even despair, which then manifest themselves in, among other things, acts of impotent political aggression. For Rosa, to encounter the world and achieve resonance with it requires us to be open to that which extends beyond our control. The outcome of this process cannot be predicted, and this is why moments of resonance are always concomitant with moments of uncontrollability.

This short book - the sequel to Rosa's path-breaking work on social acceleration and resonance - will be of great interest students and scholars in sociology and the social sciences and to anyone concerned with the nature of modern social life.]]> 140 Hartmut Rosa 1509543171 Amr 0 currently-reading 4.33 2018 The Uncontrollability of the World
author: Hartmut Rosa
name: Amr
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/23
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Little Women (Little Women, #1)]]> 1934 Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.

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

Note: This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780451529305.

]]> 449 Louisa May Alcott Amr 0 to-read 4.17 1868 Little Women (Little Women, #1)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Amr
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1868
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/22
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]]> The Bell Jar 6514 294 Sylvia Plath Amr 4 4.05 1963 The Bell Jar
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Amr
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2025/07/19
date added: 2025/07/19
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]]> 스위트홈 1 [Sweet Home 1] 54958244
과거의 트라우마로 세상을 등진 은둔형 외톨이 차현수. 사고로 가족을 모두 잃고, 작고 허름한 아파트 ‘그린 홈’으로 이사한다. 집 밖에 나가지 않으려면 가족이 남긴 2천만 원으로 평생 살아야 하는 상황. 삶의 의욕을 잃은 현수는 좋아하는 애니메이션 ‘마리아는 하늘에서’의 극장판까지만 보고 자살하기로 결심한다. 그런데 이 아파트 뭔가 이상하다. 난장판인 복도, 사체로 발견된 고양이… 그리고 기이한 모습으로 변해버린 이웃집 여자까지! 하지만 이 아파트만의 문제가 아닌 것 같다. 인터넷 실시간 검색어 1위, ‘괴물화 초기 증상!’ 심지어 코피를 흘리며 기절을 하는 이 증상이 현수에게도 나타나기 시작하는데…. 도대체 무슨 일이 벌어지고 있는 거지?]]> 324 Carnby Kim 1190630273 Amr 0 to-read 4.42 2020 스위트홈 1 [Sweet Home 1]
author: Carnby Kim
name: Amr
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/08
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]]> The Remarried Empress, Vol. 1 61398896 “I ACCEPT THIS DIVORCE… AND REQUEST AN APPROVAL OF MY REMARRIAGE.”

Empress Navier and Emperor Sovieshu: a match made in heaven, they were the two pillars of the land whom everyone believed would stand by each other through thick and thin…until a chance encounter with a beautiful girl in the forest leaves the emperor smitten! Though hurt by the betrayal, Navier’s not one to waste time wallowing in despair. And when Sovieshu requests a divorce, she has but one condition in return—permission to remarry the man of her choosing!]]> 256 Herelee Amr 0 to-read 4.35 2018 The Remarried Empress, Vol. 1
author: Herelee
name: Amr
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/05
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]]> Into the Wild (Warriors, #1) 111332 288 Erin Hunter 0061284203 Amr 0 to-read 4.33 2003 Into the Wild (Warriors, #1)
author: Erin Hunter
name: Amr
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Deficit: How Feminist Economics Can Change Our World]]> 235789114
Underskud er en bog om alt det, vi tager for givet, udpiner og mister, når vi ikke kan måle dets værdi.]]> 336 Emma Holten 0753561476 Amr 0 to-read 4.00 2024 Deficit: How Feminist Economics Can Change Our World
author: Emma Holten
name: Amr
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland]]> 40163119
Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.]]> 441 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385521316 Amr 0 to-read 4.47 2018 Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: Amr
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin Readers, Level 3)]]> 477317 50 Alexandre Dumas 0582427010 Amr 0 to-read 3.80 The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin Readers, Level 3)
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Amr
average rating: 3.80
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/16
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]]> Foundation (Foundation, #1) 29579 The first novel in Isaac Asimov's classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series

For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future--to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire--both scientists and scholars--and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.]]> 244 Isaac Asimov 0553803719 Amr 0 to-read 4.18 1951 Foundation (Foundation, #1)
author: Isaac Asimov
name: Amr
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1951
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Why We’re Getting Poorer: A Realist's Guide to the Economy and How We Can Fix it]]> 217459693 An insider's guide to our broken economy and how it fails to serve us.

‘A fascinating examination of the failures of modern economics, and how these failures are harming us all' Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism

‘Easily one of the most compelling economics communicators of our generation.' Yuan Yang, FT columnist and MP for Earley and Woodley

Did you know that while we think of money as notes issued by the government, the truth is that the overwhelming majority of money today is credit created by private banks?

Did you know that the reason housing keeps getting less accessible is because we haven’t found a way to separate houses from land in our policies?

And did you know that far from globalisation being a mystical force, certain countries and currencies have dominated the way it has played out – to their own advantage?

Whilst economics is at the heart of the society we live in, governing so many functions from our taxes to where we live to the price of our shopping, few of us have a strong grasp on the subject. This book is here to help.

Why We're Getting Poorer delves into the key topics in economics – money, globalisation, inequality, climate change and growth – showing that what we think we know about these things is wrong, and teaching us what we really need to know. Deciphering the jargon and complexity of economic thinking, with examples ranging from the Simpsons to the German football league to The Inbetweeners, Cahal Moran shows us why our economy set us up to fail, and offers suggestions for how we can make positive changes.

Written by an award-winning economist and the YouTuber responsible for ‘Unlearning Economics’, Why We're Getting Poorer is a thrilling, iconoclastic guide to how the world really works.]]> 389 Cahal Moran 0008637970 Amr 0 to-read 4.02 Why We’re Getting Poorer: A Realist's Guide to the Economy and How We Can Fix it
author: Cahal Moran
name: Amr
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism]]> 223436601
Now you can read her award-winning story. Candid and entertaining, Wynn-Williams’ account pulls back the curtain on Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and the global elite. She exposes the true cost of Silicon Valley’s ambition, from outrageous schemes cooked up on private jets to the alarming consequences of Facebook’s aggressive pursuit of global dominance.

Careless People is an ordinary woman's gripping and darkly funny memoir that will forever change how you view the technology that runs our lives – and the unchecked power of those who control it.]]> 382 Sarah Wynn-Williams 1250391237 Amr 0 to-read 4.10 2025 Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
author: Sarah Wynn-Williams
name: Amr
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/23
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]]> <![CDATA[A History of Women in 101 Objects]]> 182126946
“I adored this book!” –Olivia Colman

This is a neglected history. Not a sweeping, definitive, exhaustive history of the world but something quieter, more intimate and particular. A single journey, picked out in 101 objects, through the fascinating, too-often-overlooked, manifold histories of women.

With engaging prose, compelling stories, and a beautiful full-page image of each object, Annabelle Hirsch curates a diverse compendium of women and their things, uncovering the thoughts and feelings at the heart of women’s daily lives. The result is an intimate and lively alternative history of humans in the world. The objects date from prehistory to today and are assembled chronologically to show the evolution of how women were perceived by others, how they perceived themselves, how they fought for freedom. Some (like a 16th century glass dildo) are objects of female pleasure, some (a thumbscrew) of female subjugation. These are artifacts of women celebrated by history and of women unfairly forgotten by it. With variety and nuance, Hirsch cracks open the fissures of what we think we know to illuminate a much richer What do handprints on early cave paintings tell us about the role of women in hunting? What does a mobile phone have to do with femicides? Or Kim Kardashian’s diamond ring with Elena Ferrante?

Wide-ranging, subversive, witty, and superbly researched, this is a book that upends all our assumptions about, and presentations of, the past, proving it has always been as complicated and fascinating as the women that peopled it.]]> 432 Annabelle Hirsch 0593728750 Amr 0 to-read 4.08 2022 A History of Women in 101 Objects
author: Annabelle Hirsch
name: Amr
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection]]> 220341389
In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, preventable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year.

In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 198 John Green 0525556575 Amr 0 to-read 4.31 2025 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
author: John Green
name: Amr
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/17
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]]> Dry 38355098
The drought—or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it—has been going on for a while now. Everyone’s lives have become an endless list of don’ts: don’t water the lawn, don’t fill up your pool, don’t take long showers.

Until the taps run dry.

Suddenly, Alyssa’s quiet suburban street spirals into a warzone of desperation; neighbors and families turned against each other on the hunt for water. And when her parents don’t return and her life—and the life of her brother—is threatened, Alyssa has to make impossible choices if she’s going to survive.]]> 390 Neal Shusterman 1481481967 Amr 0 to-read 4.01 2018 Dry
author: Neal Shusterman
name: Amr
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/15
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]]> Love Is a Dog from Hell 23534 A classic in the Bukowski poetry canon, Love Is a Dog from Hell is a raw, lyrical exploration of the exigencies, heartbreaks, and limits of love.

Charles Bukowski was a man of intense emotions, someone an editor once called a “passionate madman.” Alternating between tough and gentle, sensitive and gritty, Bukowski lays bare the myriad facets of love—its selfishness and its narcissism, its randomness, its mystery and its misery, and, ultimately, its true joyfulness, endurance, and redemptive power.]]> 312 Charles Bukowski 0876853629 Amr 0 to-read 3.99 1977 Love Is a Dog from Hell
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Amr
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/11
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]]> How to Stop Time 45152372 "She smiled a soft, troubled smile and I felt the whole world slipping away, and I wanted to slip with it, to go wherever she was going... I had existed whole years without her, but that was all it had been. An existence. A book with no words."

Tom Hazard has just moved back to London, his old home, to settle down and become a high school history teacher. And on his first day at school, he meets a captivating French teacher at his school who seems fascinated by him. But Tom has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history--performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.

Unfortunately for Tom, the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society's watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present.

How to Stop Time tells a love story across the ages--and for the ages--about a man lost in time, the woman who could save him, and the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live. It is a bighearted, wildly original novel about losing and finding yourself, the inevitability of change, and how with enough time to learn, we just might find happiness.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch.]]> 339 Matt Haig 0525522891 Amr 0 to-read 3.77 2018 How to Stop Time
author: Matt Haig
name: Amr
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/10
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]]> As I Lay Dying 77013 As I Lay Dying is Faulkner’s harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Narrated in turn by each of the family members -- including Addie herself -- as well as others; the novel ranges in mood, from dark comedy to the deepest pathos. Considered one of the most influential novels in American fiction in structure, style, and drama, As I Lay Dying is a true 20th-century classic.

This edition reproduces the corrected text of As I Lay Dying as established in 1985 by Noel Polk.]]> 270 William Faulkner Amr 0 to-read 3.71 1930 As I Lay Dying
author: William Faulkner
name: Amr
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1930
rating: 0
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]]> Some Desperate Glory 58388343 While we live, the enemy shall fear us.

All her life Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of planet Earth. Raised in the bowels of Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she readies herself to face the Wisdom, the all-powerful, reality-shaping weapon that gave the Majoda their victory over humanity.

They are what’s left. They are what must survive. Kyr is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet. But when Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to the nursery to bear sons until she dies trying, she knows she must take humanity’s revenge into her own hands.

Alongside her brother’s brilliant but seditious friend and a lonely, captive alien, she escapes from everything she’s ever known into a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could have imagined.

A thrillingly told queer space opera about the wreckage of war, the family you find, and who you must become when every choice is stripped from you, Some Desperate Glory is award-winning author Emily Tesh’s highly anticipated debut novel.]]> 438 Emily Tesh 1250834988 Amr 0 to-read 4.00 2023 Some Desperate Glory
author: Emily Tesh
name: Amr
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)]]> 35068705 An epic historical military fantasy, inspired by the bloody history of China’s twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic.

When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .

Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.]]> 545 R.F. Kuang 0062662597 Amr 0 to-read 4.13 2018 The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Amr
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again]]> 29434
A journalist's provocative, spellbinding account of her eighteen months spent undercover will transform the way we think about what it means to be a man

Following in the tradition of John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me) and Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed), Norah Vincent absorbed a cultural experience and reported back on what she observed incognito. For more than a year and a half she ventured into the world as Ned, with an ever-present five o'clock shadow, a crew cut, wire-rim glasses, and her own size 11 1/2 shoes—a perfect disguise that enabled her to observe the world of men as an insider. The result is a sympathetic, shrewd, and thrilling tour de force of immersion journalism that's destined to challenge preconceptions and attract enormous attention.

With her buddies on the bowling league she enjoyed the rough and rewarding embrace of male camaraderie undetectable to an outsider. A stint in a high-octane sales job taught her the gut-wrenching pressures endured by men who would do anything to succeed. She frequented sex clubs, dated women hungry for love but bitter about men, and infiltrated all-male communities as hermetically sealed as a men's therapy group, and even a monastery. Narrated in her utterly captivating prose style and with exquisite insight, humor, empathy, nuance, and at great personal cost, Norah uses her intimate firsthand experience to explore the many remarkable mysteries of gender identity as well as who men are apart from and in relation to women. Far from becoming bitter or outraged, Vincent ended her journey astounded—and exhausted—by the rigid codes and rituals of masculinity. Having gone where no woman (who wasn't an aspiring or actual transsexual) has gone for any significant length of time, let alone eighteen months, Norah Vincent's surprising account is an enthralling reading experience and a revelatory piece of anecdotally based gender analysis that is sure to spark fierce and fascinating conversation.]]> 290 Norah Vincent 0670034665 Amr 0 to-read 3.41 2006 Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again
author: Norah Vincent
name: Amr
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> A Curious History of Sex 50773748
The act of sex has not changed since people first worked out what went where, but the ways in which society dictates how sex is culturally understood and performed have varied significantly through the ages. Humans are the only creatures that stigmatise particular sexual practices, and sex remains a deeply divisive issue around the world. Attitudes will change and grow – hopefully for the better – but sex will never be free of stigma or shame unless we acknowledge where it has come from.]]> 353 Kate Lister Amr 0 to-read 4.16 2020 A Curious History of Sex
author: Kate Lister
name: Amr
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine]]> 52585343 A sweeping global history that looks beyond European urban centers to show how slavery, colonialism, and war propelled the development of modern medicine.

Most stories of medical progress come with ready-made heroes. John Snow traced the origins of London’s 1854 cholera outbreak to a water pump, leading to the birth of epidemiology. Florence Nightingale’s contributions to the care of soldiers in the Crimean War revolutionized medical hygiene, transforming hospitals from crucibles of infection to sanctuaries of recuperation. Yet histories of individual innovators ignore many key sources of medical knowledge, especially when it comes to the science of infectious disease.

Reexamining the foundations of modern medicine, Jim Downs shows that the study of infectious disease depended crucially on the unrecognized contributions of nonconsenting subjects—conscripted soldiers, enslaved people, and subjects of empire. Plantations, slave ships, and battlefields were the laboratories in which physicians came to understand the spread of disease. Military doctors learned about the importance of air quality by monitoring Africans confined to the bottom of slave ships. Statisticians charted cholera outbreaks by surveilling Muslims in British-dominated territories returning from their annual pilgrimage. The field hospitals of the Crimean War and the U.S. Civil War were carefully observed experiments in disease transmission.

The scientific knowledge derived from discarding and exploiting human life is now the basis of our ability to protect humanity from epidemics. Boldly argued and eye-opening, Maladies of Empire gives a full account of the true price of medical progress.]]> 272 Jim Downs 0674971728 Amr 0 to-read 3.68 2021 Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine
author: Jim Downs
name: Amr
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World]]> 41795733
Razpon je izzivalna knjiga, ki prevzame bralca, naj bo to starš z odraščajočimi potomci, mlada oseba, ki še išče svojo pot, zreli voditelj ali trener, ki je mentor mlajšim generacijam in želi v svoji ekipi negovati raznovrstnost in širok pogled na svet.]]> 339 David Epstein 0735214484 Amr 4 4.11 2019 Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
author: David Epstein
name: Amr
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/13
date added: 2025/04/13
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]]> Love in the Time of Cholera 9712 348 Gabriel García Márquez 140003468X Amr 0 to-read 3.92 1985 Love in the Time of Cholera
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Amr
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/11
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]]> The Underground Railroad 30555488
In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor--engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]> 306 Colson Whitehead 0385542364 Amr 0 to-read 4.04 2016 The Underground Railroad
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Amr
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas]]> 42660463 here.

Twas The Nightshift Before Christmas is the hilarious, poignant and entertaining story of the life of a junior doctor at the most challenging time of the year. With twenty-five tales of intriguing, shocking and incredible Christmas incidents, the British public will finally appreciate the sacrifices made and the challenges faced by the unsung heroes of the NHS.

Twas The Nightshift Before Christmas will be fully illustrated (as tastefully as possible) and will delight all of Adam’s fans throughout the festive period of Christmas 2019 and for many years to come.]]> 144 Adam Kay Amr 0 to-read 4.09 2019 Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas
author: Adam Kay
name: Amr
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/25
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]]> Transcendent Kingdom 48570454 Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.

Gifty is a fifth-year candidate in neuroscience at Stanford School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after a knee injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her.

But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief--a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.]]> 264 Yaa Gyasi Amr 0 to-read 4.09 2020 Transcendent Kingdom
author: Yaa Gyasi
name: Amr
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> Homegoing 27071490 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

A novel of breathtaking sweep and emotional power that traces three hundred years in Ghana and along the way also becomes a truly great American novel. Extraordinary for its exquisite language, its implacable sorrow, its soaring beauty, and for its monumental portrait of the forces that shape families and nations, Homegoing heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi's magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control. Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer.]]> 305 Yaa Gyasi Amr 0 to-read 4.47 2016 Homegoing
author: Yaa Gyasi
name: Amr
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/25
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]]> The Wall 10031 183 Jean-Paul Sartre 184391400X Amr 0 to-read 4.14 1939 The Wall
author: Jean-Paul Sartre
name: Amr
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1939
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/23
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]]> <![CDATA[What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory]]> 12485556
As CPU cores become both faster and more numerous, the limiting factor for most programs is now, and will be for some time, memory access. Hardware designers have come up with ever more sophisticated memory handling and acceleration techniques–such as CPU caches–but these cannot work optimally without some help from the programmer. Unfortunately, neither the structure nor the cost of using the memory subsystem of a computer or the caches on CPUs is well understood by most programmers. This paper explains the structure of memory subsystems in use on modern commodity hardware, illustrating why CPU caches were developed, how they work, and what programs should do to achieve optimal performance by utilizing them.]]> 114 Ulrich Drepper Amr 0 to-read 4.70 2007 What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory
author: Ulrich Drepper
name: Amr
average rating: 4.70
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Divided: Why We're Living in an Age of Walls]]> 36570350 New from the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Prisoners of Geography

We feel more divided than ever.
This riveting analysis tells you why.

Walls are going up. Nationalism and identity politics are on the rise once more. Thousands of miles of fences and barriers have been erected in the past ten years, and they are redefining our political landscape.

There are many reasons why we erect walls, because we are divided in many ways: wealth, race, religion, politics. In Europe the ruptures of the past decade threaten not only European unity, but in some countries liberal democracy itself. In China, the Party’s need to contain the divisions wrought by capitalism will define the nation’s future. In the USA the rationale for the Mexican border wall taps into the fear that the USA will no longer be a white majority country in the course of this century.

Understanding what has divided us, past and present, is essential to understanding much of what’s going on in the world today. Covering China; the USA; Israel and Palestine; the Middle East; the Indian Subcontinent; Africa; Europe and the UK, bestselling author Tim Marshall presents a gripping and unflinching analysis of the fault lines that will shape our world for years to come.


‘A timely and exhilarating clamber over the walls of history’ – Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

“Striking words … Tim Marshall performs the daunting, yet highly pertinent, task of trying to make sense of one of the biggest issues of our times: in a world that is increasingly globalised, a backlash apparently grows ever stronger. By taking a global view, Divided successfully brings some much-needed perspective” – Northern Slant]]> 272 Tim Marshall 1783963425 Amr 0 to-read 4.00 2018 Divided: Why We're Living in an Age of Walls
author: Tim Marshall
name: Amr
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2018
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]]> Orbital 123136728 Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate.

Profound and contemplative, Orbital is a moving elegy to our environment and planet.]]> 224 Samantha Harvey 0802161545 Amr 0 to-read 3.44 2023 Orbital
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Amr
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2023
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]]> <![CDATA[Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent]]> 187149
Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe.

Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably.

This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende’s inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.]]> 317 Eduardo Galeano 0853459916 Amr 0 to-read 4.31 1971 Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
author: Eduardo Galeano
name: Amr
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity]]> 85767 Gender Trouble has become one of the key works of contemporary feminist theory, and an essential work for anyone interested in the study of gender, queer theory, or the politics of sexuality in culture. This is the text where Judith Butler began to advance the ideas that would go on to take life as "performativity theory," as well as some of the first articulations of the possibility for subversive gender practices, and she writes in her preface to the 10th anniversary edition released in 1999 that one point of Gender Trouble was "not to prescribe a new gendered way of life [...] but to open up the field of possibility for gender [...]" Widely taught, and widely debated, Gender Trouble continues to offer a powerful critique of heteronormativity and of the function of gender in the modern world.]]> 236 Judith Butler 0415389550 Amr 0 to-read 4.07 1989 Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
author: Judith Butler
name: Amr
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1989
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]]> Yellowface 62047984
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 319 R.F. Kuang Amr 0 to-read 3.67 2023 Yellowface
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Amr
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/13
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]]> Evidence of the Affair 41715227 The repercussions of an illicit affair unfold in this short story by bestselling author Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Dear stranger…

A desperate young woman in Southern California sits down to write a letter to a man she’s never met—a choice that will forever change both their lives.

My heart goes out to you, David. Even though I do not know you…

The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here.

Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.]]> 88 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1542044510 Amr 0 to-read 3.84 2018 Evidence of the Affair
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Amr
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2018
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]]> Normal People 41057294
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.]]> 273 Sally Rooney 1984822179 Amr 0 to-read 3.81 2018 Normal People
author: Sally Rooney
name: Amr
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
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date added: 2025/03/10
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]]> Heaven 53223710
These raw and realistic portrayals of bullying are counterbalanced by textured exposition of the philosophical and religious debates concerning violence to which the weak are subjected.

Kawakami's simple yet profound new work stands as a dazzling testament to her literary talent. There can be little doubt that it has cemented her reputation as one of the most important young authors working to expand the boundaries of contemporary Japanese literature.]]> 192 Mieko Kawakami 1609456211 Amr 0 to-read 3.79 2009 Heaven
author: Mieko Kawakami
name: Amr
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/03
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]]> What I Believe 67354 Why I Am Not a Christian, this essay must rank as the most articulate example of Russell's famed atheism. It is also one of the most notorious. Used as evidence in a 1940 court case in which Russell was declared unfit to teach college-level philosophy, What I Believe was to become one of his most defining works. The ideas contained within were and are controversial, contentious and - to the religious - downright blasphemous. A remarkable work, it remains the best concise introduction to Russell's thought.]]> 48 Bertrand Russell 0415325099 Amr 0 to-read 4.11 1925 What I Believe
author: Bertrand Russell
name: Amr
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1925
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]]> A Tale of Two Cities 1953 A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.]]> 489 Charles Dickens 0141439602 Amr 0 to-read 3.87 1859 A Tale of Two Cities
author: Charles Dickens
name: Amr
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1859
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)]]> 1499952
The matron at the orphanage is always telling Judy Abbott that her imagination will get her into trouble. But nothing she ever imagined is as surprising as what really happens to her.

A wealthy trustee of the orphanage offers to send Judy to college--but he doesn't want her to know who he is. All she ever sees of him is his shadow--all arms and legs like a daddy-long-legs. Judy calls her generous benefactor Daddy-Long-Legs, but with her imagination it can't be long before she finds out his real name.]]> 249 Jean Webster Amr 0 to-read 4.10 1912 Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)
author: Jean Webster
name: Amr
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1912
rating: 0
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]]> The Second Sex 457264 746 Simone de Beauvoir 0679724516 Amr 0 to-read 4.17 1949 The Second Sex
author: Simone de Beauvoir
name: Amr
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1949
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Status Anxiety (Vintage International)]]> 23425
Anyone who’s ever lost sleep over an unreturned phone call or the neighbor’s Lexus had better read Alain de Botton’s irresistibly clear-headed new book, immediately. For in its pages, a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents explores the notion that our pursuit of status is actually a pursuit of love, ranging through Western history and thought from St. Augustine to Andrew Carnegie and Machiavelli to Anthony Robbins.

Whether it’s assessing the class-consciousness of Christianity or the convulsions of consumer capitalism, dueling or home-furnishing, Status Anxiety is infallibly entertaining. And when it examines the virtues of informed misanthropy, art appreciation, or walking a lobster on a leash, it is not only wise but helpful.]]> 306 Alain de Botton 0375725350 Amr 0 to-read 3.89 2004 Status Anxiety (Vintage International)
author: Alain de Botton
name: Amr
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2004
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]]> A Happy Death 15682 A Happy Death is a fascinating first sketch for The Outsider, but it can also be seen as a candid self-portrait, drawing on Camus's memories of his youth, travels, and early relationships. It is infused with lyrical descriptions of the sun-drenched Algiers of his childhood - the place where, eventually, Mersault is able to find peace and die 'without anger, without hatred, without regret'.]]> 144 Albert Camus Amr 0 to-read 3.87 1971 A Happy Death
author: Albert Camus
name: Amr
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1971
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]]> The Right to Be Lazy 24485 70 Paul Lafargue 1892355035 Amr 0 to-read 3.68 1880 The Right to Be Lazy
author: Paul Lafargue
name: Amr
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1880
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]]> Death with Interruptions 3018539
On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This, of course, causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially mass celebration. Flags are hung out on balconies; people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying; life-insurance policies become meaningless; and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots.

Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with scythe and filing cabinets and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small "d," became human and were to fall in love?]]> 238 José Saramago 0151012741 Amr 4 3.98 2005 Death with Interruptions
author: José Saramago
name: Amr
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't]]> 42041926 The Scout Mindset, Galef shows that what makes scouts better at getting things right isn't that they're smarter or more knowledgeable than everyone else. It's a handful of emotional skills, habits, and ways of looking at the world--which anyone can learn. With fascinating examples ranging from how to survive being stranded in the middle of the ocean, to how Jeff Bezos avoids overconfidence, to how superforecasters outperform CIA operatives, to Reddit threads and modern partisan politics, Galef explores why our brains deceive us and what we can do to change the way we think.]]> 288 Julia Galef 0735217556 Amr 0 to-read 4.07 2021 The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't
author: Julia Galef
name: Amr
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
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]]> <![CDATA[Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity]]> 605663 Whipping Girl tells the powerful story of Julia Serano, a transsexual woman whose supremely intelligent writing reflects her diverse background as a lesbian transgender activist and professional biologist. Serano shares her experiences and observations—both pre- and post-transition—to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our societal attitudes toward trans women, as well as gender and sexuality as a whole.

Serano's well-honed arguments stem from her ability to bridge the gap between the often-disparate biological and social perspectives on gender. She exposes how deep-rooted the cultural belief is that femininity is frivolous, weak, and passive, and how this “feminine” weakness exists only to attract and appease male desire.

In addition to debunking popular misconceptions about transsexuality, Serano makes the case that today's feminists and transgender activist must work to embrace and empower femininity—in all of its wondrous forms.]]> 390 Julia Serano 1580051545 Amr 0 to-read 4.27 2007 Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
author: Julia Serano
name: Amr
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2007
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date added: 2025/02/24
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]]> Know My Name 50196744
Now she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. It was the perfect case, in many ways–there were eyewitnesses, Turner ran away, physical evidence was immediately secured. But her struggles with isolation and shame during the aftermath and the trial reveal the oppression victims face in even the best-case scenarios. Her story illuminates a culture biased to protect perpetrators, indicts a criminal justice system designed to fail the most vulnerable, and, ultimately, shines with the courage required to move through suffering and live a full and beautiful life.

Know My Name will forever transform the way we think about sexual assault, challenging our beliefs about what is acceptable and speaking truth to the tumultuous reality of healing. It also introduces readers to an extraordinary writer, one whose words have already changed our world. Entwining pain, resilience, and humor, this memoir will stand as a modern classic.]]> 384 Chanel Miller 0735223718 Amr 0 to-read 4.67 2019 Know My Name
author: Chanel Miller
name: Amr
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2019
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date added: 2025/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City]]> 25852784 Evicted, Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of 21st-century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.]]> 418 Matthew Desmond 0553447432 Amr 0 to-read 4.47 2016 Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
author: Matthew Desmond
name: Amr
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2016
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]]> The Vegetarian 25489025
Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.

A Best Book of the Year: BuzzFeed, Entertainment Weekly, Wall Street Journal, Time, Elle, The Economist, HuffPost, Slate, Bustle, The St. Louis Dispatch, Electric Literature, Publishers Weekly]]> 158 Han Kang 0553448188 Amr 0 to-read 3.63 2007 The Vegetarian
author: Han Kang
name: Amr
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will]]> 83817782 One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision-making to mount a devastating case against free will, an argument with profound consequences.

Robert Sapolsky's Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: we may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at base of human behavior, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there's some separate self telling our biology what to do.

Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about how consciousness works--the tight weave between reason and emotion, and between stimulus and response, in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky tackles all the major arguments for free will and takes them out, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos and complexity science and quantum physics, as well as touching ground on some of the wilder shores of philosophy. He shows us that the history of medicine is in no small part the history of learning that fewer and fewer things are somebody's "fault"; for example, for centuries we thought seizures were a sign of demonic possession. Yet as he acknowledges, it's very hard, and at times impossible, to uncouple from our zeal to judge others, and to judge ourselves. Sapolsky applies the new understanding of life beyond free will to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. By the end, Sapolsky argues that while living our daily lives recognizing that we have no free will is going to be monumentally difficult, doing so is not going to result in anarchy, pointlessness and existential malaise. Instead, it will make for a much more humane world.]]> 528 Robert M. Sapolsky 0525560971 Amr 0 to-read 4.22 2023 Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
author: Robert M. Sapolsky
name: Amr
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
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]]> <![CDATA[The Science Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained]]> 21523668 The Science Book explores how scientists have sought to explain our world and the universe, and how scientific discoveries have been made.

A new title in DK's successful "Big ideas, simply explained" series, this book on science and the history of science looks at topics such as why Copernicus's ideas were contentious, how Galileo worked out his theories on motion and inertia, and what the discovery of DNA meant. The Science Book covers every area of science--astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, math, and physics, and brings the greatest scientific ideas to life with fascinating text, quirky graphics, and pithy quotes.]]> 352 Rob Scott Colson 1465419659 Amr 0 to-read 4.17 2014 The Science Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained
author: Rob Scott Colson
name: Amr
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2014
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]]> <![CDATA[The Psychology Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained]]> 13766064
From its philosophical roots through behaviorism, psychotherapy, and developmental psychology, The Psychology Book looks at all the greats from Pavlov and Skinner to Freud and Jung, and is an essential reference for students and anyone with an interest in how the mind works.]]> 352 Nigel C. Benson 0756689708 Amr 0 to-read 4.16 2011 The Psychology Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained
author: Nigel C. Benson
name: Amr
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2011
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]]> <![CDATA[The Politics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained]]> 17385448
With easy-to-follow graphics, succinct quotations, and accessible text, "The Politics Book" is an essential reference for students and anyone wondering how politics works.]]> 352 Kate Johnsen 1465402144 Amr 0 to-read 4.09 2013 The Politics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained
author: Kate Johnsen
name: Amr
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2013
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]]> Anna Karenina 15823480 Anna Karenina provides a vast panorama of contemporary life in Russia and of humanity in general. In it Tolstoy uses his intense imaginative insight to create some of the most memorable characters in all of literature. Anna is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as the wife of Karenin and turns to Count Vronsky to fulfil her passionate nature - with tragic consequences. Levin is a reflection of Tolstoy himself, often expressing the author's own views and convictions.

Throughout, Tolstoy points no moral, merely inviting us not to judge but to watch. As Rosemary Edmonds comments, 'He leaves the shifting patterns of the kaleidoscope to bring home the meaning of the brooding words following the title, 'Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.]]> 964 Leo Tolstoy 0345803922 Amr 0 to-read 4.12 1878 Anna Karenina
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Amr
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1878
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]]> The Transparency Society 25490453
Yet, transparency has a dark side that, ironically, has everything to do with a lack of mystery, shadow, and nuance. Behind the apparent accessibility of knowledge lies the disappearance of privacy, homogenization, and the collapse of trust. The anxiety to accumulate ever more information does not necessarily produce more knowledge or faith. Technology creates the illusion of total containment and the constant monitoring of information, but what we lack is adequate interpretation of the information. In this manifesto, Byung-Chul Han denounces transparency as a false ideal, the strongest and most pernicious of our contemporary mythologies.]]> 72 Byung-Chul Han 080479460X Amr 0 to-read 3.93 2012 The Transparency Society
author: Byung-Chul Han
name: Amr
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Capitalism and the Death Drive]]> 55896671
The devastating consequences of capitalism suggest that a death drive is at work. Freud initially introduced the death drive hesitantly, but later admitted that he 'couldn't think beyond it' as the idea of the death drive became increasingly central to his thought. Today, it is impossible to think about capitalism without considering the death drive.]]> 180 Byung-Chul Han 1509545026 Amr 0 to-read 3.87 2019 Capitalism and the Death Drive
author: Byung-Chul Han
name: Amr
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ocean at the End of the Lane]]> 18505792
A groundbreaking work as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out.

Includes bonus features: a meet with Neil Gaiman, a reading group guide, and an interview with Gaiman.]]> 195 Neil Gaiman 0062255665 Amr 0 to-read 4.02 2013 The Ocean at the End of the Lane
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Amr
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child]]> 423910 336 Alice Miller 0452009294 Amr 0 to-read 4.30 1981 Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child
author: Alice Miller
name: Amr
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)]]> 58416952 At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

The Catenan Republic – the Hierarchy – may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus – what they call Will – to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.]]> 640 James Islington 1982141190 Amr 0 to-read 4.56 2023 The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)
author: James Islington
name: Amr
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets]]> 13221379
In What Money Can’t Buy, Michael J. Sandel takes on one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: Is there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don’t belong? What are the moral limits of markets?

In recent decades, market values have crowded out nonmarket norms in almost every aspect of life—medicine, education, government, law, art, sports, even family life and personal relations. Without quite realizing it, Sandel argues, we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. Is this where we want to be?In his New York Times bestseller Justice, Sandel showed himself to be a master at illuminating, with clarity and verve, the hard moral questions we confront in our everyday lives. Now, in What Money Can’t Buy, he provokes an essential discussion that we, in our market-driven age, need to have: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society—and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets don’t honor and that money can’t buy?]]> 256 Michael J. Sandel 0374203032 Amr 0 to-read 3.91 2012 What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
author: Michael J. Sandel
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average rating: 3.91
book published: 2012
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]]> <![CDATA[The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness]]> 41881472 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780857197689.

Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people.

Money―investing, personal finance, and business decisions―is typically taught as a math-based field, where data and formulas tell us exactly what to do. But in the real world people don’t make financial decisions on a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together.

In The Psychology of Money, award-winning author Morgan Housel shares 19 short stories exploring the different ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life’s most important topics.]]> 242 Morgan Housel Amr 0 to-read 4.25 2020 The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness
author: Morgan Housel
name: Amr
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2020
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]]> The Secret History 29044 Truly deserving of the accolade modern classic, Donna Tartt's novel is a remarkable achievement—both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful.

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.]]> 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Amr 0 to-read 4.15 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Amr
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1992
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]]> <![CDATA[Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything]]> 1202
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
(front flap)]]> 268 Steven D. Levitt 0061234001 Amr 3 4.02 2005 Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
author: Steven D. Levitt
name: Amr
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Man Who Tasted Words: A Neurologist Explores the Strange and Startling World of Our Senses]]> 57693441 In The Man Who Tasted Words, neurologist Guy Leschziner leads readers through the five senses and how, through them, our brain understands or misunderstands the world around us.

Vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are what we rely on to perceive the reality of our world. Our five senses are the conduits that bring us the scent of a freshly brewed cup of coffee or the notes of a favorite song suddenly playing on the radio. But are they really that reliable? The Man Who Tasted Words shows that what we perceive to be absolute truths of the world around us is actually a complex internal reconstruction by our minds and nervous systems. The translation into experiences with conscious meaning―the pattern of light and dark on the retina that is transformed into the face of a loved one, for instance―is a process that is invisible, undetected by ourselves, and, in most cases, completely out of our control.

Leschziner explores how our nervous systems define our worlds and how we can, in fact, be victims of falsehoods perpetrated by our own brains. In his moving and lyrical chronicles of lives turned upside down by a disruption in one or more of their five senses, he introduces readers to extraordinary individuals, like one man who actually “tasted” words, and shows us how sensory disruptions like that have wreaked havoc, not only on their view of the world, but also on their relationships. The cases Leschziner shares are extreme, but they are also human, and they teach us that both our lives and what we perceive as reality are ultimately defined by the complexities of the nervous system.]]> 336 Guy Leschziner 125027236X Amr 0 to-read 4.00 The Man Who Tasted Words: A Neurologist Explores the Strange and Startling World of Our Senses
author: Guy Leschziner
name: Amr
average rating: 4.00
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]]> <![CDATA[Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography]]> 359776 464 Rebecca Whisnant 1876756497 Amr 0 to-read 3.98 2005 Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography
author: Rebecca Whisnant
name: Amr
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2005
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]]> سقوط الإمام 6465430 شخصيات ورموز وذاكرة تعي أحداث، تتسطر حروفها في داخل الروح... وأنّات واستغاثات تتصاعد معلنة الانفلات من الاسار لتعلن واقعاً مؤلماً، مع، قبل، وربما بعد "سقوط الإمام". والرواية قبل كل شيء هي قراءة لما خلف السطور، أرادتها نوال السعداوي من خلال بوحها بهذه السطور.]]> 158 Nawal El Saadawi 1855165953 Amr 0 to-read 3.21 1987 سقوط الإمام
author: Nawal El Saadawi
name: Amr
average rating: 3.21
book published: 1987
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]]> <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

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

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Amr 0 to-read 4.35 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Amr
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2021
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]]> <![CDATA[The Music of Life: Biology Beyond Genes]]> 6767373 Life, Noble asserts, is a kind of music, a symphonic interplay between genes, cells, organs, body, and environment. He weaves this musical metaphor throughout this personal and deeply lyrical work, illuminating ideas that might otherwise be daunting to non-scientists. In elegant prose, Noble sets out a cutting-edge alternative to the gene's eye view, offering a radical switch of perception in which genes are seen as prisoners and the organism itself is a complex system of many interacting levels. In his more expansive view, life emerges as a process, the ebb and flow of activity in an intricate web of connections. He introduces readers to the realm of systems biology, a field that has been growing in strength in the past decade. Noble, himself one of the founders of this field, argues modern systems biology may be the view we need to adopt to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of life.
Drawing on his experiences in his research on the heartbeat, and on evolutionary biology, development, medicine, philosophy, linguistics, and Chinese culture, Noble presents us with a profound and very modern reflection on the nature of life.]]> 153 Denis Noble 0199228361 Amr 0 to-read 3.81 2006 The Music of Life: Biology Beyond Genes
author: Denis Noble
name: Amr
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2006
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]]> The Call of Cthulhu 15730101 The Call of Cthulhu is a harrowing tale of the weakness of the human mind when confronted by powers and intelligences from beyond our world.]]> 43 H.P. Lovecraft Amr 0 to-read 3.95 1928 The Call of Cthulhu
author: H.P. Lovecraft
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average rating: 3.95
book published: 1928
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]]> The Burnout Society 25490360
]]> 60 Byung-Chul Han 0804795096 Amr 0 to-read 3.81 2010 The Burnout Society
author: Byung-Chul Han
name: Amr
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2010
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]]> Moonfleet 115538
As the book progresses these two interwoven themes resolve themselves into a third and richer one, with the friendship and suffering of both John Trenchard and the craggy, taciturn Elzevir Block. Falkner's feeling for history and for the landscape of his Dorset setting combine with his gift for storytelling to turn Moonfleet into a historical romance of moving intensity.]]> 248 John Meade Falkner 014062144X Amr 0 to-read 3.91 1898 Moonfleet
author: John Meade Falkner
name: Amr
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1898
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]]> <![CDATA[A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1)]]> 40916679
But having grown up in the same small town that was consumed by the crime, Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn't so sure. When she chooses the case as the topic for her final project, she starts to uncover secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden. And if the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth…?]]> 433 Holly Jackson 1405293187 Amr 0 to-read 4.27 2019 A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1)
author: Holly Jackson
name: Amr
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
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]]> ’Salem’s Lot 11590 Librarian's Note: Alternate-cover edition for ISBN 0450031063

Thousands of miles away from the small township of 'Salem's Lot, two terrified people, a man and a boy, still share the secrets of those clapboard houses and tree-lined streets. They must return to 'Salem's Lot for a final confrontation with the unspeakable evil that lives on in the town.]]> 483 Stephen King 0450031063 Amr 0 to-read 4.06 1975 ’Salem’s Lot
author: Stephen King
name: Amr
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1975
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]]> <![CDATA[Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War]]> 56269282
In Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, Samuel Moyn asks a troubling but urgent question: What if efforts to make war more ethical—to ban torture and limit civilian casualties—have only shored up the military enterprise and made it sturdier? To advance this case, Moyn looks back at a century and a half of passionate arguments about the ethics of using force. In the nineteenth century, the founders of the Red Cross struggled mightily to make war less lethal even as they acknowledged its inevitability. Leo Tolstoy prominently opposed their efforts, reasoning that war needed to be abolished, not reformed—and over the subsequent century, a popular movement to abolish war flourished on both sides of the Atlantic. Eventually, however, reformers shifted their attention from opposing the crime of war to opposing war crimes, with fateful consequences.

The ramifications of this shift became apparent in the post-9/11 era. By that time, the US military had embraced the agenda of humane war, driven both by the availability of precision weaponry and the need to protect its image. The battle shifted from the streets to the courtroom, where the tactics of the war on terror were litigated but its foundational assumptions went without serious challenge. These trends only accelerated during the Obama and Trump presidencies. Even as the two administrations spoke of American power and morality in radically different tones, they ushered in the second decade of the “forever” war.

Humane is the story of how America went off to fight and never came back, and how armed combat was transformed from an imperfect tool for resolving disputes into an integral component of the modern condition. As American wars have become more humane, they have also become endless. This provocative book argues that this development might not represent progress at all.]]> 416 Samuel Moyn 0374173702 Amr 0 to-read 3.76 2021 Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War
author: Samuel Moyn
name: Amr
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2021
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]]>