Tori's bookshelf: all

Tori's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 19 Sep 2026 22:58:36 -0700 60 Tori's bookshelf: all 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg News of a Kidnapping 16251
From the highest corridors of government to the domain of the ruthless drug cartels, we watch the unfolding of a bizarre drama replete with fascinating characters Cesar Gaviria, the nation's cool and secretive president; Diana Turbay, a famous television journalist and magazine editor; three indomitable women who are imprisoned for miserable months in a small room with a light perpetually on; an eighty-two-year-old priest with a mission to bring the regime and the cartel to the negotiating table; and Escobar himself, the legendary drug baron who changes his bodyguards daily and maintains a private zoo with giraffes and hippos from Africa.

All of this takes place in a country where presidential candidates and cabinet officers are routinely assassinated; where police go into the Medellín slums to murder boys they think may be working for Escobar; but where brave and honest citizens are trying desperately to make democracy survive.

An international best-seller, News of a Kidnapping combines journalistic tenacity with the breathtaking language and perception that distinguish the writings of Gabriel García Márquez. It draws us unto into a world that, like some phantasmagorical setting in a great García Márquez novel, we can scarcely believe exists--but that continually shocks us with its cold, hard reality.]]> 291 Gabriel García Márquez 0140267832 Tori 0 currently-reading 3.90 1996 News of a Kidnapping

author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Tori
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/19
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]]> Muñeca 241167630 A vivid, surreal Gothic about a queer, Latine, working class witch who sets out to rescue a bespelled heiress and loses control of her powers and her heart in the process.

It is 1968 Oakland, and Natalia Fuentes has been hearing rumors about the beautiful Violeta Miramontes. The young heiress to Spanish colonial wealth has been left paralyzed by a mysterious illness. But Nati knows a thing or two about witchcraft, and she is certain that this is the work of dark magic.

Armed with a plan to break the spell and earn a handsome reward, Nati works her way into the house as Violeta’s caretaker, and immediately discovers her suspicions are true. But who cursed Violeta? And why?

As feelings between the two women bloom into romance, Nati grows more and more reckless, and is forced to face her own ghosts— ones she hoped would stay gone forever.

Riveting and richly layered, Muñeca explores how far one will go to save the person they love—even if that means damning themselves. Cynthia Gómez fills her debut novel with moments that chill your bones and warm your heart, a razor-sharp examination of deep-rooted issues that will haunt readers long after the last page is turned.]]> 171 Cynthia Gómez Tori 4 3.85 2026 Muñeca

author: Cynthia Gómez
name: Tori
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2026
rating: 4
read at: 2026/09/19
date added: 2026/09/19
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]]> The Elementals 301053
The McCrays and Savages, two fine Mobile families allied by marriage, have been coming to Beldame for years. This summer, with a terrible funeral behind them and a messy divorce coming up, even Luker McCray and little India down from New York are looking forward to being alone at Beldame.

But they won't be alone. For something there, something they don't like to think about, is thinking about them...and about all the ways to make them die.]]> 292 Michael McDowell 0380783606 Tori 0 to-read 3.96 1981 The Elementals

author: Michael McDowell
name: Tori
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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]]> Swamplandia! 40940157 Buddenbrooks set in the Florida Everglades—and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, is swiftly being encroached upon by a sophisticated competitor known as the "World of Darkness."

Ava, a resourceful but terrified twelve-year-old, must manage seventy gators and the vast, inscrutable landscape of her own grief. Her mother, Swamplandia!’s legendary headliner, has just died; her sister is having an affair with a ghost called the Dredgeman; her brother has secretly defected to the World of Darkness in a last-ditch effort to keep their sinking family afloat; and her father, Chief Bigtree, is AWOL. To save her family, Ava must journey on her own to a perilous part of the swamp called the "Underworld," a harrowing odyssey from which she emerges a true heroine.]]> 418 Karen Russell Tori 0 to-read 3.47 2011 Swamplandia!

author: Karen Russell
name: Tori
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> Peck & Peck 248296726 The number one bestselling author of global sensation Lessons in Chemistry returns with an irresistible, delightful, and tender story about a young man whose life turns upside down when he is hired by the most prestigious, secretive, and dysfunctional poetry journal in the world: the renowned Peck & Peck of New York City.

Batter Gray is worried about his future. Even when he was eleven, his classmates seemed to have settled on a goal: doctor, lawyer, broker, engineer. Good jobs that automatically command respect, security, 401Ks. Now Batter is in his early twenties, living in New York City, and he wants something different; something that alienates some readers and bores most. Poetry. And yet—to him and exactly thirty-nine editors at a company called Peck & Peck—poetry not only represents the power of humanity but holds the key to its survival.

Batter is named after his mother’s heroic dog. An identical twin who lost his brother at birth, he finds himself confronted by the everyday dualities that make up life: right vs. wrong, truth vs. lies, rejection vs. acceptance. It’s almost as if his dead brother is a reminder: there are always two sides to every story.

No, wait. Make that three.]]> 432 Bonnie Garmus 166825106X Tori 0 to-read 3.95 2026 Peck & Peck

author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Tori
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/17
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]]> Cathedrals 238941153 304 Claudia Piñeiro 1917260288 Tori 0 to-read 4.35 2020

author: Claudia Piñeiro
name: Tori
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/17
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]]> Small Things Like These 59016923 "A hypnotic and electrifying Irish tale that transcends country, transcends time." --Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers

Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 70 Claire Keegan 0802158757 Tori 5 4.11 2021

author: Claire Keegan
name: Tori
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2026/09/16
date added: 2026/09/16
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]]> The First Witch of Boston 222794853 2025 Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Historical Fiction

A gripping and intimate novel based on the true story of Margaret Jones, the first woman to be found guilty of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1646. Thomas and Margaret Jones arrive from England to build a life in the New World. Though of differing temperaments, cautious Thomas and fiery Margaret, a healer, are bound by a love that has lasted decades. With a child on the way, their new beginning promises only blessings.

But in this austere Puritan community, comely faces hide malicious intent. Wrong moves or words are met with suspicion, and Margaret’s bold and unguarded nature draws scorn. Soon, Margaret is mistrusted as more cunning woman than kind caregiver. And when personal tragedies, religious hysteria, and wariness of the unknown turn most against her, even the devotion Margaret and her husband share is at risk.

Inspired by actual diary entries and court records, The First Witch of Boston is at once the riveting story of a woman unjustly accused and a love story set amid the political and social turmoil of both Old and New England. Harrowing, and with a deep understanding of the human heart, history is brilliantly imagined.]]> 326 Andrea Catalano 1662525990 Tori 0 to-read 4.03 2025 The First Witch of Boston

author: Andrea Catalano
name: Tori
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/15
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]]> The Antidote 214537790 The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought, but beneath its own violent histories. The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch," whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.

Russell's novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities. The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.]]> 432 Karen Russell 059380225X Tori 0 to-read 3.83 2025

author: Karen Russell
name: Tori
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/15
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]]> The Pearl 222277289 An alternative cover edition can be found here

Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the Kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their infant son with meager subsistence. Then, on a day like any other, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl as large as a sea gull's egg, as "perfect as the moon." With the pearl comes hope, the promise of comfort and of security . . .

A story of classic simplicity, based on a Mexican folk tale, The Pearl explores the secrets of man's nature, the darkest depths of evil, and the luminous possibilities of love.]]> 122 John Steinbeck 1101199342 Tori 4 4.12 1947

author: John Steinbeck
name: Tori
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1947
rating: 4
read at: 2026/09/15
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]]> Our Noble Selves 245319597
For foreign correspondent turned war reporter Harry Flynn, it might offer the chance of redemption after a bad war in the Far East and a peace that is proving no easier to negotiate. Having failed to resume his journalistic career, he reluctantly joins an oddball team of misfits, ne’er-do-wells and downright chancers helping to ready the Festival of Britain for launch.

Flynn’s attempts to resume some semblance of a romantic life also founder when one of his dates goes missing and he is deemed to be the last person to have seen her alive. Could he have been in some way responsible for her disappearance?

Little does he realize that the answer to some of his mounting problems may lie in the hands of a precocious, straight-talking thirteen-year-old called Veronica and a rather scruffy terrier who goes by the name of Mrs Betty…

Brilliantly plotted, witty and compelling, Our Noble Selves reaffirms Kate Atkinson’s place as one of the greatest chroniclers of our times.]]> 352 Kate Atkinson 0385551169 Tori 0 to-read 3.94 2026

author: Kate Atkinson
name: Tori
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/14
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]]> Mexican Gothic 53152636 An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets... From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes "a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror" (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico.

After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She's not sure what she will find – her cousin's husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.

Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: she's a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she's also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: not of her cousin's new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi's dreams with visions of blood and doom.

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

And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]> 320 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0525620788 Tori 0 currently-reading 3.65 2020 Mexican Gothic

author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Tori
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/14
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 1 (The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion #1)]]> 52085140 “I’ve arrived in London without incident. There are few triumphs in my recent life, but I count this as one. My existence of the last three years has been nothing but incident.”

The Year is 1883 and Emma M. Lion has returned to her London neighborhood of St. Crispian's. But Emma's plans for a charmed and studious life are sabotaged by her eccentric Cousin Archibald, her formidable Aunt Eugenia, and the slightly odd denizens of St. Crispian's. Emma M. Lion offers up her Unselected Journals, however self-incriminating they may be. Armed with wit and a sideways amusement, Emma documents the curious realities of her life at Lapis Lazuli House.]]> 107 Beth Brower 0998063614 Tori 0 to-read 3.97 2019 The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 1 (The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion #1)

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 1 (The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion #1)

author: Beth Brower
name: Tori
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/14
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]]> Suddenly a Murder 66087070 Seven friends throw a 1920s-themed party, where it's all pretend--until one of them is murdered. One of Us Is Lying meets Knives Out in this killer locked-room mystery.

Someone brought a knife to the party.

To celebrate the end of high school, Izzy Morales joins her ride-or-die Kassidy and five friends on a 1920s-themed getaway at the glamorous Ashwood Manor. There, Izzy and her friends party in vintage dresses and expensive diamonds--until Kassidy's boyfriend turns up dead.

Murdered, investigators declare when they arrive at the scene, and now every party guest is a suspect. There's the girlfriend, in love. The other girl, in despair. The old friend, forlorn. The new friend, distressed. The brooding enigma. And then, there's Izzy--the girl who brought the knife.

To find the killer, everyone must undergo a grueling interrogation, all while locked in an estate where, suddenly, the greatest luxury is innocence.]]> 308 Lauren Muñoz 0593617533 Tori 5 3.65 2023 Suddenly a Murder

author: Lauren Muñoz
name: Tori
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2026/09/13
date added: 2026/09/13
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]]> Land 241126782 'You will never understand how the land remembers, how deep the roots grow'

A spellbinding story of separation, longing, recovery and survival as a family makes a new home in the aftermath of tragedy.

On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tomás and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Tomás, however, is determined that his maps will be a record of the disaster.

The British soldiers in charge are due to arrive any day, expecting the work to be completed, but Tomás is sent off course by an unsettling encounter in a copse. His life, and those of his family, will never be the same again. Liam is terrified by the sudden change in his taciturn father. What was it that caused such cracks to open in Tomás and how is Liam, aged only ten, going to finish the mapping, and get them both home?

Land is a story of buried treasure, overlapping lives, ancient woodland, persistent ghosts, a particularly loyal dog, and how, when it comes to both land and history, nothing ever goes away.]]> 400 Maggie O'Farrell 0593320646 Tori 0 to-read 4.17 2026 Land

author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Tori
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail]]> 241381408 Black Flags, Blue Waters comes the story of the American whaleship Mentor, wrecked in 1832 on a remote reef in the western Pacific. With supplies dwindling, the eleven surviving crewmen face not only the miseries of shipwreck in unfamiliar territory but also the profound uncertainty of contact with the Indigenous people of the Micronesian archipelago of Palau, who within days approach the deserted men brandishing axes, clubs, and spears. In this gripping saga of cultural collision, tribal wars, and dashed hopes, award-winning historian Eric Jay Dolin vividly reconstructs the Mentor's doomed voyage, the years of perilous captivity, and the delicate negotiations and fraught naval rescue mission that followed.

Illustrated by more than 100 images and maps, The Wreck of the Mentor is at once a powerful story of survival and a revealing window into the great Age of Sail—a time when maritime ambition collided with local sovereignty, and when the outcome of one voyage rippled across oceans and empires.]]> 272 Eric Jay Dolin 1324096322 Tori 0 to-read 3.51 2026 The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail

The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail

author: Eric Jay Dolin
name: Tori
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/10
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]]> Between Two Fires 13543121
Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.]]> 432 Christopher Buehlman 1937007863 Tori 0 to-read 4.15 2012 Between Two Fires

author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Tori
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> The Pirate Queen 223641004
Undaunted, Grace raises a family without abandoning her passion, aiding her hot-tempered husband in his campaigns against rival tribes. Eventually ousted from her husband's land in the wake of his death, Grace returns to her childhood home and begins her career as a pirate in earnest, claiming new territories and finding deeper love, only to see her livelihood threatened by English incursions into Ireland, and her family endangered in an attempt to check her power.

Tenderly observed and fiercely written, Ariel Lawhon's gripping latest novel channels the natural beauty of sixteenth-century Ireland alongside the brutality of the period as seen through the eyes of an unforgettable heroine and defender of her people, who truly earned the title 'the Pirate Queen of Ireland.'

A thrilling historical adventure inspired by the life of Grace O'Malley, an infamous Irish sea captain and folk heroine who risked everything to protect her people against the powerful Elizabethan regime]]> 528 Ariel Lawhon 0385550340 Tori 0 currently-reading 4.40 2026 The Pirate Queen

author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Tori
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Roots to the Earth: Poems and a Story]]> 29241265 55 Wendell Berry 1619027801 Tori 5 4.21 1995

author: Wendell Berry
name: Tori
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2026/09/09
date added: 2026/09/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation]]> 7493
An illuminating study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic--John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.

During the 1790s, which Ellis calls the most decisive decade in our nation's history, the greatest statesmen of their generation--and perhaps any--came together to define the new republic and direct its course for the coming centuries. Ellis focuses on six discrete moments that exemplify the most crucial issues facing the fragile new nation: Burr and Hamilton's deadly duel, and what may have really happened; Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison's secret dinner, during which the seat of the permanent capital was determined in exchange for passage of Hamilton's financial plan; Franklin's petition to end the "peculiar institution" of slavery--his last public act--and Madison's efforts to quash it; Washington's precedent-setting Farewell Address, announcing his retirement from public office and offering his country some final advice; Adams's difficult term as Washington's successor and his alleged scheme to pass the presidency on to his son; and finally, Adams and Jefferson's renewed correspondence at the end of their lives, in which they compared their different views of the Revolution and its legacy.

In a lively and engaging narrative, Ellis recounts the sometimes collaborative, sometimes archly antagonistic interactions between these men, and shows us the private characters behind the public personas: Adams, the ever-combative iconoclast, whose closest political collaborator was his wife, Abigail; Burr, crafty, smooth, and one of the most despised public figures of his time; Hamilton, whose audacious manner and deep economic savvy masked his humble origins; Jefferson, renowned for his eloquence, but so reclusive and taciturn that he rarely spoke more than a few sentences in public; Madison, small, sickly, and paralyzingly shy, yet one of the most effective debaters of his generation; and the stiffly formal Washington, the ultimate realist, larger-than-life, and America's only truly indispensable figure.

Ellis argues that the checks and balances that permitted the infant American republic to endure were not primarily legal, constitutional, or institutional, but intensely personal, rooted in the dynamic interaction of leaders with quite different visions and values. Revisiting the old-fashioned idea that character matters, Founding Brothers informs our understanding of American politics--then and now--and gives us a new perspective on the unpredictable forces that shape history.]]> 288 Joseph J. Ellis 0375705244 Tori 5 3.95 2000 Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

author: Joseph J. Ellis
name: Tori
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2026/09/09
date added: 2026/09/09
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]]> Bright Lights, Big City 11236537 Bright Lights, Big City in 1984, Jay McInerney became a literary sensation, heralded as the voice of a generation. The novel follows a young man, living in Manhattan as if he owned it, through nightclubs, fashion shows, editorial offices, and loft parties as he attempts to outstrip mortality and the recurring approach of dawn. With nothing but goodwill, controlled substances, and wit to sustain him in this anti-quest, he runs until he reaches his reckoning point, where he is forced to acknowledge loss and, possibly, to rediscover his better instincts. This remarkable novel of youth and New York remains one of the most beloved, imitated, and iconic novels in America.]]> 194 Jay McInerney Tori 5 4.00 1984 Bright Lights, Big City

author: Jay McInerney
name: Tori
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1984
rating: 5
read at: 2026/09/03
date added: 2026/09/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Thrilling Tales of Modern Men: Stories]]> 242332659 An addictive, unpredictable, darkly hilarious collection of stories from Danny McBride— the beloved creator and star of The Righteous Gemstones and Eastbound & Down.

There are many sides to Danny he’s starred as the iconic character Kenny Powers in the cult classic HBO show Eastbound & Down, a series he also wrote and created—just as he did with Vice Principals and The Righteous Gemstones. He’s produced horror films (Halloween) and starred in sci-fi ( Covenant). And ever since he was young, he’s been writing short fiction.

An amateur magician gets in way over his head with a deadly stunt in a local mall. A washed-up sitcom actor takes revenge on the coyote who killed his dog. Two young runaways decide to part ways, but not before embarking on one last big adventure.

Hilarious, razor sharp, unexpectedly emotional, and full of wild twists and turns, the stories in The Thrilling Tales of Modern Men are like nothing else. And yet, they have one thing in common—they each probe the fragile masculinity that’s become inherent to modern American culture. In this audacious and unforgettable debut collection, McBride redefines the tale of the modern man.]]> 352 Danny McBride 0593594770 Tori 3 4.25 Thrilling Tales of Modern Men: Stories

author: Danny McBride
name: Tori
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2026/09/02
date added: 2026/09/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics]]> 41817492
World-renowned Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt explores the playwright’s insight into bad (and often mad) rulers. Examining the psyche―and psychoses―of the likes of Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, and Coriolanus, Greenblatt illuminates the ways in which William Shakespeare delved into the lust for absolute power and the disasters visited upon the societies over which these characters rule. Tyrant shows that Shakespeare’s work remains vitally relevant today, not least in its probing of the unquenchable, narcissistic appetites of demagogues and the self-destructive willingness of collaborators who indulge their appetites.]]> 224 Stephen Greenblatt 0393356973 Tori 0 to-read 4.05 2018 Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics

author: Stephen Greenblatt
name: Tori
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/02
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]]> My Husband's Wife 231301528 The Sunday Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ugly is back with a psychological masterpiece that will leave you questioning everything you know about love, identity, and revenge.

Eden Fox, an artist on the brink of her big break, sets off for a run before her first exhibition. When she returns to the home she recently moved into, Spyglass, an enchanting old house in Hope Falls, nothing is as it should be. Her key doesn’t fit. A woman, eerily similar to her, answers the door. And her husband insists that the stranger is his wife.

One house. One husband. Two women. Someone is lying.

Six months earlier, a reclusive Londoner called Birdy, reeling from a life-changing diagnosis, inherits Spyglass. This unexpected gift from a long-lost grandmother brings her to the pretty seaside village of Hope Falls. But then Birdy stumbles upon a shadowy London clinic that claims to be able to predict a person's date of death, including her own. Secrets start to unravel, and as the line between truth and lies blurs, Birdy feels compelled to right some old wrongs.

My Husband’s Wife is a tangled web of deception, obsession, and mystery that will keep you guessing until the last page. Prepare yourself for the ultimate mind-bending marriage thriller and step inside Spyglass – if you dare – to experience a story where nothing is as it seems.]]> 313 Alice Feeney 1250337828 Tori 5 4.10 2026 My Husband's Wife

author: Alice Feeney
name: Tori
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2026
rating: 5
read at: 2026/08/29
date added: 2026/08/29
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]]> Son of Nobody 233411679 Life of Pi, a brilliant retelling of the Trojan War from the perspective of two commoners: an ancient soldier and a modern scholar.

The Psoad is an Ancient Greek epic in free verse that follows a goatherd’s son, Psoas of Midea, who leaves his wife and family to fight with the Greeks at Troy. This commoner’s story was lost to time—until Harlow Donne, a Canadian academic who has left his own wife and daughter behind to study at Oxford, discovers its relics nearly thirty centuries later.

As sole translator and interpreter of The Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter, Helen. Under his gaze, a personal message to his beloved child appears in the ancient text, like a palimpsest. Despite the thousands of years and hundreds of miles that separate Psoas and Harlow, a thread hasn’t frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of love, ambition, and grief.

Son of Nobody takes readers from the plains of Troy to the halls of Oxford, from the classical to the contemporary, from ancient verses to modern footnotes. It is a dazzling, masterful feat of myth, history, and domesticity that explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them, and how we live—then, now, always.]]> 352 Yann Martel 132411813X Tori 0 to-read 3.51 2026 Son of Nobody

author: Yann Martel
name: Tori
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/28
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review:

]]> The Gospel Singer 58536096 224 Harry Crews 0143135090 Tori 0 to-read 4.24 1968

author: Harry Crews
name: Tori
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1968
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life]]> 50887097 A wondrous debut from an extraordinary new voice in nonfiction, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a dark and astonishing tale of love, chaos, scientific obsession, and—possibly—even murder.

David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake—which sent more than a thousand of his discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered.

Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world.

When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool—a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet.

Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don’t Exist reads like a fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.]]> 225 Lulu Miller Tori 0 to-read 4.12 2020 Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life

Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life

author: Lulu Miller
name: Tori
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/28
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout]]> 197773418 Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work, a groundbreaking philosophy for pursuing meaningful accomplishment while avoiding overload.

Our current definition of “productivity” is broken. It pushes us to treat busyness as a proxy for useful effort, leading to impossibly lengthy task lists and ceaseless meetings. We’re overwhelmed by all we have to do and on the edge of burnout, left to decide between giving into soul-sapping hustle culture or rejecting ambition altogether. But are these really our only choices?

Long before the arrival of pinging inboxes and clogged schedules, history’s most creative and impactful philosophers, scientists, artists, and writers mastered the art of producing valuable work with staying power. In this timely and provocative book, Cal Newport harnesses the wisdom of these traditional knowledge workers to radically transform our modern jobs. Drawing from deep research on the habits and mindsets of a varied cast of storied thinkers—from Galileo and Isaac Newton, to Jane Austen and Georgia O’Keefe—Newport lays out the key principles of “slow productivity,” a more sustainable alternative to the aimless overwhelm that defines our current moment. Combining cultural criticism with systematic pragmatism, Newport deconstructs the absurdities inherent in standard notions of productivity, and then provides step-by-step advice for workers to replace them with a slower, more humane alternative.

From the aggressive rethinking of workload management, to introducing seasonal variation, to shifting your performance toward long-term quality, Slow Productivity provides a roadmap for escaping overload and arriving instead at a more timeless approach to pursuing meaningful accomplishment. The world of work is due for a new revolution. Slow productivity is exactly what we need.]]> 244 Cal Newport 0593544854 Tori 0 to-read 3.62 2024 Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout

Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout

author: Cal Newport
name: Tori
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Pontius Pilate 490449
“Compelling, eloquent and vivid . . . In a superb blend of scholarship and creativity, Wroe brings this elusive yet pivotal figure to life.”— The Boston Globe

One of Esquire ’s Best Biographies of All Time • Finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize

The foil to Jesus, the defiant antihero of the Easter story, mocking, skeptical Pilate is a historical figure who haunts our imagination. For some he is a saint, for others the embodiment of human weakness, an archetypal politician willing to sacrifice one man for the sake of stability.

In this dazzlingly conceived biography, Ann Wroe brings man and myth to life. Working from classical sources, she reconstructs his origins and upbringing, his career in the military and life in Rome, his confrontation with Christ, and his long journey home. We catch glimpses of him pacing the marble floors in Caesarea, sharpening his stylus, getting dressed shortly before sunrise on the day that would seal his place in history. What were the pressures on Pilate that day? What did he really think of Jesus?

Pontius Pilate lets us see Christ's trial for the first time, in all its confusion, from the point of view of his executioner.]]> 433 Ann Wroe 0375753974 Tori 0 to-read 3.65 1999

author: Ann Wroe
name: Tori
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed]]> 88335 As vividly as John Krakauer puts readers on Everest, John Vaillant takes us into the heart of North America's last great forest.]]> 288 John Vaillant 0393328643 Tori 0 to-read 4.11 2005 The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed

The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed

author: John Vaillant
name: Tori
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> Hollywood Park 49235526 HOLLYWOOD PARK is a remarkable memoir of a tumultuous life. Mikel Jollett was born into one of the country’s most infamous cults, and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Yet, ultimately, his is a story of fierce love and family loyalty told in a raw, poetic voice that signals the emergence of a uniquely gifted writer.

We were never young. We were just too afraid of ourselves. No one told us who we were or what we were or where all our parents went. They would arrive like ghosts, visiting us for a morning, an afternoon. They would sit with us or walk around the grounds, to laugh or cry or toss us in the air while we screamed. Then they’d disappear again, for weeks, for months, for years, leaving us alone with our memories and dreams, our questions and confusion. …

So begins Hollywood Park, Mikel Jollett’s remarkable memoir. His story opens in an experimental commune in California, which later morphed into the Church of Synanon, one of the country’s most infamous and dangerous cults. Per the leader’s mandate, all children, including Jollett and his older brother, were separated from their parents when they were six months old, and handed over to the cult’s “School.” After spending years in what was essentially an orphanage, Mikel escaped the cult one morning with his mother and older brother. But in many ways, life outside Synanon was even harder and more erratic.

In his raw, poetic and powerful voice, Jollett portrays a childhood filled with abject poverty, trauma, emotional abuse, delinquency and the lure of drugs and alcohol. Raised by a clinically depressed mother, tormented by his angry older brother, subjected to the unpredictability of troubled step-fathers and longing for contact with his father, a former heroin addict and ex-con, Jollett slowly, often painfully, builds a life that leads him to Stanford University and, eventually, to finding his voice as a writer and musician.

Hollywood Park is told at first through the limited perspective of a child, and then broadens as Jollett begins to understand the world around him. Although Mikel Jollett’s story is filled with heartbreak, it is ultimately an unforgettable portrayal of love at its fiercest and most loyal.]]> 384 Mikel Jollett 1250621569 Tori 0 to-read 4.28 2020 Hollywood Park

author: Mikel Jollett
name: Tori
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Pietr the Latvian (Maigret, #1)]]> 18114335
What Maigret sought, and what he waited and watched out for, was the crack in the wall. In other words, the instant when the human being comes out from behind the opponent.

Who is Pietr the Latvian? Is he a gentleman thief? A Russian drinking absinthe in a grimy bar? A married Norwegian sea captain? A twisted corpse in a train bathroom? Or is he all of these men? Inspector Maigret, tracking a mysterious adversary and a trail of bodies, must bide his time before the answer can come into focus.

This one's a gripping translation. This Penguin Simenon series features brilliant renderings by some of today's best translators from French to English. "Pietr the Latvian," and the ones which follow, introduce the intrepid Inspector to a brand new audience.]]> 162 Georges Simenon 0141392738 Tori 0 to-read 3.45 1930 Pietr the Latvian (Maigret, #1)

author: Georges Simenon
name: Tori
average rating: 3.45
book published: 1930
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Summer of Broken Rules 57690252
Unfortunately, Meredith's longtime boyfriend unexpectedly dumped her two weeks before the wedding, leaving her dateless. Luckily, she has the perfect distraction. Her family has a tradition of playing the ultimate game of Assassin every summer, and this year it will take place during the week of wedding festivities.

But her target just happens to be a very cute groomsman. She's determined to not let herself get distracted, not let herself be lost in another doomed relationship. But as the week progresses, she can't help falling for him, which may cost her not only the game, but also her heart.

Meredith's family's annual game of assassin at Martha's Vineyard during a summer wedding is the perfect chance to honor her sister's legacy, and finally join the world again. But when she forms an alliance with a cute groomsman, she's at risk of losing both the game… and her heart.]]> 304 K.L. Walther 1728210305 Tori 5 3.94 2021 The Summer of Broken Rules

author: K.L. Walther
name: Tori
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2026/08/23
date added: 2026/08/23
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]]> The Winter People 18007535
Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that has weighty consequences when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished. In her search for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother's bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked into the historical mystery, she discovers that she's not the only person looking for someone that they've lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.]]> 317 Jennifer McMahon 0385538499 Tori 0 to-read 3.79 2014 The Winter People

author: Jennifer McMahon
name: Tori
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/23
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]]> The Summer Share 240688508 When two misfits discover they’ve inherited the same beach house, sparks fly in the most unexpected ways, in this hilarious and heartfelt rom-com from the New York Times bestselling author of Summer Reading.

Free-spirited travel influencer Hannah Spencer has spent five years touring the country in her vintage van, alone save for her hulking Great Dane, Dude. Until an unexpected inheritance from her pops has Hannah thinking about putting down roots in Cape Split, North Carolina, where she’s the new owner of a worse-for-wear seaside beach house. Or, rather, fifty percent of one. Turns out Simon O’Malley inherited the other half from his gramps.

As Simon and Hannah spend the summer tag-teaming repairs on the crumbling cottage, they discover it was once home to a timeless love story. As their own relationship shifts from enemies to friends to lovers, they begin to wonder if the house’s romantic past might be a good omen for their future together. But there’s one problem—Simon is set on selling the property at the end of the summer.

For Hannah, the Split isn’t like anyplace she’s ever been, and Simon isn’t like any man she’s ever known—she doesn’t want to let this new life go. She just needs Simon to see their budding relationship and this newfound community in the same way, or their first summer share might also be their last.]]> 368 Jenn McKinlay 0593955463 Tori 0 to-read 3.58 2026 The Summer Share

author: Jenn McKinlay
name: Tori
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Summer Girlfriend (Heart Beach, #1)]]> 241434385 A stand-in girlfriend and a handsome business heir find that their fake summer fling is feeling way too real in this new romance by USA Today bestselling author Kristina Forest.

Noelle Lewis doesn’t have time for long walks on the beach, brunch with the girls, or summer vacations. She’s too busy saving up to go back to college. After recently getting laid off from her bookseller job, her main gig is now serving as a “stand-in” bridesmaid, which doesn’t pay enough for the upcoming semester’s tuition. But then the perfect, if not unconventional, opportunity arises…

Jeremiah Smith II, grandson of the founder of Smith’s Sweets—a well-known baked goods company—once lived a life of frivolity. Since his grandfather’s death, Jeremiah’s tried to clean up his act, but it’s hard to focus when his family requests that he join them at their summer house in Heart Beach, New Jersey, where his most painful memory lies. To avoid going there, Jeremiah claims he already has plans with his girlfriend, and of course, his family tells him to bring her. The problem? Jeremiah doesn’t have a girlfriend.

After a chance meeting, Noelle and Jeremiah come to an agreement. He’ll hire her to be his stand-in girlfriend for the weekend, and she’ll use that money toward her tuition. She figures it will be quick, easy money, but as it turns out, Jeremiah’s family is lovely, and Jeremiah is even lovelier. Soon, a weekend agreement turns into an entire summer, and Noelle and Jeremiah will have to keep their hearts in check, or else it’s sink or swim for them both.]]> 400 Kristina Forest 0593956397 Tori 0 to-read 3.97 2026 The Summer Girlfriend (Heart Beach, #1)

author: Kristina Forest
name: Tori
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[A Fatal Legacy (DI Caius Beauchamp, #4)]]> 247717862
Digby Coombe-Watson didn't think they applied to him. He had other how to get rid of his great-grandfather's crumbling property, and whether his family would let him.

So he ignored the rules, and invited someone in.

Now he's dead. And he won't be the last.]]> 352 Charlotte Vassell 0571390501 Tori 0 to-read 4.06 A Fatal Legacy (DI Caius Beauchamp, #4)

author: Charlotte Vassell
name: Tori
average rating: 4.06
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[A Deadly Inheritance (DI Caius Beauchamp, #3)]]> 228718917 'One of the most exciting new voices in crime fiction.' ERIN KELLY

Two murders.
Rosie wakes up at 3am already feeling the twinges of a brutal hangover - an afternoon spent day drinking with her uni pals has left her rather the worse for wear. She creeps downstairs for a glass of water - only to stumble onto a shocking, bloody scene in the kitchen.

One will.
It looks like a botched burglary has left both Rosie's grandmother and her attacker dead. But then Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp gets a tip about the matriarch's last will. It turns out, this well-heeled family has a nefarious past.

A family full of secrets.
With his reputation on the line and powerful people pressuring him to close the case, Caius must decide what's more the body on the floor or the skeletons in the closet?

'A fresh, bitingly witty take on the whodunnit.' RED, ON THE OTHER HALF
'A total joy to read.' HARRIET TYCE, ON THE IN CROWD

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ These books hold every single thing a reader could want. Thriller? Check. Mystery that keeps you wondering? Plenty. Characters that you want to know and see some of your friends in? Sure.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ If you like mystery/thrillers which are just a bit different, are quirky and with plenty of good humour then check out Charlotte Vassel's Caius Beauchamp series.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I absolutely love Charlotte Vassell's writing style, it completely meshes with what I want in a book, quirky, entertaining, a bit gossipy (quite a bit gossipy if I'm being honest) and some characters that you really root for.

**A FATAL LEGACY, the next bitingly funny mystery from Charlotte Vassell is now available to pre-order!**]]> Charlotte Vassell 0571390455 Tori 0 to-read 3.90 2025 A Deadly Inheritance (DI Caius Beauchamp, #3)

A Deadly Inheritance (DI Caius Beauchamp, #3)

author: Charlotte Vassell
name: Tori
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Other Half (DI Caius Beauchamp, #1)]]> 123025972
Rupert's 30th birthday party is a black-tie dinner at the Kentish Town McDonald's—catered with cocaine and expensive champagne. The morning after, his girlfriend Clemmie is found murdered on Hampstead Heath, a single stiletto heel jutting from under a bush.

Who killed Clemmie? Was it the blithe, sociopathic boyfriend? His impossibly wealthy godmother? The gallery owner with whom Clemmie was having an affair? Or was it the result of something else entirely?

All the party-goers have alibis. Naturally. This investigation is going to be about aristocrats and Classics degrees, Instagram influencers and whose father knows who.

Or is it 'whom'? Detective Caius Beauchamp isn't sure. He's sharply dressed, smart, and thoroughly modern—he discovers Clemmie's body on his early morning jog. As he searches for the dark truth beneath the luxurious life of these London socialites, a wall of staggering wealth and privilege threatens to shut down his investigation before it's even begun. Can Caius peer through the tangled mess of connections in which the other half live—and die—before the case is wrenched from his hands? Bitingly funny, full of shocking twists, and all too familiar.]]> 368 Charlotte Vassell 0593685946 Tori 0 to-read 3.25 2023 The Other Half (DI Caius Beauchamp, #1)

author: Charlotte Vassell
name: Tori
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The In Crowd (DI Caius Beauchamp, #2)]]> 201817816 From the celebrated author of The Other Half comes a fabulous whodunit about two cold cases in which things go a fourteen-year-old girl and a multi-million-dollar pension fund.

Early one morning, a men’s rowing team discovers a body floating face down in the Thames. Many years before, the chief executive of a clothing manufacturer walked off with a multi-million dollar corporate retirement fund and disappeared without a trace. Now, the discovery of this body has reopened that cold case.

Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp has his own evening at the theater upended by the discovery of a dead body just a few seats away. Two decades ago, Eliza Chapel, a fourteen-year-old student at a girls boarding school in Cornwall, disappeared in the middle of the night under dubious circumstances. A second body and a second cold case reopened.

As DI Caius Beauchamp—along with his associates Matt Chung and Amy Noakes—investigates these parallel missing persons cases, he finds himself ensnared in the unexpected political machinations of a duke-in-waiting. This is yet another masterful mystery from Charlotte Vassell that is every bit as pointed as it is poignant.]]> 368 Charlotte Vassell 0593685989 Tori 5 4.14 2024 The In Crowd (DI Caius Beauchamp, #2)

author: Charlotte Vassell
name: Tori
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2026/08/23
date added: 2026/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx]]> 385255 Random Family is the story of young people trying to outrun their destinies. Jessica and Boy George ride the wild adventure between riches and ruin, while Coco and Cesar stick closer to the street, all four caught in a precarious dance between survival and death. Friends get murdered; the DEA and FBI investigate Boy George; Cesar becomes a fugitive; Jessica and Coco endure homelessness, betrayal, the heartbreaking separation of prison, and, throughout it all, the insidious damage of poverty.

Charting the tumultuous cycle of the generations - as girls become mothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation - LeBlanc slips behind the cold statistics and sensationalism and comes back with a riveting, haunting, and true story.]]> 409 Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 0743254430 Tori 0 to-read 4.26 2003 Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx

Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx

author: Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
name: Tori
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/08/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo—and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up]]> 18877989
Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, covered Lucie's disappearance and followed the massive search for her, the long investigation, and the even longer trial. Over ten years, he earned the trust of her family and friends, won unique access to the Japanese detectives and Japan's convoluted legal system, and delved deep into the mind of the man accused of the crime, Joji Obara, described by the judge as "unprecedented and extremely evil."

The result is a book at once thrilling and revelatory, "In Cold Blood for our times" (Chris Cleave, author of Incendiary and Little Bee).

The People Who Eat Darkness is one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books of 2012]]> 465 Richard Lloyd Parry 1466820020 Tori 0 to-read 3.82 2010 People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo—and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up

People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo—and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up

author: Richard Lloyd Parry
name: Tori
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/22
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]]> Monday's Not Coming 36119078
Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable—more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia’s worried.

When she doesn’t show for the second day, or second week, Claudia knows that something is wrong. Monday wouldn’t just leave her to endure tests and bullies alone. Not after last year’s rumors and not with her grades on the line. Now Claudia needs her best—and only—friend more than ever. But Monday’s mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and Monday’s sister April is even less help.

As Claudia digs deeper into her friend’s disappearance, she discovers that no one seems to remember the last time they saw Monday. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone?]]> 432 Tiffany D. Jackson Tori 5 4.42 2018 Monday's Not Coming

author: Tiffany D. Jackson
name: Tori
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2026/08/13
date added: 2026/08/13
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]]> Accidentally on Purpose 218075335 Accidentally on Purpose dives into Kristen Kish’s childhood as a Korean adoptee in the Midwest, finding purpose in kitchens, and becoming the season 10 winner of—and now host—of Top Chef all the while navigating life in the spotlight, coming out in her adult years, and all the life lessons in between.

Kristen Kish never set out to live a public life—not when she was a carefree softball-tossing kid, not in high school working at a pretzel stand, not even, briefly, as a working model. And definitely not when she finally landed her true calling as a chef. But in those early days, becoming a chef meant tethering oneself to a restaurant, not a television set. But it happened naturally (or as naturally as possible, given all the technology and TV magic involved), even if it was totally unanticipated.

Of course, like most things in life, the road to this full circle moment—from Top Chef season 10 winner to now hosting—was so much more winding and complicated than it may have appeared from the outside. From growing up as an adoptee in the Midwest, to trying to fit in with all the other girls who were busy dating boys, to coming out and finding love when she least expected it, Kristen learned that, unlike a map, no set of plans or definitions can dictate or explain a life. In fact, accidents happen. That curveballs will come. And they will often be consequential to one’s path.

In Accidentally on Purpose, what defines Kristen’s story aren’t the missteps or even the pleasant surprises that crop up. It’s how to respond when they do, and the decisions made at those intersections. Because while accidents may be unexpected, they don’t have to be at odds with purpose. And as Kristen approaches life’s milestones, big and small, with intention—the ones she expected, and those she didn’t—she realizes she can write her own definitions and chart her own course.]]> 352 Kristen Kish 0316580910 Tori 5 3.93 2025 Accidentally on Purpose

author: Kristen Kish
name: Tori
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2026/08/11
date added: 2026/08/11
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]]> It Could Have Been Her 242974649 Lisa Jewell brings the suspense to this shocking new thriller about a lost dog, a missing woman, and a house of long buried secrets.

Jane Trevally is walking her dogs on her country estate when a small white terrier appears, alone and with no sign of the teenaged girl he’d been staying with nearby. When the teenager is reported missing, Jane offers to return the dog to his registered owner, hours away in London. Arriving at a run-down house called Thornwood in the deepest backwaters of Hampstead, she is immediately on alert—because Jane has a dark history with this house.

The man who answers the door is not the man that Jane remembers from her past. He is cagey, and claims to know nothing about the missing teenage girl. Then, through the window of the house, Jane catches a glimpse of a haunted-looking woman.

Conjuring her memories from twenty-five years ago, Jane knows this unsettling house holds the key—to the missing teenager, to her own traumatic story, and to the dark secrets of the past.]]> 373 Lisa Jewell 1668033909 Tori 5 3.67 2026 It Could Have Been Her

author: Lisa Jewell
name: Tori
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2026
rating: 5
read at: 2026/08/09
date added: 2026/08/09
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Devil in a Blue Dress (Easy Rawlins, #1)]]> 59117608
Featuring an Original Easy Rawlins Short Story.]]> 236 Walter Mosley Tori 4 3.91 1990

Devil in a Blue Dress (Easy Rawlins, #1)

author: Walter Mosley
name: Tori
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2026/08/06
date added: 2026/08/06
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini]]> 880378
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 465 Benvenuto Cellini 0140447180 Tori 0 to-read 3.99 1558 The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

author: Benvenuto Cellini
name: Tori
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1558
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/08/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece]]> 9856646
The Rescue Artist is a rollicking narrative that carries readers deep inside the art underworld -- and introduces them to a large and colorful cast of titled aristocrats, intrepid investigators, and thick-necked thugs. But most compelling of all is Charley Hill himself, a complicated mix of brilliance, foolhardiness, and charm whose hunt for a purloined treasure would either cap an illustrious career or be the fiasco that would haunt him forever.]]> 433 Edward Dolnick 0062041843 Tori 0 currently-reading 3.86 2005 The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece

The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece

author: Edward Dolnick
name: Tori
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/08/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The House Across the Lake 58909880
One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other—and the longer Casey watches—it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage is not as perfect and placid as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey becomes consumed with finding out what happened to her. In the process, she uncovers eerie, darker truths that turn a tale of voyeurism and suspicion into a story of guilt, obsession and how looks can be very deceiving.

With his trademark blend of sharp characters, psychological suspense, and gasp-worthy surprises, Riley Sager’s The House Across the Lake unveils more than one twist that will shock readers until the very last page.]]> 369 Riley Sager Tori 5 3.56 2022

author: Riley Sager
name: Tori
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2026/08/02
date added: 2026/08/02
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]]> The Sirens 210412039 A novel about sisters separated by centuries, but bound together by the sea.

2019: Lucy awakens from a dream to find her hands around her ex-lover’s throat. Horrified, she flees to her older sister’s house on the Australian coast, hoping she can help explain the strangely vivid nightmare that preceded the attack—but Jess is nowhere to be found.

As Lucy awaits her return, the rumors surrounding Jess’s strange small town start to emerge. Numerous men have gone missing at sea, spread over decades. A tiny baby was found hidden in a cave. And sailors tell of hearing women’s voices on the waves. Desperate for answers, Lucy finds and begins to read her sister’s adolescent diary.

1999: Jess is a lonely sixteen-year-old in a rural town in the middle of the continent. Diagnosed with a rare allergy to water, she has always felt different, until her young, charming art teacher takes an interest in her drawings, seeing a power and maturity in them—and in her—that no one else has.

1800: Twin sisters Mary and Eliza have been torn from their loving father in Ireland and forced onto a convict ship bound for Australia. For their entire lives, they’ve feared the ocean, as their mother tragically drowned when they were just girls. Yet as the boat bears them further and further from all they know, they begin to notice changes in their bodies that they can’t explain, and they feel the sea beginning to call to them…

A breathtaking tale of female resilience and the bonds of sisterhood across time and space, The Sirens captures the power of dreams, and the mystery and magic of the sea.]]> 339 Emilia Hart 1250280834 Tori 5 3.87 2025

author: Emilia Hart
name: Tori
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2026/08/02
date added: 2026/08/02
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]]> Villa Coco 241483206 A coming-of-age novel, a love story and a tale of life-enhancing Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer showcases his wit, sophistication and deep knowledge of focaccia in this magical tale set amidst the Tuscan hills.

Broke and directionless, our young man takes a job in the Italian countryside as the all-purpose assistant to Lisabetta, known to her friends as Coco - a strong-willed, wealthy widow of great local renown.

Trained as an archivist, he thinks he's been hired to catalogue the contents of the beautiful, crumbling mansion nestled in the green Tuscan hills... but what are his actual duties? Days are spent ridding the house of a marten - whatever that is - locating the antediluvian septic system, entertaining an endless carousel of guests (from bohemian painters to elderly princesses to unnervingly handsome nephews), attending a funeral in order to make off with the urn, and not inadvertently sabotaging Coco's great and final plan-to locate the lost love of her life and be reunited before it's too late.

As summer turns into autumn and the Italian countryside begins to work its magic on our protagonist, the secrets of Villa Coco and its inhabitants are slowly brought to light - and with them, an unforgettable story of the enduring power of friendship.]]> 288 Andrew Sean Greer 0385551975 Tori 0 to-read 3.54 2026

author: Andrew Sean Greer
name: Tori
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/01
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]]> <![CDATA[North Sun, or The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther]]> 205668518 From “one of our great artists of catastrophe” (Laura van den Berg) comes North Sun, or the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther—an allegory of extraction and a tale of adventure and endurance during the waning days of the American whaling industry.

Setting out from New Bedford in 1878, the crew of the Esther is confident the sea will be theirs: in addition to cruising the Pacific for whale, they intend to hunt the teeming northern grounds before the ice closes. But as they sail to their final destination in the Chukchi Sea, where their captain Arnold Lovejoy has an urgent directive of his own to attend to, their encounters with the natural world become more brutal, harrowing, ghostly, and strange.

With one foot firmly planted in the traditional sea-voyage narrative, and another in a blazing mythos of its own, this debut novel looks unsparingly at the cost of environmental exploitation and predation, and in doing so feverishly sings not only of the past, but to the present and future as well.]]> 389 Ethan Rutherford 1646053583 Tori 0 to-read 4.00 2025 North Sun, or The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther

North Sun, or The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther

author: Ethan Rutherford
name: Tori
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/01
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]]> Dissection of a Murder 240187298 Nothing is as it seems—and no one is telling the truth—in this page-turning thriller about a young lawyer forced to defend a man on trial for murder against the mentor who taught her everything: her husband.

When Leila Reynolds is handed her first murder case, she’s shocked by the victim: a well-known, well-respected judge, whose death sent shockwaves through the legal community. She’s also incredulous—she’s nowhere near experienced enough to handle such a high-profile assignment—but the defendant is insistent: he wants her, and only her, to represent him.

Except he’s refusing to talk. And if that wasn’t complicated enough, Leila soon learns her opponent is the most ruthless prosecutor she’s ever known: her husband.

It’s an impossible situation, yet Leila is determined to sway the jury to her side—until she’s blindsided once again by a shadowy figure from her past. Suddenly, Leila finds herself fighting not only for her client and marriage, but also to keep her own secrets buried. And if she has to rewrite the rules to win, so be it.]]> 416 Jo Murray Tori 0 to-read 4.05 2026 Dissection of a Murder

author: Jo Murray
name: Tori
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook]]> 191768052 HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment?

Hampton Sides’ bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science-–the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment.

Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter.

At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.]]> 432 Hampton Sides 0385544774 Tori 4 4.58 2024 The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook

The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook

author: Hampton Sides
name: Tori
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2026/07/26
date added: 2026/07/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Conchophilia: Shells, Art, and Curiosity in Early Modern Europe]]> 56200536
Among nature’s most artful creations, shells have long inspired the curiosity and passion of artisans, artists, collectors, and thinkers. Conchophilia delves into the intimate relationship between shells and people, offering an unprecedented account of the early modern era, when the influx of exotic shells to Europe fueled their study and representation as never before. From elaborate nautilus cups and shell-encrusted grottoes to delicate miniatures, this richly illustrated book reveals how the love of shells intersected not only with the rise of natural history and global trade but also with philosophical inquiry, issues of race and gender, and the ascent of art-historical connoisseurship.

Shells circulated at the nexus of commerce and intellectual pursuit, suggesting new ways of thinking about relationships between Europe and the rest of the world. The authors focus on northern Europe, where the interest and trade in shells had its greatest impact on the visual arts. They consider how shells were perceived as exotic objects, the role of shells in courtly collections, their place in still-life tableaus, and the connections between their forms and those of the human body. They examine how artists gilded, carved, etched, and inked shells to evoke the permeable boundary between art and nature. These interactions with shells shaped the ways that early modern individuals perceived their relation to the natural world, and their endeavors in art and the acquisition of knowledge.

Spanning painting and print to architecture and the decorative arts, Conchophilia uncovers the fascinating ways that shells were circulated, depicted, collected, and valued during a time of remarkable global change.]]> 224 Marisa Bass 0691215766 Tori 0 to-read 3.78 Conchophilia: Shells, Art, and Curiosity in Early Modern Europe

Conchophilia: Shells, Art, and Curiosity in Early Modern Europe

author: Marisa Bass
name: Tori
average rating: 3.78
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age]]> 431666
But it wasn’t like that. As Anne Goldgar reveals in Tulipmania, not one of these stories is true. Making use of extensive archival research, she lays waste to the legends, revealing that while the 1630s did see a speculative bubble in tulip prices, neither the height of the bubble nor its bursting were anywhere near as dramatic as we tend to think. By clearing away the accumulated myths, Goldgar is able to show us instead the far more interesting reality: the ways in which tulipmania reflected deep anxieties about the transformation of Dutch society in the Golden Age.

“Goldgar tells us at the start of her excellent debunking book: ‘Most of what we have heard of [tulipmania] is not true.’. . . She tells a new story.”—Simon Kuper, Financial Times]]> 425 Anne Goldgar 0226301257 Tori 0 to-read 3.52 2007 Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age

Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age

author: Anne Goldgar
name: Tori
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused]]> 431668
In the 1630s, visitors to the prosperous trading cities of the Netherlands couldn't help but notice that thousands of normally sober, hardworking Dutch citizens were caught up in an extraordinary frenzy of buying and selling. The object of this unprecedented speculation was the tulip, a delicate and exotic Eastern import that had bewitched horticulturists, noblemen, and tavern owners alike. For almost a year rare bulbs changed hands for incredible and ever-increasing sums, until single flowers were being sold for more than the cost of a house. Historians would come to call it tulipomania. It was the first futures market in history, and like so many of the ones that would follow, it crashed spectacularly, plunging speculators and investors into economic ruin and despair. This colorful cast of characters includes Turkish sultans, Yugoslav soldiers, French botanists, and Dutch tavern keepers—all centuries apart historically and worlds apart culturally, but with one thing in tulipomania.]]> 273 Mike Dash 060980765X Tori 0 to-read 3.67 2000 Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

author: Mike Dash
name: Tori
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/25
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]]> Glorious Exploits 127278133 An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history.

On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they’ve herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gelon, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians if, and only if, they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides. Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea. After all, you can hate the people but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship.

Told in a contemporary Irish voice and as riotously funny as it is deeply moving, Glorious Exploits is an unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity, and human will throughout the ages.]]> 304 Ferdia Lennon 1250893690 Tori 0 to-read 4.11 2024

author: Ferdia Lennon
name: Tori
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/25
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]]> Hurricane Season 46041168 A New York Times Notable Book (2020)
A Guardian Best Book of 2020
A Literary Hub Favorite Book of 2020

The Witch is dead. And the discovery of her corpse—by a group of children playing near the irrigation canals—propels the whole village into an investigation of how and why this murder occurred. Rumors and suspicions spread. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each unreliable narrator lingering on new details, new acts of depravity or brutality, Melchor extracts some tiny shred of humanity from these characters that most would write off as utterly irredeemable, forming a lasting portrait of a damned Mexican village.

Like Roberto Bolano’s 2666 or Faulkner’s greatest novels, Hurricane Season takes place in a world filled with mythology and violence—real violence, the kind that seeps into the soil, poisoning everything around: it’s a world that becomes more terrifying and more terrifyingly real the deeper you explore it.]]> 224 Fernanda Melchor 0811228037 Tori 0 to-read 3.92 2017 Hurricane Season

author: Fernanda Melchor
name: Tori
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth]]> 238226991 A spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen-year-old son, only to discover that he had created a secret life which drew him into the dangerous criminal underworld that lies beneath London’s glittering surface

In the early morning of November 29th, 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of MI6, Britain’s spy agency, captured video of a young man pacing back and forth on a high balcony of Riverwalk, a luxury tower on the bank of the river Thames. At 2:24 AM he jumped into the river.

In a quiet London neighborhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried about her son. Zac had told her that he had gone to stay with a friend, but then he did not come home. Days later, a police car pulled up and two officers relayed the dreadful news: her son was dead.

In their unbearable grief, Rachelle and her husband, Matthew, struggled to understand what had happened to Zac. He had his troubles, but in no way seemed suicidal. As they would soon discover, however, there was a lot they did not know about their son. Only after his death did they learn that he had adopted a fictitious alter-ego: Zac Ismailov, son of a Russian oligarch and heir to a great fortune. Under this guise, Zac had become entangled with a slippery London businessman named Akbar Shamji, and a murderous gangster known as “Indian Dave.” As the Brettlers set about investigating their son’s death, they were pulled into a different and more dangerous London than the one they’d always known, and came to believe that something much more nefarious than a suicide had claimed Zac’s life. But to their immense frustration, Scotland Yard seemed unable—or unwilling—to bring the perpetrators to justice.

In a bravura feat of reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe chronicles the Brettlers’ quest, peeling back layers of mystery and exposing the seedy truths behind the glamorous London of posh mansions and private nightclubs, a city in which everything is for sale, and aspirational fantasies are underwritten by dirty money and corruption. London Falling is a mesmerizing investigation of an inexplicable death and a powerful narrative driven by suspense and staggering revelations. But it is also an intimate and deeply poignant inquiry into the nature of parental love and the challenges of being a parent today, a portrait of a family trying to solve the riddle not just of how their son died, but of who he really was in life.]]> 361 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385548532 Tori 5 4.28 2026 London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth

London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth

author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: Tori
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2026
rating: 5
read at: 2026/07/19
date added: 2026/07/19
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]]> Scandal of the Summer 240019961 A desperate debutante meets a ragtag smuggler in this sexy Regency romp by USA Today bestselling author Alexandra Vasti.

Eccentric heiress Lady Ruby Ballimore has had enough of the Marriage Mart. After offending yet another Very Important Marquess―and imperiling her father’s diplomatic career―Ruby flees London for the holiday house of a glamorous (and better yet, absent) princess. Armed with a forged invitation and accompanied by her like-minded friends, Ruby arrives at the Cornwall estate expecting a summer of blissful freedom.

Instead, she discovers a derelict mansion and the most suspiciously charming man she’s ever met.

Former privateer and current con artist Captain Malcolm Archer has dragged his ramshackle crew into a new life. Posing as staff at a princess’s abandoned estate provides the perfect cover for Archer’s smuggling scheme (not to mention free rent). Everything’s going according to plan―until an unorthodox London heiress crashes the party.

But when Archer and his crew attempt to frighten off their uninvited guests, Ruby’s unfazed by insect invasions and sham sea monsters. Harder to ignore? The scorching heat between the rakish pirate and the debutante who can see right through him. As sparks fly, deceptions run wild―because in this Great Cornish Fake Off, the only thing riskier than telling the truth is falling in love.]]> 352 Alexandra Vasti 1250414253 Tori 0 to-read 3.62 2026 Scandal of the Summer

author: Alexandra Vasti
name: Tori
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/16
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]]> Paper: Paging Through History 32191697 Máo zhuxí yulu, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Zedong)—which doesn’t include editions in 37 foreign languages and in braille—to appreciate the range and influence of a single publication, in paper. Or take the fact that one of history’s most revered artists, Leonardo da Vinci, left behind only 15 paintings but 4,000 works on paper. And though the colonies were at the time calling for a boycott of all British goods, the one exception they made speaks to the essentiality of the material; they penned the Declaration of Independence on British paper.

Now, amid discussion of “going paperless”—and as speculation about the effects of a digitally dependent society grows rampant—we’ve come to a world-historic juncture. Thousands of years ago, Socrates and Plato warned that written language would be the end of “true knowledge,” replacing the need to exercise memory and think through complex questions. Similar arguments were made about the switch from handwritten to printed books, and today about the role of computer technology. By tracing paper’s evolution from antiquity to the present, with an emphasis on the contributions made in Asia and the Middle East, Mark Kurlansky challenges common assumptions about technology’s influence, affirming that paper is here to stay. Paper will be the commodity history that guides us forward in the twenty-first century and illuminates our times.]]> 389 Mark Kurlansky 0393353702 Tori 0 to-read 3.89 2016 Paper: Paging Through History

author: Mark Kurlansky
name: Tori
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World]]> 64895 294 Mark Kurlansky 0099268701 Tori 0 to-read 3.92 1997

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World

author: Mark Kurlansky
name: Tori
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/14
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]]> The Calamity Club 228823087 The multi-million copy selling author of The Help returns with a bold, big-hearted novel about a group of unbreakable women, fighting for what’s rightfully theirs—and the power of friendship to change everything.

In 1933 Oxford, Mississippi, Prohibition is on the wane, and the Great Depression is tightening its grip. Poor and rich folks alike have fallen on hard times, even as the old social order remains. For women on the margins, the options are few and the price of dignity and self-determination is unbearably high.

Eleven-year-old Meg, one of the unadoptable “big girls” at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed. Birdie, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford on a mission to ask her social-climbing sister to help the struggling family she’s left behind. And Charlie is a woman with a past, running low on luck but driven by fire, fury, and grit. When their fates converge, they come up with an audacious plan to take back control of their lives. Together, they form an unlikely sisterhood—but in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife, women’s freedom is fragile, and making an enemy can have dire consequences, will the price they pay for their outrageous risk-taking be too high?

The Calamity Club will make you laugh, cry, and cheer—an epic testament to resilience, friendship, and the fierce, funny women who know that calamity can be the spark of new beginnings. This is Kathryn Stockett at her most confident, heartfelt, and hilarious—the triumphant return of one of the most beloved storytellers of our time.]]> 640 Kathryn Stockett 1954118821 Tori 5 4.66 2026 The Calamity Club

author: Kathryn Stockett
name: Tori
average rating: 4.66
book published: 2026
rating: 5
read at: 2026/07/12
date added: 2026/07/12
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]]> Night Watch 62951865
The omnipresent vagaries of war and race rise to the surface as we learn their flight to the highest mountain ridges of western Virginia; the disappearance of ConaLee’s father, who left for the War and never returned. Meanwhile, in the asylum, they begin to find a new path. ConaLee pretends to be her mother’s maid; Eliza responds slowly to treatment. They get swept up in the life of the facility—the mysterious man they call the Night Watch; the orphan child called Weed; the fearsome woman who runs the kitchen; the remarkable doctor at the head of the institution.]]> 276 Jayne Anne Phillips 0451493338 Tori 0 to-read 3.50 2023

author: Jayne Anne Phillips
name: Tori
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Get Lost 243502845 For fans of Carl Hiaasen and Elmore a fast-paced thriller about a young woman who reluctantly teams up with her deadbeat dad to find her missing mom, by the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Sh*t My Dad Says

When Lila Dixon gets a call that her mother has gone missing, she initially brushes it off—Mattie’s disappearances are a part of life, like earthquakes in their dusty California hometown. But this time the prime suspect is Lila’s larger-than-life the one-time baseball star, local hero, and fatal charmer John “Dix” Dixon. Dix’s main accomplishment as a dad was finding new ways to disappoint his daughter, but even Lila knows he’s not behind this. And when they uncover a $250,000 deposit to Mattie’s bank account, and someone slips a threatening note under Lila’s motel door, they realize Mattie may be in real danger. Now they’re heading down a trail marked by unsavory Russian thugs, fat-cat farmers, and an unseen enemy who’s always a step ahead.

With crackling banter and characters that leap off the page, Get Lost is a fast-paced and emotionally layered mystery. Justin Halpern tells a story that’s by turns hilarious and about fractured families, grudges that last a lifetime, and the unexpected ways we find our way back to the people we thought we’d lost for good.]]> 256 Justin Halpern 1538778025 Tori 0 to-read 3.61 Get Lost

author: Justin Halpern
name: Tori
average rating: 3.61
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/09
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]]> Run for the Hills 218671843 An unexpected road trip across America brings a family together, in this raucous and moving new novel from the bestselling author of Nothing to See Here.

Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it’s just been Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While she sometimes admits it’s a bit lonely and a less exciting life than she imagined for herself, it’s mostly OK. Mostly.

Then one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she’s his half sister. Reuben—left behind by their dad thirty years ago—has hired a detective to track down their father and a string of other half siblings. And he wants Mad to leave her home and join him for the craziest kind of road trip imaginable to find them all.

As Mad and Rube—and eventually the others—share stories of their father, who behaved so differently in each life he created, they begin to question what he was looking for with each new incarnation. Who are they to one another? What kind of man will they find? And how will these new relationships change Mad’s previously solitary life on the farm?

Infused with deadpan wit, zany hijinks, and enormous heart, Run for the Hills is a sibling story like no other—a novel about a family forged under the most unlikely circumstances and united by hope in an unknown future.]]> 244 Kevin Wilson 0063317516 Tori 3 3.78 2025

author: Kevin Wilson
name: Tori
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2026/07/06
date added: 2026/07/06
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]]> Stoner 8551582
John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.
--nyrb.com]]> 305 John Williams 1590173937 Tori 5 4.39 1965 Stoner

author: John Williams
name: Tori
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1965
rating: 5
read at: 2026/07/05
date added: 2026/07/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Deadly Episode (Hawthorne & Horowitz, #6)]]> 240658632 From the global bestselling author of Moonflower Murders and Close to Death comes an unputdownable new mystery in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series.

‘Easily the greatest of our crime writers’ Sunday Times
'Nobody does this crime fiction better than Anthony Horowitz’ Crime Time FM
'Anthony Horowitz is a national treasure' Ragnar Jónasson

---------

The Word is Murder, the first book in the Hawthorne series, is about to be made into a major feature film.

The actors have been cast, the script written, and filming has already started in Hastings.

But when Hawthorne and Anthony visit the set, they find a far from happy family.

The director’s pretentious, the screenwriter’s an eco-warrior, the two stars hate each other, and the producer has run out of money.

And things are about to get much, much worse.

In the middle of shooting, the actor playing Hawthorne is stabbed – which leaves the real Hawthorne with no choice. He has to step in and investigate his own murder.

Because the killer may not have got the right man. Was it Hawthorne himself who was meant to be the target?

A Deadly Episode is a wild ride through a world that the author knows only too well, and the most personal case Hawthorne has had to deal with so far.]]> Anthony Horowitz 0063305763 Tori 4 4.24 2026 A Deadly Episode (Hawthorne & Horowitz, #6)

A Deadly Episode (Hawthorne & Horowitz, #6)

author: Anthony Horowitz
name: Tori
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2026
rating: 4
read at: 2026/07/04
date added: 2026/07/04
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review:

]]> The New Couple in 5B 128007059 A couple inherits an apartment with a spine-tingling past in this binge-worthy thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six.

Rosie and Chad Lowan are barely making ends meet in New York City when they receive life-changing news: Chad’s late uncle has left them his luxury apartment at the historic Windermere in glamorous Murray Hill. With its prewar elegance and impeccably uniformed doorman, the building is the epitome of old New York charm. One would almost never suspect the dark history lurking behind its perfectly maintained facade.

At first, the building and its eclectic tenants couldn’t feel more welcoming. But as the Lowans settle into their new home, Rosie starts to suspect that there’s more to the Windermere than meets the eye. Why is the doorman ever-present? Why are there cameras everywhere? And why have so many gruesome crimes occurred there throughout the years? When one of the neighbors turns up dead, Rosie must get to the truth about the Windermere before she, too, falls under its dangerous spell.]]> 382 Lisa Unger 0778333345 Tori 0 to-read 3.54 2024 The New Couple in 5B

author: Lisa Unger
name: Tori
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/01
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]]> The Hotel Nantucket 59227941
Filled with the emotional tension and multiple points of view that characterize Elin's books (The Blue Bistro, Golden Girl) as well as an added touch of historical reality, Hotel Nantucket offers something for everyone in this summer drama for the ages. ]]> 416 Elin Hilderbrand 0316258679 Tori 0 to-read 4.01 2022 The Hotel Nantucket

author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Tori
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Act on Instinct : Mission to Serve | Book 1]]> 236111006 Nairie
I’m a twenty-three-year-old virgin still living with my parents and working a soul-sucking job. I promise it gets better. The virginity thing and career are a work in progress. I started dating one of the nude models from my art class, so I’m already killing two birds with one stone. Now I can live a little before my parents marry me off to whatever suitor matches their criteria.

Besides, I’m not looking for the perfect guy. He doesn’t even exist. I mean, he does, but he doesn’t know I exist. It’s not like my best friend’s hot, older, Scottish half brother is remotely even an option. The one I’ve been in love with since I was seven. Yeah, not gonna happen. Last time we saw each other, I was sixteen and he was enlisting in the royal service.

I never thought we’d see each other again, but when my best friend’s mom passes away and we need help picking up the pieces, he’s the first person I call.

William
Since getting out of the special forces, I haven’t had a minute to just think. I opened up a bed-and-breakfast in Inverness with my mum, and business has been good, but that’s left little room for anything else.

The last thing I need is to be taken away from work, but when I hear about my American half sister’s mum passing, I drop everything to help her. Getting her business back on track is the least I can do. I know her best friend, Nairie, has been helping her take care of things.

She was always a nice enough lass and a good friend.

But when the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen opens the door, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to leave. Nairie is all grown up and as sweet as I remembered. Of course, I’ll eventually have to go back to the UK. My life is in Scotland, and there are dangers back home I could never expose her to. But a part of me wishes I was good enough for her, that us being together was worth all the risks.

TropesCurvy FMCScottish MMCShe falls first, he falls harderIt's always been youFriends to loversOpen-door scenesSuspenseForced proximityGrumpy sunshineBest friend’s brotherCozy innHEARecommended for audiences 18+]]> 289 Brigitte Lucine Tori 0 to-read 3.76 Act on Instinct : Mission to Serve | Book 1

Act on Instinct : Mission to Serve | Book 1

author: Brigitte Lucine
name: Tori
average rating: 3.76
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rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/29
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]]> The Husbands 195372149 An exuberant debut, The Husbands delights in how do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options?

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.

As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?]]> 352 Holly Gramazio 0385550626 Tori 3 3.58 2024 The Husbands

author: Holly Gramazio
name: Tori
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2026/06/28
date added: 2026/06/28
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]]> The Weight of Angels 244967357
When the Marquess of Queensberry left his calling card at the Albemarle Club in February 1895, it bore only his name and five words: "For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite." The most celebrated playwright of his day famously sued for libel, which led to his arrest, criminal prosecution, and ultimately prison. From then on, his gilded existence spiraled into public disgrace, humiliation, and an early death.

But what if he had simply ignored the insult? What direction might his life have taken? This is the premise of John Boyne's extraordinary new novel, The Weight of Angels. Rather than dying in penury in Paris at age forty-six, what if Wilde had lived to bear witness to the momentous events and cataclysmic changes of the first part of the twentieth century, and even influence some of them? What if the second half of his life were as dramatic, tumultuous, and exhilarating as the first?

In imagining the life that Oscar Wilde never had, John Boyne has written one of the great what-if stories of modern literature, giving the iconic Anglo-Irish poet and playwright a fresh new voice and the opportunity to take an entirely different path.]]> 592 John Boyne 125041136X Tori 0 to-read 4.09 2026 The Weight of Angels

author: John Boyne
name: Tori
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/23
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]]> The Swimming-Pool Library 30106 352 Alan Hollinghurst 0679722564 Tori 0 to-read 3.76 1988

author: Alan Hollinghurst
name: Tori
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/23
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]]> East of Eden 4406
Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.

First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.]]> 601 John Steinbeck 0142000655 Tori 0 to-read 4.44 1952

author: John Steinbeck
name: Tori
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/23
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]]> Alan Opts Out 243497082
Alan Anderson is a powerful advertising executive who has built a successful life and thriving business by making people buy stuff they don’t actually need. He’s up for the biggest pitch of his career and the account everyone wants, US cow’s milk sales are plummeting, and the C-Suite wants to see trendy oat milk kicked to the curb. But when an anarchist farmer tanks Alan’s presentation, Alan bombs the pitch but ends the day with an epiphany. No longer will he exploit the insecurities of others in the service of capitalism. Alan is opting out.

This development is anathema to his wife, Vivian. She’s just a few positive affirmations, a swimming pool, and an exacting series of social tests away from finally becoming part of the elite women’s club, the Queen Annes, in their adopted town of Greenwich, Connecticut. As if contending with a daughter who wants to write plays (!) and another who has an unnatural empathy with animals isn’t enough to manage, she can only watch as Alan moves into their backyard playhouse to live off the land and—worse—spend time with the family. But instead of shocking the neighbors, Alan’s commitment to a less-is-more lifestyle seems to be catching on. Could everyone want what Alan’s not selling?

Funny, sexy, intelligent, and poignant, Alan Opts Out is the most ambitious novel to date by celebrated author Courtney Maum, acclaimed for her stories that tackle big, chewy subjects of our post-modern America with wit and heart.]]> 352 Courtney Maum 0316599107 Tori 0 to-read 3.63 2026 Alan Opts Out

author: Courtney Maum
name: Tori
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/22
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]]> The Party 35129635 A taut psychological tale of obsession and betrayal set over the course of a dinner party. "Day's shrewd eye and authorial tone provide a gleeful, edgy wit.... [a] smart, irresistible romp."-New York Times Book Review Ben, who hails from old money, and Martin, who grew up poor but is slowly carving out a successful career as an art critic, have been inseparable since childhood. Ben's wife Serena likes to jokingly refer to Martin as Ben's dutiful Little Shadow. Lucy is a devoted wife to Martin, even as she knows she'll always be second best to his sacred friendship. When Ben throws a lavish 40th birthday party as his new palatial country home, Martin and Lucy attend, mixing with the very upper echelons of London society. But why, the next morning, is Martin in a police station being interviewed about the events of last night? Why is Lucy being forced to answer questions about his husband and his past? What exactly happened at the party? And what has bound these two very different men together for so many years? A cleverly built tour of intrigue, The Party reads like a novelistic board game of Clue, taking us through the various half-truths and lies its characters weave, as the past and present collide in a way that its protagonists could never have anticipated.]]> 304 Elizabeth Day Tori 4 3.71 2017 The Party

author: Elizabeth Day
name: Tori
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2026/06/21
date added: 2026/06/21
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]]> Tropic of Cancer 249 Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller’s masterpiece, was banned as obscene in this country for twenty-seven years after its first publication in Paris in 1934. Only a historic court ruling that changed American censorship standards, ushering in a new era of freedom and frankness in modern literature, permitted the publication of this first volume of Miller’s famed mixture of memoir and fiction, which chronicles with unapologetic gusto the bawdy adventures of a young expatriate writer, his friends, and the characters they meet in Paris in the 1930s. Tropic of Cancer is now considered, as Norman Mailer said, "one of the ten or twenty great novels of our century."]]> 352 Henry Miller 0802131786 Tori 0 to-read 3.68 1934

author: Henry Miller
name: Tori
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1934
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/20
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]]> Lives in Miniature 253632161 71 Anne Youngson 1917356145 Tori 0 to-read 0.0

author: Anne Youngson
name: Tori
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]]> The Narrowboat Summer 53138243 From the author of Meet Me at the Museum, a charming novel of second chances, about three women, one dog, and the narrowboat that brings them together.

Eve expected Sally to come festooned with suitcases and overnight bags packed with everything she owned, but she was wrong. She arrived on foot, with a rucksack and a carrier bag. “I just walked away,” she said, climbing on to the boat. Eve knew what she meant.

Meet Eve, who has left her thirty-year career to become a Free Spirit; Sally, who has waved goodbye to her indifferent husband and two grown-up children; and Anastasia, a defiantly independent narrowboat-dweller, who is suddenly landlocked and vulnerable.

Before they quite know what they’ve done, Sally and Eve agree to drive Anastasia’s narrowboat on a journey through the canals of England, as she awaits a life-saving operation. As they glide gently – and not so gently – through the countryside, the eccentricities and challenges of narrowboat life draw them inexorably together, and a tender and unforgettable story unfolds. At summer’s end, all three women must decide whether to return to the lives they left behind, or forge a new path forward.

Candid, hilarious, and uplifting, The Narrowboat Summer is a novel of second chances, celebrating the power of friendship and new experience to change one’s life, at any age.]]> 336 Anne Youngson 1250764610 Tori 0 to-read 3.69 2020

author: Anne Youngson
name: Tori
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/19
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]]> Finding Grace 215570667
Years later Tom makes a decision that ripples through their families' lives in ways he could not have foreseen. As the consequences of that fateful choice unfold, two women's paths become irrevocably intertwined. But when old love clashes with new, who will be left standing? And what happens when your secrets come back to haunt you?]]> 336 Loretta Rothschild 1250381827 Tori 0 to-read 3.75 2025 Finding Grace

author: Loretta Rothschild
name: Tori
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Impossible: The Love Affair between Marcel Duchamp and Maria Martins, and the Artwork It Inspired]]> 234577400 192 Francis M. Naumann 0789215292 Tori 0 to-read 3.60

Impossible: The Love Affair between Marcel Duchamp and Maria Martins, and the Artwork It Inspired

author: Francis M. Naumann
name: Tori
average rating: 3.60
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rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence—and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process]]> 3018307 232 Irene M. Pepperberg 0061672475 Tori 0 to-read 4.04 2008 Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence—and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process

Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence—and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process

author: Irene M. Pepperberg
name: Tori
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/17
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]]> John of John 235260861
In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal resumes his old life, caught between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his Glaswegian grandmother Ella, who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for decades.

While Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, John is dismayed by his son’s long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As the seasons pass, everything is poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly entangled.]]> 416 Douglas Stuart 0802167195 Tori 0 to-read 4.23 2026 John of John

author: Douglas Stuart
name: Tori
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/15
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]]> Fruit Fly 243596291 Go gay. Go sad. Go dark.
A washed-up author will stop at nothing to claw her way back to relevancy—even if it means appropriating a young gay man’s tragic story.

Mallory Maddox is buried under seven years of writer’s block. With her status as a literary sensation fizzling, she’ll do anything she can to resurrect her career. Inspiration needs to strike—and fast.

Enter Leo. He’s a struggling addict sleeping under bridges and trading sex for survival. He’s vulnerable. He’s enigmatic. He’s exactly what Mallory has been looking for.

Mallory needs Leo if she wants another bestseller. The world needs Leo’s story right now, and Mallory believes she deserves to tell it. Really, it’s her story—she’s the one who wrote it, after all.

But as secrets threaten to unravel more than just her career, Mallory must decide how far she will go to pen the perfect story.

A razor-sharp satirical thriller, Fruit Fly will appeal to fans of R. F. Kuang’s Yellowface and Yomi Adegoke’s The List.]]> 384 Josh Silver Tori 0 to-read 4.18 2026

author: Josh Silver
name: Tori
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block]]> 239566695 A nearly divorced housewife enrolls in culinary school to win back her husband, only to start questioning the strange antics of her classmates in this new novel from the USA Today bestselling author of Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.

Retirement should mean long-awaited trips to the sapphire waters of Santorini or careening down a sand dune in Dubai. For sixty-three-year-old Mebel, retirement means her husband of more than forty years announcing that he's leaving her for their private chef. Mebel isn’t sure who's the bigger loss.

Not to worry, Mebel has the perfect plan: she’s going to win back her husband. No one knows what he needs better than her—after all, she's been anticipating his needs their whole marriage. And if he wants a wife who can cook (why else would he leave her for a chef?), she will simply go to cooking school. Luckily, class at the renowned Saint Honoré School of Culinary Arts in France starts in just four days!

However, Mebel quickly realizes that her culinary school is not in illustrious Paris but rather in England—and some small village outside of Oxford no less. Despite the less-than-warm welcome from her much younger classmates, Mebel manages to befriend Gemma, the breakout star of the program, who offers to help Mebel on their first day. When Gemma stops showing up to class, Mebel knows she must figure out what—or who—caused her friend’s sudden disappearance. After all, Mebel may not know the first thing about how to cut a potato, but she certainly knows how to identify a fraud, and there’s definitely something fishy going on.]]> 304 Jesse Q. Sutanto 0593953061 Tori 5 4.05 2026 Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block

Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block

author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
name: Tori
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2026
rating: 5
read at: 2026/06/15
date added: 2026/06/15
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]]> Still Life 57001545
As Ulysses returns home to London, reimmersing himself in his crew at The Stoat and Parrot -- a motley mix of pub crawlers and eccentrics -- he carries his time in Italy with him. And when an unexpected inheritance brings him back to where it all began, Ulysses knows better than to tempt fate, and returns to the Tuscan hills.

With beautiful prose, extraordinary tenderness, and bursts of humor and light, Still Life is a sweeping portrait of unforgettable individuals who come together to make a family, and a richly drawn celebration of beauty and love in all its forms.]]> 464 Sarah Winman 0593330757 Tori 0 to-read 4.07 2021

author: Sarah Winman
name: Tori
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/06/14
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]]> The Open Era 241167635 Love evens the score between two tennis players in this stunning debut romance.

Recently-turned-pro tennis player Austin Hardy has been out since high school and it’s never been a big deal. That is, until he becomes the first openly gay man to compete in a Grand Slam tournament. Suddenly, being gay is a huge deal, with headlines to prove it.

Unprepared for this new spotlight, Austin’s anxiety disorder hits a breaking point, and he trips and falls at practice. Right next to the very attractive, very talented, and probably straight Diego Cruz, ranked second in the world.

The two professional rivals start a friendship off the court. But between their flirty banter, mixed signals, and looming showdown, Austin is thrown further off his game by Diego.

With the eyes of the world on Austin, the weight of history on his shoulders, and Diego across the net, he must decide whether love means nothing or if it means everything as he battles for the trophy during an electric two weeks at the US Open.]]> 367 Edward Schmit 0593956788 Tori 4 4.02 2026 The Open Era

author: Edward Schmit
name: Tori
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2026
rating: 4
read at: 2026/06/12
date added: 2026/06/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Lord Edgware Dies (Hercule Poirot, #9)]]> 6506766 When Lord Edgware Dies a most unnatural death, detective Hercule Poirot must solve a most confounding conundrum: if the obvious killer, the slain peer’s spiteful wife, didn’t do it, who did? A classic from the queen of mystery, Agatha Christie.

When Lord Edgware is found murdered the police are baffled. His estranged actress wife was seen visiting him just before his death and Hercule Poirot himself heard her brag of her plan to “get rid” of him.

But how could she have stabbed Lord Edgware in his library at exactly the same time she was seen dining with friends? It’s a case that almost proves to be too much for the great Poirot.

]]> 281 Agatha Christie Tori 3 4.20 1933 Lord Edgware Dies (Hercule Poirot, #9)

author: Agatha Christie
name: Tori
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1933
rating: 3
read at: 2026/06/07
date added: 2026/06/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor (Vintage International)]]> 31742 El Espectador, a newspaper in Bogota, when in February of that year eight crew members of the Caldas, a Colombian destroyer, were washed overboard and disappeared. Ten days later one of them turned up, barely alive, on a deserted beach in northern Colombia. This book, which originally appeared as a series of newspaper articles, is Garcia Marquez's account of that sailor's ordeal.]]> 117 Gabriel García Márquez 067972205X Tori 4 3.78 1970 The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor (Vintage International)

The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor (Vintage International)

author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Tori
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1970
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/28
date added: 2026/06/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)]]> 59852739
Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill or be killed. Suddenly the cold case has become red hot.

While Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim chase down the clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?

From an upmarket spa to a prison cell complete with espresso machine to a luxury penthouse high in the sky, this third adventure of the Thursday Murder Club is full of the cleverness, intrigue, and irresistible charm that readers have come to expect from Richard Osman's bestselling series.]]> 352 Richard Osman 059329940X Tori 5 4.53 2022 The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)

The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)

author: Richard Osman
name: Tori
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2026/05/31
date added: 2026/05/31
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]]> Cursed Bread 59823055
Still reeling in the aftermath of the deadliest war the world had ever seen, the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit collectively lost its mind. Some historians believe the mysterious illness and violent hallucinations were caused by spoiled bread; others claim it was the result of covert government testing on the local population.
In that town lived a woman named Elodie. She was the baker’s wife: a plain, unremarkable person who yearned to transcend her dull existence. So when a charismatic new couple arrived in town, the forceful ambassador and his sharp-toothed wife, Violet, Elodie was quickly drawn into their orbit. Thus began a dangerous game of cat and mouse – but who was the predator and on whom did they prey?
Audacious and mesmerising, Cursed Bread is a fevered confession, an entry into memory’s hall of mirrors, and an erotic fable of transformation. Sophie Mackintosh spins a darkly gleaming tale of a town gripped by hysteria, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.]]> 184 Sophie Mackintosh 0385548311 Tori 3 3.22 2023 Cursed Bread

author: Sophie Mackintosh
name: Tori
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2026/05/25
date added: 2026/05/25
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]]> Imperfect Women 51335230 From the author of Our Kind of Cruelty comes an enthralling, irresistible novel of psychological suspense about three women and the destructive power of buried secrets

When Nancy Hennessy is murdered, she leaves behind two best friends, a loving husband and daughter, and a secret lover whose identity she took to the grave. Nancy was gorgeous and wealthy, with adoring friends and family—from the outside, her life was perfect. But as the investigation into her death flounders and her friends Eleanor and Mary wrestle with their grief, dark details surface that reveal how little they knew their friend, each other, maybe even themselves.

A gripping, immersive novel about impossible expectations and secrets that fester and become lethal, Imperfect Women unfolds through the perspectives of three fascinating women. Their enduring, complex friendship is the knot the reader must untangle to answer the question: who killed Nancy?

Imperfect Women explores guilt and retribution, love and betrayal, and the compromises we make that alter our lives irrevocably. With the wickedly sharp insights and finely tuned suspense that has drawn her comparisons to Patricia Highsmith and Paula Hawkins, Araminta Hall returns with another page-turning, thought-provoking tour de force.

]]> 304 Araminta Hall 0374718008 Tori 4 3.57 2020 Imperfect Women

author: Araminta Hall
name: Tori
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2026/05/24
date added: 2026/05/24
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]]> The Correspondent 217273280 “Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle. . . . Isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”

Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person. It is about the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime.

Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.

Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has—a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.

Sybil Van Antwerp’s life of letters might be “a very small thing,” but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.]]> 291 Virginia Evans 0593798449 Tori 5 4.51 2025 The Correspondent

author: Virginia Evans
name: Tori
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2026/05/24
date added: 2026/05/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship]]> 23164968 A thrilling new adventure of danger and deep-sea diving, historic mystery and suspense, by the author of the New York Times bestseller Shadow Divers

Finding and identifying a pirate ship is the hardest thing to do under the sea. But two men—John Chatterton and John Mattera—are willing to risk everything to find the Golden Fleece, the ship of the infamous pirate Joseph Bannister. At large during the Golden Age of Piracy in the seventeenth century, Bannister’s exploits would have been more notorious than Blackbeard’s, more daring than Kidd’s, but his story, and his ship, have been lost to time. If Chatterton and Mattera succeed, they will make history—it will be just the second time ever that a pirate ship has been discovered and positively identified. Soon, however, they realize that cutting-edge technology and a willingness to lose everything aren’t enough to track down Bannister’s ship. They must travel the globe in search of historic documents and accounts of the great pirate’s exploits, face down dangerous rivals, battle the tides of nations and governments and experts. But it’s only when they learn to think and act like pirates—like Bannister—that they become able to go where no pirate hunters have gone before.

Fast-paced and filled with suspense, fascinating characters, history, and adventure, Pirate Hunters is an unputdownable story that goes deep to discover truths and souls long believed lost.

Advance praise for Pirate Hunters

“A great thriller full of tough guys and long odds . . . and: It’s all true.”—Lee Child

“Action and adventure on land and sea—you can’t ask for more. But Robert Kurson raises the ante in Pirate Hunters with an array of mystery and a fleet of colorful characters spanning four centuries. This is a great summer read!”—Michael Connelly

“Pirate Hunters is a fantastic book, an utterly engrossing and satisfying read. It tells the story of the hunt for the rare wreck of a pirate ship, which had been captained by one of the most remarkable pirates in history. This is a real-life Treasure Island, complete with swashbuckling, half-crazy treasure hunters and vivid Caribbean settings—a story for the ages.”—Douglas Preston

“A terrific read. I was pulled in from page one. Kurson brings us face to face with some of the most swashbuckling pirates ever to sail the Caribbean, even as he takes us underwater on a high-tech quest to discover the relics they left behind.”—Daniel James Brown

“There’s nothing in the world like buried treasure—and people hungry and obsessed enough to risk their lives for it. Pirate Hunters isn’t just a good story—it’s a true one. Searching for the souls of its explorers, it takes you to the far tip of the plank and plunges you deep to the bottom of the ocean.”—Brad Meltzer

“Pirate Hunters is a gripping account of two courageous divers’ quest to uncover the shipwrecked vessel of Joseph Bannister, one of history’s most infamous pirates. Robert Kurson will keep you on the edge of your seat in this high-stakes journey around the globe that ultimately teaches these explorers about much more than an old ship.”—Sen. John McCain

“Kurson’s own enthusiasm, combined with his copious research and an eye for detail, makes for one of the most mind-blowing pirate stories of recent memory.”—Publishers Weekly ]]> 275 Robert Kurson 1400063361 Tori 5 4.00 2015 Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship

Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship

author: Robert Kurson
name: Tori
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2026/05/22
date added: 2026/05/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck]]> 220238781 “A beautiful meditation on endurance, codependence, and the power of love. A dazzling book.” – Patrick Radden Keefe

The electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits.

Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she’s charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream – as we all dream – of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away?

Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But Maurice began to study nautical navigation. Maralyn made detailed lists of provisions. And in June 1972, they set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves.

What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests. Although they could run away from the world, they can’t run away from themselves.

Taut, propulsive, and dazzling, A Marriage at Sea pairs an adrenaline-fueled high seas adventure with a gutting love story that asks why we love difficult people, and who we become under the most extreme conditions imaginable.]]> 251 Sophie Elmhirst 0593854306 Tori 5 4.17 2024 A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck

A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck

author: Sophie Elmhirst
name: Tori
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2026/05/22
date added: 2026/05/22
shelves:
review:

]]> The Fourth Princess 234621445 From the internationally bestselling author of The Porcelain Moon comes a haunting Gothic novel set in 1911 China. Two young women living in a crumbling, once-grand Shanghai mansion face danger as secrets of their pasts come to light, even as the mansion’s own secret threatens the present.

Shanghai, 1911. Lisan Liu is elated when she is hired as secretary to wealthy American Caroline Stanton, the new mistress of Lennox Manor on the outskirts of Shanghai’s International Settlement. However, the Manor has a dark past due to a previous owner’s suicide, and soon Lisan’s childhood nightmares resurface with more intensity and meld with haunted visions of a woman in red. Adding to her unease is the young gardener, Yao, who both entices and disturbs her.

Newly married Caroline looks forward to life in China with her husband, Thomas, away from the shadows of another earlier tragedy. But an unwelcome guest, Andrew Grey, attends her party and claims to know secrets she can’t afford to have exposed. At the same party, the notorious princess Masako Kyo approaches Lisan with questions about the young woman’s family that the orphaned Lisan can’t answer.

As Caroline struggles with Grey’s extortion and Thomas’s mysterious illness, Lisan’s future is upended when she learns the truth about her past, and why her identity has been hidden all these years. All the while, strange incidents accelerate, driving Lisan to doubt her sanity as Lennox Manor seems unwilling to release her until she fulfills demands from beyond the grave. ]]> 332 Janie Chang 0063308134 Tori 5 3.76 2026 The Fourth Princess

author: Janie Chang
name: Tori
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2026
rating: 5
read at: 2026/05/20
date added: 2026/05/20
shelves:
review:

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