en-US Tue, 02 Sep 2025 21:13:53 -0700 60 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 224004055 A raw and deeply moving memoir from the legendary author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness that traces the complex relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, a fierce and formidable force who shaped Arundhati’s life both as a woman and a writer.

Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy’s first work of memoir, is a soaring account, both intimate and inspirational, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as “my shelter and my storm.”

“Heart-smashed” by her mother Mary’s death in September 2022 yet puzzled and “more than a little ashamed” by the intensity of her response, Roy began to write, to make sense of her feelings about the mother she ran from at age eighteen, “not because I didn’t love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her.” And so begins this astonishing, sometimes disturbing, and surprisingly funny memoir of the author’s journey from her childhood in Kerala, India, where her single mother founded a school, to the writing of her prizewinning novels and essays, through today.

With the scale, sweep, and depth of her novels, The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and the passion, political clarity, and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace—a memoir like no other.]]> 331 Arundhati Roy 1668094711 Amy 0 to-read 4.36 2025
author: Arundhati Roy
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average rating: 4.36
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]]> 5128 The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell , both of which became essential for the counterculture during the 1960s and influenced a generation's perception of life.]]> 187 Aldous Huxley 0060595183 Amy 0 to-read 3.93 1956
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Amy
average rating: 3.93
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]]> 30292 Five Dialogues presents G. M. A. Grube's distinguished translations, as revised by John Cooper for Plato, Complete Works (Hacket, 1997). Cooper has also contributed a number of new or expanded footnotes and updated Suggestions for Further Reading.]]> 156 Plato 0872206335 Amy 0 to-read 4.17 -385
author: Plato
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average rating: 4.17
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]]> 92307 589 Martin Heidegger 0060638508 Amy 0 to-read 4.03 1927
author: Martin Heidegger
name: Amy
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1927
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]]> 18288 'The purpose of this critique of pure speculative reason consists in the attempt to change the old procedure of metaphysics and to bring about a complete revolution'

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) is the central text of modern philosophy. It presents a profound and challenging investigation into the nature of human reason, its knowledge and its illusions. Reason, Kant argues, is the seat of certain concepts that precede experience and make it possible, but we are not therefore entitled to draw conclusions about the natural world from these concepts. The Critique brings together the two opposing schools of philosophy: rationalism, which grounds all our knowledge in reason, and empiricism, which traces all our knowledge to experience. Kant's transcendental idealism indicates a third way that goes far beyond these alternatives.

Marcus Weigelt's lucid re-working of Max Müller's classic translation makes the Critique accessible to a new generation of readers. His informative introduction places the work in context and elucidates Kant's main arguments. This edition also contains a bibliography and explanatory notes.]]> 785 Immanuel Kant 0521657296 Amy 0 to-read 3.95 1781
author: Immanuel Kant
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]]> 17465709 Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.]]> 408 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1571313354 Amy 0 to-read 4.50 2013
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Amy
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2013
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]]> 14096 304 Jon Kabat-Zinn 1401307787 Amy 0 to-read 4.12 1994
author: Jon Kabat-Zinn
name: Amy
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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]]> 2547 Rare Book 127 Kahlil Gibran 000100039X Amy 0 to-read 4.26 1923
author: Kahlil Gibran
name: Amy
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1923
rating: 0
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]]> 59366260
In 1473, fourteen-year-old Blanca dies in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Nearly four hundred years later, when George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin arrive in the village, Blanca is still there: a spirited, funny, righteous ghost, she’s been hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on the monks and the townspeople and keeping track of her descendants.

Blanca is enchanted the moment she sees George, and the magical novel unfolds as a story of deeply felt, unrequited longing—a teenage ghost pining for a woman who can’t see her and doesn’t know she exists. As George and Chopin, who wear their unconventionality, in George’s case, literally on their sleeves, find themselves in deepening trouble with the provincial, 19th-century villagers, Blanca watches helplessly and reflects on the circumstances of her own death (which involved an ill-advised love affair with a monk-in-training).

Charming, original, and emotionally moving -- gorgeous and surprising exploration of artistry, desire, and life after death.]]> 304 Nell Stevens 1982190949 Amy 4 3.73 2022
author: Nell Stevens
name: Amy
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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]]> 60568475 Meredith Maggs has everything a person needs.

A best friend in Sadie.
A beloved cat in Fred.
Jigsaws to fill the time.
Recipes to perfect.
Even a weekly visit from the Tesco delivery guy.

So what if she hasn't left the house in 1,214 days? That her memories are treacherous, and it's getting harder to ignore the estranged sister knocking at her door.

How long can one woman keep the world out?
How long before she invites in what's out there?
And how long does it take to discover the person you were meant to be?]]> 368 Claire Alexander 1538709945 Amy 4 3.99 2022
author: Claire Alexander
name: Amy
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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]]> 35954902 NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL

A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences--what Darwin termed the taste for the beautiful--create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world.

In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature?
Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum--reviving Darwin's own views--thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons--for the mere pleasure of it--is an independent engine of evolutionary change.
Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time.
The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature's splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves.]]> 428 Richard O. Prum 0345804570 Amy 0 to-read 4.06 2017
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]]> 36031228
On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened. More than 3 billion miles from Earth, a small NASA spacecraft called New Horizons screamed past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour, focusing its instruments on the long mysterious icy worlds of the Pluto system, and then, just as quickly, continued on its journey out into the beyond.

Nothing like this has occurred in a generation--a raw exploration of new worlds unparalleled since NASA's Voyager missions to Uranus and Neptune--and nothing like it is planned to happen ever again. The photos that New Horizons sent back to Earth graced the front pages of newspapers on all 7 continents, and NASA's website for the mission received more than 2 billion hits in the days surrounding the flyby. At a time when so many think our most historic achievements are in the past, the most distant planetary exploration ever attempted not only succeeded but made history and captured the world's imagination.

How did this happen? Chasing New Horizons is the story of the men and women behind the mission: of their decades-long commitment; of the political fights within and outside of NASA; of the sheer human ingenuity it took to design, build, and fly the mission; and of the plans for New Horizons' next encounter, 1 billion miles past Pluto. Told from the insider's perspective of Dr. Alan Stern--the man who led the mission--Chasing New Horizons is a riveting story of scientific discovery, and of how far humanity can go when people focused on a dream work together toward their incredible goal.]]> 320 Alan Stern 1250098963 Amy 0 to-read 4.34 2018
author: Alan Stern
name: Amy
average rating: 4.34
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]]> 50998264
'Really, really well written'   – CHRIS PACKHAM
 
Inspired by his childhood obsession with extinct species,  Blencowe takes us around the globe  – from the forests of New Zealand to the ferries of Finland, from the urban sprawl of San Francisco to an inflatable crocodile on Brighton’s Widewater Lagoon.  Spanning five centuries , from the last sighting of New Zealand’s Upland Moa to the 2012 death of the Pinta Island Giant Tortoise, Lonesome George, his memoir is peppered with the  accounts of the hunters and naturalists of the past  as well as revealing  conversations with the custodians of these totemic animals today . 
 
Featuring  striking artworks  that resurrect these forgotten creatures, each chapter focuses on a different animal, revealing insights into  their unique characteristics and habitats ;  the history of their discovery  and  just how and when they came to be lost to us . 
 
Blencowe inspects the only known remains of a Huia egg at Te Papa, New Zealand; views hundreds of specimens of deceased Galapagos tortoises and Xerces Blue butterflies in the California Academy of Sciences; and pays his respects to the only soft tissue remains of the Dodo in the world. Warm, wry and thought-provoking,  Gone  shows that  while each extinction story is different, all can inform how we live in the future . Discover and learn from the stories of Ivell’s Sea Anemone . A see-through sea creature known only from southern England. 
 
A modern must-read for anyone interested in protecting our earth and its incredible wildlife,  Gone  is  an evocative call to conserve what we have before it is lost forever .
 ]]> 192 Michael Blencowe 0711256756 Amy 0 to-read 4.33 2021
author: Michael Blencowe
name: Amy
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]]> 52954648 Ageless, Andrew Steele, research fellow at Britain's new and largest biomedical laboratory, the Francis Crick Institute, shows us that the answer lies at the cellular level. He takes us on a journey through the laboratories where scientists are studying every aspect of the cell--DNA, mitochondria, stem cells, our immune systems, even age genes that can lead to a tenfold increase in life span (in worms, anyway)--all in an effort to forestall or reverse the body's (currently!) inevitable decline. With clear writing and intellectual passion, Steele shines a spotlight on a revolution already under way and offers reality-based hope.]]> 304 Andrew Steele 0385544928 Amy 0 to-read 3.79 2020
author: Andrew Steele
name: Amy
average rating: 3.79
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]]> 176444106 Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to rethink big, entrenched problems that seem mired in systemic from climate change to housing, education to healthcare.

To trace the global history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of growing unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, the entire country has a national housing crisis. After years of slashing immigration, we don’t have enough workers. After decades of off-shoring manufacturing, we have a shortage of chips for cars and computers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean energy infrastructure we need. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough.

Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next generation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the environmental problems of the 1970s often prevent urban density and green energy projects that would help solve the environmental problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions in matters of education and healthcare have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished.

Progress requires the ability to see promise rather than just peril in the creation of new ideas and projects, and an instinct to design systems and institutions that make building possible. In a book exploring how can move from a liberalism that not only protects and preserves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and how we can adopt a mindset directed toward abundance, and not scarcity, to overcome them.]]> 304 Ezra Klein 1668023482 Amy 0 to-read 3.84 2025
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name: Amy
average rating: 3.84
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]]> 220685597 This groundbreaking work takes readers deep into the world of police oversight and reveals what really happens when everyday people try to hold the police accountable.

When you think about the police, who do you think of: Do you think of one officer, or the police as an institution? From movies and TV to the real world, a police presence looms over most conflict. But if there was a defining feature of the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd, it was the collective confusion about how America got to this point. Despite fragmented media coverage about police unions, militarization, and systemic racism, the average citizen’s knowledge remained hazy on what exactly police officers had been doing all along. It’s probably different than you would expect.

There is indeed a “Blue Wall of Silence”, but for the first time, it is possible to get behind it without being the police. The authors were senior investigators at the largest police oversight agency in America, tasked with policing the police in New York City. They are our eyes on the inside, and this book takes us into their world.

Cop Cop lays bare the web of real cases investigated by the authors over nearly a decade working for the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). As the authors combine their unique perspectives as police misconduct investigators, they provide a new way of framing the history of policing, tethering a story that begins in the fields of Ireland and the plantations of Barbados, courses along the cobblestone paths of Charleston, South Carolina, and London, England, flows through the heart of New York City, and bleeds into the present day.

As they unravel cases ranging from stops and frisks to chokeholds and shootings, they illuminate the overwhelming challenges faced by victims of police misconduct and officers alike, spurning both “Defund the Police” and “Blue Lives Matter” as they build a new argument for six concrete solutions to fix American policing.]]> 384 Mac Muir 1638930082 Amy 0 to-read 4.31
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name: Amy
average rating: 4.31
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]]> 224103430 The new novel from the bestselling author of If We Were Villains and Graveyard Shift—a vivid and immersive tale of one woman’s reckless mission to make sense of the events that shattered her childhood, and made her who she is

Summer, 1989: ten-year-old Suzanne is drawn like a magnet to her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars. When her mother remarries, she jumps at the chance to tag along on the concert tour that just might be Gil and the Kills’ wild ride to glory. But fame has sharper fangs than anybody realized, and as the band blazes up the charts, internal power struggles set Gil and his group on a collision course destined for a bloody reckoning—one shrouded in mystery and lore for decades to come.

The only witness to a desperate act of violence, Suzanne spends the next twenty-nine years trying to disappear. She trades the music and mayhem of her youth for the quiet of the suburbs and the company of her mild-mannered husband Rob. But when her father’s sudden death resurrects the troubled past she tried so hard to bury, she leaves it all behind and hits the road in search of answers. Hitching her fate and Gil’s beloved car to two vagabonds who call an old Airstream trailer home, she finds everything she thought she’d lost forever: desire, adventure, and the woman she once wanted to be. But Rob refuses to let her go. Determined to bring her back where she belongs, he chases her across the country—and drives her to a desperation all her own.

Drenched in knock-down drag-out rock and roll, Hot Wax is a raucous, breakneck ride to hell and back—where getting lost might be the only way to find yourself and save your soul.]]> 400 M.L. Rio 1668070022 Amy 0 to-read 3.33 2025
author: M.L. Rio
name: Amy
average rating: 3.33
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]]> 217245618
“Dazzling.” —The Washington Post

“A magnificent novel.” —Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Horse

“This one will stay with me for years to come.” —Miranda Cowley Heller, New York Times bestselling author of The Paper Palace

In the wake of a catastrophic storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son's birth. Her husband, Gordon, respected in the community but a controlling presence at home, intends for her to follow a long-standing family tradition and name the baby after him. But when faced with the decision, Cora hesitates...

Spanning thirty-five years, what follows are three alternate and alternating versions of their lives, shaped by Cora’s last-minute choice of name. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing.

Through a prism of what-ifs, Florence Knapp invites us to consider the "one . . . precious life" we are given. Full of hope, this is the story of three names, three versions of a life, and the infinite possibilities that a single decision can spark. It is the story of one family and love’s endless capacity to endure, no matter what fate has in store.

The book’s brilliantly imaginative structure, propulsive storytelling, and emotional power are certain to make The Names a modern classic.]]> 328 Florence Knapp 0593833902 Amy 0 to-read 4.09 2025
author: Florence Knapp
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]]> 58255018 Award-winning writer and ornithologist Tim Birkhead takes us on an epic and dazzling journey through this mutual history with birds.

Since the dawn of human history, birds have stirred our imagination, inspiring and challenging our ideas about science, faith, art and philosophy, from the ibises mummified by Ancient Egyptians and Renaissance experiments on the woodpecker to the Victorian obsessions with egg collecting and our present fight to save endangered species.
Weaving in stories from his own life as a scientist, this rich and fascinating book is the culmination of a lifetime's research and unforgettably shows how birds shaped us, and how we have shaped them.]]> 400 Tim Birkhead 0241460492 Amy 0 to-read 3.81 2022
author: Tim Birkhead
name: Amy
average rating: 3.81
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]]> 195888833
Twenty-seven-year-old Nazeli “Ellie” Gregorian enjoys the prestige of her tech marketing job but is sick of the condescending Patagonia-clad tech bros, her micromanaging boss, and her ex-boyfriend, who she’s forced to work with every day. When Ellie’s lovingly overbearing parents ask her to attend PakCon—a food packaging conference in Chicago—to help promote their company and vie to win an ad slot in the Superbowl (no big deal), she’s eager for a brief change and a delicious distraction.

At the conference, she meets witty, devil-may-care Vanya Simonian. Ellie can’t believe how easy it is to talk to Vanya and how much they have in common—both Armenian! From the Bay Area! Whose families are into food! Their meet-cute is cut short, however, when Ellie’s parents recognize Vanya as the daughter of the owners of their greatest rival, whose mission (according to Ellie’s mother) is to whitewash and package Armenian food for the American health-food crowd.
 
Sworn as enemies, Ellie and Vanya must compete against each other under their suspicious parents' scrutiny, all while their feelings for each other heat to sizzling temps.]]> 304 Taleen Voskuni 0593547322 Amy 0 to-read 3.62 2024
author: Taleen Voskuni
name: Amy
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
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]]> 32758901 All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence.

“As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure.”

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.]]> 144 Martha Wells Amy 0 currently-reading 4.08 2017
author: Martha Wells
name: Amy
average rating: 4.08
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]]> 61361681 For fans of Madeline Miller's Circe, a stunning debut following Clytemnestra, the most notorious villainess of the ancient world and the events that forged her into the legendary queen.

As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her best...

You were born to a king, but you marry a tyrant. You stand by helplessly as he sacrifices your child to placate the gods. You watch him wage war on a foreign shore, and you comfort yourself with violent thoughts of your own. Because this was not the first offence against you. This was not the life you ever deserved. And this will not be your undoing. Slowly, you plot.

But when your husband returns in triumph, you become a woman with a choice.

Acceptance or vengeance, infamy follows both. So, you bide your time and force the gods' hands in the game of retribution. For you understood something long ago that the others never did.

If power isn't given to you, you have to take it for yourself.

A blazing novel set in the world of Ancient Greece for fans of Jennifer Saint and Natalie Haynes, this is a thrilling tale of power and prophecies, of hatred, love, and of an unforgettable Queen who fiercely dealt out death to those who wronged her.]]> 435 Costanza Casati 1728268230 Amy 5 to-read 4.21 2023
author: Costanza Casati
name: Amy
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/05/09
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]]> 61214136
From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of Peter Rabbit , Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living. After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process.

Clover spends so much time with the dying that she has no life of her own, until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send Clover on a road trip to uncover a forgotten love story—and perhaps, her own happy ending. As she finds herself struggling to navigate the uncharted roads of romance and friendship, Clover is forced to examine what she really wants, and whether she’ll have the courage to go after it.

Probing, clever, and hopeful, The Collected Regrets of Clover is perfect for readers of The Midnight Library and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine as it turns the normally taboo subject of death into a reason to celebrate life.]]> 320 Mikki Brammer 1250284392 Amy 0 to-read 4.13 2023
author: Mikki Brammer
name: Amy
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
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]]> 61145554
The greatest story can reach the stars . . .

This is the start of an incredible new journey from the internationally bestselling author of Prince of Thorns, in which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned…

Evar has lived his whole life trapped within a vast library, older than empires and larger than cities.

Livira has spent hers in a tiny settlement out on the Dust where nightmares stalk and no one goes.

The world has never noticed them.

That’s about to change.

As their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time, each will unlock vast secrets about the world and themselves. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another.]]> 571 Mark Lawrence Amy 0 to-read 4.16 2023
author: Mark Lawrence
name: Amy
average rating: 4.16
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]]> 41880609 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.]]> 246 Ocean Vuong 0525562028 Amy 4 4.02 2019
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Amy
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2019
rating: 4
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]]> 56449476 An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.

“Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes…”

Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.

It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow. Inspired by true events, the tale weaves real-life figures with fictional ones, including the world’s first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted reprobates as spotty as the giraffes.

Part adventure, part historical saga, and part coming-of-age love story, West with Giraffes explores what it means to be changed by the grace of animals, the kindness of strangers, the passing of time, and a story told before it’s too late.]]> 346 Lynda Rutledge 1542023351 Amy 0 to-read 4.32 2021
author: Lynda Rutledge
name: Amy
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2021
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date added: 2023/04/30
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]]> 48615751
As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted--no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape--she was able to turn to our world's fierce and funny creatures for guidance.

"What the peacock can do," she tells us, "is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life." The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world's gifts.

Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy.]]> 165 Aimee Nezhukumatathil 1571313656 Amy 5 4.04 2020
author: Aimee Nezhukumatathil
name: Amy
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2020
rating: 5
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]]> 59365738
When Sy Montgomery went to spend a day at falconer Nancy Cowan’s farm, home to a dozen magnificent birds of prey, it was the start of a deep love affair. Nancy allowed her to work with Jazz, a feisty, four-year-old, female Harris’s hawk with a wingspan of more than four feet. Not a pet, Jazz was a fierce predator with talons that could pierce skin and bone and yet, she was willing to work with a human to hunt. From the first moment Jazz swept down from a tree and landed on Sy’s leather gloved fist, Sy fell under the hawk’s magnetic spell.

Over the next few years, Sy spent more time with these magnificent creatures, getting to know their extraordinary abilities and instincts. They are deeply emotional animals, quick to show anger and frustration, and can hold a grudge for years. But they are also loyal and intensely aware of their surroundings. In this mesmerizing account, featuring sixteen pages of gorgeous color photographs, Sy passionately and vividly reveals the wonderous world of hawks and what they can teach us about nature, life, and love.]]> 96 Sy Montgomery 1668001969 Amy 0 to-read 3.76
author: Sy Montgomery
name: Amy
average rating: 3.76
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]]> 60619437 An engrossing and revealing study of why we deem certain animals “pests” and others not—from cats to rats, elephants to pigeons—and what this tells us about our own perceptions, beliefs, and actions, as well as our place in the natural world

A squirrel in the garden. A rat in the wall. A pigeon on the street. Humans have spent so much of our history drawing a hard line between human spaces and wild places. When animals pop up where we don’t expect or want them, we respond with fear, rage, or simple annoyance. It’s no longer an animal. It’s a pest.

At the intersection of science, history, and narrative journalism, Pests is not a simple call to look closer at our urban ecosystem. It’s not a natural history of the animals we hate. Instead, this book is about us. It’s about what calling an animal a pest says about people, how we live, and what we want. It’s a story about human nature, and how we categorize the animals in our midst, including bears and coyotes, sparrows and snakes. Pet or pest? In many cases, it’s entirely a question of perspective.

Bethany Brookshire’s deeply researched and entirely entertaining book will show readers what there is to venerate in vermin, and help them appreciate how these animals have clawed their way to success as we did everything we could to ensure their failure. In the process, we will learn how the pests that annoy us tell us far more about humanity than they do about the animals themselves.]]> 348 Bethany Brookshire 0063097257 Amy 0 to-read 4.02 2022
author: Bethany Brookshire
name: Amy
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> 61355268 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Wintering, an invitation to rediscover the feelings of awe and wonder available to us all.

Many of us feel trapped in a grind of constant change: rolling news cycles, the chatter of social media, our families split along partisan lines. We feel fearful and tired, on edge in our bodies, not quite knowing what has us perpetually depleted. For Katherine May, this low hum of fatigue and anxiety made her wonder what she was missing. Could there be a different way to relate to the world, one that would allow her to feel more rested and at ease, even as seismic changes unfold on the planet? Might there be a way for all of us to move through life with curiosity and tenderness, sensitized to the subtle magic all around?

In Enchantment, May invites the reader to come with her on a journey to reawaken our innate sense of wonder and awe. With humor, candor, and warmth, she shares stories of her own struggles with work, family, and the aftereffects of pandemic, particularly feelings of overwhelm as the world rushes to reopen. Craving a different way to live, May begins to explore the restorative properties of the natural world, moving through the elements of earth, water, fire, and air and identifying the quiet traces of magic that can be found only when we look for them. Through deliberate attention and ritual, she unearths the potency and nourishment that come from quiet reconnection with our immediate environment. Blending lyricism and storytelling, sensitivity and empathy, Enchantment invites each of us to open the door to human experience in all its sensual complexity, and to find the beauty waiting for us there.]]> 212 Katherine May 0593329996 Amy 0 to-read 3.58 2023
author: Katherine May
name: Amy
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2023
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]]> 61827532 A young, queer Palestinian American woman pieces together her great aunt’s secrets in this sweeping debut, a family saga confronting questions of sexual identity, exile, and lineage.

In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family’s ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat and her skin turns a vibrant, permanent cobalt blue. On the same day, the Rummanis’ centuries-old soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an air strike. The family matriarch and keeper of all Rummani lore, Aunt Nuha, believes that the blue girl embodies their sacred history, harkening to a time when the Rummanis were among the wealthiest soap-makers and their blue soap was a symbol of a legendary love.

Decades later, Betty returns to her Aunt Nuha’s gravestone, faced with a difficult decision: Should she stay in the only country she’s every known or should she follow her heart for the woman she loves, perpetuating her family’s cycle of exile? Betty finds her answer in partially translated notebooks that reveal her aunt’s complex life and struggle with her own sexuality, which Nuha hid to help the family emigrate to the U.S. But as Betty soon discovers, her aunt hid much more than that.

The Skin and Its Girl is a searing, poetic tale about desire and identity and a provocative exploration of how we let stories divide, unite, and define us—and even wield the power to restore a broken family. Sarah Cypher is that rare debut novelist who writes with the mastery and flair of a seasoned storyteller.]]> 336 Sarah Cypher 0593499530 Amy 0 to-read 3.80 2023
author: Sarah Cypher
name: Amy
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> 59708993
The night after one of their own is tragically taken away from them, a group of five college friends form a pact: a promise to reunite every few years to throw each other "living funerals," constant reminders that life is worth living, if not for them then for their late friend.

Now, twenty-eight years into the hard-worn lines of adulthood, their "funerals" only remind them of all the opportunities they missed. But when one member of the old gang receives an unexpected diagnosis, the pact takes on new meaning, and each friend is forced to confront old secrets, and weigh their now-middle-age lives against the idealistic dreams of their youth.

A deeply honest tribute to selfhood and the people who keep us going, The Celebrants, coupled with Steven Rowley's signature humor and heart, is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth, and all the beautiful ways in which friendship can transcend our deepest losses.]]> 336 Steven Rowley 0593540441 Amy 0 to-read 3.76 2023
author: Steven Rowley
name: Amy
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
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]]> 59900688 New York Times Bestseller • Read With Jenna Book Club Pick as seen on Today • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiography • Winner of the American Library Association Alex Award • A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century

A young poet tells the inspiring story of his migration from El Salvador to the United States at the age of nine in this “gripping memoir” (NPR) of bravery, hope, and finding family.

Trip. My parents started using that word about a year ago—“one day, you’ll take a trip to be with us. Like an adventure.”

Javier Zamora’s adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a “coyote” hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks.

At nine years old, all Javier can imagine is rushing into his parents’ arms, snuggling in bed between them, and living under the same roof again. He cannot foresee the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions that await him; nor can he know that those two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside fellow migrants who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.

A memoir as gripping as it is moving, Solito provides an immediate and intimate account not only of a treacherous and near-impossible journey, but also of the miraculous kindness and love delivered at the most unexpected moments. Solito is Javier Zamora’s story, but it’s also the story of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home.]]> 384 Javier Zamora 0593498062 Amy 5 4.46 2022
author: Javier Zamora
name: Amy
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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]]> 17302571
So they carry on in secret—until Nasrin’s parents announce that they’ve arranged for her marriage. Nasrin tries to persuade Sahar that they can go on as they have been, only now with new comforts provided by the decent, well-to-do doctor Nasrin will marry. But Sahar dreams of loving Nasrin exclusively—and openly.

Then Sahar discovers what seems like the perfect solution. In Iran, homosexuality may be a crime, but to be a man trapped in a woman’s body is seen as nature’s mistake, and sex reassignment is legal and accessible. As a man, Sahar could be the one to marry Nasrin. Sahar will never be able to love the one she wants, in the body she wants to be loved in, without risking her life. Is saving her love worth sacrificing her true self?]]> 256 Sara Farizan 1616202513 Amy 4 3.71 2013
author: Sara Farizan
name: Amy
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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]]> 61641079 A woman is haunted by the Mexican folk demon La Llorona as she unravels the dark secrets of her family history in this ravishing and provocative horror novel.

Alejandra no longer knows who she is. To her husband, she is a wife, and to her children, a mother. To her own adoptive mother, she is a daughter. But they cannot see who Alejandra has become: a woman struggling with a darkness that threatens to consume her.

Nor can they see what Alejandra sees. In times of despair, a ghostly vision appears to her, the apparition of a crying woman in a ragged white gown.

When Alejandra visits a therapist, she begins exploring her family’s history, starting with the biological mother she never knew. As she goes deeper into the lives of the women in her family, she learns that heartbreak and tragedy are not the only things she has in common with her ancestors.

Because the crying woman was with them, too. She is La Llorona, the vengeful and murderous mother of Mexican legend. And she will not leave until Alejandra follows her mother, her grandmother, and all the women who came before her into the darkness.

But Alejandra has inherited more than just pain. She has inherited the strength and the courage of her foremothers—and she will have to summon everything they have given her to banish La Llorona forever.]]> 272 V. Castro 0593499697 Amy 0 to-read 3.63 2023
author: V. Castro
name: Amy
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/16
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]]> 57846320 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781982156121 can be found here.

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. What’s worse is she can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with their angelic daughter Harriet does Frida finally feel she’s attained the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she’s just enough.

Until Frida has a horrible day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida — ones who check their phones while their kids are on the playground; who let their children walk home alone; in other words, mothers who only have one lapse of judgement. Now, a host of government officials will determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that she can live up to the standards set for mothers — that she can learn to be good.

This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect” upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.]]> 336 Jessamine Chan Amy 5 3.50 2022
author: Jessamine Chan
name: Amy
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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]]> 6492209 A fascinating journey with the sea creature that has captured human imagination for thousands of years

Poseidon's Steed trails the seahorse through secluded waters across the globe in a kaleidoscopic history that mirrors man?s centuries-old fascination with the animal, sweeping from the reefs of Indonesia, through the back streets of Hong Kong, and back in time to ancient Greece and Rome. Over time, seahorses have surfaced in some unlikely places. We see them immortalized in the decorative arts; in tribal folklore, literature, and ancient myth; and even on the pages of the earliest medical texts, prescribed to treat everything from skin complaints to baldness to flagging libido. Marine biologist Helen Scales eloquently shows that seahorses are indeed fish, though scientists have long puzzled over their exotic anatomy, and their very strange sex lives?male seahorses are the only males in the animal world that experience childbirth!

Our first seahorse imaginings appeared six thousand years ago on cave walls in Australia. The ancient Greeks called the seahorse hippocampus (half-horse, half-fish) and sent it galloping through the oceans of mythology, pulling the sea god Poseidon?s golden chariot. The seahorse has even been the center of a modern-day international art scandal: A two-thousand-year-old winged seahorse brooch was plundered by Turkish tomb raiders and sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

A book that is as charming as the seahorse itself, Poseidon?s Steed brings to life an aquatic treasure.

Seahorses lead quiet lives, tucked away out of sight on the seafloor. It is rare to catch a glimpse of a seahorse in its natural habitat. But even if few have seen one live, these exotic, seemingly prehistoric creatures exist quite vividly in our imaginations and they have mesmerized scientists, artists, and storytellers throughout time with their otherworldly rarity.

Poseidon?s Steed is a sweeping journey that takes us from the coral reefs and seagrass meadows of Indonesia where many seahorses makes their natural habitat to the back streets of Hong Kong where a thriving black market seahorse trade is concealed. Throughout history, seahorses have surfaced in some unexpected places and Scales also follows the seahorse back in time, from our most rudimentary seahorse imaginings six thousand years ago on cave walls in Australia, to the myths of ancient Greece.

Scientists have long puzzled over seahorses? unusual anatomy and their very strange sex lives. And male seahorses are the only males in the animal world that experience childbirth! Seahorses are not what scientists call a ?keystone? species. They rely on a healthy ocean to survive, but the marine ecosystem does not rely on them. But their delicate beauty reminds us that we rely on the seas not only to fill our dinner plates, but also to feed our imaginations.]]> 272 Helen Scales 159240474X Amy 0 3.68 2009
author: Helen Scales
name: Amy
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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]]> 899729
When Catherine Reid returned to the Berkshires to live after decades away, she became fascinated by another recent the eastern coyote. This tenacious species, which shares some lineage with the wolf, exhibits remarkable adaptability and awe-inspiring survival skills. Coyotes have been spotted in nearly every habitable area available, including urban streets, Central Park, and suburban backyards.

Settling into an old farmhouse with her partner, Reid felt compelled to learn more about this outlaw animal. Her beautifully grounded memoir interweaves personal and natural history to comment on one of the most dramatic wildlife stories of our time. With great appreciation for this scrappy outsider and the ecological concerns its presence brings to light, Reid suggests that we all need to forge a new relationship with this uncannily intelligent species in our midst.

"A captivating read, worthy of joining the pantheon of literary ecological writing." -- Booklist

"Enlightening . . . a heartfelt, often poetic case for coexistence between humans and the wild." -- Publishers Weekly

"Graceful, intimate, and vibrant prose . . . an important, beautiful book." -- Jane Brox, author of Clearing Land

Catherine Reid is a naturalist, teacher, editor, and poet. She lives in an old farmhouse in western Massachusetts.]]> 192 Catherine Reid 0618619291 Amy 4 3.57 2004
author: Catherine Reid
name: Amy
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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]]> 61089440 240 Lizzie Stark 0393531503 Amy 0 to-read 3.70 2023
author: Lizzie Stark
name: Amy
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/16
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]]> 61273342 In a near-future northern settlement, a handful of climate change survivors find their fates intertwined in this mesmerizing and transportive novel in the vein of Station Eleven and The Power.

In the far north of Canada sits Camp Zero, an American building project hiding many secrets.

Desperate to help her climate-displaced Korean immigrant mother, Rose agrees to travel to Camp Zero and spy on its architect in exchange for housing. She arrives at the same time as another newcomer, a college professor named Grant who is determined to flee his wealthy family’s dark legacy. Gradually, they realize that there is more to the architect than previously thought, and a disturbing mystery lurks beneath the surface of the camp. At the same time, rumors abound of an elite group of women soldiers living and working at a nearby Cold War-era climate research station. What are they doing there? And who is leading them?

An electrifying page-turner where nothing is as it seems, Camp Zero cleverly explores how the intersection of gender, class, and migration will impact who and what will survive in a warming world.]]> 304 Michelle Min Sterling 1668007568 Amy 0 to-read 3.17 2023
author: Michelle Min Sterling
name: Amy
average rating: 3.17
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]]> 57850265
Among those adjusting to this new normal are an aspiring comedian, employed by a theme park designed for terminally ill children, who falls in love with a mother trying desperately to keep her son alive; a scientist who, having failed to save his own son from the plague, gets a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects-a pig-develops human speech; a man who, after recovering from his own coma, plans a block party for his neighbours who have also woken up to find that they alone have survived their families; and a widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter who must set off on cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.

From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead, How High We Go in the Dark follows a cast of intricately linked characters spanning hundreds of years as humanity endeavours to restore the delicate balance of the world. This is a story of unshakable hope that crosses literary lines to give us a world rebuilding itself through an endless capacity for love, resilience and reinvention. Wonderful and disquieting, dreamlike and all too possible.]]> 293 Sequoia Nagamatsu 0063072645 Amy 3 3.80 2022
author: Sequoia Nagamatsu
name: Amy
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 3
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]]> 61273810
In an alternate 2009, the United States has been a second-rate power for a quarter of a century, ever since Argentina’s victory in the Falkland’s War thanks to their development of “psychopigments.” Created as weapons, these colorful chemicals can produce almost any human emotion upon contact, and they have been embraced in the US as both pharmaceutical cure-alls and popular recreational drugs. Black market traders illegally sell everything from Blackberry Purple (which causes terror) to Sunshine Yellow (which delivers happiness).

Psychopigment Enforcement Agent Kay Curtida works a beat in Daly City, just outside the ruins of San Francisco, chasing down smalltime crooks. But when an old friend shows up with a tantalizing lead on a career-making case, Curtida’s humdrum existence suddenly gets a boost. Little does she know that this case will send her down a tangled path of conspiracy and lead to an overdue reckoning with her family and with the truth of her own emotions.

Told in the voice of a funny, brooding, Latinx Sam Spade, The Shamshine Blind is “a rip-roaring beautifully crafted mash-up of cop noir, sci-fi, and alt-history that left me dazzled by its prescience and literary zing” (Leah Hampton, author of F*ckface ).]]> 320 Paz Pardo 1982185325 Amy 0 to-read 3.49 2023
author: Paz Pardo
name: Amy
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2023
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]]> 59455502 An Armenian-American woman rediscovers her roots and embraces who she really is in this vibrant and heartfelt queer rom-com by debut author Taleen Voskuni.

When Nar’s non-Armenian boyfriend gets down on one knee and proposes to her in front of a room full of drunk San Francisco tech boys, she realizes it’s time to find someone who shares her idea of romance.

Enter her mother: armed with plenty of mom-guilt and a spreadsheet of Facebook-stalked Armenian men, she convinces Nar to attend Explore Armenia, a month-long series of events in the city. But it’s not the mom-approved playboy doctor or wealthy engineer who catches her eye—it’s Erebuni, a woman as equally immersed in the witchy arts as she is in preserving Armenian identity. Suddenly, with Erebuni as her wingwoman, the events feel like far less of a chore, and much more of an adventure. Who knew cooking up kuftes together could be so . . . sexy?

Erebuni helps Nar see the beauty of their shared culture and makes her feel understood in a way she never has before. But there’s one teeny problem: Nar’s not exactly out as bisexual. The clock is ticking on Nar’s double life, though—the closing event banquet is coming up, and her entire extended family will be there, along with Erebuni. Her worlds will inevitably collide, but Nar is determined to be brave, determined to claim her happiness: proudly Armenian, proudly bisexual, and proudly herself for the first time in her life.]]> 354 Taleen Voskuni 0593547306 Amy 5 3.61 2023
author: Taleen Voskuni
name: Amy
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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]]> 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Amy 5 3.95 2020
author: Matt Haig
name: Amy
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2020
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/01/23
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]]> 27314573 304 Robert M. Drake 0986262765 Amy 0 3.89 2015
author: Robert M. Drake
name: Amy
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2016/09/22
date added: 2020/02/17
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]]> 769885 672 James A. Michener 0449221873 Amy 0 to-read 3.72 1992
author: James A. Michener
name: Amy
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/04/03
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]]> 25943082
The news from the Middle East these days is bad. Whatever hopes people may have for the region are being dashed over and over, in country after country. Nicolas Pelham, a veteran correspondent for The Economist , has seen much of the tragedy first hand, but in Holy Lands he presents a strikingly original and startlingly optimistic argument.

The Middle East was notably more tolerant than Western Europe during the nineteenth century, because the Ottoman Empire permitted a high degree of religious pluralism and self-determination within its vast borders. European powers broke up the empire and tried to turn it into a collection of secular nation-states; it was a spectacular failure. Rulers turned religion into a force for nationalism and the result has been ever increasing sectarian violence. The solution, Pelham argues, is to accept the Middle East for the deeply religious region it is, and try to revive its tradition of pluralism.

Holy Lands is a work of vivid reportage―from Turkey and Iraq, Israel and Palestine, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Bahrain and Jordan―that is animated by a big idea. It makes a region that is all too familiar from news reports feel fresh.]]> 184 Nicolas Pelham 0990976343 Amy 5 3.98 2016
author: Nicolas Pelham
name: Amy
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2019/04/03
date added: 2019/04/03
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]]> 32718027
But when Nahri accidentally summons an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior to her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to accept that the magical world she thought only existed in childhood stories is real. For the warrior tells her a new tale: across hot, windswept sands teeming with creatures of fire, and rivers where the mythical marid sleep; past ruins of once-magnificent human metropolises, and mountains where the circling hawks are not what they seem, lies Daevabad, the legendary city of brass, a city to which Nahri is irrevocably bound.

In that city, behind gilded brass walls laced with enchantments, behind the six gates of the six djinn tribes, old resentments are simmering. And when Nahri decides to enter this world, she learns that true power is fierce and brutal. That magic cannot shield her from the dangerous web of court politics. That even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly consequences.

After all, there is a reason they say be careful what you wish for...]]> 532 S.A. Chakraborty 0062678108 Amy 0 4.11 2017
author: S.A. Chakraborty
name: Amy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2019/04/03
date added: 2019/04/03
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]]> 39280445 Could ten days at a health resort really change you forever?

These nine perfect strangers are about to find out...

Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can’t even admit to themselves. Amidst all of the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.

Frances Welty, the formerly best-selling romantic novelist, arrives at Tranquillum House nursing a bad back, a broken heart, and an exquisitely painful paper cut. She’s immediately intrigued by her fellow guests. Most of them don’t look to be in need of a health resort at all. But the person that intrigues her most is the strange and charismatic owner/director of Tranquillum House. Could this person really have the answers Frances didn’t even know she was seeking? Should Frances put aside her doubts and immerse herself in everything Tranquillum House has to offer—or should she run while she still can?

It’s not long before every guest at Tranquillum House is asking exactly the same question.

Combining all of the hallmarks that have made Liane Moriarty's writing a go-to for anyone looking for wickedly smart, page-turning fiction that will make you laugh and gasp, Nine Perfect Strangers once again shows why she is a master of her craft.]]> 453 Liane Moriarty 1250069823 Amy 4 3.53 2018
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Amy
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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]]> 29751398 The Power the world is a recognizable place: There's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; and a tough London girl from a tricky family. But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power: They can cause agonizing pain and even death. With this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets.]]> 341 Naomi Alderman 0670919985 Amy 5 3.74 2016
author: Naomi Alderman
name: Amy
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2016
rating: 5
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date added: 2019/01/22
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]]> 227463 A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?"

This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."]]> 192 Anthony Burgess Amy 0 to-read 3.98 1962
author: Anthony Burgess
name: Amy
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/12/02
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]]> 23792
Includes:
"W.S." L.P. Hartley
"Harry" Rosemary Timperley
"The Corner Shop" Cynthia Asquith
"In the Tube" E.F. Benson
"Christmas Meeting" Rosemary Timperley
"Elias and the Draug" Jonas Lie
"Playmates" A.M. Burrage
"Ringing the Changes" Robert Aickman
"The Telephone" Mary Treadgold
"The Ghost of a Hand" J. Sheridan Le Fanu
"The Sweeper" A.M. Burrage
"Afterward" Edith Wharton
"On the Brighton Road" Richard Middleton
"The Upper Berth" F. Marion Crawford]]> 249 Roald Dahl 0140071784 Amy 4 3.64 1983
author: Roald Dahl
name: Amy
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1983
rating: 4
read at: 2018/11/28
date added: 2018/11/28
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]]> 22339 95 Neil Gaiman 1563893339 Amy 0 4.24 1996
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Amy
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at: 2018/11/28
date added: 2018/11/28
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]]> 23168840 The Arab of the Future, the #1 French best-seller, tells the unforgettable story of Riad Sattouf's childhood, spent in the shadows of 3 dictators—Muammar Gaddafi, Hafez al-Assad, and his father

In striking, virtuoso graphic style that captures both the immediacy of childhood and the fervor of political idealism, Riad Sattouf recounts his nomadic childhood growing up in rural France, Gaddafi's Libya, and Assad's Syria--but always under the roof of his father, a Syrian Pan-Arabist who drags his family along in his pursuit of grandiose dreams for the Arab nation.

Riad, delicate and wide-eyed, follows in the trail of his mismatched parents; his mother, a bookish French student, is as modest as his father is flamboyant. Venturing first to the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab State and then joining the family tribe in Homs, Syria, they hold fast to the vision of the paradise that always lies just around the corner. And hold they do, though food is scarce, children kill dogs for sport, and with locks banned, the Sattoufs come home one day to discover another family occupying their apartment. The ultimate outsider, Riad, with his flowing blond hair, is called the ultimate insult… Jewish. And in no time at all, his father has come up with yet another grand plan, moving from building a new people to building his own great palace.

Brimming with life and dark humor, The Arab of the Future reveals the truth and texture of one eccentric family in an absurd Middle East, and also introduces a master cartoonist in a work destined to stand alongside Maus and Persepolis.]]> 156 Riad Sattouf 1627793445 Amy 0 4.10 2014
author: Riad Sattouf
name: Amy
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2018/11/28
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]]> 18310944 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Winner of the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story

Twenty-five years since The Sandman first changed the landscape of modern comics, Neil Gaiman's legendary series is back in a deluxe edition!

The Sandman: Overture heralds New York Times best-selling writer Neil Gaiman's return to the art form that made him famous, ably abetted by artistic luminary JH Williams III (Batwoman, Promethea), whose lush, widescreen images provide an epic scope to The Sandman's origin story. From the birth of a galaxy to the moment that Morpheus is captured, THE Sandman: Overture will feature cameo appearances by fan-favorite characters such as The Corinthian, Merv Pumpkinhead and, of course, the Dream King's siblings: Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium, Destruction and Destiny.]]> 224 Neil Gaiman 1401248969 Amy 0 4.03 2015
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Amy
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2018/11/28
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]]> 10138607 From the internationally acclaimed author of Blankets , a highly anticipated new graphic novel.
 
Sprawling across an epic landscape of deserts, harems, and modern industrial clutter, Habibi tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance, and by the love that grows between them. We follow them as their lives unfold together and apart; as they struggle to make a place for themselves in a world (not unlike our own) fueled by fear, lust, and greed; and as they discover the extraordinary depth—and frailty—of their connection.
 
At once contemporary and timeless, Habibi gives us a love story of astounding resonance: a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and, most potently, the magic of storytelling.]]> 672 Craig Thompson 0375424148 Amy 5 4.02 2011
author: Craig Thompson
name: Amy
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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]]> 2767 Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen as the exploitation and manipulation of the majority by rigged systems that hugely favor a small aggregate of elite rulers from across the orthodox political parties.
A People's History has been assigned as reading in many high schools and colleges across the United States. It has also resulted in a change in the focus of historical work, which now includes stories that previously were ignored

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s book “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those…whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.”]]> 729 Howard Zinn 0060838655 Amy 0 4.08 1980
author: Howard Zinn
name: Amy
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1980
rating: 0
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]]> 20518872 472 Liu Cixin Amy 0 4.07 2006
author: Liu Cixin
name: Amy
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> 16115612 404 Khaled Hosseini 159463176X Amy 0 4.07 2012
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Amy
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> 6596 1 152 Miguel Ruiz 1878424505 Amy 5 4.20 1997
author: Miguel Ruiz
name: Amy
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/11/19
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]]> 15783514
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.]]> 181 Neil Gaiman 0062255657 Amy 5 4.00 2013
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Amy
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2017/09/29
date added: 2017/09/29
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]]> 32075853 Together Tea and Calendar Girls.

Every woman has a secret life . . .

Nikki lives in cosmopolitan West London, where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she’s spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood, preferring a more independent (that is, Western) life. When her father’s death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a "creative writing" course at the community center in the beating heart of London’s close-knit Punjabi community.

Because of a miscommunication, the proper Sikh widows who show up are expecting to learn basic English literacy, not the art of short-story writing. When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class, Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas, her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women, she teaches them how to express their untold stories, unleashing creativity of the most unexpected—and exciting—kind.

As more women are drawn to the class, Nikki warns her students to keep their work secret from the Brotherhood, a group of highly conservative young men who have appointed themselves the community’s "moral police." But when the widows’ gossip offers shocking insights into the death of a young wife—a modern woman like Nikki—and some of the class erotica is shared among friends, it sparks a scandal that threatens them all.]]> 304 Balli Kaur Jaswal 0062645129 Amy 4 3.92 2017
author: Balli Kaur Jaswal
name: Amy
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2017/09/29
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]]> 29968642 Over the course of his thirty-five-year career, Ambassador Evans served with distinction in diplomatic posts in Tehran, Prague, Moscow, Brussels (NATO), St. Petersburg and Washington, reaching the rank of Minister-Counselor. A native of Williamsburg, Virginia, educated at Yale and Columbia, he is an avid student of Russian history who devoted a sabbatical year to investigating the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the setting in which the tragic events of 1915 occurred.
Now retired from the Foreign Service, Mr. Evans makes his home in Washington with his wife, the former Donna Chamberlain.]]> 200 John M. Evans Amy 0 to-read 4.55
author: John M. Evans
name: Amy
average rating: 4.55
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rating: 0
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]]> 136251
In this final, seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited.]]> 759 J.K. Rowling Amy 5 4.61 2007
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Amy
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2017/08/22
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]]> 1 652 J.K. Rowling Amy 5 4.57 2005
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Amy
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2017/07/21
date added: 2017/07/21
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]]> 15796750
Few writers had to confront as many of the last century’s mass tragedies as Vasily Grossman, who wrote with terrifying clarity about the Shoah, the Battle of Stalingrad, and the Terror Famine in the Ukraine. An Armenian Sketchbook, however, shows us a very different Grossman, notable for his tenderness, warmth, and sense of fun.
      
After the  Soviet Government confiscated—or, as Grossman always put it, “arrested”—Life and Fate, he took on the task of revising a literal Russian translation of a long Armenian novel. The novel was of little interest to him, but he needed money and was evidently glad of an excuse to travel to Armenia. An Armenian Sketchbook is his account of the two months he spent there.
      
This is by far the most personal and intimate of Grossman’s works, endowed with an air of absolute spontaneity, as though he is simply chatting to the reader about his impressions of Armenia—its mountains, its ancient churches, its people—while also examining his own thoughts and moods. A wonderfully human account of travel to a faraway place, An Armenian Sketchbook also has the vivid appeal of a self-portrait.]]> 133 Vasily Grossman 1590176189 Amy 5 4.10 1965
author: Vasily Grossman
name: Amy
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1965
rating: 5
read at: 2017/06/02
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]]> 2
There is a door at the end of a silent corridor. And it's haunting Harry Potter's dreams. Why else would he be waking in the middle of the night, screaming in terror? It's not just the upcoming O.W.L. exams; a new teacher with a personality like poisoned honey; a venomous, disgruntled house-elf; or even the growing threat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Now Harry Potter is faced with the unreliability of the very government of the magical world and the impotence of the authorities at Hogwarts. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), he finds depth and strength in his friends, beyond what even he knew; boundless loyalty; and unbearable sacrifice.

This stunning illustrated edition brings together the talents of award-winning artists Jim Kay and Neil Packer in a visual feast, featuring iconic scenes and much loved characters -- Tonks, Luna Love good, and many more -- as the Order of the Phoenix keeps watch over Harry Potter’s fifth year at Hogwarts. With its oversized format, high-quality paper, ribbon bookmark, and color on nearly every page, this edition is the perfect gift for Harry Potter fans and book lovers of all ages.]]> 576 J.K. Rowling Amy 5 4.50 2003
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Amy
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2017/05/18
date added: 2017/05/18
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]]> 5 547 J.K. Rowling 043965548X Amy 5 4.57 1999
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Amy
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2017/05/18
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]]> 3 "Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large letter 'H'."

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!]]> 309 J.K. Rowling 0439554934 Amy 5 4.47 1997
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Amy
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2017/03/19
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]]> 15881
And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls’ bathroom. But then the real trouble begins – someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects… Harry Potter himself!]]> 341 J.K. Rowling Amy 5 4.42 1998
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Amy
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2017/03/19
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]]> 22859573 In her extraordinary debut, Aline Ohanesian has created two remarkable characters—a young man ignorant of his family’s and his country’s past, and an old woman haunted by the toll the past has taken on her life.

When Orhan’s brilliant and eccentric grandfather Kemal—a man who built a dynasty out of making kilim rugs—is found dead, submerged in a vat of dye, Orhan inherits the decades-old business. But Kemal’s will raises more questions than it answers. He has left the family estate to a stranger thousands of miles away, an aging woman in an Armenian retirement home in Los Angeles. Her existence and secrecy about her past only deepen the mystery of why Orhan’s grandfather willed his home in Turkey to an unknown woman rather than to his own son or grandson.

Left with only Kemal’s ancient sketchbook and intent on righting this injustice, Orhan boards a plane to Los Angeles. There he will not only unearth the story that eighty-seven-year-old Seda so closely guards but discover that Seda’s past now threatens to unravel his future. Her story, if told, has the power to undo the legacy upon which his family has been built. 

Moving back and forth in time, between the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the 1990s, Orhan’s Inheritance is a story of passionate love, unspeakable horrors, incredible resilience, and the hidden stories that can haunt a family for generations.

“Aline Ohanesian draws from her family’s own dark history to create a tender, powerful story of love and reclamation. Orhan’s Inheritance is a breathtaking and expansive work of historical fiction and proof that the past can sometimes rewrite the future.” —Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train]]> 352 Aline Ohanesian 1616203749 Amy 0 to-read 3.90 2015
author: Aline Ohanesian
name: Amy
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> 12612 Hegemony or Survival demonstrates how, for more than half a century the United States has been pursuing a grand imperial strategy with the aim of staking out the globe. Our leaders have shown themselves willing-as in the Cuban missile crisis-to follow the dream of dominance no matter how high the risks. World-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky investigates how we came to this perilous moment and why our rulers are willing to jeopardize the future of our species.

With the striking logic that is his trademark, Chomsky tracks the U.S. government's aggressive pursuit of "full spectrum dominance" and vividly lays out how the most recent manifestations of the politics of global control-from unilateralism to the dismantling of international agreements to state terrorism-cohere in a drive for hegemony that ultimately threatens our existence. Lucidly written, thoroughly documented, and featuring a new afterword by the author, Hegemony or Survival is a definitive statement from one of today's most influential thinkers.]]> 304 Noam Chomsky 0805076883 Amy 0 to-read 3.98 2003
author: Noam Chomsky
name: Amy
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> 34484
And the Word was: "Hey, you!"

For Brutha the novice is the Chosen One. He wants peace and justice and brotherly love.

He also wants the Inquisition to stop torturing him now, please...]]> 389 Terry Pratchett 0552152978 Amy 5 4.32 1992
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Amy
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2017/02/27
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]]> 28003097 Dumplin’ and Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda.

Joanna Gordon has been out and proud for years, but when her popular radio evangelist father remarries and decides to move all three of them from Atlanta to the more conservative Rome, Georgia, he asks Jo to do the to lie low for the rest of her senior year. And Jo reluctantly agrees.

Although it is (mostly) much easier for Jo to fit in as a straight girl, things get complicated when she meets Mary Carlson, the oh-so-tempting sister of her new friend at school. But Jo couldn’t possibly think of breaking her promise to her dad. Even if she’s starting to fall for the girl. Even if there’s a chance Mary Carlson might be interested in her, too. Right?]]> 437 Jaye Robin Brown 0062271016 Amy 3 3.75 2016
author: Jaye Robin Brown
name: Amy
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2017/02/13
date added: 2017/02/13
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]]> 30008702 Nutshell is a classic story of murder and deceit, told by a narrator with a perspective and voice unlike any in recent literature. A bravura performance, it is the finest recent work from a true master.

To be bound in a nutshell, see the world in two inches of ivory, in a grain of sand. Why not, when all of literature, all of art, of human endeavour, is just a speck in the universe of possible things.]]> 208 Ian McEwan Amy 4 3.65 2016
author: Ian McEwan
name: Amy
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2017/01/28
date added: 2017/01/28
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]]> 6514 294 Sylvia Plath Amy 2 4.05 1963
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Amy
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1963
rating: 2
read at: 2017/01/22
date added: 2017/01/22
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]]> 13069141 96 FAFI 0789324970 Amy 3 3.58 2012
author: FAFI
name: Amy
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2017/01/16
date added: 2017/01/16
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]]> 98057 336 Rene Denfeld 1586483099 Amy 0 to-read 3.67 2007
author: Rene Denfeld
name: Amy
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/13
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]]> 19322249 Meanwhile, he befriends a brilliant, internet-addled street kid with a comic book fixation who will need a home when the island dies. When Mancreu's fragile society erupts in violence, Lester must be more than just an observer: he has no choice but to rediscover the man of action he once was, and find out what kind of hero the island—and the boy—will need.
From the award-winning author of Angelmaker and The Gone-Away World, Tigerman is a novel at once deeply heartfelt and headlong thrilling—about parenthood, friendship and secret identities, about heroes of both the super and the everyday kind.]]> 337 Nick Harkaway 0385352417 Amy 0 to-read 3.88 2014
author: Nick Harkaway
name: Amy
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/13
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]]> 18090147 This is an enchanted place. Others don't see it, but I do.

The enchanted place is an ancient stone prison, viewed through the eyes of a death row inmate who finds escape in his books and in re-imagining life around him, weaving a fantastical story of the people he observes and the world he inhabits. Fearful and reclusive, he senses what others cannot. Though bars confine him every minute of every day, he marries magical visions of golden horses running beneath the prison, heat flowing like molten metal from their backs, with the devastating violence of prison life.

Two outsiders venture here: a fallen priest, and the Lady, an investigator who searches for buried information from prisoners' pasts that can save those soon-to-be-executed. Digging into the background of a killer named York, she uncovers wrenching truths that challenge familiar notions of victim and criminal, innocence and guilt, honour and corruption-ultimately revealing shocking secrets of her own.]]> 233 Rene Denfeld 0062285505 Amy 5 3.93 2014
author: Rene Denfeld
name: Amy
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2017/01/13
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]]> 28217831 New York Times bestseller My Drunk Kitchen is back! This time, she’s stirring up memories and tales from her past.

By combing through the journals that Hannah has kept for much of her life, this collection of narrative essays delivers a fuller picture of her life, her experiences, and the things she’s figured out about family, faith, love, sexuality, self-worth, friendship and fame.

Revealing what makes Hannah tick, this sometimes cringe-worthy, poignant collection of stories is sure to deliver plenty of Hannah’s wit and wisdom, and hopefully encourage you to try your hand at her patented brand of reckless optimism.

Personal note:

Hello, my darlings! I am incredibly pleased to present BUFFERING: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded!

As a big fan of memoirs, I wanted to try my hand at writing about the events of my life that deserve a little more consideration than can be accomplished in 140-characters or a 6-minute vlog. Now on the cusp of turning 30, I'm ready to expose some parts of my life that I haven't shared before. Before, it was all about privacy, process and time. And now the time has come! I’m ready to put myself out there, for you.  

I'm a little nervous about all these vulnerable words going into the world, these tales about my love life, the wrestling I’ve done with faith, how I feel about sex and my family and myself. I’ve had a lot of trials, a lot of errors, but also a lot of passion. Here’s the thing--I've always found comfort in the stories shared by others, so I hope my stories, now that I feel ready to tell them, will bring you some comfort too.

And when you read this book please remember: Buffering is just the time it takes to process.

Enjoy!

Love,

Hannah 

 

 ]]> 272 Hannah Hart 0062457535 Amy 3 4.20 2016
author: Hannah Hart
name: Amy
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2017/01/10
date added: 2017/01/10
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]]> 5759 218 Chuck Palahniuk 0393327345 Amy 4 4.19 1996
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Amy
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2017/01/09
date added: 2017/01/09
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]]> 28186093 Against Everything, Mark Greif makes us rethink the ordinary, taking our own lives seriously, exploring how we might live an honest life in these dishonest times. In a series of coruscating set pieces, Greif asks why we put ourselves through the pains of exercise, what shopping in organic supermarkets does for our sense of self-worth, what the political identity of the hipster might be, and what happens to us when we listen to too much Radiohead. From such counter-intuitive observations, Greif exposes the fundamental contradictions between our actions, desires and the excuses that we make to ourselves in hope of consolation. With the wit and seriousness of David Foster Wallace, Against Everything is the most thought-provoking study and essential guide to everyday life under 21st-century capitalism.]]> 320 Mark Greif 1101871156 Amy 0 3.64 2016
author: Mark Greif
name: Amy
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2017/01/06
date added: 2017/01/06
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]]> 1681740 But soon after they arrive for the long awaited holiday, Swan, Evan's wife, announces that she is expecting a child … who is not fathered by Evan.
This news shocks and hurts Evan deeply, but for his children's sake he decides to keep it to himself through the holidays they dreamt of for so long. But a family secret of such calibre is difficult to hide and the curious small-town neighbours begin to notice that something is amiss with the couple.
The Laughing Matter , first published in 1953, is a disturbing family drama set against the landscape of a small Californian town, with a close-knit community who embrace new-comers with the curiosity of those hungry for gossip. William Saroyan draws his characters with immense sensitivity for human erring and self-inflicted suffering.]]> William Saroyan Amy 0 3.79 1953
author: William Saroyan
name: Amy
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at: 2017/01/06
date added: 2017/01/06
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]]> 14891 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident.

The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years.

By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.]]> 496 Betty Smith 0061120073 Amy 0 to-read 4.29 1943
author: Betty Smith
name: Amy
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1943
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/04
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]]> 28921 Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN 0571225381 here.

In the summer of 1956, Stevens, a long-serving butler at Darlington Hall, decides to take a motoring trip through the West Country. The six-day excursion becomes a journey into the past of Stevens and England, a past that takes in fascism, two world wars, and an unrealised love between the butler and his housekeeper.]]> 258 Kazuo Ishiguro Amy 0 to-read 4.15 1989
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Amy
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/04
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]]> 15196
A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma.]]> 159 Art Spiegelman 0394541553 Amy 5 4.39 1986
author: Art Spiegelman
name: Amy
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1986
rating: 5
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date added: 2016/12/19
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]]> 12722 144 John Steinbeck Amy 5 3.95 1942
author: John Steinbeck
name: Amy
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1942
rating: 5
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date added: 2016/12/10
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]]> 103345
In delicate, intricately observed close-up, this novel makes us privy to the private lives of residents of a quiet street over the course of a single day.

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things explores the hopes, fears, and unspoken despairs of a diverse a single father with painfully scarred hands; a group of young club-goers just home from an all-night rave, sweetly high and mulling over vague dreams; and the nervous young man at number 18 who collects weird urban junk and is haunted by the specter of unrequited love. What eventually unites them is an utterly surprising and terrible twist of fate that shatters their everyday, ordinary tranquility, and all that they take for granted.

A prose poem of a novel with a mystery at its center that “recalls To The Lighthouse or Mrs. Dalloway” (The Times), If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things was the recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award and the Betty Trask Award, and was named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times.]]> 275 Jon McGregor 0618344586 Amy 4 3.91 2002
author: Jon McGregor
name: Amy
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/12/09
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]]> 9777
Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family—their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).

When their English cousin, Sophie Mol, and her mother, Margaret Kochamma, arrive on a Christmas visit, Esthappen and Rahel learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river "graygreen." With fish in it. With the sky and trees in it. And at night, the broken yellow moon in it.

The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.

The God of Small Things takes on the Big Themes—Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite Joy. Here is a writer who dares to break the rules. To dislocate received rhythms and create the language she requires, a language that is at once classical and unprecedented. Arundhati Roy has given us a book that is anchored to anguish, but fueled by wit and magic.]]> 321 Arundhati Roy 0679457313 Amy 0 to-read 3.97 1997
author: Arundhati Roy
name: Amy
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30165203
Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what - and who - it finds there...]]> 635 Neil Gaiman Amy 5 4.10 2001
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Amy
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2016/11/13
date added: 2016/11/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 27833670 A mindbending, relentlessly surprising thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy.

Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.

"Are you happy with your life?"

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend."

In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that's the dream?

And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could've imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human--a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of.]]> 342 Blake Crouch 1101904224 Amy 0 to-read 4.12 2016
author: Blake Crouch
name: Amy
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/11/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 5590168 ]]> 256 Mark Rowlands 1605980331 Amy 5 4.17 2008
author: Mark Rowlands
name: Amy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2016/10/25
date added: 2016/10/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 22585014 From the celebrated poet Yrsa Daley-Ward, a poignant collection of autobiographical poems about the heart, life, and the inner self.
Bone. Visceral. Close to. Stark.
The poems in Yrsa Daley-Ward's collection bone are exactly that: reflections on a particular life honed to their essence--so clear and pared-down, they become universal.
From navigating the oft competing worlds of religion and desire, to balancing society's expectations with the raw experience of being a woman in the world; from detailing the experiences of growing up as a first generation black British woman, to working through situations of dependence and abuse; from finding solace in the echoing caverns of depression and loss, to exploring the vulnerability and redemption in falling in love, each of the raw and immediate poems in Daley-Ward's bone resonate to the core of what it means to be human.
"You will come away bruised.
You will come away bruised
but this will give you poetry." ]]> 136 Yrsa Daley-Ward Amy 0 to-read 4.10 2014
author: Yrsa Daley-Ward
name: Amy
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/10/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18667945 In the New York Times bestseller that the Washington Post called "Lean In for misfits," Sophia Amoruso shares how she went from dumpster diving to founding one of the fastest-growing retailers in the world.

Sophia Amoruso spent her teens hitchhiking, committing petty theft, and scrounging in dumpsters for leftover bagels. By age twenty-two she had dropped out of school, and was broke, directionless, and checking IDs in the lobby of an art school—
a job she’d taken for the health insurance. It was in that lobby that Sophia decided to start selling vintage clothes on eBay.

Flash forward ten years to today, and she’s the founder and executive chairman of Nasty Gal, a $250-million-plus fashion retailer with more than four hundred employees. Sophia was never a typical CEO, or a typical anything, and she’s written #GIRLBOSS for other girls like her: outsiders (and insiders) seeking a unique path to success, even when that path is windy as all hell and lined with naysayers.

#GIRLBOSS proves that being successful isn’t about where you went to college
or how popular you were in high school. It’s about trusting your instincts and following your gut; knowing which rules to follow and which to break; when to button up and when to let your freak flag fly.' to 'In the New York Times bestseller that the Washington Post called "Lean In for misfits," Sophia Amoruso shares how she went from dumpster diving to founding one of the fastest-growing retailers in the world Sophia Amoruso spent her teens hitchhiking, committing petty theft, and scrounging in dumpsters for leftover bagels. By age twenty-two she had dropped out of school, and was broke, directionless, and checking IDs in the lobby of an art school—a job she’d taken for the health insurance. It was in that lobby that Sophia decided to start selling vintage clothes on eBay. Flash forward ten years to today, and she’s the founder and executive chairman of Nasty Gal, a $250-million-plus fashion retailer with more than four hundred employees. Sophia was never a typical CEO, or a typical anything, and she’s written #GIRLBOSS for other girls like her: outsiders (and insiders) seeking a unique path to success, even when that path is windy as all hell and lined with naysayers. #GIRLBOSS proves that being successful isn’t about where you went to college or how popular you were in high school. It’s about trusting your instincts and following your gut; knowing which rules to follow and which to break; when to button up and when to let your freak flag fly.']]> 256 Sophia Amoruso 039916927X Amy 0 to-read 3.63 2014
author: Sophia Amoruso
name: Amy
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/10/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]> 311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X Amy 2 4.15 1985
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Amy
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 2
read at: 2016/10/05
date added: 2016/10/05
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review:

]]> 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 Amy 0 4.44 1952
author: John Steinbeck
name: Amy
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at: 2016/09/22
date added: 2016/09/22
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]]> 206731 The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, written by Sogyal Rinpoche, is the ultimate introduction to Tibetan Buddhist wisdom. An enlightening, inspiring, and comforting manual for life and death that the New York Times calls, “The Tibetan equivalent of [Dante’s] The Divine Comedy,” this is the essential work that moved Huston Smith, author of The World’s Religions, to proclaim, “I have encountered no book on the interplay of life and death that is more comprehensive, practical, and wise.”]]> 441 Sogyal Rinpoche 0062508342 Amy 0 to-read 4.21 1992
author: Sogyal Rinpoche
name: Amy
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/09/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18738869 192 Neil Gaiman 0062312553 Amy 5 4.33 2014
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Amy
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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date added: 2016/09/15
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review:

]]> 472331 Watchmen, the groundbreaking series from award-winning author Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, presents a world where the mere presence of American superheroes changed history—the U.S. won the Vietnam War, Nixon is still president, and the Cold War is in full effect.

Considered the greatest graphic novel in the history of the medium, the Hugo Award-winning story chronicles the fall from grace of a group of superheroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the superhero is dissected as an unknown assassin stalks the erstwhile heroes.]]> 416 Alan Moore 0930289234 Amy 0 to-read 4.39 1987
author: Alan Moore
name: Amy
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/08/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>