en-US Sun, 14 Jun 2020 04:02:00 -0700 60 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 240126 288 Jeannette Walls 0743247531 Vanessa 0 to-read 4.29 2005
author: Jeannette Walls
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2005
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]]> 28116 44 Million Words
10 Billion Years Of History
1 Obsessed Man

Part memoir and part education (or lack thereof), "The Know-It-All" chronicles NPR contributor A.J. Jacobs's hilarious, enlightening, and seemingly impossible quest to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z.

To fill the ever-widening gaps in his Ivy League education, A.J. Jacobs sets for himself the daunting task of reading all thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His wife, Julie, tells him it's a waste of time, his friends believe he is losing his mind, and his father, a brilliant attorney who had once attempted the same feat and quit somewhere around Borneo, is encouraging but unconvinced.

With self-deprecating wit and a disarming frankness, "The Know-It-All" recounts the unexpected and comically disruptive effects Operation Encyclopedia has on every part of Jacobs's life - from his newly minted marriage to his complicated relationship with his father and the rest of his charmingly eccentric New York family to his day job as an editor at "Esquire." Jacobs's project tests the outer limits of his stamina and forces him to explore the real meaning of intelligence as he endeavours to join Mensa, win a spot on Jeopardy!, and absorb 33,000 pages of learning. On his journey, he stumbles upon some of the strangest, funniest, and most profound facts about every topic under the sun, all while battling fatigue, ridicule, and the paralysing fear that attends his first real-life responsibility - the impending birth of his first child.

"The Know-It-All" is an ingenious, mightily entertaining memoir of one man's intellect, neuroses, and obsessions, and a struggle between the all-consuming quest for factual knowledge and the undeniable gift of hard-won wisdom.]]> 388 A.J. Jacobs 0743250621 Vanessa 0 to-read 3.76 2004
author: A.J. Jacobs
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/12/10
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]]> 3326756 184 Jill Bolte Taylor 0670020745 Vanessa 0 to-read 3.95 2006
author: Jill Bolte Taylor
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/12/10
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]]> 6289283 Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.

Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence. With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the author was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a fifty-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder.

With a sharp wit and wild exuberance, McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons. Born to Run is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet, and that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.]]> 287 Christopher McDougall Vanessa 0 currently-reading 4.29 2009
author: Christopher McDougall
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2009
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]]> 7244 The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.]]> 546 Barbara Kingsolver 0060786507 Vanessa 0 to-read 4.11 1998
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/11/06
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]]> 13839 297 Michael Pollan 0375760393 Vanessa 0 currently-reading 4.06 2001
author: Michael Pollan
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/10/07
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]]> 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Vanessa 5 4.00 2006
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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]]> 3822089
When Oprah announced A New Earth as her 61st Book Club selection, it skyrocketed to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, selling over five million copies in paperback and remaining at the top of the list for twenty-two consecutive weeks . In A New Earth , renowned spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle describes how our current ego-based state of consciousness operates. The purpose of this book is to bring about a shift in consciousness, or in his words, an awakening. An essential part of this awakening is the recognition of the ego, and our attachment to things, the past, and enemies.

In Oneness With All Life , Eckhart Tolle has picked the essential phrases and paragraphs-the gems of the book-that he feels are most important and reorganized them so readers can focus on the most powerful ideas. Beautifully packaged with evocative artwork and design, it is the perfect gift for anyone with a well-worn copy of A New Earth who wants deeper insight into this seminal work.]]> 192 Eckhart Tolle 0525950885 Vanessa 0 to-read 4.31
author: Eckhart Tolle
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.31
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]]> 76334
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“As we welcome a new year, I wanted to revisit the book that had more effect on me than any other book by a living author has had on my perception of how I understand my connection to the world.” —Oprah Winfrey (Oprah’s Book Club January 2025)

With his bestselling spiritual guide The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle inspired millions of readers to discover the freedom and joy of a life lived “in the now.” In A New Earth, Tolle expands on these powerful ideas to show how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world. Tolle describes how our attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, and shows readers how to awaken to a new state of consciousness and follow the path to a truly fulfilling existence.

Illuminating, enlightening, and uplifting, A New Earth is a profoundly spiritual manifesto for a better way of life—and for building a better world.]]> 316 Eckhart Tolle 0452287588 Vanessa 0 currently-reading 4.15 2005
author: Eckhart Tolle
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/10/07
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]]> 192553 416 Pam Peirce 157061136X Vanessa 0 currently-reading 4.46 1992
author: Pam Peirce
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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]]> 49563 The Trial tells the terrifying tale of Joseph K., a respectable functionary in a bank who is suddenly arrested and must defend his innocence against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy, this hauntingly believable story stands out as one of the great novels of our times. Kafka's unsurpassed nightmare vision rings with chilling truth as it foreshadows the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the mad agendas of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes.

This definitive edition includes Kafka's own drawings, as well as excerpts from his diaries during the period in which he wrote The Trial.]]> 281 Franz Kafka 0805210407 Vanessa 0 to-read 3.91 1925
author: Franz Kafka
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1925
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]]> 44735
Having established itself as a standard in its field The Elements of Typographic Style is house manual at most American university presses, a standard university text, and a reference work in studios of designers around the world. It has been translated into italian and greek, and dutch.]]> 352 Robert Bringhurst 0881792063 Vanessa 0 4.23 1992
author: Robert Bringhurst
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1992
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]]> 110494
The point is: they saved her life. So when one of the bloodsuckers asks for a favor, she obliges - and soon Sookie's in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She's supposed to interview certain humans involved, but she makes one condition: the vampires must promise to behave and let the humans go unharmed. But that's easier said than done, and all it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly....]]> 291 Charlaine Harris 1841493007 Vanessa 0 to-read 3.98 2002
author: Charlaine Harris
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2002
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]]> 301082
Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't such a bright idea.]]> 292 Charlaine Harris 0441008534 Vanessa 0 to-read 3.98 2001
author: Charlaine Harris
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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]]> 3561809 The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Altogether, more than 12 million copies of the two novels have been sold in the United States. The books have attracted three generations of readers, shaped the foundation of the Libertarian movement, and influenced White House economic policies throughout the Reagan years and beyond. A passionate advocate of laissez-faire capitalism and individual rights, Rand remains a powerful force in the political perceptions of Americans today. Yet twenty-five years after her death, her readers know little about her life.

In this seminal biography, Anne C. Heller traces the controversial author’s life from her childhood in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution to her years as a screenwriter in Hollywood, the publication of her blockbuster novels, and the rise and fall of the cult that formed around her in the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout, Heller reveals previously unknown facts about Rand’s history and looks at Rand with new research and a fresh perspective.

Based on original research in Russia, dozens of interviews with Rand’s acquaintances and former acolytes, and previously unexamined archives of tapes and letters, AYN RAND AND THE WORLD SHE MADE is a comprehensive and eye-opening portrait of one of the most significant and improbable figures of the twentieth century.]]> 568 Anne C. Heller 0385513992 Vanessa 0 to-read 3.86 2009
author: Anne C. Heller
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.86
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]]> 27500
In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them--along with Callie's failure to develop--leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.

The explanation for this shocking state of affairs takes us out of suburbia- back before the Detroit race riots of 1967, before the rise of the Motor City and Prohibition, to 1922, when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Callie's grandparents fled for their lives. Back to a tiny village in Asia Minor where two lovers, and one rare genetic mutation, set in motion the metamorphosis that will turn Callie into a being both mythical and perfectly a hermaphrodite.

Spanning eight decades--and one unusually awkward adolescence- Jeffrey Eugenides's long-awaited second novel is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire.]]> 529 Jeffrey Eugenides 0965045641 Vanessa 0 to-read 3.98 2002
author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2008/05/30
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]]> 1516489 226 Mark Haddon 0606302395 Vanessa 0 to-read 3.60 2003
author: Mark Haddon
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2008/05/30
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]]> 474052 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read for decades to come.]]> 375 Dave Eggers 0684863472 Vanessa 0 to-read 3.61 2000
author: Dave Eggers
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2008/05/30
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]]> 4435 304 Augusten Burroughs 1843541858 Vanessa 0 to-read 3.90 2003
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2008/05/30
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]]> 242006 336 Augusten Burroughs 031242227X Vanessa 5 3.78 2002
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2008/04/01
date added: 2008/05/30
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Quick read, interesting story whether it is sensationalized or not. I really enjoy memoirs and love the way he writes. He adds a touch of humor to growing up in a dysfunctional family while still painting a clear, detailed picture. I guess I relate because I know that is what you have to do in order to maintain sanity in a chaotic atmosphere as a child...find the humor and create your own story. Much better than the movie although I love that too. I can't wait to read his other books.
]]> 1241 Before considering reading this book, please see the BookBrowse note on the book jacket/review page.

BookBrowse Note: January 9th 2006: An article in the Smoking Gun claimed that James Frey (author of A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard) fabricated key parts of his books. They cited police records, court documents and interviews with law enforcement agents which belie a number of Frey's claims regarding criminal charges against him, jail terms and his fugitive status.

In an interview with the Smoking Gun, Frey admitted that he had 'embellished central details' in A Million Little Pieces and backtracked on claims he made in the book.

January 26th 2006. Frey's publisher stated that while it initially stood by him, after further questioning of the author, the house has "sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished." It will be adding a a publisher's note and author's note to all future editions of A Million Little Pieces.]]> 515 James Frey 0307276902 Vanessa 0 currently-reading 3.69 2003
author: James Frey
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> 687278
• Using painful emotions to cultivate wisdom, compassion, and courage
• Communicating so as to encourage others to open up rather than shut down
• Practices for reversing habitual patterns
• Methods for working with chaotic situations
• Ways for creating effective social action]]> 148 Pema Chödrön 1570623449 Vanessa 0 currently-reading 4.25 1996
author: Pema Chödrön
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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]]> 19501
Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want—a husband, a house, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be.

To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world—all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year. Her aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Rome, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, and with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise cowboy from Texas, she embarked on four uninterrupted months of spiritual exploration. In Bali, she studied the art of balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. She became the pupil of an elderly medicine man and also fell in love the best way—unexpectedly.

An intensely articulate and moving memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment and stop trying to live in imitation of society’s ideals. It is certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change.]]> 368 Elizabeth Gilbert 0143038419 Vanessa 4 3.65 2006
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Vanessa
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2008/05/30
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]]> 337615
"Frank, enraging, and captivating." - The New York Times

Nine Parts of Desire is the story of Brooks' intrepid journey toward an understanding of the women behind the veils, and of the often contradictory political, religious, and cultural forces that shape their lives. Defying our stereotypes about the Muslim world, Brooks' acute analysis of the world's fastest growing religion deftly illustrates how Islam's holiest texts have been misused to justify repression of women, and how male pride and power have warped the original message of a once liberating faith. As a prizewinning foreign correspondent for  The Wall Street Journal , Geraldine Brooks spent six years covering the Middle East through wars, insurrections, and the volcanic upheaval of resurgent fundamentalism. Yet for her, headline events were only the backdrop to a less obvious but more enduring drama: the daily life of Muslim women.]]> 255 Geraldine Brooks 0385475772 Vanessa 0 to-read 4.05 1994
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1994
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date added: 2008/05/30
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]]> 81227 353 Ayaan Hirsi Ali 0743289684 Vanessa 5 4.18 2006
author: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2008/02/14
date added: 2008/02/14
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Enthralling, well written, and intriguing perspective on a world I know little about. She is one of my new role models and heros.
]]> 10847
A multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. This is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.

Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this "divinely inspired" crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. Along the way, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest-growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some forty-thousand Mormon Fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five "plural wives," several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamentalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers, and preach that any day now the world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents.

Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism’s violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.]]> 432 Jon Krakauer 0330419129 Vanessa 4 4.01 2003
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Vanessa
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2007/12/29
date added: 2007/12/19
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the history and theory behind the Mormon religion
]]>