en-US Sun, 13 Sep 2026 23:36:26 -0700 60 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 241683548 From the bestselling author of Station Eleven, Exit Party is Emily St. John Mandel’s epic new story of crimes committed and loves lost across worlds and decades.

2031. America is at war with itself, but for the first time in weeks there is some hope: the Republic of California has been declared, the curfew in Los Angeles is lifted, and everyone in the city is going to a party.

Ari, newly released from prison, arrives with her friend Gloria just as a fragile new era begins. But there are people at the party who shouldn’t be there. Something is very wrong...

Years later, living a different life in Paris, Ari remains haunted by that night. Whatever happened at the party fractured her sense of reality – and may hold the key to a very different world.

Freedom and surveillance, art and survival, love and loss in a broken world: Exit Party is the electrifying new novel from Emily St. John Mandel.]]> 320 Emily St. John Mandel 1035081318 Stephen 0 to-read 4.22 2026
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/09/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13147230
2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Cop Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive - some said mad, others dangerous - scientist when she finds a curious gadget - a box containing some wiring, a three-way switch and a... potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way Mankind views his world forever.

And that is an understatement if ever there was one...]]> 336 Terry Pratchett 0062067753 Stephen 0 to-read 3.77 2012
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/09/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 42954967 0 Terry Pratchett 0552175420 Stephen 0 to-read 4.40
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.40
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/09/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22743742 198 Terry Pratchett Stephen 0 to-read 3.92 1983
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/09/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50014902
But when a young soldier comes to the mountains in search of a local myth, Ren is inexorably drawn into her impossible mission. As their lives entwine, unravel and erupt—as myths merge with reality—both Ren and the soldier are forced to confront what they regret, what they love, and what they fear.

The Rain Heron is the dizzying, dazzling new novel from the author of Flames.]]> 288 Robbie Arnott 1922268771 Stephen 0 currently-reading 3.99 2020
author: Robbie Arnott
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/09/06
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 76778
The Martian Chronicles tells the story of humanity’s repeated attempts to colonize the red planet. The first men were few. Most succumbed to a disease they called the Great Loneliness when they saw their home planet dwindle to the size of a fist. They felt they had never been born. Those few that survived found no welcome on Mars. The shape-changing Martians thought they were native lunatics and duly locked them up.

But more rockets arrived from Earth, and more, piercing the hallucinations projected by the Martians. People brought their old prejudices with them – and their desires and fantasies, tainted dreams. These were soon inhabited by the strange native beings, with their caged flowers and birds of flame.

Contents:
Rocket Summer
Ylla
The Summer Night
The Earth Men
The Taxpayer
The Third Expedition
-And the Moon Be Still As Bright
The Settlers
The Green Morning
The Locusts
Night Meeting
The Shore
Interim
The Musicians
Way in the Middle of the Air
The Naming of Names
Usher II
The Old Ones
The Martian
The Luggage Store
The Off Season
The Watchers
The Silent Towns
The Long Years
There Will Come Soft Rains
The Million Year Picnic]]> 182 Ray Bradbury 0553278223 Stephen 0 to-read 4.16 1950
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1950
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 19580 You have been there…
if you have ever been afraid.

Come back. To a dark house deep in the Vermont woods, where two friends are spending a season of horror, apprenticed to a Master Magician.

Learning secrets best left unlearned. Entering a world of incalculable evil more ancient than death itself. More terrifying. And more real.

Only one of them will make it through.]]> 468 Peter Straub 0425188221 Stephen 0 to-read 3.90 1980
author: Peter Straub
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 19581 In life, not every sin goes unpunished.

GHOST STORY

For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past -- and get away with murder.]]> 567 Peter Straub 0671685635 Stephen 0 to-read 3.93 1979
author: Peter Straub
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 207627291
Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site. From the vehicle they survey a forsaken place – middens of twisted iron, rusty wire, piles of sun-baked trash. They’re exhausted, traumatised, desperate now. But as a refuge, this is the most promising place they’ve seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work.

Problem is, they’re not alone.

So begins a searing, propulsive journey through a life whose central challenge is not simply a matter of survival, but of how to maintain human decency as everyone around you falls ever further into barbarism.]]> 529 Tim Winton 1035050838 Stephen 0 to-read 3.87 2024
author: Tim Winton
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 113861 231 Lydia Davis 0312423713 Stephen 1 tgbc, did-not-finish
The narrator was a horrible self-centred person recounting a short "relationship" with a man 12 years her junior. And attempting to write a novel about said relationship some years after it ended.

It was rambling outpouring of recollections and then re-evaluated recollections and critiques of her thoughts and actions.

I just can't finish it ...
Ugh]]> 3.61 1994
author: Lydia Davis
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1994
rating: 1
read at: 2026/08/17
date added: 2026/08/18
shelves: tgbc, did-not-finish
review:
TGBC for Aug 2026. I gave it a go. I started at the beginning, then I skimmed to the second of the two sections, then I read the end, went back to the start of section 2, but this book was just tedious.

The narrator was a horrible self-centred person recounting a short "relationship" with a man 12 years her junior. And attempting to write a novel about said relationship some years after it ended.

It was rambling outpouring of recollections and then re-evaluated recollections and critiques of her thoughts and actions.

I just can't finish it ...
Ugh
]]> 244106415
But when a random transmission beams through the radio of his 1956 Cessna, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life exists outside their tightly controlled perimeter. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return and follows its static-broken trail, only to find something that is both better and worse than anything he could ever hope for.]]> 336 Peter Heller Stephen 0 to-read 3.62 2012
author: Peter Heller
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/08/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211721806 The apocalypse will be televised! Welcome to the first book in the wildly popular and addictive Dungeon Crawler Carl series—now with bonus material exclusive to this print edition.

You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show. That’s what.

Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game–like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. This ain’t your ordinary game show.

Welcome, Crawler. Welcome to the Dungeon. Survival is optional. Keeping the viewers entertained is not.


Includes part one of the exclusive bonus story “Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret.”]]> 450 Matt Dinniman 059382024X Stephen 0 to-read 4.36 2020
author: Matt Dinniman
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 77265004
When Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017―revealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was “fresh, unpretentious and lean” (Madeline Miller, Washington Post)―critics lauded it as “a revelation” (Susan Chira, New York Times) and “a cultural landmark” (Charlotte Higgins, Guardian) that would forever change how Homer is read in English. Now Wilson has returned with an equally revelatory translation of Homer’s other great epic―the most revered war poem of all time.

The Iliad roars with the clamor of arms, the bellowing boasts of victors, the fury and grief of loss, and the anguished cries of dying men. It sings, too, of the sublime magnitude of the world―the fierce beauty of nature and the gods’ grand schemes beyond the ken of mortals. In Wilson’s hands, this thrilling, magical, and often horrifying tale now gallops at a pace befitting its legendary battle scenes, in crisp but resonant language that evokes the poem’s deep pathos and reveals palpably real, even “complicated,” characters―both human and divine.

The culmination of a decade of intense engagement with antiquity’s most surpassingly beautiful and emotionally complex poetry, Wilson’s Iliad now gives us a complete Homer for our generation.]]> 848 Homer 1324001801 Stephen 0 to-read 4.09 -750
author: Homer
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.09
book published: -750
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/07/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 1381 Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

So begins Robert Fagles's magnificent translation of the Odyssey.

If The Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, The Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of the everyman's journey through life. During his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, Odysseus relies on his wit and wiles for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces.

In the myths and legends retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom. It's a version to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.

Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles's translation.]]> 541 Homer 0143039954 Stephen 0 to-read 3.82 -800
author: Homer
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.82
book published: -800
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22875103 297 Chigozie Obioma 0316338370 Stephen 3 ]]> 3.87 2015
author: Chigozie Obioma
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2026/07/22
date added: 2026/07/22
shelves:
review:
It felt like an unnecessary tragedy fueled by ignorance, superstition & religion. I read this as a monthly book club selection. Not really my cup of tea.

]]> 149105520 The Big Short and Flash Boys, the story of FTX’s spectacular collapse and the enigmatic founder at its center.

When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?

In Going Infinite Lewis sets out to answer this question, taking readers into the mind of Bankman-Fried, whose rise and fall offers an education in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system. Both psychological portrait and financial roller-coaster ride, Going Infinite is Michael Lewis at the top of his game, tracing the mind-bending trajectory of a character who never liked the rules and was allowed to live by his own―until it all came undone.]]> 272 Michael Lewis 1324074337 Stephen 0 to-read 3.75 2023
author: Michael Lewis
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 22733729
Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe.]]> 518 Becky Chambers 1500453307 Stephen 0 to-read 4.14 2014
author: Becky Chambers
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 242232411 Philip K. Dick meets the Coen Brothers in this genre-bending near-future tech nightmare that is as bitingly funny as it is horrifically believable from the New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie.

Meet Julia Flang, a twenty-something former semi-professional gamer, living with her retired uncle, and working two jobs she doesn’t like. Out of the blue, her estranged mother, a CFO for one of the world’s largest tech companies, offers her a temp job with a payday Julia can’t refuse. One sham interview later, she’s offered the job: to chaperone a man in a vegetative state—one with proprietary AI implanted in his head—from California to the East Coast.

To sum up in Julia’s own words: “You want me to remote control this dead dude across the country.” In a word, yes. But he’s not dead dead.

Meet a middle-aged man who wakes within a disorienting hellscape filled with monstrous grotesqueries. Worse than the fluid, morphing reality in which he’s trapped, he has no memory of who he is. He certainly doesn’t remember getting the rabbit tattoo on his arm. He only knows that he must find a certain person. Who? He can’t remember.

Using a cell phone modeled after a video game controller, Julia fumblingly navigates the man she calls “Bernie” from the company campus and onto planes and through one of the largest airports in America. All the while, the man endures an ever-changing and worsening nightmare that offers clues as to who he was—and who he must track down. And as their two lives intertwine, Julia and Bernie become unlikely allies and fugitives on a collision course with reality.

Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep is a heady, horrific genre-bender from one of the most groundbreaking voices in fiction today.]]> 336 Paul Tremblay 006339846X Stephen 0 to-read 3.40 2026
author: Paul Tremblay
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> 285092
Rob does. He keeps a list, in fact. But Laura isn't on it—even though she's just become his latest ex. He's got his life back, you see. He can just do what he wants when he wants: like listen to whatever music he likes, look up the girls that are on his list, and generally behaves as if Laura never mattered. But Rob finds he can't move on. He's stuck in a really deep groove—and it's called Laura. Soon, Rob's asking himself some big questions: about love, about life—and about why we choose to share ours with the people we do.]]> 323 Nick Hornby 1573225517 Stephen 0 to-read 3.92 1995
author: Nick Hornby
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60869516 Krakauer’s page-turning bestseller explores a famed missing person mystery while unraveling the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.

"Terrifying... Eloquent... A heart-rending drama of human yearning." —New York Times

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How Christopher Johnson McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.

Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interst that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the drives and desires that propelled McCandless.

When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.]]> 217 Jon Krakauer Stephen 0 to-read 4.11 1996
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223296158 My name is Mawukana na-Vdnaze, and I am a very poor copy of myself.

Slow Gods is the galaxy-spanning tale ​of one man's impossible life charted against the fate of humanity amongst the stars—a powerfully imaginative space opera from multi-award-winning author Claire North. 

In telling my story, there are certain things I should perhaps lie about. I should make myself a hero. Pretend I was not used by strangers and gods, did not leave people behind.
 
Here is one out there in deep space, in the pilot's chair, I died. And then, I was reborn. I became something not quite human, something that could speak to the infinite dark. And I vowed to become the scourge of the world that wronged me. 

This is the story of the supernova event that burned planets and felled civilizations. This is also the story of the many lives I've lived since I died for the first time.  
 
Are you listening? ]]> 438 Claire North 0316586307 Stephen 0 to-read 3.84 2025
author: Claire North
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52382796
Powerful and engrossing, capturing both the rich pageantry and stark realities of life in feudal Japan, Shōgun is a critically acclaimed powerhouse of a book. Heart-stopping, edge-of-your-seat action melds seamlessly with intricate historical detail and raw human emotion. Endlessly compelling, this sweeping saga captivated the world to become not only one of the best-selling novels of all time but also one of the highest-rated television miniseries, as well as inspiring a nationwide surge of interest in the culture of Japan. Shakespearean in both scope and depth, Shōgun is, as the New York Times put it, "...not only something you read--you live it." Provocative, absorbing, and endlessly fascinating, there is only one: Shōgun.]]> 1152 James Clavell 1982603844 Stephen 0 to-read 4.41 1975
author: James Clavell
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 256008 Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America.

Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic, beautifully written, always dramatic, Lonesome Dove is a book to make us laugh, weep, dream, and remember.]]> 960 Larry McMurtry 067168390X Stephen 0 to-read 4.58 1985
author: Larry McMurtry
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.58
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> 96177629
Now he is. . .

Without a home

Waiting for his stand-up career to take off

Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking

Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story…

In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.]]> 345 Dolly Alderton 0241523672 Stephen 4 3.81 2023
author: Dolly Alderton
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2026/06/30
date added: 2026/06/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 247611062 How to find meaning in a world that offers no certainty about its existence, from the award-winning authors of Mortals.

Being human is hard.

From early childhood, we start to become aware of the difficulties we must all inevitably face. We will battle an inner critic across the entirety of our life. We will never truly know those around us and time will destroy all we create. Death becomes a reality, and we cannot escape the knowledge that it is coming for us all. These are the problems of being; the existential truths that make it harder to be human than a hamster or a herring.

Many other problems emerge from the knowledge of our own mortality. How do we find meaning, choose a life path, form an identity, face uncertainty, cope with hardship and, ultimately, bear the loss of all we love? How do we make peace with the inner voice that won't stop attacking the choices we've made and the opportunities we've missed? How do we deal with the uncertain and unpredictable nature of the world and our future?

In this book, daughter–father psychologists Rachel E. Menzies and Ross G. Menzies explore what it means to be human, and our shared need for love, meaning and self-understanding. They highlight the power of hope, the role of purpose in wellbeing, and how acceptance is key to a more authentic and joyful life.

This is the beauty of being.]]> 395 Rachel E. Menzies 1761891499 Stephen 0 to-read 4.36
author: Rachel E. Menzies
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.36
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/06/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> 6900
Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you?

Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying of ALS - or motor neurone disease - Mitch visited Morrie in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final 'class': lessons in how to live.]]> 210 Mitch Albom Stephen 3 4.21 1997
author: Mitch Albom
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2026/06/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 240139608 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans—though no one calls them that anymore.

His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.

Then one day he’s given a a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.]]> 209 Agustina Bazterrica 1982150920 Stephen 0 to-read 3.71 2017
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/06/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> 56852407
How about everything...]]> 517 Stephen King 1982173610 Stephen 0 to-read 4.10 2021
author: Stephen King
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/06/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 10959 An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here

One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.]]> 403 Jostein Gaarder 1857993284 Stephen 0 to-read 3.95 1991
author: Jostein Gaarder
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/05/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 231127223
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.

Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again.

But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.

A novel of breathtaking twists, dizzying beauty, and ferocious love, Wild Dark Shore is about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we love, even as the world around us disappears.]]> 320 Charlotte McConaghy 1250828015 Stephen 0 to-read 3.92 2025
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/05/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 15729539
Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”

Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.]]> 704 Joe Hill 0062200577 Stephen 0 to-read 4.06 2013
author: Joe Hill
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/05/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> 22816087
A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

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

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

A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.]]> 872 Neal Stephenson Stephen 0 currently-reading 4.00 2015
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/05/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 209562403 Do you feel like we're living in the end times? Does it seem like everything is on fire, and one disaster follows another?

Here's a small you're not the first to feel that way. If there's one thing that people throughout history have agreed on, it's that history wasn't going to be around for much longer.

This book is about the apocalypse, and how humans have always believed it to be very f*cking nigh. Across thousands of years, we'll meet weird cults, failed prophets and mass panics, holy warriors leading revolts in anticipation of the last days, and suburbanites waiting for aliens to rescue them from a doomed Earth. We'll journey back to the 'worst period to be alive', as the world reeled from a simultaneous pandemic and climate crisis. And we'll look to the future to ask the unnerving how might it all end?

But it's also a book about how we live in a world where catastrophe is always looming - whether it's a madman with a nuclear button or the slow burn of environmental collapse. Because when we talk about the end of the world, what we really mean is the end of our world. Our obsession with doomsday is really about our fear of it, and our desire for it, and how - ultimately - we can find hope in it.]]> 377 Tom Phillips 103540219X Stephen 4 3.65 2025
author: Tom Phillips
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2026/05/14
date added: 2026/05/14
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]]> 222377033 A searing insight into the political radicalization of Silicon Valley, from Elon Musk to Peter Thiel, JD Vance and Donald Trump, and how it will affect the future of all our lives.

From the pursuit of potentially apocalyptic artificial intelligence to life-extension start-ups that promise billionaires eternal youth, and those who encourage the political far right around the world, the Silicon Valley techno-utopian dream has curdled. The global innovator class has the world in their hands, but they can’t stand the touch.

New York Times bestselling author Jacob Silverman leads us on a critical investigation into the radicalization of Silicon Valley and the billionaires that increasingly run our lives, shape the global economy, and support Donald Trump.

At the center of this book lies Elon Musk, but this is about more than just one man and his obsession with the “woke mind virus”, as Silverman reveals a network of tech and finance oligarchs, emboldened by the zero-interest rate years, now using their wealth to exert an increasingly radical political program.

Transiting San Francisco and Silicon Valley, Austin and Miami, New York, Washington DC, and various global capitals of tech, finance, and political power, Silverman talks to the people who are already living with the real-life consequences of the political revolution underway. It's a bizarre, sometimes frightening, darkly humorous world where moguls preach populist revolt while dismantling the few remaining checks on their influence.]]> 306 Jacob Silverman 1399419986 Stephen 0 to-read 3.82 2025
author: Jacob Silverman
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 61783837 INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES 2023 BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR "A smart, savvy road map through the mayhem of the cryptocurrency madness." —RON CHERNOW, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Alexander Hamilton

From “one of the crypto industry’s unlikely but most prominent critics” (Washington Post), an entertaining and well-researched account of the rise and fall of cryptocurrency.   At the height of the pandemic, TV star Ben McKenzie was the perfect mark for a dad stuck at home with some cash in his pocket, worried about his family, armed with only the vague notion that people were making heaps of money on something he—despite a degree in economics—didn’t entirely understand. Lured in by grandiose, utopian promises, and sure, a little bit of FOMO, McKenzie dove deep into blockchain, Bitcoin, and the various other coins and exchanges on which they are traded. But after scratching the surface, he had to ask, “Am I crazy, or is this all a total scam?”   In Easy Money, McKenzie enlists the help of journalist Jacob Silverman for an investigative adventure into crypto and its remarkable crash. Weaving together stories of average traders and victims, colorful crypto “visionaries,” Hollywood’s biggest true believers, anti-crypto whistleblowers, and government operatives, Easy Money is an on-the-ground look at a perfect storm of irresponsibility and criminal fraud. Based on original reporting across the country and abroad, including interviews with Sam Bankman-Fried, Tether cofounder Brock Pierce, Celsius’s Alex Mashinsky, and more, this is the book on cryptocurrency you’ve been waiting for.]]> 304 Ben McKenzie 1419766392 Stephen 0 to-read 3.94 2023
author: Ben McKenzie
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214331246
As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch's name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He's torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who's nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he's been set up to fail. But there's something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Stephen 0 to-read 4.49 2025
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 667 Anthem is Ayn Rand's classic tale of a dystopian future of the great "We"—a world that deprives individuals of a name or independence—that anticipates her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

They existed only to serve the state. They were conceived in controlled Palaces of Mating. They died in the Home of the Useless. From cradle to grave, the crowd was one—the great WE.

In all that was left of humanity, there was only one man who dared to think, seek, and love. He lived in the dark ages of the future. In a loveless world, he dared to love the woman of his choice. In an age that had lost all trace of science and civilization, he had the courage to seek and find knowledge. But these were not the crimes for which he would be hunted. He was marked for death because he had committed the unpardonable sin: He had stood forth from the mindless human herd. He was a man alone. He had rediscovered the lost and holy word—I.

"I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals, and I loathe humanity, for its failure to live up to these possibilities."
 —Ayn Rand]]> 105 Ayn Rand 0452281253 Stephen 0 to-read 3.59 1938
author: Ayn Rand
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1938
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 472331 416 Alan Moore 0930289234 Stephen 0 to-read 4.39 1987
author: Alan Moore
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6334
And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed – even comforted – by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham's nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood – and about their lives now.]]> 288 Kazuo Ishiguro 1400078776 Stephen 3 3.85 2005
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2026/04/09
date added: 2026/04/09
shelves:
review:
This is not a book I would recommend. I found the adolescent relationships to be frustrating, though I felt compelled to finish. For much of the read I felt low and struggled with what seemed to be unresolved issues and a way to understand why compliance was not questioned.
]]> 383137 Simplified adaptation with language-learning materials.
[Penguin Readers Level 6]

Paul Sheldon is Annie Wilkes' favourite writer. She loves all his books about Misery Chastain. When she finds Paul injured after a car crash and takes him home she learns that he has decided to end the series by killing off Misery. Soon Paul's biggest fan turns into his biggest enemy and his nightmare begins! By the master of horror, Stephen King, this will keep you on the edge of your seat!]]> 96 Robin Waterfield 3526418292 Stephen 4 4.50
author: Robin Waterfield
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2026/04/04
shelves:
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]]> 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 736 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Stephen 0 to-read 4.24 2015
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 338798 Ulysses is one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century. It was not easy to find a publisher in America willing to take it on, and when Jane Jeap and Margaret Anderson started printing extracts from the book in their literary magazine The Little Review in 1918, they were arrested and charged with publishing obscenity. They were fined $100, and even The New York Times expressed satisfaction with their conviction.

Ulysses was not published in book form until 1922, when another American woman, Sylvia Beach, published it in Paris her Shakespeare & Company. Ulysses was not available legally in any English-speaking country until 1934, when Random House successfully defended Joyce against obscenity charges and published it in the Modern Library.]]> 783 James Joyce Stephen 0 did-not-finish 3.73 1922
author: James Joyce
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1922
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/03/26
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 42697 Exodus is an international publishing phenomenon--the towering novel of the twentieth century's most dramatic geopolitical event. Leon Uris magnificently portrays the birth of a new nation in the midst of enemies--the beginning of an earthshaking struggle for power. Here is the tale that swept the world with its fury: the story of an American nurse, an Israeli freedom fighter caught up in a glorious, heartbreaking, triumphant era.]]> 599 Leon Uris 0553258478 Stephen 0 did-not-finish 4.34 1958
author: Leon Uris
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1958
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/03/26
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 13517138 On Bullshit, philosopher Aaron James has done just that, providing us all** (in Aristotelian terms) with some much-needed catharsis.

*Unless you happen to be Donald Trump or Kanye West or Dick Cheney, in which case you may take it personally.

**Unless you are a real asshole yourself.]]> 208 Aaron James 0385535651 Stephen 0 did-not-finish 3.11 2012
author: Aaron James
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.11
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/03/26
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 66354 303 Mihály Csíkszentmihályi Stephen 0 did-not-finish 4.11 1990
author: Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/03/26
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 30753821 Internationally renowned, award-winning theoretical physicist, New York Times bestselling author of A Universe from Nothing, and passionate advocate for reason, Lawrence Krauss tells the dramatic story of the discovery of the hidden world of reality—a grand poetic vision of nature—and how we find our place within it.

In the beginning there was light.
But more than this, there was gravity.
After that, all hell broke loose…

In A Universe from Nothing, Krauss revealed how our entire universe could arise from nothing. Now, he reveals what that something—reality—is. And, reality is not what we think or sense—it’s weird, wild, and counterintuitive; it’s hidden beneath everyday experience; and its inner workings seem even stranger than the idea that something can come from nothing.

In a landmark, unprecedented work of scientific history, Krauss leads us to the furthest reaches of space and time, to scales so small they are invisible to microscopes, to the birth and rebirth of light, and into the natural forces that govern our existence. His unique blend of rigorous research and engaging storytelling invites us into the lives and minds of the remarkable, creative scientists who have helped to unravel the unexpected fabric of reality—with reason rather than superstition and dogma. Krauss has himself been an active participant in this effort, and he knows many of them well. The Greatest Story challenges us to re-envision ourselves and our place within the universe, as it appears that “God” does play dice with the universe. In the incisive style of his scintillating essays for The New Yorker, Krauss celebrates the greatest intellectual adventure ever undertaken—to understand why we are here in a universe where fact is stranger than fiction.]]> 322 Lawrence M. Krauss 1476777616 Stephen 3 did-not-finish 3.74 2017
author: Lawrence M. Krauss
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2020/07/25
date added: 2026/03/26
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
I have enjoyed other books by Lawrence Krauss. This is probably just as good, but I think I have overdosed on the story of the universe. Not engaged enough to finish it.
]]> 23168484
Curiosity has been seen through the ages as the impulse that drives our knowledge forward and the temptation that leads us toward dangerous and forbidden waters. The question “Why?” has appeared under a multiplicity of guises and in vastly different contexts throughout the chapters of human history. Why does evil exist? What is beauty? How does language inform us? What defines our identity? What is our responsibility to the world? In Alberto Manguel’s most personal book to date, the author tracks his own life of curiosity through the reading that has mapped his way.

Manguel chooses as his guides a selection of writers who sparked his imagination. He dedicates each chapter to a single thinker, scientist, artist, or other figure who demonstrated in a fresh way how to ask “Why?” Leading us through a full gallery of inquisitives, among them Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Lewis Carroll, Rachel Carson, Socrates, and, most importantly, Dante, Manguel affirms how deeply connected our curiosity is to the readings that most astonish us, and how essential to the soaring of our own imaginations.
 ]]> 377 Alberto Manguel 0300184786 Stephen 2 did-not-finish 3.78 2015
author: Alberto Manguel
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2020/07/25
date added: 2026/03/26
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
This book was a gift and the title got me in. Some interesting historical information, but too much Dante and far, far too much religion for this atheist to bear. Couldn't finish it.
]]> 3869
Told in language we all can understand, A Brief History of Time plunges into the exotic realms of black holes and quarks, of antimatter and “arrows of time,” of the big bang and a bigger God—where the possibilities are wondrous and unexpected. With exciting images and profound imagination, Stephen Hawking brings us closer to the ultimate secrets at the very heart of creation.]]> 226 Stephen W. Hawking 0553380168 Stephen 2 did-not-finish 4.21 1988
author: Stephen W. Hawking
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1988
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/26
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 50485580 From the bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, the co-author of Nudge, and the author of You Are About to Make a Terrible Mistake! comes Noise, a groundbreaking exploration of why people make bad judgments, and how to control both noise and cognitive bias.​

Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients — or that two judges in the same courthouse give different sentences to people who have committed the same crime. Suppose that different food inspectors give different ratings to indistinguishable restaurants — or that when a company is handling customer complaints, the resolution depends on who happens to be handling the particular complaint. Now imagine that the same doctor, the same judge, the same inspector, or the same company official makes different decisions, depending on whether it is morning or afternoon, or Monday rather than Wednesday. These are examples of noise: variability in judgments that should be identical.

In Noise, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein show how noise helps produce errors in many fields, including medicine, law, public health, economic forecasting, food safety, forensic science, bail, child protection, strategy, performance reviews and and personnel selection. And although noise can be found wherever people make judgments and decisions, individuals and organizations alike commonly ignore to its role in their judgments and in their actions. They show “noise neglect.” With a few simple remedies, people can reduce both noise and bias, and so make far better decisions.

Packed with new ideas, and drawing on the same kind of diligent, insightful research that made Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge groundbreaking New York Times bestsellers, Noise explains how and why humans are so susceptible to noise in judgment — and what we can do about it.]]> 464 Daniel Kahneman 0008308993 Stephen 2 did-not-finish After leaving it open for months, I have decided to get it off "currently reading" list, and skim the chapter summaries again, ... one day. ]]> 3.56 2021
author: Daniel Kahneman
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2022/12/23
date added: 2026/03/26
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
Did not finish! Didn't seem to offer anything particularly insightful. Did not interest me like "Thinking Fast and Slow".
After leaving it open for months, I have decided to get it off "currently reading" list, and skim the chapter summaries again, ... one day.
]]> 59432505 A profoundly original exploration of racism, misogyny, and ageism—three monsters that plague the world—this novel from a beloved and prize-winning author is made up of two narratives, each told by a South Asian migrant to Australia.

"When my family emigrated it felt as if we'd been stood on our heads."

Michelle de Kretser's electrifying take on scary monsters turns the novel upside down—just as migration has upended her characters' lives.

Lili's family migrated to Australia from Asia when she was a teenager. Now, in the 1980s, she's teaching in the south of France. She makes friends, observes the treatment handed out to North African immigrants and is creeped out by her downstairs neighbour. All the while, Lili is striving to be A Bold, Intelligent Woman like Simone de Beauvoir.

Lyle works for a sinister government department in near-future Australia. An Asian migrant, he fears repatriation and embraces 'Australian values'. He's also preoccupied by his ambitious wife, his wayward children and his strong-minded elderly mother. Islam has been banned in the country, the air is smoky from a Permanent Fire Zone, and one pandemic has already run its course.

Three scary monsters—racism, misogyny and ageism—roam through this mesmerising novel. Its reversible format enacts the disorientation that migrants experience when changing countries changes the story of their lives. With this suspenseful, funny and profound book, Michelle de Kretser has made something thrilling and new.

"Which comes first, the future or the past?"]]> 288 Michelle de Kretser 1646221095 Stephen 1 did-not-finish Catcher in the Rye was annoying in a similar way, but I forced myself to finish that one and was extremely disappointed. Can't do that any more.
Not a good choice of book for me. ]]> 3.30 2021
author: Michelle de Kretser
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2021
rating: 1
read at: 2022/12/24
date added: 2026/03/26
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
Did not finish. Started skimming through the "Lilli" chapter / book (?) after suffering through the dialogue on fashion in 1980's and what I can only imagine was literati reminisince of twenty something backpacking in Europe. These people would annoy me in real life, now and in the 1980's. I just got bored. There did not seem to be any sort of plot or point!? Started skimming through "Lyle", but just gave up.
Catcher in the Rye was annoying in a similar way, but I forced myself to finish that one and was extremely disappointed. Can't do that any more.
Not a good choice of book for me.
]]> 41817486 A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess’s introduction, “A Clockwork Orange Resucked.”]]> 240 Anthony Burgess 0393341763 Stephen 1 did-not-finish Atrocious unintelligible nonsense.

I am grateful I didn’t spend money buying this book.
I may need to think a while before expanding on how excruciating it was to skim read this, the foreword and all the post book analysis.]]> 4.04 1962
author: Anthony Burgess
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1962
rating: 1
read at: 2026/02/22
date added: 2026/03/26
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
DNF!
Atrocious unintelligible nonsense.

I am grateful I didn’t spend money buying this book.
I may need to think a while before expanding on how excruciating it was to skim read this, the foreword and all the post book analysis.
]]> 54870256 220 qntm Stephen 0 to-read 3.98 2020
author: qntm
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 51261489
A spy that can’t be caught.

1989: The fall of the Berlin Wall is imminent and the Cold War will soon be over. But for BOX 88, a top secret spying agency known only to an inner circle of MI6 and CIA operatives, the espionage game is heating up.

Lachlan Kite, recruited straight from an elite boarding school, is sent to France – the frontline of a new secret war. Kite is tasked with gathering intelligence on a mysterious Iranian businessman implicated in the tragic Lockerbie bombing. But what he uncovers is even more deadly…

2020: MI5 hear rumours of BOX 88’s existence and go after Kite – only for Iranian intelligence to get to him first. Taken captive and subjected to torture, Kite is presented with a simple choice: reveal the truth about what happened in France thirty years earlier – or watch his family die.]]> 482 Charles Cumming 0008200378 Stephen 4 4.00 2020
author: Charles Cumming
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2026/03/24
date added: 2026/03/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 13330761 336 Peter Heller 0307959945 Stephen 0 to-read 3.88 2012
author: Peter Heller
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 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 Stephen 0 to-read 4.15 1989
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59720691 Wake is a powerful, unsparing story of how trauma ripples outward when people's private tragedies become public property, and how it's never too late for the truth to come out.']]> 368 Shelley Burr 0063235226 Stephen 4 3.92 2022
author: Shelley Burr
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2026/02/19
date added: 2026/02/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 11996 "As far back as I can recall, I have been in the bunker."

A young woman is kept in a cage underground with thirty-nine other females, guarded by armed men who never speak; her crimes unremembered... if indeed there were crimes.

The youngest of forty—a child with no name and no past—she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted. In this reality where intimacy is forbidden—in the unrelenting sameness of the artificial days and nights—she knows nothing of books and time, of needs and feelings.

Then everything changes... and nothing changes.

A young woman who has never known men—a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints—must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been... and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom.]]> 206 Jacqueline Harpman 0380731819 Stephen 0 to-read 4.18 1995
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 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 Stephen 4 4.00 2006
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2026/02/03
date added: 2026/02/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 233319995 Martin Scarsden flees an assassination attempt but lands in even more trouble with a deadly family feud leaving him at death's door in Chris Hammer's next blockbuster crime novel.

MARTIN SCARSDEN IS ON THE RUN. WILL THE DESERT SAVE HIM – OR BURY HIM?

The blast hits them, a shock wave ... glass smashing ... Somewhere a woman screams. A second explosion, and Martin looks towards the hall, what's left of it, flames roaring and smoke pouring skywards.

Someone is targeting Martin Scarsden. They bomb his book launch and shoot up his hometown.

Fleeing for his life, he learns that nowhere is safe, not even the outback. The killers are closing in, and it's all he can do to survive.

But who wants to kill him and why? Can he discover their deadly motives and turn the tables?

In a dramatic finale, Martin finds his fate linked to the disgraced ex-wife of a football icon, a fugitive wanted for a decades-old murder, and two nineteenth-century explorers from a legendary expedition.

Martin Scarsden's most perilous, challenging and intriguing assignment yet.

Praise for Chris

'Hammer has confirmed and underlined his reputation as numbering among the very best novelists in detective fiction.' Sydney Morning Herald

'Complex and nuanced, this intelligent thriller shows why former political journalist Chris Hammer has become one of Australia's best-loved authors.' Caroline Overington, The Australian on The Valley

'Chris Hammer at the height of his powers ... absolutely not to be missed!' Hayley Scrivenor, author of Dirt Town on The Tilt

'A darkly simmering mystery, gorgeously told ... Utterly brilliant.' Dervla McTiernan, author of The Ruin and What Happened to Nina?

'It would be unfair to say Chris Hammer is at the top of the crime writing game. Chris Hammer IS the game. Full Tilt may be a better title, given the speed with which readers will devour Chris Hammer's exceptional novel.' Benjamin Stevenson, author of Everyone On This Train is a Suspect

'Like everything Chris Hammer writes, The Tilt is a rich, complex thriller, packed with detail and intrigue. There's a reason why this guy is on my auto-read list!' Christian White, author of The Nowhere Child

'Chris Hammer is a great writer ... a leader in Australian noir.' Michael Connelly

'If you haven't read Hammer before, this is the perfect time to experience one of the best writers Australia has to offer. Rife with intrigue, murder, and small-town secrets, Treasure and Dirt is a spectacular thriller that delivers some unforgettable characters with twists and turns you won't see coming. Hammer has raised the bar for Australian crime, and this is a must-read.' Better Reading

'Chris Hammer has excelled himself with Trust ... a thriller strong on character development, social insights, ethical issues and dramatic action.]]> 491 Chris Hammer 1761507354 Stephen 4 4.26 2025
author: Chris Hammer
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2026/01/24
date added: 2026/01/24
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]]> 1017223
Ella, the daughter of a grazier, grows up on an isolated, drought-ridden Queensland property, seeking her place in the harsh environment. Lok and his father arrive from China in search of gold and are caught up in the infamous Lambing Flat riots. When and Ella’s and Lok’s paths cross, they begin to discover what it is to belong.]]> 272 Nerida Newton 0702233862 Stephen 0 to-read 3.93 2003
author: Nerida Newton
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/01/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 86508927
But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department—a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith—when she sees him locking eyes with a superior from the Inner Party at the Two Minutes Hate. And when one day, finding herself walking toward Winston, she impulsively hands him a note—a potentially suicidal gesture—she comes to realise that she's losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world.

Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.]]> 400 Sandra Newman 0063265338 Stephen 3 3.68 2023
author: Sandra Newman
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2026/01/09
date added: 2026/01/09
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]]> 69477 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 0435122118

Is anyone out there?

Ann Burden is sixteen years old and completely alone. The world as she once knew it is gone, ravaged by a nuclear war that has taken everyone from her. For the past year, she has lived in a remote valley with no evidence of any other survivors.

But the smoke from a distant campfire shatters Ann's solitude. Someone else is still alive and making his way toward the valley. Who is this man? What does he want? Can he be trusted? Both excited and terrified, Ann soon realizes there may be worse things than being the last person on Earth.]]> 249 Robert C. O'Brien Stephen 0 to-read 3.69 1974
author: Robert C. O'Brien
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/11/22
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]]> 61164682 To control the past, they edited history. To control the future, they edited literature.

London, 1953, Coronation year - but not the Coronation of Elizabeth II.

Thirteen years have passed since a Grand Alliance between Great Britain and Germany was formalized. George VI and his family have been murdered and Edward VIII rules as King. Yet, in practice, all power is vested in Alfred Rosenberg, Britain’s Protector. The role and status of women is Rosenberg’s particular interest.

Rose Ransom belongs to the elite caste of women and works at the Ministry of Culture, rewriting literature to correct the views of the past. But now she has been given a special task.

Outbreaks of insurgency have been seen across the country; graffiti daubed on public buildings. Disturbingly, the graffiti is made up of lines from forbidden works, subversive words from the voices of women. Suspicion has fallen on Widowland, the run-down slums where childless women over fifty have been banished. These women are known to be mutinous, for they have nothing to lose.

Before the Leader arrives for the Coronation ceremony of King Edward and Queen Wallis, Rose must infiltrate Widowland to find the source of this rebellion and ensure that it is quashed.]]> C.J. Carey Stephen 0 to-read 3.50 2021
author: C.J. Carey
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/11/22
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]]> 21412673 458 Anne Rice 0307962520 Stephen 4 3.80 2014
author: Anne Rice
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/11/11
date added: 2025/11/11
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]]> 56918041 208 Patrick Moore Stephen 0 to-read 4.12 2021
author: Patrick Moore
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/10/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 63092727
The quest for social justice is a powerful crusade of our time, with an appeal to many different people, for many different reasons. But those who use the same words do not always present the same meanings. Clarifying those meanings is the first step toward finding out what we agree on and disagree on. From there, it is largely a question of what the facts are. Social Justice Fallacies reveals how many things that are thought to be true simply cannot stand up to documented facts, which are often the opposite of what is widely believed.

However attractive the social justice vision , the crucial question is whether the social justice agenda will get us to the fulfillment of that vision. History shows that the social justice agenda has often led in the opposite direction, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. 

More things are involved besides simply mistakes. All human beings are fallible, and social justice advocates may not necessarily make any more mistakes than others. But crusaders with an utter certainty about their mission are often undeterred by obstacles, evidence or even fatal dangers. That is where much of the Western world is today. The question is whether we will continue on heedlessly, past the point of no return.]]> 224 Thomas Sowell 1541603923 Stephen 4 psychology 4.30 2023
author: Thomas Sowell
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/10/13
date added: 2025/10/13
shelves: psychology
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]]> 43797  Pandora, fledgling vampire David Talbot chronicles the history of Pandora, a two-thousand-year-old vampire, and in fifteenth-century Renaissance Florence, Vittorio finds his world shattered when his entire family is destroyed in an act of unholy violence and embarks on a desperate quest for revenge, in Vittorio, the Vampire, in an omnibus edition.


From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 660 Anne Rice 0345476867 Stephen 0 to-read 4.06 1998
author: Anne Rice
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/10/08
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]]> 31343
The novel opens in present-day Paris in a crowded café, where David meets Pandora. She is two thousand years old, a Child of the Millennia, the first vampire ever made by the great Marius. David persuades her to tell the story of her life.

Pandora begins, reluctantly at first and then with increasing passion, to recount her mesmerizing tale, which takes us through the ages, from Imperial Rome to eighteenth-century France to twentieth-century Paris and New Orleans. She carries us back to her mortal girlhood in the world of Caesar Augustus, a world chronicled by Ovid and Petronius. This is where Pandora meets and falls in love with the handsome, charismatic, lighthearted, still-mortal Marius. This is the Rome she is forced to flee in fear of assassination by conspirators plotting to take over the city. And we follow her to the exotic port of Antioch, where she is destined to be reunited with Marius, now immortal and haunted by his vampire nature, who will bestow on her the Dark Gift as they set out on the fraught and fantastic adventure of their two turbulent centuries together.]]> 383 Anne Rice 8466302948 Stephen 0 to-read 3.82 1998
author: Anne Rice
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/10/08
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]]> 38093767 The Vampire Chronicles continue with a riveting, rich saga--part adventure, part fairy-tale--of Prince Lestat and the story of the Blood Communion as he tells the tale of his coming to rule the vampire world and the eternal struggle to find belonging, a place in the universe for the undead, and how, against his will, he must battle the menacing, seemingly unstoppable force determined to thwart his vision and destroy the entire vampire netherworld.

In this spellbinding novel, Lestat, rebel outlaw, addresses the tribe of vampires, directly, intimately, passionately, and tells the riveting story of the formation of the Blood Communion and how he became Prince of the vampire world, the true ruler of this vast force, and how his vision for all the Children of the Universe to thrive as one, came to be.
     The tale spills from Lestat's heart, as he speaks first of his new existence as reigning monarch--and then of his fierce battle of wits and words with the mysterious Rhoshamandes, proud Child of the Millennia, reviled outcast for his senseless slaughter of the legendary ancient vampire Maharet, who brought forth the Great Family of the undead; Rhoshamandes, a force who refuses to live in harmony at the Court of Prince Lestat and threatens all that Lestat has dreamt of.
     As the tale unfolds, Lestat takes us from the towers and battlements of his ancestral castle in the snow-covered mountains of France to the verdant wilds of lush Louisiana with its lingering fragrances of magnolias and night jasmine; from the far reaches of the Pacific's untouched islands to the 18th-century city of St. Petersburg and the court of the Empress Catherine . . .]]> 288 Anne Rice 1524732656 Stephen 0 to-read 3.90 2018
author: Anne Rice
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/10/08
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]]> 23267873
It is through this spirit, previously considered benign for thousands of vampire years and throughout the Vampire Chronicles, that we come to be told the hypnotic tale of a great sea power of ancient times; a mysterious heaven on earth situated on a boundless continent--and of how and why, and in what manner and with what far-reaching purpose, this force came to build and rule the great legendary empire of centuries ago that thrived in the Atlantic Ocean.

And as we learn of the mighty, far-reaching powers and perfections of this lost kingdom of Atalantaya, the lost realms of Atlantis, we come to understand its secrets, and how and why the vampire Lestat, indeed all the vampires, must reckon so many millennia later with the terrifying force of this ageless, all-powerful Atalantaya spirit.]]> 480 Anne Rice 0385353790 Stephen 0 to-read 3.69 2016
author: Anne Rice
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/10/08
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]]> 31331 400 Anne Rice 0099460173 Stephen 0 to-read 3.76 2003
author: Anne Rice
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/10/08
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]]> 31337 774 Anne Rice 0099446723 Stephen 0 to-read 3.90 2002
author: Anne Rice
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/10/08
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]]> 31341 752 Anne Rice 0099271494 Stephen 0 to-read 3.93 2001
author: Anne Rice
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/10/08
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]]> 31336 Interview with the Vampire. For centuries, Lestat—vampire-hero, enchanter, seducer of mortals—has been a courted prince in the dark and flourishing universe of the living dead. Now he is alone. And in his overwhelming need to destroy his doubts and his loneliness, Lestat embarks on the most dangerous enterprise he has undertaken in all the years of his haunted existence.
 
Praise for The Tale of the Body Thief
 
“Tinged with mystery, full of drama . . . The story is involving, the twists surprising.”—People
 
“Rice is our modern messenger of the occult, whose nicely updated dark-side passion plays twist and turn in true Gothic form.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Fast-paced . . . . mesmerizing . . . silkenly sensuous . . . No one writing today matches her deftness with the erotic.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 
“Hypnotic . . . masterful.”—Cosmopolitan


From the Paperback edition.]]> 464 Anne Rice 0345419634 Stephen 0 3.77 1992
author: Anne Rice
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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]]> 5479 Brave New World, originally published in 1932, presents Aldous Huxley's vision of the future--of a world utterly transformed. Through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class. This powerful work of speculative fiction sheds a blazing critical light on the present and is considered to be Aldous Huxley's most enduring masterpiece.

The non-fiction work Brave New World Revisited, published in 1958, is a fascinating work in which Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with his prophetic fantasy envisioned in Brave New World, including the threats to humanity, such as over-population, propaganda, and chemical persuasion.]]> 340 Aldous Huxley 0060776099 Stephen 4 4.17 1932
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1932
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/10/07
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]]> 233533140 Trent Dalton, Australia's #1 bestselling author, returns with the astonishing Gravity Let Me Go - a story you won't ever forget.

Longlisted for Best Fiction in the Indie Book Awards 2026





How will you ever know how the story ends, if you let the story go?

Noah Cork has just published the scoop of a a white-hot true-crime book about the cold-blooded killer who slipped an unfolding murder mystery into his mailbox. But if this is his moment of triumph, then why is the tin roof being ripped from the walls of his reality? Why are skeletons standing upright in his closet? Why do people want to run him over in the street? And why does his wife keep writing a cryptic message across the bathroom mirror? As a severe storm heads towards Brisbane, Noah is hurtling headfirst into a swirling storm of secrets. He must now cling for dear life to the only story that ever really mattered. He must hold on to the truth. He must hold on to the story. He must hold on to love.

Dark, gritty, hilarious and unexpected, Gravity Let Me Go is Trent Dalton's deeply personal exploration of marriage and ambition, truth-telling and truth-omitting, self-deception and self-preservation. It's a novel about the stories we want to tell the world and those we shouldn't, and how the stories we keep locked away are so often the stories that come to define us.

It's the story of a murder.

It's the story of a marriage.

It's the story of a lifetime.

'Gravity Let Me Go draws readers deep into a raw and chaotic world that is both unsettling and compelling ... His signature mix of grit, heart and unexpected turns keeps the narrative gripping, with twists readers won't see coming. Ultimately, fans of Dalton's previous novels will find Gravity Let Me Go impossible to put down.' Books+Publishing

'I could pick Dalton's writing from a mile away. It's revealed in the kindness of the detail, the musical references ... the pace of the writing, and the desire for each word to mean more in company than on its own. Trent Dalton's storytelling is vivid, rapid, and soaring.' Readings.]]> 416 Trent Dalton 1460713338 Stephen 0 to-read 3.94
author: Trent Dalton
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.94
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/10/03
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]]> 223889699 The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons.

Accompanying celebrated academic, Katherine Solomon, to a lecture she’s been invited to give in Prague, Robert Langdon’s world spirals out of control when she disappears without trace from their hotel room. Far from home and well out of his comfort zone, Langdon must pit his wits against forces unknown to recover the woman he loves.

But Prague is an old and dangerous city, steeped in folklore and mystery. For over two thousand years, the tides of history have washed back and forth over it, leaving behind echoes of everything that has gone before. Little can Langdon know that he is being stalked by a spectre from that dark past. He must use all of his arcane knowledge to decipher the world around him before he too is consumed by the rings of treachery and deception that have swallowed Katherine.

Against a backdrop of vast castles, towering churches, graveyards buried twelve deep and labyrinthine underground passages, Langdon must navigate a shadow city hiding in plain sight, a city which has successfully kept its secrets for centuries and will not readily deliver them.

This is a battlefield unlike any he has previously experienced, one on which he must fight not for his only life, but for the future of humanity itself.

The Secret of Secrets is Dan Brown’s first novel for over eight years and sees the stunning return of Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, this time pitting his wits against a conspiracy which will test even his considerable brainpower and take him to the edge of losing all that he holds dear…]]> 677 Dan Brown 0385546890 Stephen 0 to-read 3.78 2025
author: Dan Brown
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/10/03
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]]> 210223811 Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul—perhaps at the cost of their own.

Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek:

The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld.

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world.

That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams….

Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the very same conclusion.

With nothing but the tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, enough chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they don’t even like.

But Hell is not like the storybooks say, Magick isn’t always the answer, and there’s something in Alice and Peter’s past that could forge them into the perfect allies…or lead to their doom.]]> 559 R.F. Kuang Stephen 0 to-read 3.69 2025
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/09/19
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]]> 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]> 56 Hugh Howey Stephen 5 4.14 2011
author: Hugh Howey
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/09/16
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]]> 43229556 Jurassic Park: a wild and terrifying adventure about three strangers who must work together to contain a highly contagious, deadly organism.

When Pentagon bioterror operative Roberto Diaz was sent to investigate a suspected biochemical attack, he found something far worse: a highly mutative organism capable of extinction-level destruction. He contained it and buried it in cold storage deep beneath a little-used military repository.

Now, after decades of festering in a forgotten sub-basement, the specimen has found its way out and is on a lethal feeding frenzy. Only Diaz knows how to stop it.

He races across the country to help two unwitting security guards—one an ex-con, the other a single mother. Over one harrowing night, the unlikely trio must figure out how to quarantine this horror again. All they have is luck, fearlessness, and a mordant sense of humor. Will that be enough to save all of humanity?]]> 308 David Koepp 0062916432 Stephen 4 3.68 2019
author: David Koepp
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/09/15
date added: 2025/09/15
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]]> 28445518
Despite the hunger and the lies, even despite the plague, the kids of Perdido Beach are determined to survive. Creeping into the tenuous new world they've built, though, is perhaps the worst incarnation yet of the enemy known as the Darkness: fear.

Within the FAYZ, life breaks down while the Darkness takes over, literally—turning the dome-world of the FAYZ entirely black. In darkness, the worst fears of all emerge, and the cruelest of intentions are carried out. But even in their darkest moments, the inhabitants of the FAYZ maintain a will to survive and a desire to take care of the others in their ravaged band that endures, no matter what the cost.

Fear, Michael Grant's fifth book in the bestselling dystopian Gone series, will thrill readers . . . even as it terrifies them.]]> 549 Michael Grant 1742979947 Stephen 5 4.19 2012
author: Michael Grant
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2012
rating: 5
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]]> 58984660 Cold Storage comes a riveting, eerily plausible thriller, told with the menace and flair of Under the Dome or Project Hail Mary, in which a worldwide cataclysm plays out in the lives of one complicated Midwestern family.

In Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is just trying to get by after her semi-criminal ex-husband split, leaving behind his unruly teenage son.

Then the lights go out--not just in Aurora but across the globe. A solar storm has knocked out power almost everywhere. Suddenly, all problems are local, very local, and Aubrey must assume the mantle of fierce protector of her suburban neighborhood.

Across the country lives Aubrey's estranged brother, Thom. A fantastically wealthy, neurotically over-prepared Silicon Valley CEO, he plans to ride out the crisis in a gilded desert bunker he built for maximum comfort and security.

But the complicated history between the siblings is far from over, and what feels like the end of the world is just the beginning of several long-overdue reckonings--which not everyone will survive . . .

Aurora is suspenseful storytelling--both large scale and small--at its finest.]]> 289 David Koepp 0062916475 Stephen 0 to-read 3.70 2022
author: David Koepp
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/08/26
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]]> 158875813
Ireland is falling apart, caught in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny. As the life she knows and the ones she loves disappear before her eyes, Eilish must contend with the dystopian logic of her new, unraveling country. How far will she go to save her family? And what—or who—is she willing to leave behind?

The winner of the Booker Prize 2023 and a critically acclaimed national bestseller, Prophet Song presents a terrifying and shocking vision of a country sliding into authoritarianism and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.]]> 259 Paul Lynch Stephen 3 Too much wordy, literary mental imagery for my taste.
I could definitely empathise, and relate to their difficulties, but I struggled to engage with any of the characters.
]]> 4.00 2023
author: Paul Lynch
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/08/26
date added: 2025/08/26
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review:
Relentlessly grim, which I generally don't mind, but instilled with a vibe of hopelessness.
Too much wordy, literary mental imagery for my taste.
I could definitely empathise, and relate to their difficulties, but I struggled to engage with any of the characters.

]]> 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Stephen 4 3.51 2024
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/07/25
date added: 2025/07/25
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]]> 197716282 304 Dan Davies 1782839259 Stephen 0 to-read 3.72 2024
author: Dan Davies
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/02
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]]> 39863488
Dark, suspenseful, and deeply atmospheric, The Lost Man is the highly anticipated next book from the bestselling and award-winning Jane Harper, author of The Dry and Force of Nature.]]> 340 Jane Harper 1250105684 Stephen 0 to-read 4.12 2018
author: Jane Harper
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/02
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]]> 213113836 The latest stunning thriller from the bestselling author of Scrublands and The Seven.

Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic are back – as Nell is thrown into her most emotionally fraught investigation yet.

A controversial entrepreneur is murdered in a remote mountain valley, but this is no ordinary case. Ivan and Nell are soon contending with cowboy lawyers, conmen, bullion thieves and grave robbers.

But it's when Nell discovers the victim is a close blood relative, that the past begins to take on a looming significance.

What did take place in The Valley all those years ago? What was Nell's mother doing there, and what was her connection to troubled young police officer Simmons Burnside? And why do the police hierarchy insist Ivan and Nell stay with the case despite an obvious conflict of interest?

The Valley features a page-turning plot, intriguing characters, and an evocative sense of place—where nothing is ever quite what it seems. Chris Hammer, the acclaimed and bestselling author of the international bestsellers Scrublands, Treasure & Dirt, The Tilt and The Seven, presents another immersive and emotionally-rewarding thriller.

]]> 370 Chris Hammer 1761189980 Stephen 4 4.08 2024
author: Chris Hammer
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/19
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]]> 38919694
“Koontz continues the incredible saga of the robust character of Jane Hawk, and it’s as terrific as the others in the series.”—Associated Press

“We’re rewriting the play, and the play is this country, the world, the future. We break Jane’s heart, we’ll also break her will.”

She was one of the FBI’s top agents until she became the nation’s most-wanted fugitive. Now Jane Hawk may be all that stands between a free nation and its enslavement by a powerful secret society’s terrifying mind-control technology. She couldn’t save her husband, or the others whose lives have been destroyed, but equipped with superior tactical and survival skills—and the fury born of a broken heart and a hunger for justice—Jane has struck major blows against the insidious cabal.

But Jane’s enemies are about to hit back hard. If their best operatives can’t outrun her, they mean to bring her running to them, using her five-year-old son as bait. Jane knows there’s no underestimating their capabilities, but she must battle her way back across the country to the remote shelter where her boy is safely hidden . . . for now. As she moves resolutely forward, new threats begin to emerge: a growing number of brain-altered victims driven hopelessly, violently insane. With the madness spreading like a virus, the war between Jane and her enemies will become a fight for all their lives—against the lethal terror unleashed from behind the forbidden door.]]> 480 Dean Koontz 0525483926 Stephen 4 4.25 2018
author: Dean Koontz
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/03
date added: 2025/06/03
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]]> 13496
Sweeping from a harsh land of cold to a summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, A Game of Thrones tells a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; a child is lost in the twilight between life and death; and a determined woman undertakes a treacherous journey to protect all she holds dear. Amid plots and counter-plots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, allies and enemies, the fate of the Starks hangs perilously in the balance, as each side endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.]]> 835 George R.R. Martin Stephen 0 to-read 4.45 1996
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> 9791 A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).]]> 397 Bill Bryson 0307279464 Stephen 0 to-read 4.07 1998
author: Bill Bryson
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 36597362 491 Dean Koontz 052548342X Stephen 4 4.03 2018
author: Dean Koontz
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/09
date added: 2025/05/09
shelves:
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]]> 62069739
Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize and the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature

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

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

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

At a breakneck pace and with a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.]]> 193 Benjamín Labatut Stephen 0 to-read 4.06 2020
author: Benjamín Labatut
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> 5130 Island, his last novel, Huxley transports us to a Pacific island where, for 120 years, an ideal society has flourished. Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala, and events begin to move when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faranby, is shipwrecked there. What Faranby doesn't expect is how his time with the people of Pala will revolutionize all his values and—to his amazement—give him hope.]]> 354 Aldous Huxley 0060085495 Stephen 0 to-read 3.87 1962
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 34962255
"No time to delay. Do what you were born to do. Fame will be yours when you do this."

These are the words that ring in the mind of mild-mannered, beloved schoolteacher Cora Gundersun - just before she takes her own life, and many others', in a shocking act of carnage. When the disturbing contents of her secret journal are discovered, it seems certain that she must have been insane. But Jane Hawk knows better.

In the wake of her husband's inexplicable suicide - and the equally mysterious deaths of scores of other exemplary individuals - Jane picks up the trail of a secret cabal of powerful players who think themselves above the law and beyond punishment. But the ruthless people bent on hijacking America's future for their own monstrous ends never banked on a highly trained FBI agent willing to go rogue - and become the nation's most wanted fugitive - in order to derail their insidious plans to gain absolute power with a terrifying technological breakthrough.

Driven by love for her lost husband and by fear for the five-year-old son she has sent into hiding, Jane Hawk has become an unstoppable predator. Those she is hunting will have nowhere to run when her shadow falls across them.]]> 517 Dean Koontz 0345546806 Stephen 4 4.07 2017
author: Dean Koontz
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
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]]> 223355691 This deep-dive into the revolutionary EOS method to strengthen a company’s process component will help leaders at all companies—from early stage startups to established corporations—run better businesses and live better lives.

Part of the TRACTION Library, Process! proves that a high-level, 20/80 approach to getting your core processes “followed by all” will help
Get consistently exceptional results Improve and innovate as necessary Free yourself to live your ideal life
If you own, run, or lead in a fast-moving business, you’re likely driven by passion and a desire to be free. Many leaders mistakenly believe instilling rigor and discipline for process throughout your organizations will inhibit freedom.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

It’s when you’re stuck in the day-to-day, putting out fires and cleaning up messes, that passion turns to frustration. Freedom seems somewhere between elusive and impossible. The secret to getting unstuck is process. This inspiring, informative field guide will prove it’s possible to establish rigor and discipline for process while also increasing creativity, flexibility, and innovation.

Process! will help you identify a handful of core processes that make your business uniquely valuable. You’ll learn how to document and simplify the major steps in those processes so they can be done the right and best way, every time. Finally, you’ll execute a simple, step-by-step plan that is helping more than 10,000 entrepreneurs around the world consistently get the results they want.]]> 192 Mike Paton Stephen 0 to-read 3.69
author: Mike Paton
name: Stephen
average rating: 3.69
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> 113934 384 Eliyahu M. Goldratt 0884271781 Stephen 0 to-read 4.05
author: Eliyahu M. Goldratt
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.05
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 39703115
From inclusion to the secret autonomy in rom-coms, from effective activism to what poker can tell us about power structures, Deborah explores what it means to be a twenty-first-century feminist, and encourages us to make the world better for everyone.

The book also includes exclusive interviews with performers, activists and thinkers - Jessamyn Stanley, Zoe Coombs Marr, Susan Wokoma, Bisha K. Ali, Reubs Walsh, Becca Bunce, Amika George, Mo Mansfied and Leyla Hussein - plus a piece from Hannah Gadsby.]]> 336 Deborah Frances-White 0349010145 Stephen 0 to-read 4.13 2018
author: Deborah Frances-White
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 114850465
Six Conversations We're Scared to Have - from The Guilty Feminist will face up to one of the biggest challenges in feminism right now - how we can have difficult conversations well, how we can disagree well, how we can build bridges and change minds, including our own.

In Deborah's own words, ' Six Conversations... is a book I simply have to write. This is a dialogue I've been having with those I trust in private for a long time. This is a conversation I need to be brave enough to have in public. I am part of a movement that has called Time's Up on top-down power at the expense of those who have been used and discarded. I want to live in a world where people in marginalised groups have a real voice that enacts fast change. I also speak as someone whose formative years were spent in a high control group, where people rarely said what they meant. We said what we needed to, to avoid punishment and shunning which meant our words often didn't match our thoughts and actions. I know what that fosters and where it ends. I feel compelled to look at the way our society is changing and look at how we can mature together and build better, stronger, more usable bridges more quickly to make the world a genuinely better place for those who desperately need it to be. And isn't that all of us right now?']]> 0 Deborah Frances-White 0349015813 Stephen 0 to-read 4.20
author: Deborah Frances-White
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 41444159 #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz brings Jane Hawk's one-woman war to an explosive climax as the rogue FBI agent wages her final battle against a terrifying conspiracy--for vengeance, for justice, and for humanity's freedom.

Groundbreaking, wholly involving, eerily prescient and terrifyingly topical, Dean Koontz's Jane Hawk series sets a new standard for contemporary thrillers. Since her sensational debut in The Silent Corner, readers have been riveted by Jane Hawk's resolute quest to take down the influential architects of an accelerating operation to control every level of society via an army of mind-altered citizens. At first, only Jane stood against the "Arcadian" conspirators, but slowly others have emerged to stand with her, even as there are troubling signs that the "adjusted" people are beginning to spin viciously out of control. Now, in the thrilling, climactic showdown that will decide America's future, Jane will require all her resources--and more--as she confronts those at the malevolent, impregnable center of power.]]> 432 Dean Koontz 0525484701 Stephen 0 to-read 4.30 2019
author: Dean Koontz
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> 15676
A handful of people. From different backgrounds, living in different towns and cities across America, they had nothing in common - except fear.

They were victims.

Cold and stark, an unknown terror gripped their dreams and turned their days into living nightmares.

They were chosen.

And they could not escape. Deep in the heart of a sprawling desert, a dark memory called out to them, drawing them to the Tranquility Motel - where the terrifying truth was waiting...]]> 704 Dean Koontz 0425181111 Stephen 0 to-read 4.01 1986
author: Dean Koontz
name: Stephen
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
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]]>