Thomas's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 06 Apr 2025 19:12:02 -0700 60 Thomas's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Remains of the Day 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 Thomas 0 2025 4.14 1989 The Remains of the Day
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> Catch-22 168668
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.]]> 453 Joseph Heller 0684833395 Thomas 0 2025 3.99 1961 Catch-22
author: Joseph Heller
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> El invierno en Lisboa 370401 221 Antonio Muñoz Molina 8432217220 Thomas 0 2025, libros-en-español 3.51 1987 El invierno en Lisboa
author: Antonio Muñoz Molina
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: 2025, libros-en-español
review:

]]> La casa de los espĂ­ritus 106192 Librarian note: An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here.

La casa de los espíritus narra la saga familiar de los Trueba, desde principios de siglo hasta el presente. Magistralmente ambientada en algún lugar de América Latina, la novela sigue paso a paso el dramático y extravagante destino de unos personajes atrapados en un entorno sorprendente y exótico.]]> 454 Isabel Allende 8401423023 Thomas 0 2025, libros-en-español 4.42 1982 La casa de los espíritus
author: Isabel Allende
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: 2025, libros-en-español
review:

]]> El amante japonés 25227173 352 Isabel Allende 8401015723 Thomas 0 2025, libros-en-español 4.00 2015 El amante japonés
author: Isabel Allende
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: 2025, libros-en-español
review:

]]> Ainda estou aqui 25943917
Eunice Paiva é uma mulher de muitas vidas. Casada com o deputado Rubens Paiva, esteve ao seu lado quando foi cassado e exilado, em 1964. Mãe de cinco filhos, passou a criá-los sozinha quando, em 1971, o marido foi preso por agentes da ditadura, a seguir torturado e morto. Em meio à dor, ela se reinventou. Voltou a estudar, tornou-se advogada, defensora dos direitos indígenas. Nunca chorou na frente das câmeras.

Ao falar de Eunice, e de sua última luta, desta vez contra o Alzheimer, Marcelo Rubens Paiva fala também da memória, da infância e do filho. E mergulha num momento negro da história recente brasileira para contar � e tentar entender � o que de fato ocorreu com Rubens Paiva, seu pai, naquele janeiro de 1971.]]> 296 Marcelo Rubens Paiva 8579624169 Thomas 0 2025, livros-em-portugu-s 4.46 2015 Ainda estou aqui
author: Marcelo Rubens Paiva
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: 2025, livros-em-portugu-s
review:

]]> Violeta 57933338 The epic story of Violeta del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century.

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life will be marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses all and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling. . . .

She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of both poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life will be shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics.

Told through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.]]> 322 Isabel Allende 0593496205 Thomas 0 2025, libros-en-español 3.97 2022 Violeta
author: Isabel Allende
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: 2025, libros-en-español
review:

]]> Como agua para chocolate 73716 248 Laura Esquivel 0385721234 Thomas 0 2021, libros-en-español 3.99 1989 Como agua para chocolate
author: Laura Esquivel
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at: 2021/03/01
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: 2021, libros-en-español
review:
Mi primero que he leído originalmente escrito en español, esta cuenta diga la historia de una familia y las complicaciones del amor que viaja a través de generaciónes. También, Esquivel escriba sobre la comida como es un carácter incorporado en los eventos que estan afectando los miembros de la familia de que estamos aprendiendo.
]]> Diarios de motocicleta 1471037
Ěý±Ő±Ő> 211 Ernesto Che Guevara 8466624767 Thomas 0 2024, libros-en-español 3.74 1992 Diarios de motocicleta
author: Ernesto Che Guevara
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: 2024, libros-en-español
review:

]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Thomas 0 2021 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
read at: 2021/03/31
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: 2021
review:
It may struggle to reach beyond the nuances explored in her other novels, but this Austen story perhaps investigates class differences more than any other work of hers.
]]> <![CDATA[The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism]]> 17334495 Team of Rivals, captures the Progressive Era through the story of the broken friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, culminating in their running against one another for president in 1912.]]> 910 Doris Kearns Goodwin Thomas 0 currently-reading 4.12 2013 The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Our Missing Hearts 60149573 A novel about a mother’s unbreakable love in a world consumed by fear.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture� in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.

Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.]]> 335 Celeste Ng 0593492544 Thomas 0 2024 3.74 2022 Our Missing Hearts
author: Celeste Ng
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/17
date added: 2024/11/17
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> Little Fires Everywhere 34273236
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned � from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren � an enigmatic artist and single mother � who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother–daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town � and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at an unexpected and devastating cost . . .]]> 338 Celeste Ng 0735224293 Thomas 0 2024 4.05 2017 Little Fires Everywhere
author: Celeste Ng
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/08
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> War 217217007

War is an intimate and sweeping account of one of the most tumultuous periods in presidential politics and American history.

We see President Joe Biden and his top advisers in tense conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. We also see Donald Trump, conducting a shadow presidency and seeking to regain political power.

With unrivaled, inside-the-room reporting, Woodward shows President Biden’s approach to managing the war in Ukraine, the most significant land war in Europe since World War II, and his tortured path to contain the bloody Middle East conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.

Woodward reveals the extraordinary complexity and consequence of wartime back-channel diplomacy and decision-making to deter the use of nuclear weapons and a rapid slide into World War III.

The raw cage-fight of politics accelerates as Americans prepare to vote in 2024, starting between President Biden and Trump, and ending with the unexpected elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president.

War provides an unvarnished examination of the vice president as she tries to embrace the Biden legacy and policies while beginning to chart a path of her own as a presidential candidate.

Woodward’s reporting once again sets the standard for journalism at its most authoritative and illuminating.]]> 441 Bob Woodward Thomas 0 2024 4.24 2024 War
author: Bob Woodward
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/03
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> Kindred 60931 The visionary author’s masterpiece pulls us—along with her Black female hero—through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.

Dana, a modern Black woman, is celebrating her 26th birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.]]> 288 Octavia E. Butler 0807083690 Thomas 0 2024 4.30 1979 Kindred
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> The Message 210943364
The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk� city of “old traditions and new machinery,� but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.

He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning� of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.

And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.]]> 232 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0593230388 Thomas 0 2024 4.51 2024 The Message
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/18
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Around the World in Eighty Days]]> 54479 252 Jules Verne 014044906X Thomas 0 2020 3.95 1872 Around the World in Eighty Days
author: Jules Verne
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1872
rating: 0
read at: 2020/09/04
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: 2020
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not)]]> 418285 Noli Me Tangere has become widely known as the great novel of the Philippines. A passionate love story set against the ugly political backdrop of repression, torture, and murder, "The Noli," as it is called in the Philippines, was the first major artistic manifestation of Asian resistance to European colonialism, and Rizal became a guiding conscience—and martyr—for the revolution that would subsequently rise up in the Spanish province.]]> 444 José Rizal 0143039695 Thomas 0 currently-reading 4.22 1887 Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not)
author: José Rizal
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1887
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris]]> 10131648
After risking the hazardous journey across the Atlantic, these Americans embarked on a greater journey in the City of Light. Most had never left home, never experienced a different culture. None had any guarantee of success. That they achieved so much for themselves and their country profoundly altered American history. As David McCullough writes, "Not all pioneers went west." Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in America, was one of this intrepid band. Another was Charles Sumner, who enrolled at the Sorbonne because of a burning desire to know more about everything. There he saw black students with the same ambition he had, and when he returned home, he would become the most powerful, unyielding voice for abolition in the U.S. Senate, almost at the cost of his life.

Two staunch friends, James Fenimore Cooper and Samuel F. B. Morse, worked unrelentingly every day in Paris, Cooper writing and Morse painting what would be his masterpiece. From something he saw in France, Morse would also bring home his momentous idea for the telegraph.

Pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk from New Orleans launched his spectacular career performing in Paris at age 15. George P. A. Healy, who had almost no money and little education, took the gamble of a lifetime and with no prospects whatsoever in Paris became one of the most celebrated portrait painters of the day. His subjects included Abraham Lincoln.

Medical student Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote home of his toil and the exhilaration in "being at the center of things" in what was then the medical capital of the world. From all they learned in Paris, Holmes and his fellow "medicals" were to exert lasting influence on the profession of medicine in the United States.

Writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and Henry James were all "discovering" Paris, marveling at the treasures in the Louvre, or out with the Sunday throngs strolling the city's boulevards and gardens. "At last I have come into a dreamland," wrote Harriet Beecher Stowe, seeking escape from the notoriety Uncle Tom's Cabin had brought her. Almost forgotten today, the heroic American ambassador Elihu Washburne bravely remained at his post through the Franco-Prussian War, the long Siege of Paris and even more atrocious nightmare of the Commune. His vivid account in his diary of the starvation and suffering endured by the people of Paris (drawn on here for the first time) is one readers will never forget. The genius of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the son of an immigrant shoemaker, and of painters Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent, three of the greatest American artists ever, would flourish in Paris, inspired by the examples of brilliant French masters, and by Paris itself.

Nearly all of these Americans, whatever their troubles learning French, their spells of homesickness, and their suffering in the raw cold winters by the Seine, spent many of the happiest days and nights of their lives in Paris. McCullough tells this sweeping, fascinating story with power and intimacy, bringing us into the lives of remarkable men and women who, in Saint-Gaudens's phrase, longed "to soar into the blue." The Greater Journey is itself a masterpiece.]]> 558 David McCullough 1416571760 Thomas 0 currently-reading 3.92 2011 The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
author: David McCullough
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Joy Luck Club 7763 Alternate cover editions of ISBN 9780143038092 can be found here.

Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's telling the stories. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives � until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts.

With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.]]> 288 Amy Tan Thomas 0 2024 3.96 1989 The Joy Luck Club
author: Amy Tan
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/30
date added: 2024/07/30
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> The Sorrow of War 780889 The Sorrow of War has won worldwide acclaim and become an international bestseller]]> 233 Bảo Ninh 1573225436 Thomas 0 2024 4.01 1991 The Sorrow of War
author: Bảo Ninh
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/03
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> Run Me to Earth 46221896
Alisak, Prany, and Noi—three orphans united by devastating loss—must do what is necessary to survive the perilous landscape of 1960s Laos. When they take shelter in a bombed out field hospital, they meet Vang, a doctor dedicated to helping the wounded at all costs. Soon the teens are serving as motorcycle couriers, delicately navigating their bikes across the fields filled with unexploded bombs, beneath the indiscriminate barrage from the sky.

In a world where the landscape and the roads have turned into an ocean of bombs, we follow their grueling days of rescuing civilians and searching for medical supplies, until Vang secures their evacuation on the last helicopters leaving the country. It’s a move with irrevocable consequences—and sets them on disparate and treacherous paths across the world.

Spanning decades and magically weaving together storylines laced with beauty and cruelty, Paul Yoon crafts a gorgeous story that is a breathtaking historical feat and a fierce study of the powers of hope, perseverance, and grace.]]> 272 Paul Yoon 1501154044 Thomas 0 2024 3.65 2020 Run Me to Earth
author: Paul Yoon
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/05
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> There There 36692478 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780525520375.

Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.

Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.

Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.]]> 294 Tommy Orange Thomas 0 2024 3.98 2018 There There
author: Tommy Orange
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/16
date added: 2024/05/16
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City]]> 25852784 Evicted, Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of 21st-century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.]]> 418 Matthew Desmond 0553447432 Thomas 0 2024 4.47 2016 Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
author: Matthew Desmond
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/14
date added: 2024/05/14
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush]]> 41021422 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER •Ě�NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review | Time | NPR |ĚýSt. Louis Post-Dispatch

In this brilliant biography, Jon Meacham, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author, chronicles the life of George Herbert Walker Bush. Drawing on President Bush’s personal diaries, on the diaries of his wife, Barbara, and on extraordinary access to the forty-first president and his family, Meacham paints an intimate and surprising portrait of an intensely private man who led the nation through tumultuous times. From the Oval Office to Camp David, from his study in the private quarters of the White House to Air Force One, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the first Gulf War to the end of Communism, Destiny and Power charts the thoughts, decisions, and emotions of a modern president who may have been the last of his kind. This is the human story of a man who was, like the nation he led, at once noble and flawed.

His was one of the great American lives. Born into a loving, privileged, and competitive family, Bush joined the navy on his eighteenth birthday and at age twenty was shot down on a combat mission over the Pacific. He married young, started a family, and resisted pressure to go to Wall Street, striking out for the adventurous world of Texas oil. Over the course of three decades, Bush would rise from the chairmanship of his county Republican Party to serve as congressman, ambassador to the United Nations, head of the Republican National Committee, envoy to China, director of Central Intelligence, vice president under Ronald Reagan, and, finally, president of the United States. In retirement he became the first president since John Adams to see his son win the ultimate prize in American politics.

With access not only to the Bush diaries but, through extensive interviews, to the former president himself, Meacham presents Bush’s candid assessments of many of the critical figures of the age, ranging from Richard Nixon to Nancy Reagan; Mao to Mikhail Gorbachev; Dick Cheney to Donald Rumsfeld; Henry Kissinger to Bill Clinton. Here is high politics as it really is but as we rarely see it.

From the Pacific to the presidency, Destiny and Power charts the vicissitudes of the life of this quietly compelling American original. Meacham sheds new light on the rise of the right wing in the Republican Party, a shift that signaled the beginning of the end of the center in American politics. Destiny and Power is an affecting portrait of a man who, driven by destiny and by duty, forever sought, ultimately, to put the country first.

Praise for Destiny and Power

“Should be required reading—if not for every presidential candidate, then for every president-elect.��The Washington Post

“Reflects the qualities of both subject and judicious, balanced, deliberative, with a deep appreciation of history and the personalities who shape it.��The New York Times Book Review

“A fascinating biography of the forty-first president.��The Dallas Morning News

“When we rank, reconsider, laud, or denounce past Presidents, living or dead, we are taking stock of our own times. In that sense, the vindication of George H. W. Bush is a reflection of what we know we’ve lost. Jon Meacham’s new biography of Bush, Destiny and Power, makes that plain from its very first pages.��The New Yorker

“The story of the forty-first man to hold the office sheds light not only on the country we were, but the one we’ve become.��Los Angeles Times


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 794 Jon Meacham 0812998200 Thomas 0 2024 4.02 2015 Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush
author: Jon Meacham
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/11
date added: 2024/05/11
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)]]> 61215351 One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit.

In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.]]> 432 J.R.R. Tolkien Thomas 0 2024 4.52 1954 The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.52
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/10
date added: 2024/05/10
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> Napoleon: A Life 20821092 The definitive biography of the great soldier-statesman by the New York Times bestselling author of The Storm of War—winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography and theĚýGrand Prix of the Fondation NapoleonĚýĚý

Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo: his battles are among the greatest in history, but Napoleon Bonaparte was far more than a military genius and astute leader of men. Like George Washington and his own hero Julius Caesar, he was one of the greatest soldier-statesmen of all times.

Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon is the first one-volume biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon’s thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation. At last we see him as he was: protean multitasker, decisive, surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and his errant wife Josephine. Like Churchill, he understood the strategic importance of telling his own story, and his memoirs, dictated from exile on St. Helena, became the single bestselling book of the nineteenth century.

An award-winning historian, Roberts traveled to fifty-three of Napoleon’s sixty battle sites, discovered crucial new documents in archives, and even made the long trip by boat to St. Helena. He is as acute in his understanding of politics as he is of military history. Here at last is a biography worthy of its subject: magisterial, insightful, beautifully written, by one of our foremost historians.]]> 976 Andrew Roberts 0670025321 Thomas 0 2024 4.19 2014 Napoleon: A Life
author: Andrew Roberts
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/04
date added: 2024/05/04
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> Poverty, by America 61358638 Reimagining the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?

In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.

Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.]]> 304 Matthew Desmond 0593239911 Thomas 0 2024 4.27 2023 Poverty, by America
author: Matthew Desmond
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/27
date added: 2024/04/27
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hobbit, or There and Back Again]]> 5907 Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).]]> 366 J.R.R. Tolkien Thomas 0 2024 4.29 1937 The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/26
date added: 2024/04/26
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1)]]> 23168277
The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.]]> 371 Viet Thanh Nguyen 0802123457 Thomas 0 2024 4.00 2015 The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1)
author: Viet Thanh Nguyen
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)]]> 8127 Anne of Green Gables is also a wonderful portrait of a time, a place, a family� and, most of all, love.

WITH AN AFTERWORD BY JENNIFER LEE CARELL]]> 320 L.M. Montgomery 0451528824 Thomas 0 2024 It’s sweet. 4.31 1908 Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)
author: L.M. Montgomery
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1908
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2024/04/08
shelves: 2024
review:
It’s sweet.
]]> Les Misérables 24280 1463 Victor Hugo 0451525264 Thomas 0 2024 4.19 1862 Les Misérables
author: Victor Hugo
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1862
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2024/04/08
shelves: 2024
review:
It’s longggg but so worth it!
]]> The Call of the Wild 37119748 'The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect and, while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused.'

The biting cold and the aching silence of the far North become an unforgettable backdrop for Jack London's vivid, rousing, superbly realistic wilderness adventure stories featuring the author's unique knowledge of the Yukon and the behavior of humans and animals facing nature at its cruelest.

The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.

Contents of this edition:
- The Call of the Wild
- To Build a Fire
- Bâtard
- Love of Life]]> 160 Jack London 0241341493 Thomas 0 2020 3.88 1903 The Call of the Wild
author: Jack London
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1903
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/31
shelves: 2020
review:
Jack London thrives in chronicling the relationship between a man and his dog, and perhaps even more so, between living beings, man or not, and their connection to the wilderness, transporting the reader to the small villages ice capped mountains of the Yukon.
]]> <![CDATA[A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House]]> 87476
The hundreds of photographs and documents included here have been gleaned from such sources as the John F. Kennedy Library, the Library of Congress, the Associated Press, Life magazine, and more. The photos capture private meetings with the president, the Bay of Pigs, the Civil Rights movement, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as official White House memoranda, public speeches, social occasions, and private moments with the Kennedy family. These powerful images add a new dimension to the award-winning text and introduce a new generation to some of the most important and visually iconic moments in our recent past.]]> 384 Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. 1579124496 Thomas 0 currently-reading 4.16 1965 A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House
author: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1965
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/23
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Half of a Yellow Sun 18749 A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as “the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,� Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed.

With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.

Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.]]> 435 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 1400044162 Thomas 0 2023 4.34 2006 Half of a Yellow Sun
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2023/11/25
date added: 2023/11/25
shelves: 2023
review:
Superbly written and engaging.
]]> The Hunchback of Notre-Dame 30597
The novel has been described as a key text in French literature[1] and has been adapted for film over a dozen times, in addition to numerous television and stage adaptations, such as a 1923 silent film with Lon Chaney, a 1939 sound film with Charles Laughton, and a 1996 Disney animated film with Tom Hulce (both as Quasimodo).

The novel sought to preserve values of French culture in a time period of great change, which resulted in the destruction of many French Gothic structures. The novel made Notre-Dame de Paris a national icon and served as a catalyst for renewed interest in the restoration of Gothic form.]]> 510 Victor Hugo 0451527887 Thomas 0 2023 4.01 1831 The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
author: Victor Hugo
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1831
rating: 0
read at: 2023/11/19
date added: 2023/11/19
shelves: 2023
review:
Truly magnificent (and so different than the Disney movie).
]]> Go Tell It on the Mountain 17143 Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves.]]> 256 James Baldwin 0141185910 Thomas 0 There’s no bad sentence. 4.06 1953 Go Tell It on the Mountain
author: James Baldwin
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at: 2023/11/12
date added: 2023/11/12
shelves:
review:
There’s no bad sentence.
]]> No Country for Old Men 12497 Alternate Cover Edition for ISBN 9780375706677

In his blistering new novel, Cormac McCarthy returns to the Texas-Mexico border, the setting of his famed Border Trilogy. The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones.

One day, Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a bodyguard of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law–in the person of aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell–can contain.

As Moss tries to evade his pursuers–in particular a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives–McCarthy simultaneously strips down the American crime novel and broadens its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning’s headlines.
No Country for Old Men is a triumph.]]> 309 Cormac McCarthy Thomas 0 2023 Cold and ruthless. 4.15 2005 No Country for Old Men
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2023/10/28
date added: 2023/10/28
shelves: 2023
review:
Cold and ruthless.
]]> Mystic River 21671
Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay -- demons that urge him to do terrible things. When Jimmy's daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy's daughter died covered in someone else's blood.

A tense and unnerving psychological thriller, Mystic River is also an epic novel of love and loyalty, faith and family, in which people irrevocably marked by the past find themselves on a collision course with the darkest truths of their own hidden selves.]]> 416 Dennis Lehane 0060584750 Thomas 0 currently-reading 4.17 2001 Mystic River
author: Dennis Lehane
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/27
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom]]> 38530663
Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass spoke widely, using his own story to condemn slavery. By the Civil War, Douglass had become the most famed and widely travelled orator in the nation. In his unique and eloquent voice, written and spoken, Douglass was a fierce critic of the United States as well as a radical patriot. After the war he sometimes argued politically with younger African Americans, but he never forsook either the Republican party or the cause of black civil and political rights.

In this biography, David Blight has drawn on new information held in a private collection that few other historian have consulted, as well as recently discovered issues of Douglass’s newspapers.]]> 888 David W. Blight 1416590315 Thomas 0 2023 4.14 2018 Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
author: David W. Blight
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2023/08/21
date added: 2023/08/21
shelves: 2023
review:
The definitive biography of the one of the greatest autobiographers. Blight proves there's always something new to learn about the prolific writer, thinker, abolitionist, and champion of freedom.
]]> <![CDATA[Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President]]> 10335318
But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what hap­pened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in tur­moil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his con­dition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet.

Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history.]]> 339 Candice Millard 0385526261 Thomas 0 2023 4.19 2011 Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
author: Candice Millard
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2023/08/20
date added: 2023/08/20
shelves: 2023
review:
A really understudied figure that thanks to Millard now is becoming more known. Impressive integration of science, politics, history, and fate.
]]> <![CDATA[The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon]]> 3398625 The Lost City of Z is a blockbuster adventure narrative about what lies beneath the impenetrable jungle canopy of the Amazon.

After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve "the greatest exploration mystery of the 20th century": What happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett & his quest for the Lost City of Z?

In 1925, Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, hoping to make one of the most important discoveries in history. For centuries Europeans believed the world's largest jungle concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many scientists convinced that the Amazon was truly inimical to humans. But Fawcett, whose daring expeditions inspired Conan Doyle's The Lost World, had spent years building his scientific case. Captivating the imagination of millions round the globe, Fawcett embarked with his 21-year-old son, determined to prove that this ancient civilisation--which he dubbed Z--existed. Then his expedition vanished. Fawcett's fate, & the tantalizing clues he left behind about Z, became an obsession for hundreds who followed him into the uncharted wilderness.

For decades scientists & adventurers have searched for evidence of Fawcett's party & the lost City of Z. Countless have perished, been captured by tribes or gone mad. As Grann delved ever deeper into the mystery surrounding Fawcett's quest, & the greater mystery of what lies within the Amazon, he found himself, like the generations who preceded him, being irresistibly drawn into the jungle's green hell. His quest for the truth & discoveries about Fawcett's fate & Z form the heart of this complexly enthralling narrative.]]> 339 David Grann 0385513534 Thomas 0 2023 3.87 2009 The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
author: David Grann
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2023/08/11
date added: 2023/08/11
shelves: 2023
review:
The most interesting parts are details about journeys through the Amazon.
]]> Leonardo da Vinci 34684622 600 Walter Isaacson 1501139150 Thomas 0 2023 A true genius. 4.19 2017 Leonardo da Vinci
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/24
date added: 2023/07/24
shelves: 2023
review:
A true genius.
]]> <![CDATA[Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.]]> 16121 ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýBorn the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world's richest man by creating America's most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil. Branded "the Octopus" by legions of muckrakers, the trust refined and marketed nearly 90 percent of the oil produced in America.
ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýRockefeller was likely the most controversial businessman in our nation's history. Critics charged that his empire was built on unscrupulous tactics: grand-scale collusion with the railroads, predatory pricing, industrial espionage, and wholesale bribery of political officials. The titan spent more than thirty years dodging investigations until Teddy Roosevelt and his trustbusters embarked on a marathon crusade to bring Standard Oil to bay.
ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýWhile providing abundant new evidence of Rockefeller's misdeeds, Chernow discards the stereotype of the cold-blooded monster to sketch an unforgettably human portrait of a quirky, eccentric original. A devout Baptist and temperance advocate, Rockefeller gave money more generously--his chosen philanthropies included the Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Chicago, and what is today Rockefeller University--than anyone before him. Titan presents a finely nuanced portrait of a fascinating, complex man, synthesizing his public and private lives and disclosing numerous family scandals, tragedies, and misfortunes that have never before come to light.
ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýJohn D. Rockefeller's story captures a pivotal moment in American history, documenting the dramatic post-Civil War shift from small business to the rise of giant corporations that irrevocably transformed the nation. With cameos by Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, Jay Gould, William Vanderbilt, Ida Tarbell, Andrew Carnegie, Carl Jung, J. Pierpont Morgan, William James, Henry Clay Frick, Mark Twain, and Will Rogers, Titan turns Rockefeller's life into a vivid tapestry of American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is Ron Chernow's signal triumph that he narrates this monumental saga with all the sweep, drama, and insight that this giant subject deserves.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 832 Ron Chernow 1400077303 Thomas 0 2023 4.15 1998 Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
author: Ron Chernow
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/16
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves: 2023
review:
Written by one of the greatest biographers ever, Titan captures Rockefeller in all his complexities.
]]> The Good Lord Bird 16171272 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

From the bestselling author of The Color of Water and Song Yet Sung comes the story of a young boy born a slave who joins John Brown’s antislavery crusade—and who must pass as a girl to survive.

Henry Shackleford is a young slave living in the Kansas Territory in 1857, when the region is a battleground between anti- and pro-slavery forces. When John Brown, the legendary abolitionist, arrives in the area, an argument between Brown and Henry’s master quickly turns violent. Henry is forced to leave town—with Brown, who believes he’s a girl.

Over the ensuing months, Henry—whom Brown nicknames Little Onion—conceals his true identity as he struggles to stay alive. Eventually Little Onion finds himself with Brown at the historic raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859—one of the great catalysts for the Civil War.

An absorbing mixture of history and imagination, and told with McBride’s meticulous eye for detail and character, The Good Lord Bird is both a rousing adventure and a moving exploration of identity and survival.]]> 417 James McBride 1594486344 Thomas 0 2023 3.90 2013 The Good Lord Bird
author: James McBride
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2023/06/26
date added: 2023/06/26
shelves: 2023
review:
Awesome piece of historical fiction that brings John Brown to life.
]]> The Guns of August 40779082
In this landmark, Pulitzer Prize–winning account, renowned historian Barbara W. Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty days in the summer of 1914 that determined the course of the conflict, the century, and ultimately our present world. Beginning with the funeral of Edward VII, Tuchman traces each step that led to the inevitable clash. And inevitable it was, with all sides plotting their war for a generation. Dizzyingly comprehensive and spectacularly portrayed with her famous talent for evoking the characters of the war’s key players, Tuchman’s magnum opus is a classic for the ages.]]> 658 Barbara W. Tuchman Thomas 0 2023 4.17 1962 The Guns of August
author: Barbara W. Tuchman
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at: 2023/06/22
date added: 2023/06/22
shelves: 2023
review:
Dense, and superbly written, it’s definitely a comprehensive education on the outbreak of WWI.
]]> <![CDATA[Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI]]> 29496076 Ěý
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.

In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,� roamed � virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. The book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward Native Americans that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly riveting, but also emotionally devastating.]]> 359 David Grann 0385534256 Thomas 0 2023 4.12 2017 Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
author: David Grann
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2023/05/31
date added: 2023/05/31
shelves: 2023
review:
Harrowing but worth reading. Can’t wait for the movie.
]]> <![CDATA[The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration]]> 8171378
Wilkerson tells this interwoven story through the lives of three unforgettable protagonists: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper’s wife, who in 1937 fled Mississippi for Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, and Robert Foster, a surgeon who left Louisiana in 1953 in hopes of making it in California.

Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous cross-country journeys by car and train and their new lives in colonies in the New World. The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration� within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is a modern classic.]]> 622 Isabel Wilkerson 0679444327 Thomas 0 2023 4.45 2010 The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2023/05/11
date added: 2023/05/11
shelves: 2023
review:
Really well told through individual experiences.
]]> Americanah 15796700 477 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Thomas 0 2023 4.32 2013 Americanah
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2023/05/08
date added: 2023/05/08
shelves: 2023
review:
Really well written and characters are so rich and interesting.
]]> <![CDATA[Captains of the Sands (English and Portuguese Edition)]]> 565565 248 Jorge Amado 0380897180 Thomas 0 2023 4.05 1937 Captains of the Sands (English and Portuguese Edition)
author: Jorge Amado
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at: 2023/04/12
date added: 2023/04/12
shelves: 2023
review:
Brazilian Lord of the Flies. Really good.
]]> <![CDATA[American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer]]> 80571
J. Robert Oppenheimer is one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb for his country in a time of war and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of scientific progress.

When he proposed international controls over atomic materials, opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, and criticized plans for a nuclear war, his ideas were anathema to powerful advocates of a massive nuclear buildup during the anti-Communist hysteria of the early 1950s. They declared that Oppenheimer could not be trusted with America’s nuclear secrets.

In this magisterial biography twenty-five years in the making, which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for biography, the authors capture Oppenheimer’s life and times, from his early career to his central role in the Cold War.]]> 721 Kai Bird Thomas 0 2023 4.27 2005 American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
author: Kai Bird
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2023/04/09
date added: 2023/04/09
shelves: 2023
review:
Dense, thorough, well-written, and captures the complex essence of one of the most consequential people in human history.
]]> <![CDATA[Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents]]> 51152447 The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.�

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.]]> 544 Isabel Wilkerson 0593230256 Thomas 0 2023 4.52 2020 Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2023/03/23
date added: 2023/03/23
shelves: 2023
review:
Really effective balance of individual narrative with broader societal trends.
]]> <![CDATA[Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing]]> 43205240
For the first time in his long career, Robert Caro gives us a glimpse into his own life and work in these evocatively written, personal pieces. He describes what it was like to interview the mighty Robert Moses; what it felt like to begin discovering the extent of the political power Moses wielded; the combination of discouragement and exhilaration he felt confronting the vast holdings of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas; his encounters with witnesses, including longtime residents wrenchingly displaced by the construction of Moses� Cross-Bronx Expressway and Lady Bird Johnson acknowledging the beauty and influence of one of LBJ’s mistresses. He gratefully remembers how, after years of loneliness, he found a writers� community at the New York Public Library’s Frederick Lewis Allen Room and details the ways he goes about planning and composing his books.
Caro recalls the moments at which he came to understand that he wanted to write not just about the men who wielded power but about the people and the politics that were shaped by that power. And he talks about the importance to him of the writing itself, of how he tries to infuse it with a sense of place and mood to bring characters and situations to life on the page. Taken together, these reminiscences–some previously published, some written expressly for this book–bring into focus the passion, the wry self-deprecation, and the integrity with which this brilliant historian has always approached his work.]]> 231 Robert A. Caro 0525656340 Thomas 0 2023 4.42 2019 Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing
author: Robert A. Caro
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2023/03/12
date added: 2023/03/12
shelves: 2023
review:
Fascinating to hear from the GOAT himself how he works.
]]> The Kite Runner 77203 371 Khaled Hosseini 159463193X Thomas 0 2023 4.34 2003 The Kite Runner
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2023/03/11
date added: 2023/03/11
shelves: 2023
review:
Harrowing at times but beautifully written and structured.
]]> Truman 2279
The life of Harry S. Truman is one of the greatest of American stories, filled with vivid characters—Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Wallace Truman, George Marshall, Joe McCarthy, and Dean Acheson—and dramatic events. In this riveting biography, acclaimed historian David McCullough not only captures the man—a more complex, informed, and determined man than ever before imagined—but also the turbulent times in which he rose, boldly, to meet unprecedented challenges. The last president to serve as a living link between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Truman’s story spans the raw world of the Missouri frontier, World War I, the powerful Pendergast machine of Kansas City, the legendary Whistle-Stop Campaign of 1948, and the decisions to drop the atomic bomb, confront Stalin at Potsdam, send troops to Korea, and fire General MacArthur. Drawing on newly discovered archival material and extensive interviews with Truman’s own family, friends, and Washington colleagues, McCullough tells the deeply moving story of the seemingly ordinary “man from Missouri� who was perhaps the most courageous president in our history.]]> 1120 David McCullough 0671869205 Thomas 0 2023 4.15 1992 Truman
author: David McCullough
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at: 2023/03/11
date added: 2023/03/11
shelves: 2023
review:
Thorough and engaging. A look at one of our more overlooked presidents.
]]> Schindler’s List 375013 Thomas Keneally's Booker Prize-winning novel recreates the story of Oskar Schindler, an Aryan who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland, who conrinually defied and outwitted the SS, and who was transformed by the war into an angel of mercy. It is an unforgettable tale, all the more extraordinary for being true.]]> 429 Thomas Keneally 0340606517 Thomas 0 2023 4.34 1982 Schindler’s List
author: Thomas Keneally
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/21
date added: 2023/02/21
shelves: 2023
review:
Powerful, especially in its novelistic presentation.
]]> <![CDATA[The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York]]> 1111 The Power Broker tells the hidden story behind the shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York (city and state) and makes public what few have known: that Robert Moses was, for almost half a century, the single most powerful man of our time in New York, the shaper not only of the city's politics but of its physical structure and the problems of urban decline that plague us today.

In revealing how Moses did it--how he developed his public authorities into a political machine that was virtually a fourth branch of government, one that could bring to their knees Governors and Mayors (from La Guardia to Lindsay) by mobilizing banks, contractors, labor unions, insurance firms, even the press and the Church, into an irresistible economic force--Robert Caro reveals how power works in all the cities of the United States. Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He personally conceived and completed public works costing 27 billion dollars--the greatest builder America (and probably the world) has ever known. Without ever having been elected to office, he dominated the men who were--even his most bitter enemy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, could not control him--until he finally encountered, in Nelson Rockefeller, the only man whose power (and ruthlessness in wielding it) equalled his own.]]> 1246 Robert A. Caro 0394720245 Thomas 0 2023 4.51 1974 The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
author: Robert A. Caro
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.51
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/16
date added: 2023/02/16
shelves: 2023
review:
Thorough and riveting. The best historian of his generation.
]]> <![CDATA[An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood]]> 9347 In An Hour Before Daylight, Jimmy Carter, bestselling author of Living Faith and Sources of Strength, recreates his Depression-era boyhood on a Georgia farm before the civil rights movement forever changed it and the country.

Carter writes about the powerful rhythms of countryside and community in a sharecropping economy, offering an unforgettable portrait of his father, a brilliant farmer and a strict segregationist who treated black workers with respect and fairness; his strong-willed and well-read mother; and the five other people who shaped his early life, three of whom were black.

Carter's clean and eloquent prose evokes a time when the cycles of life were predictable and simple and the rules were heartbreaking and complex. In his singular voice and with a novelist's gift for detail, Jimmy Carter creates a sensitive portrait of an era that shaped the nation and recounts a classic, American story of enduring importance.]]> 288 Jimmy Carter 0743211995 Thomas 0 2023 3.97 2000 An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood
author: Jimmy Carter
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/14
date added: 2023/02/14
shelves: 2023
review:
Efficient and honest. Makes me like Jimmy Carter even more.
]]> Why We Can't Wait 160939 Dr. Martin Luther King’s classic exploration of the events and forces behind the Civil Rights Movement—including his Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963.

“There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.�

In 1963, Birmingham, Alabama, was perhaps the most racially segregated city in the United States. The campaign launched by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights movement on the segregated streets of Birmingham demonstrated to the world the power of nonviolent direct action.

In this remarkable book—winner of the Nobel Peace Prize—Dr. King recounts the story of Birmingham in vivid detail, tracing the history of the struggle for civil rights back to its beginnings three centuries ago and looking to the future, assessing the work to be done beyond Birmingham to bring about full equality for African Americans. Above all, Dr. King offers an eloquent and penetrating analysis of the events and pressures that propelled the Civil Rights movement from lunch counter sit-ins and prayer marches to the forefront of American consciousness.

Since its publication in the 1960s, Why We Can’t Wait has become an indisputable classic. Now, more than ever, it is an enduring testament to the wise and courageous vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Includes photographs and an afterword by Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.]]> 223 Martin Luther King Jr. 0451527534 Thomas 0 2023 4.54 1964 Why We Can't Wait
author: Martin Luther King Jr.
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.54
book published: 1964
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/11
date added: 2023/02/11
shelves: 2023
review:
Excellent branch off of Letter from Birmingham Jail. Eloquent and honest.
]]> <![CDATA[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]> 60671823 Chris Riddell's brilliant new full-colour illustrated Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in a sumptuous hardback and jacketed edition. A perfect gift for families, children and all fans of this much-loved favourite classic.

First published by Macmillan more than 150 years ago, Lewis Carroll’s iconic story has been loved and enjoyed by generations of children.

This edition presents Lewis Carroll's complete text, with new illustrations from Costa Award- and Kate Greenaway Medal-winner Chris Riddell. Published 200 years after the birth of Alice’s first illustrator, Sir John Tenniel, also the political cartoonist of his time, Chris Riddell's illustrations set a new bar in terms of excellence with his unique, rich and evocative interpretation of Carroll's world.

With the curious, quick-witted Alice at its heart, readers will not only rediscover characters such as the charming White Rabbit, the formidable Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter and the grinning Cheshire Cat but will find fresh and wonderful creations of these characters by a true master of his art,; images that will live in our hearts and minds for generations to come.]]> 320 Lewis Carroll 152900246X Thomas 0 2023 4.08 1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
author: Lewis Carroll
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1865
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/02
date added: 2023/02/02
shelves: 2023
review:
Never too old for some fun in Wonderland.
]]> A Man Called Ove 18774964
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.]]> 337 Fredrik Backman 1476738017 Thomas 0 2023 Bittersweet. 4.35 2012 A Man Called Ove
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/30
date added: 2023/01/30
shelves: 2023
review:
Bittersweet.
]]> <![CDATA[Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President]]> 60586109 This revealing biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt shows how one of the most consequential leaders in American history found his true self in his searing struggle with polio--emerging from illness with a strength and wisdom he would use to inspire the world.

In popular memory, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the quintessential political “natural.� Born in 1882 to a wealthy, influential family and blessed with an abundance of charm and charisma, he seemed destined for high office. Yet for all his gifts, the young Roosevelt nonetheless lacked depth, empathy, and an ability to think strategically. Those qualities, so essential to his success as president, were skills he acquired during his seven-year journey through illness and recovery.

Becoming FDR traces the riveting story of the struggle that forged Roosevelt’s character and political ascent. Soon after contracting polio in 1921 at the age of thirty-nine, the former failed vice-presidential candidate was left paralyzed from the waist down. He spent much of the next decade trying to rehabilitate his body and adapt to the stark new reality of his life. By the time he reemerged on the national stage in 1928 as the Democratic candidate for Governor of New York, his character and his abilities had been transformed. He had become compassionate, and shrewd by necessity, tailoring his speeches to inspire listeners and to reach them through a new medium—radio. Suffering cemented his bond with those he once famously called “the forgotten man.� Most crucially, he had discovered how to find hope in a seemingly hopeless situation—a belief that he employed to motivate Americans through the Great Depression and World War II. The polio years were transformative too for the marriage of Franklin and Eleanor, and for Eleanor herself, who became, at first reluctantly, her husband's surrogate at public events, and who grew to become a political and humanitarian force in her own right.

Tracing the physical, political, and personal evolution of the iconic president, Becoming FDR shows how adversity can lead to greatness, and to the power to remake the world.]]> 448 Jonathan Darman 1400067073 Thomas 0 2023 4.35 2022 Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President
author: Jonathan Darman
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/29
date added: 2023/01/29
shelves: 2023
review:
Eloquently written and offers new perspectives on how polio may have changed FDR’s own perspectives.
]]> Tender Is the Night 46164 Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character, Tender Is the Night is lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.]]> 430 F. Scott Fitzgerald Thomas 0 2023 3.81 1934 Tender Is the Night
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1934
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/27
date added: 2023/01/27
shelves: 2023
review:
Not as engaging as Fitzgerald’s other work, but keep a common theme with the others about the corruption of wealth and the doom that ensues.
]]> <![CDATA[PT 109 : John F. Kennedy in World War II]]> 191537 256 Robert John Donovan 0071408681 Thomas 0 2023 3.83 1961 PT 109 : John F. Kennedy in World War II
author: Robert John Donovan
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/22
date added: 2023/01/22
shelves: 2023
review:
A really amazing story told lively and concisely.
]]> <![CDATA[A Disability History of the United States]]> 17262462 The first book to cover the entirety of disability history, from pre-1492 to the present
Ěý
Disability is not just the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. Covering the entirety of US history from pre-1492 to the present, A Disability History of the United States is the first book to place the experiences of people with disabilities at the center of the American narrative. In many ways, it’s a familiar telling. In other ways, however, it is a radical repositioning of US history. By doing so, the book casts new light on familiar stories, such as slavery and immigration, while breaking ground about the ties between nativism and oralism in the late nineteenthĚý century and the role of ableism in the development of democracy.
Ěý
A Disability History of the United States pulls from primary-source documents and social histories to retell American history through the eyes, words, and impressions of the people who lived it. As historian and disability scholar Nielsen argues, to understand disability history isn’t to narrowly focus on a series of individual triumphs but rather to examine mass movements and pivotal daily events through the lens of varied experiences. Throughout the book, Nielsen deftly illustrates how concepts of disability have deeply shaped the American experience—from deciding who was allowed to immigrate to establishing labor laws and justifying slavery and gender discrimination. Included are absorbing—at times horrific—narratives of blinded slaves being thrown overboard and women being involuntarily sterilized, as well as triumphant accounts of disabled miners organizing strikes and disability rights activists picketing Washington.
Ěý
Engrossing and profound, A Disability History of the United States fundamentally reinterprets how we view our nation’s past: from a stifling master narrative to a shared history that encompasses us all.
]]> 240 Kim E. Nielsen 0807022047 Thomas 0 2023 4.05 2012 A Disability History of the United States
author: Kim E. Nielsen
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/21
date added: 2023/01/21
shelves: 2023
review:
Expertly researched and written.
]]> <![CDATA[The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #4)]]> 13049569 The Passage of PowerĚýfollows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and the most triumphant periods of his careerâ€�1958 to1964. It is a time that would see him trade the extraordinary power he had created for himself as Senate Majority Leader for what became the wretched powerlessness of a Vice President in an administration that disdained and distrusted him. Yet it was, as well, the time in which the presidency, the goal he had always pursued, would be thrust upon him in the moment it took an assassin’s bullet to reach its mark.

By 1958, as Johnson began to maneuver for the presidency, he was known as one of the most brilliant politicians of his time, the greatest Senate Leader in our history. But the 1960 nomination would go to the young senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. Caro gives us an unparalleled account of the machinations behind both the nomination and Kennedy’s decision to offer Johnson the vice presidency, revealing the extent of Robert Kennedy’s efforts to force Johnson off the ticket. With the consummate skill of a master storyteller, he exposes the savage animosity between Johnson and Kennedy’s younger brother, portraying one of America’s great political feuds. Yet Robert Kennedy’s overt contempt for Johnson was only part of the burden of humiliation and isolation he bore as Vice President. With a singular understanding of Johnson’s heart and mind, Caro describes what it was like for this mighty politician to find himself altogether powerless in a world in which power is the crucial commodity.Ěý

For the first time, in Caro’s breathtakingly vivid narrative, we see the Kennedy assassination through Lyndon Johnson’s eyes. We watch Johnson step into the presidency, inheriting a staff fiercely loyal to his slain predecessor; a Congress determined to retain its power over the executive branch; and a nation in shock and mourning. We see how within weeks—grasping the reins of the presidency with supreme mastery—he propels through Congress essential legislation that at the time of Kennedy’s death seemed hopelessly logjammed and seizes on a dormant Kennedy program to create the revolutionary War on Poverty. Caro makes clear how the political genius with which Johnson had ruled the Senate now enabled him to make the presidency wholly his own. This was without doubt Johnson’s finest hour, before his aspirations and accomplishments were overshadowed and eroded by the trap of Vietnam.

In its exploration of this pivotal period in Johnson’s life—and in the life of the nationâ€�The Passage of PowerĚýis not only the story of how he surmounted unprecedented obstacles in order to fulfill the highest purpose of the presidency but is, as well, a revelation of both the pragmatic potential in the presidency and what can be accomplished when the chief executive has the vision and determination to move beyond the pragmatic and initiate programs designed to transform a nation.]]> 712 Robert A. Caro 0679405070 Thomas 0 2023 4.36 2012 The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #4)
author: Robert A. Caro
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/18
date added: 2023/01/18
shelves: 2023
review:
Like its predecessors, thorough and engaging! Can’t wait for the next one.
]]> The Beautiful and Damned 4708 The Beautiful and the Damned followed Fitzgerald's impeccable debut, This Side of Paradise, thus securing his place in the tradition of great American novelists. Embellished with the author's lyrical prose, here is the story of Harvard-educated, aspiring aesthete Anthony Patch and his beautiful wife, Gloria. As they await the inheritance of his grandfather's fortune, their reckless marriage sways under the influence of alcohol and avarice. A devastating look at the nouveau riche, and the New York nightlife, as well as the ruinous effects of wild ambition, The Beautiful and the Damned achieved stature as one of Fitzgerald's most accomplished novels. Its distinction as a classic endures to this day. Pocket Book's Enriched Classics present the great works of world literature enhanced for the contemporary reader. Special features include critical perspectives, suggestions for further read, and a unique visual essay composed of period photographs that help bring every word to life.]]> 422 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743451503 Thomas 0 2023 3.74 1922 The Beautiful and Damned
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1922
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/16
date added: 2023/01/16
shelves: 2023
review:
Another great look at how unearned wealth can corrupt.
]]> Native Son 15622 Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.

Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.]]> 504 Richard Wright Thomas 0 2023 Incredible. 4.03 1940 Native Son
author: Richard Wright
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1940
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/12
date added: 2023/01/12
shelves: 2023
review:
Incredible.
]]> <![CDATA[Master of the Senate (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #3)]]> 86525
At the heart of the book is its unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works in America, how the Senate works, and how Johnson, in his ascent to the presidency, mastered the Senate as no political leader before him had ever done.
Ěý
It was during these years that all Johnson’s experience—from his Texas Hill Country boyhood to his passionate representation in Congress of his hardscrabble constituents to his tireless construction of a political machine—came to fruition. Caro introduces the story with a dramatic account of the Senate itself: how Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun had made it the center of governmental energy, the forum in which the great issues of the country were thrashed out. And how, by the time Johnson arrived, it had dwindled into a body that merely responded to executive initiatives, all but impervious to the forces of change. Caro anatomizes the genius for political strategy and tactics by which, in an institution that had made the seniority system all-powerful for a century and more, Johnson became Majority Leader after only a single term-the youngest and greatest Senate Leader in our history; how he manipulated the Senate’s hallowed rules and customs and the weaknesses and strengths of his colleagues to change the “unchangeable� Senate from a loose confederation of sovereign senators to a whirring legislative machine under his own iron-fisted control.
Ěý
Caro demonstrates how Johnson’s political genius enabled him to reconcile the unreconcilable: to retain the support of the southerners who controlled the Senate while earning the trust—or at least the cooperation—of the liberals, led by Paul Douglas and Hubert Humphrey, without whom he could not achieve his goal of winning the presidency. He shows the dark side of Johnson’s ambition: how he proved his loyalty to the great oil barons who had financed his rise to power by ruthlessly destroying the career of the New Dealer who was in charge of regulating them, Federal Power Commission Chairman Leland Olds. And we watch him achieve the impossible: convincing southerners that although he was firmly in their camp as the anointed successor to their leader, Richard Russell, it was essential that they allow him to make some progress toward civil rights. In a breathtaking tour de force, Caro details Johnson’s amazing triumph in maneuvering to passage the first civil rights legislation since 1875.
Ěý
Master of the Senate, told with an abundance of rich detail that could only have come from Caro’s peerless research, is both a galvanizing portrait of the man himself—the titan of Capital Hill, volcanic, mesmerizing—and a definitive and revelatory study of the workings and personal and legislative power.]]> 1167 Robert A. Caro 0394720954 Thomas 0 2023 4.40 2002 Master of the Senate (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #3)
author: Robert A. Caro
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/09
date added: 2023/01/09
shelves: 2023
review:
Riveting from start to finish. Caro is a master himself at illustrating the nuances of political power.
]]> The Red Badge of Courage 35220 Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.

Henry Fleming has joined the Union army because of his romantic ideas of military life, but soon finds himself in the middle of a battle against a regiment of Confederate soldiers. Terrified, Henry deserts his comrades. Upon returning to his regiment, he struggles with his shame as he tries to redeem himself and prove his courage.

The Red Badge of Courage is Stephen Crane’s second book, notable for its realism and the fact that Crane had never personally experienced battle. Crane drew heavy inspiration from Century Magazine, a periodical known for its articles about the American Civil War. However, he criticized the articles for their lack of emotional depth and decided to write a war novel of his own. The manuscript was first serialized in December 1894 by The Philadelphia Press and quickly won Crane international acclaim before he died in June 1900 at the age of 28.]]> 149 Stephen Crane 1580495869 Thomas 0 2023 3.28 1895 The Red Badge of Courage
author: Stephen Crane
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.28
book published: 1895
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/06
date added: 2023/01/06
shelves: 2023
review:
Really amazing prose illustrating horrors of war.
]]> <![CDATA[A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1)]]> 102868
But it's not long before Sherlock Holmes, with Watson in tow, is working with Scotland Yard investigating the murder of two Americans whose deaths have some mysterious connection to sinister groups gathering power in both Britain and America.

Here's where it all began. 'A Study in Scarlet.' Meet Sherlock Holmes, one of the world's leading consulting detectives - fictional of course!]]> 123 Arthur Conan Doyle 1420925539 Thomas 0 2023 4.16 1887 A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1)
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1887
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/04
date added: 2023/01/04
shelves: 2023
review:
Fun and fast introduction to the world’s greatest detective.
]]> The Wright Brothers 22609391 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.

On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot.

Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did?

David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, tells the surprising, profoundly American story of Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, they were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity, much of which they attributed to their upbringing. The house they lived in had no electricity or indoor plumbing, but there were books aplenty, supplied mainly by their preacher father, and they never stopped reading.

When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable. Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education, little money and no contacts in high places, never stopped them in their mission to take to the air. Nothing did, not even the self-evident reality that every time they took off in one of their contrivances, they risked being killed.

In this thrilling book, master historian David McCullough draws on the immense riches of the Wright Papers, including private diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks, and more than a thousand letters from private family correspondence to tell the human side of the Wright Brothers' story, including the little-known contributions of their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them.]]> 320 David McCullough Thomas 0 2023 4.14 2015 The Wright Brothers
author: David McCullough
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/03
date added: 2023/01/03
shelves: 2023
review:
Really energetic look at two brothers (and their sister!) who changed the world forever.
]]> <![CDATA[The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe, #1)]]> 2052
Librarian's note: this is an alternate cover edition.]]> 231 Raymond Chandler 0394758285 Thomas 0 2023 Fast paced, solid thriller. 3.96 1939 The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe, #1)
author: Raymond Chandler
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1939
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/01/01
shelves: 2023
review:
Fast paced, solid thriller.
]]> John Adams 2203
In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot -- "the colossus of independence," as Thomas Jefferson called him -- who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second President of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as "out of his senses"; and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the moving love stories in American history.

Like his masterly, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Truman, David McCullough's John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. It is both a riveting portrait of an abundantly human man and a vivid evocation of his time, much of it drawn from an outstanding collection of Adams family letters and diaries. In particular, the more than one thousand surviving letters between John and Abigail Adams, nearly half of which have never been published, provide extraordinary access to their private lives and make it possible to know John Adams as no other major American of his founding era.

As he has with stunning effect in his previous books, McCullough tells the story from within -- from the point of view of the amazing eighteenth century and of those who, caught up in events, had no sure way of knowing how things would turn out. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, the British spy Edward Bancroft, Madame Lafayette and Jefferson's Paris "interest" Maria Cosway, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, the scandalmonger James Callender, Sally Hemings, John Marshall, Talleyrand, and Aaron Burr all figure in this panoramic chronicle, as does, importantly, John Quincy Adams, the adored son whom Adams would live to see become President.

Crucial to the story, as it was to history, is the relationship between Adams and Jefferson, born opposites -- one a Massachusetts farmer's son, the other a Virginia aristocrat and slaveholder, one short and stout, the other tall and spare. Adams embraced conflict; Jefferson avoided it. Adams had great humor; Jefferson, very little. But they were alike in their devotion to their country.

At first they were ardent co-revolutionaries, then fellow diplomats and close friends. With the advent of the two political parties, they became archrivals, even enemies, in the intense struggle for the presidency in 1800, perhaps the most vicious election in history. Then, amazingly, they became friends again, and ultimately, incredibly, they died on the same day -- their day of days -- July 4, in the year 1826.

Much about John Adams's life will come as a surprise to many readers. His courageous voyage on the frigate Boston in the winter of 1778 and his later trek over the Pyrenees are exploits that few would have dared and that few readers will ever forget.

It is a life encompassing a huge arc -- Adams lived longer than any president. The story ranges from the Boston Massacre to Philadelphia in 1776 to the Versailles of Louis XVI, from Spain to Amsterdam, from the Court of St. James's, where Adams was the first American to stand before King George III as a representative of the new nation, to the raw, half-finished Capital by the Potomac, where Adams was the first President to occupy the White House.

This is history on a grand scale -- a book about politics and war and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, John Adams is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.]]> 751 David McCullough 0743223136 Thomas 0 2022 4.08 2001 John Adams
author: David McCullough
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/31
date added: 2022/12/31
shelves: 2022
review:
An incredible chronology of the life and presidency of an overlooked and under-appreciated president.
]]> <![CDATA[Little Women (Little Women, #1)]]> 1934 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780451529305.

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.

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

]]> 449 Louisa May Alcott Thomas 0 currently-reading 4.16 1868 Little Women (Little Women, #1)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1868
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/25
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man]]> 7588 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel of sexual awakening, religious rebellion and the essential search for voice and meaning that every nascent artist must face in order to blossom fully into themselves.]]> 329 James Joyce 0142437344 Thomas 0 2022 3.64 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
author: James Joyce
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1916
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/24
date added: 2022/12/24
shelves: 2022
review:
Interesting look into what Joyce may have thought about the intersection of national identity and religion.
]]> Dubliners 11012 I regret to see that my book has turned out un fiasco solenne.' James Joyce's disillusion with the publication of Dubliners in 1914 was the result of ten years battling with publishers, resisting their demands to remove swear words, real place names and much else, including two entire stories. Although only 24 when he signed his first publishing contract for the book, Joyce already knew its worth: to alter it in any way would 'retard the course of civilisation in Ireland'.

Joyce's aim was to tell the truth � to create a work of art that would reflect life in Ireland at the turn of the last century and by rejecting euphemism, reveal to the Irish the unromantic reality the recognition of which would lead to the spiritual liberation of the country.

Each of the fifteen stories offers a glimpse of the lives of ordinary Dubliners � a death, an encounter, an opportunity not taken, a memory rekindled � and collectively they paint a portrait of a nation.]]> 352 James Joyce Thomas 0 2022 3.86 1914 Dubliners
author: James Joyce
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1914
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/22
date added: 2022/12/22
shelves: 2022
review:
Really nice portrait of Ireland through the exploration of human beings.
]]> <![CDATA[And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle]]> 60647674
A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Abraham Lincoln was president when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions inextricably bound up with money, power, race, identity, and faith. He was hated and hailed, excoriated and revered. In Lincoln we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations.

At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen in popular minds as the greatest of American presidents—a remote icon—or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This illuminating new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln—an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment was essential to the story of justice in America. Here is the Lincoln who, as a boy, was steeped in the sermons of emancipation by Baptist preachers; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him light to see the right.

This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination at Ford’s Theater on Good Friday 1865: his rise, his self-education through reading, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end. In a nation shaped by the courage of the enslaved of the era and by the brave witness of Black Americans of the nineteenth century, Lincoln’s story illuminates the ways and means of politics, the marshaling of power in a belligerent democracy, the durability of white supremacy in America, and the capacity of conscience to shape the maelstrom of events.

Lincoln was not all he might have been—few human beings ever are—but he was more than many men have ever been. We could have done worse. And we have. And, as Lincoln himself would readily acknowledge, we can always do better. But we will do so only if we see Abraham Lincoln—and ourselves—whole.]]> 676 Jon Meacham 0553393960 Thomas 0 2022 4.44 2022 And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle
author: Jon Meacham
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/17
date added: 2022/12/17
shelves: 2022
review:
A fantastic account of a familiar figure: a figure that we think we know but that Meacham manages to teach us more about.
]]> The Three Musketeers 7190 The Three Musketeers is the most famous of Alexandre Dumas' historical novels and one of the most popular adventure novels ever written.

Dumas' swashbuckling epic chronicles the adventures of d'Artagnan, a brash young man from the countryside who journeys to Paris in 1625 hoping to become a musketeer and guard to King Louis XIII. Before long, he finds treachery and court intrigue,and also three boon companions, the daring swordsmen Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Together, the four strive heroically to defend the honor of their queen against the powerful Cardinal Richelieu and the seductive spy Milady.]]> 625 Alexandre Dumas Thomas 0 2022 4.09 1844 The Three Musketeers
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1844
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/05
date added: 2022/12/05
shelves: 2022
review:
All for one and one for all. United we stand, divided we fall!
]]> <![CDATA[All Quiet on the Western Front]]> 355697
In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the â€glorious warâ€�. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young â€unknown soldierâ€� experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.]]> 296 Erich Maria Remarque 0449213943 Thomas 0 2022 4.04 1928 All Quiet on the Western Front
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/05
date added: 2022/12/05
shelves: 2022
review:
Superbly written and one of the best war novels I’ve ever read.
]]> <![CDATA[The Last Battle (Chronicles of Narnia, #7)]]> 84369 288 C.S. Lewis 0007202326 Thomas 0 2022 4.03 1956 The Last Battle (Chronicles of Narnia, #7)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/02
date added: 2022/12/02
shelves: 2022
review:
Epic finish to an epic series.
]]> <![CDATA[Harlem Shuffle (Ray Carney, #1)]]> 54626223 From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked…� To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver’s Row don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home.

Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.

Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn’t ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn’t ask questions, either.

Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa—the “Waldorf of Harlem”—and volunteers Ray’s services as the fence. The heist doesn’t go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes.

Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs?

Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.

But mostly, it’s a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.]]> 318 Colson Whitehead 0385545134 Thomas 0 2022 3.67 2021 Harlem Shuffle (Ray Carney, #1)
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/30
date added: 2022/11/30
shelves: 2022
review:
Not my favorite from Whitehead, but still entertaining and fast-paced.
]]> <![CDATA[The Silver Chair (Chronicles of Narnia, #4)]]> 65641 Jill and Eustace must rescue the Prince from the evil Witch.

NARNIA...where owls are wise, where some of the giants like to snack on humans, where a prince is put under an evil spell...and where the adventure begins.

Eustace and Jill escape from the bullies at school through a strange door in the wall, which, for once, is unlocked. It leads to the open moor...or does it? Once again Aslan has a task for the children, and Narnia needs them. Through dangers untold and caverns deep and dark, they pursue the quest that brings them face to face with the evil Witch. She must be defeated if Prince Rillian is to be saved.]]> 243 C.S. Lewis Thomas 0 2022 Still fun! 3.96 1953 The Silver Chair (Chronicles of Narnia, #4)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/29
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves: 2022
review:
Still fun!
]]> <![CDATA[Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #2)]]> 208324
Here, Johnson’s almost mythic personality—part genius, part behemoth, at once hotly emotional and icily calculating—is seen at its most nakedly ambitious. This multifaceted book carries the President-to-be from the aftermath of his devastating defeat in his 1941 campaign for the Senate-the despair it engendered in him, and the grueling test of his spirit that followed as political doors slammed shut-through his service in World War II (and his artful embellishment of his record) to the foundation of his fortune (and the actual facts behind the myth he created about it).
Ěý
The culminating drama—the explosive heart of the book—is Caro’s illumination, based on extraordinarily detailed investigation, of one of the great political mysteries of the century. Having immersed himself in Johnson’s life and world, Caro is able to reveal the true story of the fiercely contested 1948 senatorial election, for years shrouded in rumor, which Johnson was not believed capable of winning, which he “had to� win or face certain political death, and which he did win-by 87 votes, the �87 votes that changed history.�
Ěý
Telling that epic story “in riveting and eye-opening detail,� Caro returns to the American consciousness a magnificent lost hero. He focuses closely not only on Johnson, whom we see harnessing every last particle of his strategic brilliance and energy, but on Johnson’s “unbeatable� opponent, the beloved former Texas Governor Coke Stevenson, who embodied in his own life the myth of the cowboy knight and was himself a legend for his unfaltering integrity. And ultimately, as the political duel between the two men quickens—carrying with it all the confrontational and moral drama of the perfect Western—Caro makes us witness to a momentous turning point in American the tragic last stand of the old politics versus the new—the politics of issue versus the politics of image, mass manipulation, money and electronic dazzle.]]> 522 Robert A. Caro 067973371X Thomas 0 2022 4.26 1990 Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #2)
author: Robert A. Caro
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/23
date added: 2022/11/23
shelves: 2022
review:
Not as exciting as the first but still enjoying the journey.
]]> <![CDATA[How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America]]> 55643287 Poet and contributor to The Atlantic Clint Smith’s revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a slave owning nationĚý

Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks-those that are honest about the past and those that are not-that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.

It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving over 400 people on the premises. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola Prison in Louisiana, a former plantation named for the country from which most of its enslaved people arrived and which has since become one of the most gruesome maximum-security prisons in the world. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers.

In a deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country's most essential stories are hidden in plain view-whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods—like downtown Manhattan—on which the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women and children has been deeply imprinted.

Informed by scholarship and brought alive by the story of people living today, Clint Smith’s debut work of nonfiction is a landmark work of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in understanding our country.]]> 336 Clint Smith 0316492930 Thomas 0 2022 4.71 2021 How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
author: Clint Smith
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.71
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/08
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves: 2022
review:
Beautifully written and thought-provoking.
]]> <![CDATA[An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963]]> 4424
Robert Dallek succeeds as no other biographer has done in striking a critical balance -- never shying away from JFK's weaknesses, brilliantly exploring his strengths -- as he offers up a vivid portrait of a bold, brave, complex, heroic, human Kennedy.]]> 849 Robert Dallek 0316907928 Thomas 0 2022 3.98 2011 An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963
author: Robert Dallek
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/08
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves: 2022
review:
Holistic portrayal of one of America’s most memorialized and complicated figures.
]]> <![CDATA[The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #1)]]> 86524
The Path to Power, Book One, reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and urge to power that set LBJ apart. Chronicling the startling early emergence of Johnson’s political genius, it follows him from his Texas boyhood through the years of the Depression in the Texas hill Country to the triumph of his congressional debut in New Deal Washington, to his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, of the national power for which he hungered.

We see in him, from earliest childhood, a fierce, unquenchable necessity to be first, to win, to dominate—coupled with a limitless capacity for hard, unceasing labor in the service of his own ambition. Caro shows us the big, gangling, awkward young Lyndon—raised in one of the country’s most desperately poor and isolated areas, his education mediocre at best, his pride stung by his father’s slide into failure and financial ruin—lunging for success, moving inexorably toward that ultimate “impossible� goal that he sets for himself years before any friend or enemy suspects what it may be.

We watch him, while still at college, instinctively (and ruthlessly) creating the beginnings of the political machine that was to serve him for three decades. We see him employing his extraordinary ability to mesmerize and manipulate powerful older men, to mesmerize (and sometimes almost enslave) useful subordinates. We see him carrying out, before his thirtieth year, his first great political inspiration: tapping-and becoming the political conduit for-the money and influence of the new oil men and contractors who were to grow with him to immense power. We follow, close up, the radical fluctuations of his relationships with the formidable “Mr. Sam� Rayburn (who loved him like a son and whom he betrayed) and with FDR himself. And we follow the dramas of his emotional life-the intensities and complications of his relationships with his family, his contemporaries, his girls; his wooing and winning of the shy Lady Bird; his secret love affair, over many years, with the mistress of one of his most ardent and generous supporters . . .

Johnson driving his people to the point of exhausted tears, equally merciless with himself . . . Johnson bullying, cajoling, lying, yet inspiring an amazing loyalty . . . Johnson maneuvering to dethrone the unassailable old Jack Garner (then Vice President of the United States) as the New Deal’s “connection� in Texas, and seize the power himself . . . Johnson raging . . . Johnson hugging . . . Johnson bringing light and, indeed, life to the worn Hill Country farmers and their old-at-thirty wives via the district’s first electric lines.

We see him at once unscrupulous, admirable, treacherous, devoted. And we see the country that bred him: the harshness and “nauseating loneliness� of the rural life; the tragic panorama of the Depression; the sudden glow of hope at the dawn of the Age of Roosevelt. And always, in the foreground, on the move, LBJ.

Here is Lyndon Johnson—his Texas, his Washington, his America—in a book that brings us as close as we have ever been to a true perception of political genius and the American political process.]]> 882 Robert A. Caro 0679729453 Thomas 0 2022 4.39 1982 The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #1)
author: Robert A. Caro
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/28
date added: 2022/10/28
shelves: 2022
review:
Great introduction to a consequential president.
]]> <![CDATA[FDR's Splendid Deception: The Moving Story of Roosevelt's Massive Disability - and the Intense Efforts to Conceal It from the Public]]> 1159871 242 Hugh Gregory Gallagher 0918339502 Thomas 0 2022 4.03 1985 FDR's Splendid Deception: The Moving Story of Roosevelt's Massive Disability - and the Intense Efforts to Conceal It from the Public
author: Hugh Gregory Gallagher
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/24
date added: 2022/09/24
shelves: 2022
review:
A really interesting look into not only how FDR hid his disability, but why he almost had to as well.
]]> <![CDATA[The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency]]> 17571303
Here, from James Tobin, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography, is the story of the greatest comeback in American political history, a saga long buried in half-truth, distortion and myth� Franklin Roosevelt’s ten-year climb from paralysis to the White House.

In 1921, at the age of thirty-nine, Roosevelt was the brightest young star in the Democratic Party. One day he was racing his children around their summer home. Two days later he could not stand up. Hopes of a quick recovery faded fast. “He’s through,� said allies and enemies alike. Even his family and close friends misjudged their man, as they and the nation would learn in time.

With a painstaking reexamination of original documents, James Tobin uncovers the twisted chain of accidents that left FDR paralyzed; he reveals how polio recast Roosevelt’s fateful partnership with his wife, Eleanor; and he shows that FDR’s true victory was not over paralysis but over the ancient stigma attached to the crippled. Tobin also explodes the conventional wisdom of recent years—that FDR deceived the public about his condition. In fact, Roosevelt and his chief aide, Louis Howe, understood that only by displaying himself as a man who had come back from a knockout punch could FDR erase the perception that had followed him from childhood—that he was a pampered, too smooth pretty boy without the strength to lead the nation. As Tobin persuasively argues, FDR became president less in spite of polio than because of polio.

The Man He Became affirms that true character emerges only in crisis and that in the shaping of this great American leader character was all.]]> 384 James Tobin 0743265157 Thomas 0 2022 4.24 2013 The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency
author: James Tobin
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/10
date added: 2022/09/10
shelves: 2022
review:
Interesting to hear more about what FDR might have thought about his disability.
]]> <![CDATA[The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chronicles of Narnia, #3)]]> 140225
The Dawn Treader is the first ship Narnia has seen in centuries. King Caspian has built it for his voyage to find the seven lords, good men whom his evil uncle Miraz banished when he usurped the throne. The journey takes Edmund, Lucy, and their cousin Eustace to the Eastern Islands, beyond the Silver Sea, toward Aslan's country at the End of the World.]]> 248 C.S. Lewis 006112527X Thomas 0 2022 4.10 1952 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chronicles of Narnia, #3)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/04
date added: 2022/09/04
shelves: 2022
review:
Lewis still provides a solid adventure in Narnia, even if it is one of the less memorable ones of the saga.
]]> <![CDATA[The Exorcist (The Exorcist, #1)]]> 179780 385 William Peter Blatty Thomas 0 2022 4.20 1971 The Exorcist (The Exorcist, #1)
author: William Peter Blatty
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1971
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/23
date added: 2022/08/23
shelves: 2022
review:
Riveting from start to finish.
]]> Lincoln 106590 Lincoln is a stunning portrait of Abraham Lincoln’s life and presidency.

Donald brilliantly depicts Lincoln’s gradual ascent from humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to the ever-expanding political circles in Illinois, and finally to the presidency of a country divided by civil war. Donald goes beyond biography, illuminating the gradual development of Lincoln’s character, chronicling his tremendous capacity for evolution and growth, thus illustrating what made it possible for a man so inexperienced and so unprepared for the presidency to become a great moral leader. In the most troubled of times, here was a man who led the country out of slavery and preserved a shattered Union—in short, one of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen.]]> 714 David Herbert Donald 068482535X Thomas 0 2022 4.19 1995 Lincoln
author: David Herbert Donald
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/18
date added: 2022/08/18
shelves: 2022
review:
A multidimensional look at one of the most fascinating and consequential people in American history.
]]> <![CDATA[Prince Caspian (Chronicles of Narnia, #2)]]> 121749
Narnia . . . where animals talk . . . where trees walk . . . where a battle is about to begin.

A prince denied his rightful throne gathers an army in a desperate attempt to rid his land of a false king. But in the end, it is a battle of honor between two men alone that will decide the fate of an entire world.

Prince CaspianĚýis the fourth book in C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, a series that has become part of the canon of classic literature, drawing readers of all ages into a magical land with unforgettable characters for over fifty years. This is a stand-alone novel, but if you would like to see more of Lucy and Edmund’s adventures, readĚýThe Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the fifth book in The Chronicles of Narnia.]]> 240 C.S. Lewis 000720230X Thomas 0 2022 3.99 1951 Prince Caspian (Chronicles of Narnia, #2)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/12
shelves: 2022
review:
Action-packed and lots of energy.
]]> <![CDATA[The Horse and His Boy (Chronicles of Narnia, #5)]]> 84119 The Horse and his Boy is a stirring and dramatic fantasy story that finds a young boy named Shasta on the run from his homeland with the talking horse, Bree. When the pair discover a deadly plot by the Calormen people to conquer the land of Narnia, the race is on to warn the inhabitants of the impending danger and to rescue them all from certain death.]]> 224 C.S. Lewis 0439861365 Thomas 0 2022 3.92 1954 The Horse and His Boy (Chronicles of Narnia, #5)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/08
date added: 2022/08/08
shelves: 2022
review:
Still fun, even if it’s not one of the stronger ones of the series.
]]> <![CDATA[The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)]]> 100915
Lucy is the first to find the secret of the wardrobe in the professor's mysterious old house. At first her brothers and sister don't believe her when she tells of her visit to the land of Narnia. But soon Edmund, then Peter and Susan step through the wardrobe themselves. In Narnia they find a country buried under the evil enchantment of the White Witch. When they meet the Lion Aslan, they realize they've been called to a great adventure and bravely join the battle to free Narnia from the Witch's sinister spell.]]> 206 C.S. Lewis Thomas 0 2022 4.24 1950 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1950
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/08
date added: 2022/08/08
shelves: 2022
review:
Adventurous and filled with energy.
]]> <![CDATA[The Magician’s Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #6)]]> 65605
Narnia... a land where the woods are thick and cold, where Talking Beasts come to life—an entirely new world where adventure begins.

One cold, wet summer in London, Digory and Polly meet and become fast friends. Their lives take a sudden turn when Digory’s Uncle Andrew, who fancies himself a magician, sends them hurtling to... somewhere else. They arrive in Narnia, just as it is born from the song of the great Lion, Aslan. Along the way, they encounter the evil sorceress Jadis, whose dark magic threatens everything. After a whirlwind adventure, they finally find their way back home.]]> 221 C.S. Lewis 0060764902 Thomas 0 2022 4.06 1955 The Magician’s Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #6)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1955
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/05
date added: 2022/08/05
shelves: 2022
review:
Fun prequel to Lewis� adventures of Narnia.
]]> <![CDATA[Benjamin Franklin: An American Life]]> 10883
He was, during his 84-year life, America's best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist, and he was also one of its most practical—though not most profound—political thinkers. He proved by flying a kite that lightning was electricity, and he invented a rod to tame it. He sought practical ways to make stoves less smoky and commonwealths less corrupt. He organized neighborhood constabularies and international alliances, local lending libraries and national legislatures. He combined two types of lenses to create bifocals and two concepts of representation to foster the nation's federal compromise. He was the only man who shaped all the founding documents of America: the Albany Plan of Union, the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance with France, the peace treaty with England, and the Constitution. And he helped invent America's unique style of homespun humor, democratic values, and philosophical pragmatism.

But the most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself. America's first great publicist, he was, in his life and in his writings, consciously trying to create a new American archetype. In the process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity.

Through it all, he trusted the hearts and minds of his fellow "leather-aprons" more than he did those of any inbred elite. He saw middle-class values as a source of social strength, not as something to be derided. His guiding principle was a "dislike of everything that tended to debase the spirit of the common people." Few of his fellow founders felt this comfort with democracy so fully, and none so intuitively.

In this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin's amazing life, from his days as a runaway printer to his triumphs as a statesman, scientist, and Founding Father. He chronicles Franklin's tumultuous relationship with his illegitimate son and grandson, his practical marriage, and his flirtations with the ladies of Paris. He also shows how Franklin helped to create the American character and why he has a particular resonance in the twenty-first century.]]> 586 Walter Isaacson 074325807X Thomas 0 2022 4.04 2003 Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/05
date added: 2022/08/05
shelves: 2022
review:
Fascinating look at one of our most approachable founding fathers. Explores Franklin the man as much as Franklin the scholar, inventor, and thinker.
]]> Breakfast of Champions 4980 Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

In Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.]]> 303 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385334206 Thomas 0 2022 A bit too out there for me. 4.08 1973 Breakfast of Champions
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/04
date added: 2022/08/04
shelves: 2022
review:
A bit too out there for me.
]]> This Side of Paradise 46165 This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic and witty first novel, was written when the author was only twenty-three years old. This semi-autobiographical story of the handsome, indulged, and idealistic Princeton student Amory Blaine received critical raves and catapulted Fitzgerald to instant fame. Now, readers can enjoy the newly edited, authorized version of this early classic of the Jazz Age, based on Fitzgerald's original manuscript. In this definitive text, This Side of Paradise captures the rhythms and romance of Fitzgerald's youth and offers a poignant portrait of the "Lost Generation."]]> 275 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0684843781 Thomas 0 2022 3.66 1920 This Side of Paradise
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1920
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/01
date added: 2022/08/01
shelves: 2022
review:
Beautifully written and can feel Fitzgerald is really writing about himself.
]]> The Sirens of Titan 4982 224 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Thomas 0 2022 4.16 1959 The Sirens of Titan
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1959
rating: 0
read at: 2022/07/17
date added: 2022/07/17
shelves: 2022
review:
Innovative for sure. Still trying to wrap my brain around it.
]]>