en-US Sun, 04 Sep 2016 20:34:14 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 13497818 A BIG NOVEL ABOUT A SMALL TOWN�

When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford appears to be an English idyll—with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey—but behind its charming façade lies a town at war. The rich clash with the poor, teenagers battle their parents, wives contend with their husbands, and teachers struggle with their pupils. Pagford is far from what it seems.

The empty seat Barry leaves on the town council becomes the catalyst for the fiercest conflict the town has ever seen. The election to fill his seat is fraught with passion, duplicity, and unexpected revelations. Who will triumph in this battle of wills?

Blackly comic, thought-provoking, and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.]]> 503 J.K. Rowling 0316228532 Brandy 0 3.28 2012
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Brandy
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/09/04
shelves: never-finished, life-is-too-short-for-bad-books
review:

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And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England, he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of trim and sunny place where the films of his youth were set.

Instead, his search led him to Anywhere, USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by lookalike people with a penchant for synthetic fibres. Travelling around thirty-eight of the lower states - united only in their mind-numbingly dreary uniformity - he discovered a continent that was doubly lost; lost to itself because blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a stranger in his own land.

The Lost Continent is a classic of travel literature - hilariously, stomach-achingly funny, yet tinged with heartache - and the book that first staked Bill Bryson's claim as the most beloved writer of his generation.]]> 299 Bill Bryson 0060920084 Brandy 1 3.82 1989
author: Bill Bryson
name: Brandy
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1989
rating: 1
read at: 2010/03/31
date added: 2010/03/31
shelves: life-is-too-short-for-bad-books, never-finished
review:

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