en-US Thu, 24 Apr 2025 16:06:38 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 204640265 From Vulture's "master of horror" Clay McLeod Chapman, a relentless and emotionally charged social horror novel about a family on the run from a demonic possession epidemic that spreads through media, for fans of The Last of Us and When Evil Lurks

Noah Fairchild has been losing his formerly polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening� is here, he assumes it’s related to one of the many conspiracy theories she believes in. But when his own phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the long drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles, a fridge full of spoiled food, and his parents locked in a terrifying trance-like state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it and get medical help.

Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.

But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart-–literally-–as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend watching particular channels, using certain apps, or visiting certain websites. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn�-but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?

This ambitious, searing novel from "one of horror's modern masters" holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core.]]> 384 Clay McLeod Chapman Christopher S. 5 3.37 2025
author: Clay McLeod Chapman
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/18
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 54097002 96 Joseph Conrad Christopher S. 4 4.00 1899
author: Joseph Conrad
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1899
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/21
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 18552623 Jean-Michel Basquiat and his unique, collage-style paintings rocketed to fame in the 1980s as a cultural phenomenon unlike anything the art world had ever seen. But before that, he was a little boy who saw art in poetry books and museums, in games and in the words that we speak, and in the pulsing energy of New York City. Now, award-winning illustrator Javaka Steptoe's vivid text and bold artwork echoing Basquiat's own introduce young readers to the powerful message that art doesn't always have to be neat or clean--and definitely not inside the lines--to be beautiful.]]> 40 Javaka Steptoe 0316213888 Christopher S. 5 3.95 2016
author: Javaka Steptoe
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 199700434 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide.

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances.

Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet, The God of the Woods is a story of inheritance and second chances, the tensions between a family and a community, and a history that will not let any of them go.]]> 478 Liz Moore 0593418913 Christopher S. 4 4.09 2024
author: Liz Moore
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 6319
When Sophie hears that they are flush-bunking off in England to swollomp a few nice little chiddlers, she decides she must stop them once and for all. And the BFG is going to help her!]]> 199 Roald Dahl 0141311371 Christopher S. 4 4.23 1982
author: Roald Dahl
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 65212070 A folk horror epic about a ragtag posse that must track down a witch through a wild west beset by demons and ghosts―and where death is always just around the bend.

Sadie Grace is wanted for witchcraft, dead (or alive). And every hired gun in Kansas is out to collect the bounty on her head, including bona fide witch hunter Old Tom and his mysterious, mute ward, Rabbit.

On the road to Burden County, they’re joined by two vagabond cowboys with a strong sense of adventure � but no sense of purpose � and a recently widowed school teacher with nothing left to lose. As their posse grows, so too does the danger.

Racing along the drought-stricken plains in a stolen red stagecoach, they encounter monsters more wicked than witches lurking along the dusty trail. But the crew is determined to get that bounty, or die trying.

Written with the devilish cadence of Stephen Graham Jones and the pulse-pounding brutality of Nick Cutter, Red Rabbit is a supernatural adventure of luck and misfortune.]]> 455 Alex Grecian 1250874688 Christopher S. 5 4.16 2023
author: Alex Grecian
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 209192698 In her long-awaited memoir, Ina Garten—aka the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and cultural icon—shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table.Ěý

Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose.

From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.]]> 320 Ina Garten 0593799895 Christopher S. 5 4.24 2024
author: Ina Garten
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 32874104 0 Eric Carle 0141374373 Christopher S. 5 3.94 2017
author: Eric Carle
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 15841850 Cotton Malone is back! Steve Berry’s new international adventure blends gripping contemporary political intrigue, Tudor treachery, and high-octane thrills into one riveting novel of suspense.
Ěý
Cotton Malone and his fifteen-year-old son, Gary, are headed to Europe. As a favor to his former boss at the Justice Department, Malone agrees to escort a teenage fugitive back to England. But after he is greeted at gunpoint in London, both the fugitive and Gary disappear, and Malone learns that he’s stumbled into a high-stakes diplomatic showdown—an international incident fueled by geopolitical gamesmanship and shocking Tudor secrets.
Ěý
At its heart is the Libyan terrorist convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103, who is set to be released by Scottish authorities for “humanitarian reasons.� An outraged American government objects, but nothing can persuade the British to intervene.
Ěý
Except, perhaps, Operation King’s Deception.
Ěý
Run by the CIA, the operation aims to solve a centuries-old mystery, one that could rock Great Britain to its royal foundations.
Ěý
Blake Antrim, the CIA operative in charge of King’s Deception, is hunting for the spark that could rekindle a most dangerous fire, the one thing that every Irish national has sought for generations: a legal reason why the English must leave Northern Ireland. The answer is a long-buried secret that calls into question the legitimacy of the entire forty-five-year reign of Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, who completed the conquest of Ireland and seized much of its land. But Antrim also has a more personal agenda, a twisted game of revenge in which Gary is a pawn. With assassins, traitors, spies, and dangerous disciples of a secret society closing in, Malone is caught in a lethal bind. To save Gary he must play one treacherous player against another—and only by uncovering the incredible truth can he hope to prevent the shattering consequences of the King’s Deception.]]> 612 Steve Berry 030799094X Christopher S. 4 3.98 2013
author: Steve Berry
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 53480238 This absurdly clever and funny graphic novel, told entirely in palindromes, is created by World Palindrome Champion Jon Agee, author of Go Hang a Salami! I'm a Lasagna Hog!

Otto is having a very palindramatic day. His pet, Pip, has gone missing, and his search for the dog leads him deeper and deeper into a strange and perplexing world--full of talking owls, stacks of cats, storms and mazes, boats and trains and automobiles . . . oh my! Everything seems to be the same backward and forward, and Pip isn't sure he'll ever find his way home to Mom and Pop. But you, reader, will enjoy his Oz-like journey thoroughly.]]> 144 Jon Agee 0803741626 Christopher S. 5 3.87 2021
author: Jon Agee
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 508816 229 Lydia Adamson 0451180844 Christopher S. 3 3.52 1996
author: Lydia Adamson
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 26520849 Revised and updated edition



Introduce your ˛úĂ©˛úĂ© to the world of Victor Hugo with 10 words and phrases from the classic Les Miserables. Colorful, eye-catching illustrations of characters and objects from the novel pair with French translations you’ll want to hear your baby say again and again.]]> 22 Jennifer Adams 1423642287 Christopher S. 5 4.02 2016
author: Jennifer Adams
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/08
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 28437006 With it's unique wide format, Ken Duncan's Reflections represents a first in Australian publishing and the fulfilment of a long cherished dream. Here, by the simple device of a top edge spine, the art of panoramic landscape photography is presented in all its wonderful breadth without the normal centre 'creases' of a normally bound volume. The result is a magnificent gallery in wide book format comprising some of Ken Duncan's finest work - a collection of spectacular Australian landscapes that will soothe the heart and refresh the soul.

]]> 168 Ken Duncan 0975177508 Christopher S. 5 5.00
author: Ken Duncan
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]> 165036587 48 Amanda Doyle 1681064820 Christopher S. 5 4.33
author: Amanda Doyle
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 4.33
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

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

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

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

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

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

When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.]]> 217 Jon Krakauer Christopher S. 5 4.13 1996
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Christopher S.
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: 2025-ottomax-reading-challenge
review:

]]>