en-US Wed, 17 Apr 2024 14:22:17 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 1437672 Melvyn Bragg 0573080712 James 0 to-read 4.00 1969
author: Melvyn Bragg
name: James
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/17
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]]> 396094 This is an alternative cover edition for ISBN 9780141182636

Young, handsome and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby is the bright star of the Jazz Age, but as writer Nick Carraway is drawn into the decadent orbit of his Long Island mansion, where the party never seems to end, he finds himself faced by the mystery of Gatsby's origins and desires. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life, Gatsby is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled. And soon, this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel.

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald brilliantly captures both the disillusionment of post-war America and the moral failure of a society obsessed with wealth and status. But he does more than render the essence of a particular time and place, for in chronicling Gatsby's tragic pursuit of his dream, Fitzgerald re-creates the universal conflict between illusion and reality.]]> 177 F. Scott Fitzgerald James 3 3.88 1925
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: James
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1925
rating: 3
read at: 2009/05/15
date added: 2022/09/01
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I didn't think much of the story. What we have is a reclusive and fragile creature who we never really know at all. Most of his dialogue is in reference to his possessions, and this is his primary occupation. He's rich, debonair but false. The outside may be luxurious, ostentatious and exotic; but underneath there is nothing going on. Its all an act, and the story primarily is a window to all the emptiness of Gatsby and the myriad of the rich and famous that flock to his extravagant parties. What is truly magical in this book is the language, which flows with the elegant skill of an ice skater. At times it is poetic, and often he can mesmerise you with a single sentence.
]]> 59145 PÚre Goriot is the tragic story of a father whose obsessive love for his two daughters leads to his financial and personal ruin. Interwoven with this theme is that of the impoverished young aristocrat, Rastignac, who came to Paris from the provinces to hopefully make his fortune. He befriends Goriot and becomes involved with the daughters. The story is set against the background of a whole society driven by social ambition and lust for wealth.]]> 384 Honoré de Balzac 039397166X James 0 to-read 3.89 1835
author: Honoré de Balzac
name: James
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1835
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/01/29
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]]> 1766361 Book by KATHERINE MANSFIELD 362 Katherine Mansfield 0192835165 James 4 3.57 1948
author: Katherine Mansfield
name: James
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1948
rating: 4
read at: 2009/08/09
date added: 2011/09/20
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This was a little difficult to get into. Some of her themes I found initially ambiguous but this panned out in relation to the number of stories I read. What becomes clear is the simple scenes that are evoked and how these straightforward scenes are made to symbolise the subtle inner workings of her fabulous characters. The heartbreaking truths of many of her stories is how her characters seem on the brink of making beneficial changes to their lives but are somehow trapped or harried into taking the easy option and staying in their appointed roles. It is a rewarding selection of stories by a sophisticated writer, whose writing is at times beautifully evocative in its almost poetic imagery as well as extraordinarily fluid in her analogies between scenes and characters.
]]> 750821 "Middlemarch", der berĂŒhmteste Roman von Mary Ann Evans, die unter dem mĂ€nnlichen Pseudonym George Eliot auftrat, um als schreibende Frau wahrgenommen zu werden, gilt bis heute zu Recht als Höhepunkt englischer Romankunst des 19. Jahrhunderts; seine Mischung aus Realismus, farbiger Personenzeichnung, psychologischer EinfĂŒhlung, naturwissenschaftlichem und philosophischem Interesse und historischem und sozialgeschichtlichem Bewusstsein ist unerreicht. Das Buch zeichnet ein lebhaftes GemĂ€lde von den SkurrilitĂ€ten der englischen Provinz und ihrer Bewohner. Es ist mit scheinbar leichter Hand geschrieben, in einem Stil, den eine verhaltene, doch stets prĂ€sente elegante Ironie prĂ€gt, wie sie Ă€hnlich vollendet in der englischen Literatur vielleicht am ehesten Jane Austen ein halbes Jahrhundert vor George Eliot zu Gebote stand. FĂŒr Virginia Woolf war es „das herrliche Buch" schlechthin.





Taking place in the years leading up to the First Reform Bill of 1832, Middlemarch explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life: art, religion, science, politics, self, society, human relationships. Among her characters are some of the most remarkable portraits in English literature: Dorothea Brooke, the heroine, idealistic but naive; Rosamond Vincy, beautiful and egoistic: Edward Casaubon, the dry-as-dust scholar: Tertius Lydgate, the brilliant but morally-flawed physician: the passionate artist Will Ladislaw: and Fred Vincey and Mary Garth, childhood sweethearts whose charming courtship is one of the many humorous elements in the novel's rich comic vein.]]> 852 George Eliot 0140433880 James 0 currently-reading 4.19 1872
author: George Eliot
name: James
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1872
rating: 0
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]]> 922840 With an Introduction and Notes by Karl Ashley Smith, University of St Andrews.

Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz).

Mr Dombey is a man obsessed with his firm. His son is groomed from birth to take his place within it, despite his visionary eccentricity and declining health. But Dombey also has a daughter, whose unfailing love for her father goes unreturned. 'Girls' said Mr Dombey, 'have nothing to do with Dombey and Son'.

When Walter Gay, a young clerk in her father's office, rescues her from a bewildering experience in the streets of London, his unforgettable friends believe he is well on his way to receiving her hand in marriage and inheriting the company. It is to be a very different type of story.

Dombey and Son moved grown men to tears (Thackeray despaired of 'writing against such power as this'), but its rich, comic characters and their joyful explosions of language draw laughter with equally unerring magic.]]> 817 Charles Dickens James 0 3.78 1848
author: Charles Dickens
name: James
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1848
rating: 0
read at: 2011/03/23
date added: 2011/03/23
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]]> 50398 Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austen's "Gothic parody." Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist.

The story's unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry's mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.

Executed with high-spirited gusto, Northanger Abbey is a lighthearted, yet unsentimental commentary on love and marriage.]]> 260 Jane Austen 1593082649 James 3 3.85 1817
author: Jane Austen
name: James
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1817
rating: 3
read at: 2010/10/29
date added: 2010/10/29
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]]> 588242 281 Manuel Puig James 0 3.99 1976
author: Manuel Puig
name: James
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at: 2010/03/30
date added: 2010/03/30
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]]> 220451
A misadventure in a brothel links the destiny of the enigmatic George Hardy, a surgeon and amateur photographer, to a foundling who becomes his obsessively devoted maid, a wily street boy who takes advantage of his sexual ambiguity, and his alternately philosophical and libidinous brother-in-law in this terse, searing novel that takes them from the comfortable parlors of Victorian Liverpool to the horrific battlefields of the Crimean War.]]> 190 Beryl Bainbridge 078670697X James 0 to-read 3.52 1998
author: Beryl Bainbridge
name: James
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/03/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 625162 304 Robin Skelton 0141184574 James 0 3.71 1964
author: Robin Skelton
name: James
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1964
rating: 0
read at: 2010/02/24
date added: 2010/02/24
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]]> 2975905
This collection of five great plays is taken from the Oxford Chekhov, Ronald Hingley's scholarly edition, acclaimed for the accuracy and 'speakability' of the translations.]]> 295 Anton Chekhov 0199536694 James 0 3.93 1887
author: Anton Chekhov
name: James
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1887
rating: 0
read at: 2009/10/01
date added: 2009/10/01
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]]> 7083 169 Philip K. Dick 1857988132 James 3 3.95 1968
author: Philip K. Dick
name: James
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1968
rating: 3
read at: 2009/10/25
date added: 2009/10/01
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]]> 12873 Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

Working as a lady's companion, the heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Her future looks bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Max de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. She accepts, but whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to the ominous and brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding housekeeper, Mrs Danvers...

Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced such difficulty with the Other Woman. An international bestseller that has never gone out of print, Rebecca is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.]]> 428 Daphne du Maurier 1844080382 James 0 4.19 1938
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: James
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1938
rating: 0
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]]> 18839 Orlando 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature', playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Constantinople, awakes to find that he is now a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.]]> 336 Virginia Woolf 0141184272 James 0 3.88 1928
author: Virginia Woolf
name: James
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at: 2009/09/18
date added: 2009/09/18
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]]> 1203812 272 Lewis Grassic Gibbon 0862411793 James 4 3.96 1932
author: Lewis Grassic Gibbon
name: James
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1932
rating: 4
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date added: 2009/09/13
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]]> 117661 "They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much."

The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, fraternal twins Esthappen and Rahel fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family. Their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu, (who loves by night the man her children love by day), fled an abusive marriage to live with their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), and their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt). When Chacko's English ex-wife brings their daughter for a Christmas visit, the twins learn that things can change in a day, that lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river...

"A banquet for all the senses", said Newsweek of this bestselling and Booker Prize-winning literary novel--a richly textured first book about the tragic decline of one family whose members suffer the terrible consequences of forbidden love.]]> 340 Arundhati Roy James 0 to-read 3.89 1997
author: Arundhati Roy
name: James
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/06/26
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]]> 578651 "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caufield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.]]> 192 J.D. Salinger 014023750X James 4 3.66 1951
author: J.D. Salinger
name: James
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1951
rating: 4
read at: 2009/06/04
date added: 2009/06/04
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]]> 408888 313 Helen Dunmore 0871137828 James 0 to-read 3.57 1995
author: Helen Dunmore
name: James
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 6531 A farmhouse destroyed by fire
A body amongst the ruins

Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner and consulting pathologist for the federal law enforcement agency ATF, is called out to a farmhouse in Virginia which has been destroyed by fire. In the ruins of the house she finds a body which tells a story of a violent and grisly murder.

The fire has come at the same time as another even more incendiary horror: Carrie Grethen, a killer who nearly destroyed the lives of Scarpetta and those closest to her, has escaped from a forensic psychiatric hospital. Her whereabouts is unknown, but her ultimate destination is not, for Carrie has begun to communicate with Scarpetta, conveying her deadly - if cryptic - plans for revenge.

Chillingly mesmeric in tone, labyrinthine in structure, Point of Origin is Patricia Cornwell at her most dazzling.]]> 440 Patricia Cornwell 0751530484 James 0 to-read 4.05 1998
author: Patricia Cornwell
name: James
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 328907 Knihou SharpĆŻv tygr zahajuje Bernard Cornwell mnohadĂ­lnĂœ seriĂĄl pƙíhod vojĂĄka britskĂ© armĂĄdy Richarda Sharpa, prostƙednictvĂ­m jehoĆŸ dobrodruĆŸnĂœch osudĆŻ provĂĄzĂ­ autor čtenáƙe historiĂ­ pohnutĂœch let v obdobĂ­ 1799 aĆŸ 1820. Je to doba vojenskĂœch taĆŸenĂ­, dlouhĂœch oblĂ©hĂĄnĂ­ a slavnĂœch bitev; doba napoleonskĂœch vĂĄlek, ale takĂ© bojĆŻ britskĂœch koloniĂĄlnĂ­ch vojsk o ovlĂĄdnutĂ­ Indie.
A prĂĄvě zde, v Indii, pƙíběhy Richarda Sharpa začínajĂ­. PĂ­ĆĄe se rok 1799 a britskĂĄ armĂĄda tĂĄhne k Seringapatamu, opevněnĂ©mu sĂ­delnĂ­mu městu maisĂșrskĂ©ho sultĂĄna TĂ­pĂșa. VojĂ­nu Sharpovi, kterĂœ uvaĆŸuje o dezerci, se nĂĄhle naskytne zvlĂĄĆĄtnĂ­ pƙíleĆŸitost uniknout tyranskĂ©mu serĆŸantu Hakeswillovi i nudnĂ©mu vojenskĂ©mu ĆŸivotu, jenĆŸ neuspokojuje jeho dobrodruĆŸnou povahu. Dostane od velitele armĂĄdy generĂĄla Harrise Ășkol, aby se jako pƙedstĂ­ranĂœ dezertĂ©r pokusil proniknout do Seringapatamu a spojil se tam se zajatĂœm britskĂœm zvědem plukovnĂ­kem McCandlessem, kterĂœ vĂ­, jakou past TĂ­pĂș na Brity nastraĆŸil. NebezpečnĂ© poslĂĄnĂ­ zavede Sharpa do exotickĂ©ho prostƙedĂ­ orientĂĄlnĂ­ho města, v němĆŸ musĂ­ vynaloĆŸit vĆĄechen svĆŻj dĆŻvtip i odvahu, aby si zachoval ĆŸivot, a navĂ­c zachrĂĄnil britskou armĂĄdu pƙed porĂĄĆŸkou.
V dalĆĄĂ­ch dĂ­lech seriĂĄlu bude mĂ­t čtenáƙ moĆŸnost proĆŸĂ­vat spolu s hlavnĂ­m hrdinou Sharpem nĂĄmoƙnĂ­ bitvu proti FrancouzĆŻm u Trafalgaru, bitvu u Salamanky nebo oblĂ©hĂĄnĂ­ Badajozu pƙi ĆĄpanělskĂ©m taĆŸenĂ­, vĂ­tězstvĂ­ nad Francouzi u Waterloo a jinĂ© slavnĂ© boje tohoto obdobĂ­.]]> 385 Bernard Cornwell 0060932309 James 0 to-read 4.12 1997
author: Bernard Cornwell
name: James
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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]]> 4900
A reflection on corruptive European colonialism and a journey into the nightmare psyche of one of the corrupted, Heart of Darkness is considered one of the most influential works ever written.]]> 188 Joseph Conrad 1892295490 James 0 to-read 3.43 1899
author: Joseph Conrad
name: James
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1899
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 32508 482 Michael Connelly 0446612731 James 0 to-read 4.11 1992
author: Michael Connelly
name: James
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 1686904 96 Ivy Compton-Burnett 0575014172 James 0 to-read 3.28 1925
author: Ivy Compton-Burnett
name: James
average rating: 3.28
book published: 1925
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 46446
Greg and Dorothy Nilsen had wanted to go on an adventurous trip, see some of the more out-of-the-way places. But the cruise they were on was turning out to be a bore. So when the gracious Mr. Tan requests that Greg take a side trip to Singapore to resolve a bureaucratic detail involving a consignment of small arms, Greg is surprisingly receptive. All he has to do is sign some papers, he’s told, and he’ll be paid a handsome fee. And everything does go smoothly, until it comes to getting a check co-signed by the rebel leader
]]> 256 Eric Ambler 0375726780 James 0 to-read 3.87 1959
author: Eric Ambler
name: James
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 1262472
En Philippe i la Vinca es coneixen des de la infantesa. Fins ara, han passat les vacances sempre junts, perquĂš les dues famĂ­lies estiuegen a la mateixa casa en un poblet de la Bretanya. I aquest no serĂ  pas diferent: banys al mar, excursions, pĂ­cnics, llargues jornades de pesca... perĂČ ells ja no sĂłn dues criatures, els seus cossos i els seus sentiments estan canviant. AixĂ­ descobriran l’atracciĂł fĂ­sica i el plaer, perĂČ tambĂ© les responsabilitats del mĂłn adult, que els estĂ  esperant tan bon punt s’acabin les vacances.]]> 186 Colette Gauthier-Villars 0374250693 James 0 to-read 3.74 1923
author: Colette Gauthier-Villars
name: James
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1923
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 6192 220 J.M. Coetzee 0143036378 James 0 to-read 3.86 1999
author: J.M. Coetzee
name: James
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 193873 512 Jonathan Coe 0140294562 James 0 to-read 4.15 1994
author: Jonathan Coe
name: James
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 437856 260 Nicholas Blake 0330373218 James 0 to-read 3.77 1938
author: Nicholas Blake
name: James
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1938
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 112537 243 Arthur C. Clarke 1857231589 James 0 to-read 4.12 1973
author: Arthur C. Clarke
name: James
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1973
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 19691 Somewhere under the Atlantic, a Soviet sub commander has just made a fateful decision. The Red October is heading west. The Americans want her. The Russians want her back. And the most incredible chase in history is on...

]]> 432 Tom Clancy 0425172902 James 0 to-read 4.11 1984
author: Tom Clancy
name: James
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 93111 Paris Peasant (1926) is one of the central works of Surrealism, yet Exact Change's edition is the first U.S. publication of Simon Watson Taylor's authoritative translation, completed after consultations with the author. Unconventional in form--Aragon consciously avoided recognizable narration or character development--Paris Peasant is, in the author's words, -a mythology of the modern.- The book uses the city of Paris as a stage, or framework, and Aragon interweaves his text with images of related ephemera: cafe menus, maps, inscriptions on monuments and newspaper clippings. A detailed description of a Parisian arcade (nineteenth-century precursor to the mini-mall) and another of the Buttes-Chaumont park, are among the great set pieces within Aragon's swirling prose of philosophy, dream and satire. Andre Breton wrote of this work: -no one could have been a more astute detector of the unwonted in all its forms; no one else could have been carried away by such intoxicating reveries about a sort of secret life of the city. . . .-]]> 228 Louis Aragon 1878972103 James 0 to-read 3.88 1926
author: Louis Aragon
name: James
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1926
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 6551 371 Saul Bellow 0142437298 James 0 to-read 3.77 1964
author: Saul Bellow
name: James
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1964
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 16331 288 Agatha Christie 1579126251 James 0 to-read 4.07 1930
author: Agatha Christie
name: James
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1930
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 1078
Hard times come upon Wang Lung and his family when flood and drought force them to seek work in the city. The working people riot, breaking into the homes of the rich and forcing them to flee. When Wang Lung shows mercy to one noble and is rewarded, he begins to rise in the world, even as the House of Hwang falls.]]> 418 Pearl S. Buck 1416500189 James 0 to-read 4.00 1931
author: Pearl S. Buck
name: James
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1931
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 51019 Cat's Eye is the story of Elaine Risley, a controversial painter who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, for a retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the fierce politics of childhood and its secret world of friendship, longing, and betrayal. Elaine must come to terms with her own identity as a daughter, a lover, and artist, and woman—but above all she must seek release from her haunting memories. Disturbing, hilarious, and compassionate, Cat's Eye is a breathtaking novel of a woman grappling with the tangled knots of her life.]]> 462 Margaret Atwood 0385491026 James 0 to-read 3.95 1988
author: Margaret Atwood
name: James
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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]]> 114599
Contains:
The House with the Mezzanine
Peasants
Man in a Case
Gooseberries
About Love
A Visit to Friends
Ionych
My Life
The Lady with the Little Dog
In the Ravine
Disturbing the Balance
The Bishop
The Bride]]> 384 Anton Chekhov 0140447873 James 0 to-read 4.20 1899
author: Anton Chekhov
name: James
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1899
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 11686
Goodbye, my brother --
The common day --
The enormous radio --
O city of broken dreams --
The Hartleys --
The Sutton Place story --
The summer farmer --
Torch song --
The pot of gold --
Clancy in the Tower of Babel --
Christmas is a sad season for the poor --
The season of divorce --
The chaste Clarissa --
The cure --
The superintendent --
The children --
The sorrows of gin --
O youth and beauty! --
The day the pig fell into the well --
The five-forty-eight --
Just one more time --
The housebreaker of Shady Hill --
The bus to St. James's --
The worm in the apple --
The trouble of Marcie Flint --
The bella lingua --
The Wrysons --
The country husband --
The duchess --
The scarlet moving van --
Just tell me who it was --
Brimmer --
The golden age --
The lowboy --
The music teacher --
A woman without a country --
The death of Justina --
Clementina --
Boy in Rome --
A miscellany of characters that will not appear --
The chimera --
The seaside houses --
The angel of the bridge --
The brigadier and the golf widow --
A vision of the world --
Reunion --
An educated American woman --
Metamorphoses --
Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin --
Montraldo --
The ocean --
Marito in cittĂ  --
The geometry of love --
The swimmer --
The world of apples --
Another story --
Percy --
The fourth alarm --
Artemis, the honest well digger --
Three stories --
The jewels of the Cabots.]]> 693 John Cheever 0375724427 James 0 to-read 4.27 1978
author: John Cheever
name: James
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 79909 199 Bruce Chatwin 0142437190 James 0 to-read 3.69 1977
author: Bruce Chatwin
name: James
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 2050 Alternative cover edition of ISBN 9780394758275

Marlowe's about to give up on a completely routine case when he finds himself in the wrong place at the right time to get caught up in a murder that leads to a ring of jewel thieves, another murder, a fortune-teller, a couple more murders, and more corruption than your average graveyard.]]> 292 Raymond Chandler James 0 to-read 4.12 1940
author: Raymond Chandler
name: James
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1940
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 545951 297 Willa Cather 0679728899 James 0 to-read 3.93 1927
author: Willa Cather
name: James
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1927
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11446 181 Raymond Carver 0099449897 James 0 to-read 4.27 1976
author: Raymond Carver
name: James
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1976
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 653651
Courted by the Prince of Wales and painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, she is an aerialiste extraordinaire and star of Colonel Kearney's circus. She is also part woman, part swan. Jack Walser, an American journalist, is on a quest to discover the truth behind her identity. Dazzled by his love for her, and desperate for the scoop of a lifetime, Walser has no choice but to join the circus on its magical tour through turn-of-the-nineteenth-century London, St Petersburg and Siberia.]]> 295 Angela Carter 0140077030 James 0 to-read 3.91 1984
author: Angela Carter
name: James
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1521674 463 Wilson Harris 0571134513 James 0 to-read 3.79 1985
author: Wilson Harris
name: James
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 111101 296 Peter Carey 057116272X James 0 to-read 3.78 1981
author: Peter Carey
name: James
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 46755 Surfacing is the story of a talented woman artist who goes in search of her missing father on a remote island in northern Quebec.ÌęSetting out with her lover and another young couple, she soon finds herself captivated by the isolated setting, where a marriage begins to fall apart, violence and death lurk just beneath the surface, and sex becomes a catalyst for conflict and dangerous choices. Surfacing is a work permeated with an aura of suspense, complex with layered meanings, and written in brilliant, diamond-sharp prose.ÌęHere is a rich mine of ideas from an extraordinary writer about contemporary life and nature, families and marriage, and about women fragmented... and becoming whole.

]]> 199 Margaret Atwood 0385491050 James 0 to-read 3.47 1972
author: Margaret Atwood
name: James
average rating: 3.47
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 11989
It tells the story from the point of view of a narrator of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The narrator remains unknown until the start of the last chapter, chapter 5 of part 5. The novel presents a snapshot of life in Oran as seen through the author's distinctive absurdist point of view.

The book tells a gripping tale of human unrelieved horror, of survival and resilience, and of the ways in which humankind confronts death, The Plague is at once a masterfully crafted novel, eloquently understated and epic in scope, and a parable of ageless moral resonance, profoundly relevant to our times. In Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, the plague begins as a series of portents, unheeded by the people. It gradually becomes an omnipresent reality, obliterating all traces of the past and driving its victims to almost unearthly extremes of suffering, madness, and compassion.

The Plague is considered an existentialist classic despite Camus' objection to the label. The novel stresses the powerlessness of the individual characters to affect their destinies. The narrative tone is similar to Kafka's, especially in The Trial, whose individual sentences potentially have multiple meanings; the material often pointedly resonating as stark allegory of phenomenal consciousness and the human condition.]]> 308 Albert Camus James 0 to-read 4.05 1947
author: Albert Camus
name: James
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1947
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 9806 393 Italo Calvino James 0 to-read 4.28 1960
author: Italo Calvino
name: James
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1960
rating: 0
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]]> 41219 A beautiful hardback edition of the Booker Prize-winning novel. A romance, a literary quest, a modern classic.

A pair of young scholars investigate the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time. Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story.]]> 555 A.S. Byatt 0679735909 James 0 to-read 3.89 1991
author: A.S. Byatt
name: James
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 7437 Naked Lunch is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century, a book that redefined not just literature but American culture. An unnerving tale of a narcotics addict unmoored in New York, Tangier, and ultimately a nightmarish wasteland known as Interzone, its formal innovation, taboo subject matter, and tour de force execution have exerted a significant influence on authors like Thomas Pynchon, J. G. Ballard, and William Gibson; on the relationship of art and obscenity; and on the shape of music, film, and media generally. Naked Lunch: The Restored Text includes many editorial corrections to errors present in previous editions, and incorporates Burroughs’s notes on the text, several essays he wrote over the years about the book, and an appendix of 20 percent new material and alternate drafts from the original manuscript, which predates the first published version. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume is a valuable and fresh experience of this classic of our culture.]]> 289 William S. Burroughs 0802140181 James 0 to-read 3.48 1959
author: William S. Burroughs
name: James
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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]]> 227463 A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?"

This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."]]> 192 Anthony Burgess James 0 to-read 3.98 1962
author: Anthony Burgess
name: James
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 153492 100 John Buchan 1419151126 James 0 to-read 3.62 1915
author: John Buchan
name: James
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1915
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 84512 192 Anita Brookner 0140147454 James 0 to-read 3.95 1983
author: Anita Brookner
name: James
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 31175 269 Charlotte Brontë 1582870950 James 0 to-read 3.59 1857
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: James
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1857
rating: 0
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]]> 3542
When originally published in 1958, First Love and Other Sorrows won Harold Brodkey widespread acclaim and announced a brilliant new arrival on the literary scene. Brodkey was hailed as an "unusually gifted writer" (The Atlantic) and a "rich talent" (San Francisco Chronicle), whose stories read like "murmured confidences, highly personal yet carefully contrived" (Chicago Tribune). In First Love and Other Sorrows, the young Brodkey chronicles the world of the educated and affluent middle class of the 1950s, at leisure and in love. He establishes the themes that would appear throughout his career--the painful uncertainties of childhood, the halting intimacies of social life--with rare terness, humor, and haunting insight. Two new stories, never before collected, from Brodkey's early writings join the original volume to complete a much-loved classic.]]> 288 Harold Brodkey 0805060103 James 0 to-read 3.94 1954
author: Harold Brodkey
name: James
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1954
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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review:

]]> 734812 250 André Brink 0140080147 James 0 to-read 4.12 1975
author: André Brink
name: James
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1975
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 458624 230 Malcolm Bradbury 0099149109 James 0 to-read 3.62 1975
author: Malcolm Bradbury
name: James
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1975
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 77844
From his birth in 1899, Todd was doomed. Emerging from his angst-filled childhood, he rushes into the throes of the twentieth century on the Western Front during the Great War, and quickly changes his role on the battlefield from cannon fodder to cameraman. When he becomes a prisoner of war, he discovers Rousseau's Confessions , and dedicates his life to bringing the memoir to the silver screen. Plagued by bad luck and blind ambition, Todd becomes a celebrated London upstart, a Weimar luminary, and finally a disgruntled director of cowboy movies and the eleventh member of the Hollywood Ten. Ambitious and entertaining, Boyd has invented a most irresistible hero.]]> 480 William Boyd 0375705031 James 0 to-read 4.10
author: William Boyd
name: James
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 0
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]]> 91494 The Death of the Heart is perhaps Elizabeth Bowen's best-known book. As she deftly and delicately exposes the cruelty that lurks behind the polished surfaces of conventional society, Bowen reveals herself as a masterful novelist who combines a sense of humor with a devastating gift for divining human motivations.

In this piercing story of innocence betrayed set in the thirties, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London. There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and he fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal—and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.]]> 418 Elizabeth Bowen 0385720173 James 0 to-read 3.66 1938
author: Elizabeth Bowen
name: James
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1938
rating: 0
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]]> 17717
Labyrinths is a representative selection of Borges' writing, some forty pieces drawn from various books of his published over the years. The translations are by Harriet de Onis, Anthony Kerrigan, and others, including the editors, who have provided a biographical and critical introduction, as well as an extensive bibliography.]]> 260 Jorge Luis Borges 0811200124 James 0 to-read 4.48 1962
author: Jorge Luis Borges
name: James
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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]]> 38503 Exceptional stories that came pounding out of Bukowski's violent and depraved life. Horrible and holy, you cannot read them and ever come away the same again.

With Bukowski, the votes are still coming in. There seems to be no middle ground—people seem either to love him or hate him. Tales of his own life and doings are as wild and weird as the very stories he writes. In a sense, Bukowski was a legend in his time: a madman, a recluse, a lover; tender, vicious; never the same.

From prostitutes to classical music, Bukowski ingeniously mixes high and low culture in his "tales of ordinary madness." These stories are humorous and haunting, angry yet tender portrayals of life in the underbelly of Los Angeles.]]> 238 Charles Bukowski 0872861554 James 0 to-read 4.01 1983
author: Charles Bukowski
name: James
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1438724 314 Heinrich Böll 0349103518 James 0 to-read 3.68 1979
author: Heinrich Böll
name: James
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1979
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 1202116 230 Nicholas Blincoe 1852427086 James 0 to-read 3.49 1997
author: Nicholas Blincoe
name: James
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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]]> 67732
Born into the professional classes, Thomas More applied his formidable intellect and well-placed connections to become the most powerful man in England, second only to the king. As much a work of history as a biography, The Life of Thomas More gives an unmatched portrait of the everyday, religious, and intellectual life of the early sixteenth century. In Ackroyd's hands, this renowned "man for all seasons" emerges in the fullness of his complex humanity; we see the unexpected side of his character--such as his preference for bawdy humor--as well as his indisputable moral courage.]]> 480 Peter Ackroyd 0385496931 James 0 to-read 4.01 1998
author: Peter Ackroyd
name: James
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> 742948 Diran Adebayo 0349108722 James 0 to-read 3.31 1996
author: Diran Adebayo
name: James
average rating: 3.31
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 34310 704 Maeve Binchy 0752876872 James 0 to-read 3.95 1994
author: Maeve Binchy
name: James
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 621463 379 Anthony Burgess 0877957533 James 0 to-read 3.91 1985
author: Anthony Burgess
name: James
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 4989 The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women's society.]]> 324 Anita Diamant 0312353766 James 0 to-read 4.21 1997
author: Anita Diamant
name: James
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 60079 300 E.F. Benson 1592245889 James 0 to-read 3.94 1920
author: E.F. Benson
name: James
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1920
rating: 0
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]]> 188454 The Old Wives' Tale is a superb novel of its kind, and it is still as readable and enjoyable as ever. First published in 1908, it tells the story of the Baines sisters--shy, retiring Constance and defiant, romantic Sophia--over the course of nearly half a century. Bennett traces the lives of the sisters from childhood in their father's drapery shop in provincial Bursley, England, during the mid-Victorian era, through their married lives, to the modern industrial age, when they are reunited as old women. The setting moves from the Five Towns of the Staffordshire Potteries to exotic and cosmopolitan Paris. It was fascinating to learn from Bennett's journal how he saw an old lady in a cafe and was inspired to think of how her life might have been lived, how she must have once been young. The plot of the novel came to him fairly promptly, and, as they say, the rest is history. This novel was serialized on British television with great success circa 2000.]]> 565 Arnold Bennett 0375754903 James 0 to-read 3.81 1908
author: Arnold Bennett
name: James
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1908
rating: 0
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]]> 11494 487 Saul Bellow 0140189440 James 0 to-read 3.86 1975
author: Saul Bellow
name: James
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1975
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 462503 202 John Berger 0679767770 James 0 to-read 4.06 1995
author: John Berger
name: James
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
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]]> 456394 Apuleius 1594561931 James 0 to-read 3.79 159
author: Apuleius
name: James
average rating: 3.79
book published: 159
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 6259 483 Sebastian Faulks 0679776818 James 3 4.11 1993
author: Sebastian Faulks
name: James
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at: 2007/06/15
date added: 2009/03/03
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This book is a bit of a mixed bag really. The romance is quickly introduced and proceeds with relative alacrity, but the essence of it left me unconvinced. The standout part of the whole novel is Wraysford's time in the trenches during the Great War. I have never read a book that has ever given me a clearer idea of what this battlefield was like, and the horrors that these men lived through and then carried with them. It is some of the most powerful writing I have seen, and the chilling coldness with which Wraysford treats all this is really evocative. He has seen it and lived with it for so long, tempered by a lost love, that he merely lingers, waiting for the inevitable. The final third, in which one of Wraysford's descendants enacts an oddysey into her lineage is not so well done. I can understand the intentions, but it just falls wide of the mark, and was in the end so ineffectual as to become almost redundant. I would reccommend it though, if only for Wraysford's wartime experiences.
]]> 18512 here.

The Companions of the Ring have become involved in separate adventures as the quest continues. Aragorn, revealed as the hidden heir of the ancient Kings of the West, joined with the Riders of Rohan against the forces of Isengard, and took part in the desperate victory of the Hornburg. Merry and Pippin, captured by Orcs, escaped into Fangorn Forest and there encountered the Ents. Gandalf returned, miraculously, and defeated the evil wizard, Saruman. Meanwhile, Sam and Frodo progressed towards Mordor to destroy the Ring, accompanied by SmEagol--Gollum, still obsessed by his 'precious'. After a battle with the giant spider, Shelob, Sam left his master for dead; but Frodo is still alive--in the hands of the Orcs. And all the time the armies of the Dark Lord are massing. J.R.R. Tolkien's great work of imaginative fiction has been labeled both a heroic romance and a classic fantasy fiction. By turns comic and homely, epic and diabolic, the narrative moves through countless changes of scene and character in an imaginary world which is totally convincing in its detail.]]> 404 J.R.R. Tolkien James 5 4.54 1955
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: James
average rating: 4.54
book published: 1955
rating: 5
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]]> 778463
Nobody could predict the consequences when ravishing Zuleika Dobson arrives at Oxford, to visit her grandfather, the college warden. Formerly a governess, she has landed on the occupation of prestidigitator, and thanks to her overwhelming beauty—and to a lesser extent her professional talents—she takes the town by storm, gaining admittance to her grandfather's college. It is there, at the institution inspired by Beerbohm's own alma mater, that she falls in love with the Duke of Dorset, who duly adores her in return. Ever aware of appearances, however, Zuleika breaks the Duke's heart when she decides that she must abandon the match.

The epidemic of heartache that proceeds to overcome the academic town makes for some of the best comic writing in the history of English literature.]]> 252 Max Beerbohm 037575248X James 0 to-read 3.53 1911
author: Max Beerbohm
name: James
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1911
rating: 0
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]]> 333314 288 Samuel Beckett 0802150373 James 0 to-read 3.85 1938
author: Samuel Beckett
name: James
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1938
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/02
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]]> 24731 355 T. Coraghessan Boyle James 0 to-read 3.65 1995
author: T. Coraghessan Boyle
name: James
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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]]> 110945
Only the author of Flaubert's Parrot could give us a novel that is at once a note-perfect rendition of the angsts and attitudes of English adolescence, a giddy comedy of sexual awakening, and a portrait of the accommodations that some of us call "growing up" and others "selling out.]]> 180 Julian Barnes 0679736085 James 0 to-read 3.64 1980
author: Julian Barnes
name: James
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1980
rating: 0
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]]> 5872 Regeneration, one in Pat Barker's series of novels confronting the psychological effects of World War I, focuses on treatment methods during the war and the story of a decorated English officer sent to a military hospital after publicly declaring he will no longer fight. Yet the novel is much more. Written in sparse prose that is shockingly clear—the descriptions of electronic treatments are particularly harrowing—it combines real-life characters and events with fictional ones in a work that examines the insanity of war like no other. Barker also weaves in issues of class and politics in this compactly powerful book. Other books in the series include The Eye in the Door and the Booker Award winner The Ghost Road.]]> 256 Pat Barker 0140236236 James 0 to-read 4.04 1991
author: Pat Barker
name: James
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/02
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]]> 3659 220 John Banville 0375725237 James 0 to-read 3.74 1989
author: John Banville
name: James
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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]]> 567678
The Wasp Factory is a work of horrifying compulsion: horrifying, because it enters a mind whose realities are not our own, whose values of life and death are alien to our society; compulsive, because the humour and compassion of that mind reach out to us all. A novel of extraordinary originality, imagination and comic ferocity.]]> 184 Iain Banks 0684853159 James 0 to-read 3.78 1984
author: Iain Banks
name: James
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/02
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]]> 262356
This early novel by the author of CRASH and EMPIRE OF THE SUN is at once a fast paced narrative, a stunning evocation of a flooded, tropical London of the near future and a speculative foray into the workings of the unconscious mind.]]> 176 J.G. Ballard 1857988833 James 0 to-read 3.57 1962
author: J.G. Ballard
name: James
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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]]> 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 James 0 to-read 4.06 1953
author: James Baldwin
name: James
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1953
rating: 0
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]]> 28220 The Fermata, which proves in the telling to be a very provocative, very funny and altogether morally confused piece of work.

Hilarious and totally original, Nicholson Baker's new novel is a triumphant comedy about sexual fantasy and fantastic sexuality.]]> 320 Nicholson Baker 0099466929 James 0 to-read 3.67 1994
author: Nicholson Baker
name: James
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/02
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]]> 4700059 220 Paul Bailey 0747512361 James 0 to-read 3.26 1967
author: Paul Bailey
name: James
average rating: 3.26
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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]]> 572100
Thirteen men and women on a package tour travel the world, visiting museums, hotels, and shops. They are like tourists anywhere, except that wherever they go-Africa, England, South America, New York, or Russia-they find nothing is as it seems. Challenged by unexpected propositions, differences, and subtleties of life and history, Murray Bail's tourists are in turn repelled, attracted, altered. As the Nobel laureate Patrick White put it, Homesickness, with its "tourists permanently traipsing through the museums of their own obsessions," is the work of "a visual writer with great understanding of sensual man." It is surely one of the most distinctive, original Australian novels of recent times.]]> 432 Murray Bail 0374172471 James 0 to-read 3.14 1980
author: Murray Bail
name: James
average rating: 3.14
book published: 1980
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/02
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]]> 18827 432 Martin Amis 0375726837 James 0 to-read 3.89 2000
author: Martin Amis
name: James
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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]]> 10115 Most of all, in its richness and authenticity, it is an irresistible story that reveals why Margaret George's work has been widely acclaimed as "the best kind of historical novel, one the reader can't wait to get lost in."
]]> 1139 Margaret George 0330353829 James 0 to-read 4.20 1997
author: Margaret George
name: James
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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]]> 319480
his sprawling property of eucalyptus trees and his ravishingly beautiful daughter, Ellen.

When Ellen turns nineteen Holland makes an announcement: she may marry only the man who can correctly name the species of each of the hundreds of gum trees on his property.

Ellen is uninterested in the many suitors who arrive from around the world, until one afternoon she chances on a strange, handsome young man resting under a Coolibah tree. In the days that follow, he spins dozens of tales set in cities, deserts, and faraway countries. As the contest draws to a close, Ellen and the stranger's meetings become more erotic, the stories more urgent. Murray Bail's rich narrative is filled with unexpected wisdom about art, feminine beauty, landscape, and language. Eucalyptus is a shimmering love story that affirms the beguiling power of storytelling itself.]]> 261 Murray Bail 0156007819 James 0 to-read 3.52 1998
author: Murray Bail
name: James
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/02
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]]> 278105 208 Paul Benjamin 0140130853 James 0 to-read 3.50 1978
author: Paul Benjamin
name: James
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]> 311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X James 0 to-read 4.15 1985
author: Margaret Atwood
name: James
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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]]> 28940 332 Kate Atkinson 0312150601 James 0 to-read 3.96 1995
author: Kate Atkinson
name: James
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/02
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]]> 41820
Joseph Schwartz is sixty-two.

This is young Isaac Asimov's first novel, full of wonders and ideas, the book that launched the novels of the Galactic Empire, culminating in the Foundation books and novels. It is also one of that select group of SF adventures that since the early 1950s has hooked generations of teenagers on reading science fiction. This is Golden Age SF at its finest.]]> 308 Isaac Asimov 0553293427 James 0 to-read 3.89 1950
author: Isaac Asimov
name: James
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1950
rating: 0
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]]> 76635 Ìę
Family friend Albert Campion is present during the deadly crime. The too obvious suspect is the artist’s granddaughter, Linda Lafcadio, who was engaged to the victim until he brought back a model from Italy and married her. Linda didn’t take his suggestion of a mĂ©nage Ă  trois well, to say the least. But was she angry enough to kill him? Campion thinks not. He’s actually quite sure he knows who did the dastardly deed, but there’s no evidence to prove it. And though he’s one step behind a diabolical killer, Campion just might be next on the list of victimsÌę.Ìę.Ìę.]]> 207 Margery Allingham 0553249584 James 0 to-read 3.91 1934
author: Margery Allingham
name: James
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1934
rating: 0
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]]> 571287 358 Aeron Clement 0140116265 James 0 to-read 3.81
author: Aeron Clement
name: James
average rating: 3.81
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2009/03/02
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]]> 576729 A detective novel of ancient Rome.
When wild Germanic troops rebel and a Roman general disappears, Emperor Vespasian turns to the one man he can Marcus Didius Falco, Imperial Rome's answer to Columbo. Slipping undercover into Germania, Falco meets with disarray, torture, and murder in his quest to find a Druid priestess who alone can persuade the barbarians to embrace peace.]]> 294 Lindsey Davis 034538024X James 0 to-read 4.08 1992
author: Lindsey Davis
name: James
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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]]> 4835277 326 Hilary Bailey 0330321285 James 0 to-read 3.59 2012
author: Hilary Bailey
name: James
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> 18825 Time Magazine included the book in its list of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. The story of John Self and his insatiable appetite for money, alcohol, fast food, drugs, pornography, and more, Money is ceaselessly inventive and thrillingly savage; a tale of life lived without restraint, of money and the disasters it can precipitate.]]> 394 Martin Amis 0099461889 James 0 to-read 3.72 1984
author: Martin Amis
name: James
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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]]> 366427 The Old Devils, which turns its humane and ironic gaze on a group of Welsh married couples who have been spending their golden years—when “all of a sudden the evening starts starting after breakfast”—nattering, complaining, reminiscing, and, above all, drinking. This more or less orderly social world is thrown off-kilter, however, when two old friends unexpectedly return from England: Alun Weaver, now a celebrated man of Welsh letters, and his entrancing wife, Rhiannon. Long-dormant rivalries and romances are rudely awakened, as life at the Bible and Crown, the local pub, is changed irrevocably.

Considered by Martin Amis to be Kingsley Amis’s greatest achievement—a book that “stands comparison with any English novel of the [twentieth] century”â€�The Old Devils confronts the attrition of ageing with rare candor, sympathy, and moral intelligence.]]> 381 Kingsley Amis James 0 to-read 3.32 1986
author: Kingsley Amis
name: James
average rating: 3.32
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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]]> 46429 A Coffin for Dimitrios remains Eric Ambler's most widely acclaimed novel.]]> 304 Eric Ambler 0375726713 James 0 to-read 3.93 1939
author: Eric Ambler
name: James
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1939
rating: 0
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