Katherine's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 07 Aug 2024 16:10:57 -0700 60 Katherine's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Katherine 4 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)]]> 1 652 J.K. Rowling Katherine 4 4.57 2005 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/04/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 24583
Unlike his brother Sid, Tom receives "lickings" from his Aunt Polly; ever the mischief-maker, would rather play hooky than attend school and often sneaks out his bedroom window at night to adventure with his friend, Huckleberry Finn ­ the town's social outcast. Tom, despite his dread of schooling, is extremely clever and would normally get away with his pranks if Sid were not such a "tattle-tale."

As punishment for skipping school to go swimming, Aunt Polly assigns Tom the chore of whitewashing the fence surrounding the house. In a brilliant scheme, Tom is able to con the neighborhood boys into completing the chore for him, managing to convince them of the joys of whitewashing. At school, Tom is equally as flamboyant, and attracts attention by chasing other boys, yelling, and running around. With his usual antics, Tom attempts to catch the eye of Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get "engaged" by kissing him. But their romance collapses when she learns Tom has been "engaged" previously to Amy Lawrence. Shortly after Becky shuns him, he accompanies Huckleberry Finn to the graveyard at night, where they witness the murder of Dr. Robinson.

Excerpt:
"TOM!"
No answer.
"TOM!"
No answer.
"What's gone with that boy, ĚýI wonder? You TOM!"
No answer.
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never lookedĚýthroughĚýthem for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service—she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll�"
She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.
"I never did see the beat of that boy!"]]>
244 Mark Twain Katherine 3 3.92 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
author: Mark Twain
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1876
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/04/25
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Serpent of Venice 18052907
Venice, a long time ago. Three prominent Venetians await their most loathsome and foul dinner guest, the erstwhile envoy of Britain and France, and widower of the murdered Queen Cordelia: the rascal-Fool Pocket.

This trio of cunning plotters-the merchant, Antonio; the senator, Montressor Brabantio; and the naval officer, Iago-have lured Pocket to a dark dungeon, promising an evening of sprits and debauchery with a rare Amontillado sherry and Brabantio's beautiful daughter, Portia.

But their invitation is, of course, bogus. The wine is drugged. The girl isn't even in the city limits. Desperate to rid themselves once and for all of the man who has consistently foiled their grand quest for power and wealth, they have lured him to his death. (How can such a small man, be such a huge obstacle?). But this Fool is no fool . . . and he's got more than a few tricks (and hand gestures) up his sleeve.]]>
352 Christopher Moore 0062194879 Katherine 0 to-read 3.81 2014 The Serpent of Venice
author: Christopher Moore
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/04/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Lancelot 77956 257 Walker Percy 0312243073 Katherine 0 to-read 3.72 1977 Lancelot
author: Walker Percy
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Moviegoer 10739
On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, Binx Bolling is adrift. He occupies himself dallying with his secretaries and going to movies, which provide him with the "treasurable moments" absent from his real life. But one fateful Mardi Gras, Binx embarks on a quest - a harebrained search for authenticity that outrages his family, endangers his fragile cousin Kate, and sends him reeling through the gaudy chaos of the French Quarter. Wry and wrenching, rich in irony and romance, "The Moviegoer" is a genuine American classic.]]>
242 Walker Percy 0375701966 Katherine 0 to-read 3.66 1961 The Moviegoer
author: Walker Percy
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Shining (The Shining, #1) 11588 497 Stephen King 0450040186 Katherine 3 4.28 1977 The Shining (The Shining, #1)
author: Stephen King
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1977
rating: 3
read at: 2010/04/05
date added: 2010/04/06
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2)]]> 43814 481 Anne Rice 0345476883 Katherine 3 4.10 1985 The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2)
author: Anne Rice
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1985
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Northanger Abbey 960243 276 Jane Austen Katherine 0 4.02 1817 Northanger Abbey
author: Jane Austen
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1817
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Outsiders 231804 The Outsiders is about two weeks in the life of a 14-year-old boy. The novel tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser.

Librarian note: This record is for one of the three editions published with different covers and with ISBN 0-140-38572-X / 978-0-14-038572-4. The records are for the 1988 cover (this record), the 1995 cover, and the 2008 cover which is also the current in-print cover.]]>
208 S.E. Hinton 0670532576 Katherine 4 4.13 1967 The Outsiders
author: S.E. Hinton
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1967
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal]]> 28881 Philadelphia Inquirer).

Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Savior's pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But there's no one who loves Josh more—except maybe "Maggie," Mary of Magdala—and Biff isn't about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight.]]>
444 Christopher Moore 0380813815 Katherine 3 4.23 2002 Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
author: Christopher Moore
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
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 Katherine 4 3.64 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
author: James Joyce
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1916
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next, #1)]]> 27003
Hades' real target is the beloved Jane Eyre, and it's not long before he plucks her from the pages of Bronte's novel. Enter Thursday Next. She's the Special Operative's renowned literary detective, and she drives a Porsche. With the help of her uncle Mycroft's Prose Portal, Thursday enters the novel to rescue Jane Eyre from this heinous act of literary homicide. It's tricky business, all these interlopers running about Thornfield, and deceptions run rampant as their paths cross with Jane, Rochester, and Miss Fairfax. Can Thursday save Jane Eyre and Bronte's masterpiece? And what of the Crimean War? Will it ever end? And what about those annoying black holes that pop up now and again, sucking things into time-space voids . . .

Suspenseful and outlandish, absorbing and fun, The Eyre Affair is a caper unlike any other and an introduction to the imagination of a most distinctive writer and his singular fictional universe.]]>
374 Jasper Fforde 0142001805 Katherine 3 3.89 2001 The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next, #1)
author: Jasper Fforde
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Awakening 58345 The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the confines of her domestic situation.

Aside from its unusually frank treatment of a then-controversial subject, the novel is widely admired today for its literary qualities. Edmund Wilson characterized it as a work "quite uninhibited and beautifully written, which anticipates D. H. Lawrence in its treatment of infidelity." Although the theme of marital infidelity no longer shocks, few novels have plumbed the psychology of a woman involved in an illicit relationship with the perception, artistry, and honesty that Kate Chopin brought to The Awakening.]]>
195 Kate Chopin 0543898083 Katherine 3 3.69 1899 The Awakening
author: Kate Chopin
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1899
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Mrs. Dalloway 14942 194 Virginia Woolf 0151009988 Katherine 4 3.80 1925 Mrs. Dalloway
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
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 Katherine 3 4.30 1908 Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)
author: L.M. Montgomery
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1908
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Invisible Man 16981 Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be.

As he journeys from the Deep South to the streets and basements of Harlem, from a horrifying "battle royal" where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a Communist rally where they are elevated to the status of trophies, Ralph Ellison's nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own into harsh and even hilarious relief. Suspenseful and sardonic, narrated in a voice that takes in the symphonic range of the American language, black and white, Invisible Man is one of the most audacious and dazzling novels of our century.]]>
581 Ralph Ellison Katherine 3 3.91 1952 Invisible Man
author: Ralph Ellison
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1952
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Chronicles of Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia, #1-7)]]> 11127 Librarian note: An alternate cover for this edition can be found here: 2005.

Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures, and epic battles between good and evil—what more could any reader ask for in one book? The book that has it all is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, written in 1949 by Clive Staples Lewis. But Lewis did not stop there. Six more books followed, and together they became known as The Chronicles of Narnia.

For the past fifty years, The Chronicles of Narnia have transcended the fantasy genre to become part of the canon of classic literature. Each of the seven books is a masterpiece, drawing the reader into a land where magic meets reality, and the result is a fictional world whose scope has fascinated generations.

This edition presents all seven books—unabridged—in one impressive volume. The books are presented here in chronlogical order, each chapter graced with an illustration by the original artist, Pauline Baynes. Deceptively simple and direct, The Chronicles of Narnia continue to captivate fans with adventures, characters, and truths that speak to readers of all ages, even fifty years after they were first published.]]>
767 C.S. Lewis 0066238501 Katherine 3 4.27 1956 The Chronicles of Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia, #1-7)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1956
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
A Separate Peace 5148 A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to the second world war.

Set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.

A bestseller for more than thirty years, A Separate Peace is John Knowles crowning achievement and an undisputed American classic.]]>
208 John Knowles Katherine 3 3.60 1959 A Separate Peace
author: John Knowles
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1959
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Neverwhere (London Below, #1) 14497
"Neverwhere" is the London of the people who have fallen between the cracks.

Strange destinies lie in wait in London below - a world that seems eerily familiar. But a world that is utterly bizarre, peopled by unearthly characters such as the Angel called Islington, the girl named Door, and the Earl who holds Court on a tube train.

Now a single act of kindness has catapulted young businessman Richard Mayhew out of his safe and predictable life - and into the realms of "Neverwhere." Richard is about to find out more than he ever wanted to know about this other London. Which is a pity. Because Richard just wants to go home...]]>
370 Neil Gaiman 0060557818 Katherine 4 4.17 1996 Neverwhere (London Below, #1)
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Secret Garden 2998
Mary Lennox, a spoiled, ill-tempered, and unhealthy child, comes to live with her reclusive uncle in Misselthwaite Manor on England’s Yorkshire moors after the death of her parents. There she meets a hearty housekeeper and her spirited brother, a dour gardener, a cheerful robin, and her wilful, hysterical, and sickly cousin, Master Colin, whose wails she hears echoing through the house at night.

With the help of the robin, Mary finds the door to a secret garden, neglected and hidden for years. When she decides to restore the garden in secret, the story becomes a charming journey into the places of the heart, where faith restores health, flowers refresh the spirit, and the magic of the garden, coming to life anew, brings health to Colin and happiness to Mary.]]>
331 Frances Hodgson Burnett 0517189607 Katherine 3 4.16 1911 The Secret Garden
author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1911
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Charlotte’s Web 24178 Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan, is a classic of children's literature that is "just about perfect." This high-quality paperback features vibrant illustrations colorized by Rosemary Wells!

Some Pig. Humble. Radiant. These are the words in Charlotte's Web, high up in Zuckerman's barn. Charlotte's spiderweb tells of her feelings for a little pig named Wilbur, who simply wants a friend. They also express the love of a girl named Fern, who saved Wilbur's life when he was born the runt of his litter.

E. B. White's Newbery Honor Book is a tender novel of friendship, love, life, and death that will continue to be enjoyed by generations to come. This edition contains newly color illustrations by Garth Williams, the acclaimed illustrator of E. B. White's Stuart Little and Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series, among many other books.]]>
184 E.B. White 0064410935 Katherine 4 4.20 1952 Charlotte’s Web
author: E.B. White
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1952
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Flowers for Algernon 18373 Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.
Ěý
Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence � a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?]]>
311 Daniel Keyes 015603008X Katherine 3 4.19 1966 Flowers for Algernon
author: Daniel Keyes
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1966
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
A Farewell to Arms 10799 A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield - the weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote his ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right.]]> 293 Ernest Hemingway 0099910101 Katherine 3 3.83 1929 A Farewell to Arms
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1929
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Brothers Karamazov 4934
This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal inventiveness of Dostoevsky’s prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel.]]>
796 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0374528373 Katherine 5 4.36 1880 The Brothers Karamazov
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1880
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch]]> 12067
People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it’s only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. This time though, the armies of Good and Evil really do appear to be massing. The four Bikers of the Apocalypse are hitting the road. But both the angels and demons � well, one fast-living demon and a somewhat fussy angel � would quite like the Rapture not to happen.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist…]]>
491 Terry Pratchett Katherine 4 4.27 1990 Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn 14891 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.]]> 496 Betty Smith 0061120073 Katherine 5 4.29 1943 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
author: Betty Smith
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1943
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Dracula 1120830 382 Bram Stoker 0451520971 Katherine 4 3.73 1897 Dracula
author: Bram Stoker
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1897
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1)]]> 43763
Louis and Claudia travel Europe, eventually coming to Paris and the ragingly successful Theatre des Vampires--a theatre of vampires pretending to be mortals pretending to be vampires. Here they meet the magnetic and ethereal Armand, who brings them into a whole society of vampires. But Louis and Claudia find that finding others like themselves provides no easy answers and in fact presents dangers they scarcely imagined.

Originally begun as a short story, the book took off as Anne wrote it, spinning the tragic and triumphant life experiences of a soul. As well as the struggles of its characters, Interview captures the political and social changes of two continents. The novel also introduces Lestat, Anne's most enduring character, a heady mixture of attraction and revulsion. The book, full of lush description, centers on the themes of immortality, change, loss, sexuality, and power.
source: annerice.com]]>
346 Anne Rice 0345476875 Katherine 4 4.04 1976 Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1)
author: Anne Rice
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1976
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Persuasion 2156 249 Jane Austen 0192802631 Katherine 4 4.15 1817 Persuasion
author: Jane Austen
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1817
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Sun Also Rises 3876 The Sun Also Rises (Fiesta) is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.]]> 189 Ernest Hemingway Katherine 3 3.81 1926 The Sun Also Rises
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1926
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Their Eyes Were Watching God 37415 238 Zora Neale Hurston 0061120065 Katherine 3 3.98 1937 Their Eyes Were Watching God
author: Zora Neale Hurston
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1937
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The World According to Garp 7069 610 John Irving 0345915593 Katherine 3 4.11 1978 The World According to Garp
author: John Irving
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1978
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Little Prince 157993
Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince, presented here in a stunning new translation with carefully restored artwork. The definitive edition of a worldwide classic, it will capture the hearts of readers of all ages.]]>
96 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 0152023984 Katherine 5 4.32 1943 The Little Prince
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1943
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
High Fidelity 285092
Rob does. He keeps a list, in fact. But Laura isn't on it—even though she's just become his latest ex. He's got his life back, you see. He can just do what he wants when he wants: like listen to whatever music he likes, look up the girls that are on his list, and generally behaves as if Laura never mattered. But Rob finds he can't move on. He's stuck in a really deep groove—and it's called Laura. Soon, Rob's asking himself some big questions: about love, about life—and about why we choose to share ours with the people we do.]]>
323 Nick Hornby 1573225517 Katherine 4 3.92 1995 High Fidelity
author: Nick Hornby
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Anna Karenina 152
«Nos capítulos iniciais de Anna Karénina, somos conduzidos, uma e outra vez, a um sentido de analogia musical. Há efeitos de contraponto e harmonia no desenvolvimento das principais tramas do “prelúdio Oblonski� (o acidente na estação ferroviária, a zombadora discussão sobre o divórcio entre Vronski e a baronesa Chilton, o deslumbramento do fogo vermelho diante dos olhos de Anna). O método de Tolstoi é polifónico; mas as harmonias principais desen- volvem-se com uma tremenda força e amplitude. As técnicas musicais e linguísticas não podem comparar-se de um modo exato. Mas como poderíamos elucidar de outro modo o sentimento de que as novelas de Tolstoi surgem de um princípio interior de ordem e vitalidade, enquanto as dos escritores menos importantes parecem alinhavadas?»

«Anna Karénina morre no mundo do romance; mas cada vez que lemos o livro ela ressuscita, e mesmo depois de o termos acabado adquire outra vida na nossa recordação. Em cada personagem literária existe algo da Fénix imortal. Através das vidas perduráveis das suas personagens, a própria existência de Tolstoi teve a sua eternidade.» [George Steiner, Tolstoi ou Dostoievski]]]>
960 Leo Tolstoy Katherine 4 3.96 1878 Anna Karenina
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1878
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Color Purple 11486
Then her husband's lover, a flamboyant blues singer, barreled into her world and gave Celie the courage to ask for more - to laugh, to play, and finally - to love.]]>
295 Alice Walker Katherine 3 4.22 1982 The Color Purple
author: Alice Walker
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1982
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Thirteenth Tale 40440
The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.

As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.

Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.

The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.]]>
406 Diane Setterfield 0743298020 Katherine 3 3.96 2006 The Thirteenth Tale
author: Diane Setterfield
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[American Gods (American Gods, #1)]]> 4407
Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what - and who - it finds there...

This is the author's preferred text, never before published in the UK, and is about 12,000 words longer than the previous UK edition.

]]>
635 Neil Gaiman Katherine 4 4.10 2001 American Gods (American Gods, #1)
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
On the Road 70401 307 Jack Kerouac 0140042598 Katherine 4 3.63 1957 On the Road
author: Jack Kerouac
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1957
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
A Confederacy of Dunces 310612
His mother thinks he needs to go to work. He does, in a succession of jobs. Each job rapidly escalates into a lunatic adventure, a full-blown disaster; yet each has, like Don Quixote's, its own eerie logic.

His girlfriend, Myrna Minkoff of the Bronx, thinks he needs sex.

Ignatius is an intellectual, ideologue, deadbeat, goof-off, glutton, who should repel the reader with his gargantuan bloats, his thunderous contempt, and one-man war against everybody: Freud, homosexuals, heterosexuals, Protestants, and the assorted excesses of modern times.

A tragicomedy, set in New Orleans.]]>
394 John Kennedy Toole 0802130208 Katherine 4 3.89 1980 A Confederacy of Dunces
author: John Kennedy Toole
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Bridget Jones’s Diary (Bridget Jones, #1)]]> 227443 a. lose 7 pounds
b. stop smoking
c. develop Inner Poise

"129 lbs. (how is it possible to put on 4 pounds in the middle of the night? Could flesh have somehow solidified becoming denser and heavier? Repulsive, horrifying notion), alcohol units 4 (excellent), cigarettes 21 (poor but will give up totally tomorrow), number of correct lottery numbers 2 (better, but nevertheless useless)..."

"Bridget Jones' Diary" is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud daily chronicle of Bridget's permanent, doomed quest for self-improvement � a year in which she resolves to: reduce the circumference of each thigh by 1.5 inches, visit the gym three times a week not just to buy a sandwich, form a functional relationship with a responsible adult - and learn to program the VCR.

Over the course of the year, Bridget loses a total of 72 pounds but gains a total of 74. She remains, however, optimistic. Through it all, Bridget will have you helpless with laughter, and � like millions of readers the world round � you'll find yourself shouting, "Bridget Jones is me!"]]>
288 Helen Fielding 014028009X Katherine 3 3.81 1996 Bridget Jones’s Diary (Bridget Jones, #1)
author: Helen Fielding
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Emma 6969 The newest edition is here. Another alternate cover can be found here.

Emma Woodhouse is one of Austen's most captivating and vivid characters. Beautiful, spoilt, vain and irrepressibly witty, Emma organizes the lives of the inhabitants of her sleepy little village and plays matchmaker with devastating effect.]]>
474 Jane Austen 0141439580 Katherine 4 4.05 1815 Emma
author: Jane Austen
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1815
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Unbearable Lightness of Being]]> 9717 The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places, brilliant and playful reflections, and a variety of styles, to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world’s truly great writers.]]> 314 Milan Kundera 0571224385 Katherine 4 4.12 1984 The Unbearable Lightness of Being
author: Milan Kundera
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Picture of Dorian Gray 5297
In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.]]>
272 Oscar Wilde Katherine 4 4.13 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1890
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Great Expectations 2623
Pip must discover his true self, and his own set of values and priorities. Whether such values allow one to prosper in the complex world of early Victorian England is the major question posed by Great Expectations, one of Dickens's most fascinating, and disturbing, novels.

This edition includes the original, discarded ending, Dickens's brief working notes, and the serial instalments and chapter divisions in different editions. It also uses the definitive Clarendon text.]]>
544 Charles Dickens 0192833596 Katherine 4 3.78 1861 Great Expectations
author: Charles Dickens
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1861
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4)]]> 1162543 "Don't be afraid," I murmured. "We belong together."
I was abruptly overwhelmed by the truth of my own words.
This moment was so perfect, so right, there was no way to doubt it.
His arms wrapped around me,
holding me against him....
It felt like every nerve ending in my body was a live wire.
"Forever," he agreed.

WHEN YOU LOVED THE ONE WHO WAS KILLING YOU, IT LEFT YOU NO OPTIONS. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?

TO BE IRREVOCABLY IN LOVE WITH A VAMPIRE is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hangs.

NOW THAT BELLA HAS MADE HER DECISION, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating, and unfathomable, consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life - first discovered in Twilight, then scattered and torn in New Moon and Eclipse - seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed... forever?

THE ASTONISHING, BREATHLESSLY anticipated conclusion to the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.]]>
756 Stephenie Meyer 031606792X Katherine 2 3.74 2008 Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Sense and Sensibility 14935 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141439662

'The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!'

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

This edition includes explanatory notes, textual variants between the first and second editions, and Tony Tanner's introduction to the original Penguin Classic edition.]]>
409 Jane Austen 0141439661 Katherine 4 4.10 1811 Sense and Sensibility
author: Jane Austen
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1811
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Stranger 49552 The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."]]> 123 Albert Camus Katherine 3 4.04 1942 The Stranger
author: Albert Camus
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1942
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3)]]> 428263 "BELLA?"
Edward's soft voice came from behind me. I turned to see him spring lightly up the porch steps, his hair windblown from running. He pulled me into his arms at once, just like he had in the parking lot, and kissed me again.
This kiss frightened me. There was too much tension, too strong an edge to the way his lips crushed mine - like he was afraid we had only so much time left to us.

As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob - knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which?

READERS CAPTIVATED BY Twilight AND New Moon will eagerly devour Eclipse, the much-anticipated third book in Stephenie Meyer's riveting vampire love saga.]]>
629 Stephenie Meyer 0316160202 Katherine 2 3.73 2007 Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, #3)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2007
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Scarlet Letter 12296 279 Nathaniel Hawthorne 0142437263 Katherine 3 3.43 1850 The Scarlet Letter
author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1850
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Wuthering Heights 6185 You can find the redesigned cover of this edition HERE.

At the centre of this novel is the passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff - recounted with such emotional intensity that a plain tale of the Yorkshire moors acquires the depth and simplicity of ancient tragedy.

This best-selling Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1847 first edition of the novel. For the Fourth Edition, the editor has collated the 1847 text with several modern editions and has corrected a number of variants, including accidentals. The text is accompanied by entirely new explanatory annotations.

New to the fourth Edition are twelve of Emily Bronte's letters regarding the publication of the 1847 edition of Wuthering Heights as well as the evolution of the 1850 edition, prose and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and Edward Chitham's insightful and informative chronology of the creative process behind the beloved work.

Five major critical interpretations of Wuthering Heights are included, three of them new to the Fourth Edition. A Stuart Daley considers the importance of chronology in the novel. J. Hillis Miller examines Wuthering Heights's problems of genre and critical reputation. Sandra M. Gilbert assesses the role of Victorian Christianity plays in the novel, while Martha Nussbaum traces the novel's romanticism. Finally, Lin Haire-Sargeant scrutinizes the role of Heathcliff in film adaptations of Wuthering Heights.

A Chronology and updated Selected Bibliography are also included.]]>
464 Emily Brontë Katherine 4 3.89 1847 Wuthering Heights
author: Emily Brontë
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1847
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Grapes of Wrath 4395 The Grapes of Wrath is a landmark of American literature. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. Although it follows the movement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma family, the Joads, who are driven off their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.

First published in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath summed up its era in the way that Uncle Tom's Cabin summed up the years of slavery before the Civil War. Sensitive to fascist and communist criticism, Steinbeck insisted that "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" be printed in its entirety in the first edition of the book—which takes its title from the first verse: "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s fictional chronicle of the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s is perhaps the most American of American Classics.]]>
455 John Steinbeck Katherine 2 3.88 1939 The Grapes of Wrath
author: John Steinbeck
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1939
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
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 Katherine 3 3.99 1961 Catch-22
author: Joseph Heller
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1961
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2)]]> 49041 There is an alternate cover edition for ISBN13 9780316160193 here.

I knew we were both in mortal danger. Still, in that instant, I felt well. Whole. I could feel my heart racing in my chest, the blood pulsing hot and fast through my veins again. My lungs filled deep with the sweet scent that came off his skin. It was like there had never been any hole in my chest. I was perfect - not healed, but as if there had never been a wound in the first place.

I FELT LIKE I WAS TRAPPED IN ONE OF THOSE TERRIFYING NIGHTMARES, the one where you have to run, run till your lungs burst, but you can't make your body move fast enough.... But this was no dream, and, unlike the nightmare, I wasn't running for my life; I was racing to save something infinitely more precious. My own life meant little to me today.

FOR BELLA SWAN THERE IS ONE THING more important than life itself: Edward Cullen. But being in love with a vampire is even more dangerous than Bella could ever have imagined. Edward has already rescued Bella from the clutches of one evil vampire, but now, as their daring relationship threatens all that is near and dear to them, they realize their troubles may be just beginning....

LEGIONS OF READERS ENTRANCED BY THE New York Times bestseller Twilight are hungry for the continuing story of star-crossed lovers Bell and Edward. In New Moon, Stephanie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural spin. passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.]]>
563 Stephenie Meyer 0316160199 Katherine 2 3.61 2006 New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![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 Katherine 5 4.16 1868 Little Women (Little Women, #1)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1868
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)]]> 960
A devastating new weapon of destruction.
When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol -- seared into the chest of a murdered physicist -- he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati...the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy -- the Catholic Church.

Langdon's worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the Vatican's holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.
Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair...a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.

An explosive international thriller, Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war.]]>
736 Dan Brown 1416524797 Katherine 3 3.95 2000 Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)
author: Dan Brown
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)]]> 6 734 J.K. Rowling 0439139597 Katherine 4 4.56 2000 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)]]> 2
Harry has had enough. He is beginning to think he must do something, anything, to change his situation, when the summer holidays come to an end in a very dramatic fashion. What Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his world upside down...]]>
912 J.K. Rowling Katherine 4 4.50 2003 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)]]> 15881
And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls� bathroom. But then the real trouble begins � someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects� Harry Potter himself!]]>
352 J.K. Rowling Katherine 4 4.42 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)]]> 5 435 J.K. Rowling 043965548X Katherine 0 4.57 1999 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)]]> 136251
In this final, seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited.]]>
759 J.K. Rowling Katherine 5 4.61 2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Catcher in the Rye 5107 It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school...

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

J.D. Salinger's (1919�2010) classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.]]>
277 J.D. Salinger 0316769177 Katherine 3 3.81 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
’Salem’s Lot 11590 Librarian's Note: Alternate-cover edition for ISBN 0450031063

Thousands of miles away from the small township of 'Salem's Lot, two terrified people, a man and a boy, still share the secrets of those clapboard houses and tree-lined streets. They must return to 'Salem's Lot for a final confrontation with the unspeakable evil that lives on in the town.]]>
483 Stephen King 0450031063 Katherine 3 4.06 1975 ’Salem’s Lot
author: Stephen King
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1975
rating: 3
read at: 2009/12/16
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
review:
I've stayed away from King for years, ridiculously (and snobbishly) assuming he wasn't a good writer. I'm not even sure how that opinion formed, but I was *wrong*. I was surprised by his prose, surprised by his ability to eschew the cheap scare in favor of something so much more soul disturbing. I stand happily corrected!
]]>
The Dead Zone 11573 The Dead Zone.

Johnny Smith, the small-town schoolteacher who spun the wheel of fortune and won a four-and-a-half-year trip into The Dead Zone.

John Smith, who awakened from an interminable coma with an accursed power—the power to see the future and the terrible fate awaiting mankind in The Dead Zone.

~]]>
402 Stephen King 0451155750 Katherine 4 read-2010 3.96 1979 The Dead Zone
author: Stephen King
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1979
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves: read-2010
review:

]]>
High Theory/Low Culture 973320 186 Mikita Brottman 1403966419 Katherine 0 currently-reading 3.60 2005 High Theory/Low Culture
author: Mikita Brottman
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/03/15
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
Firestarter 233667 This a previously-published edition of ISBN 0451167805.

The Department of Scientific Intelligence (aka "The Shop") never anticipated that two participants in their research program would marry and have a child. Charlie McGee inherited pyrokinetic powers from her parents, who had been given a low-grade hallucinogen called "Lot Six" while at college. Now the government is trying to capture young Charlie and harness her powerful firestarting skills as a weapon.
--stephenking.com]]>
564 Stephen King Katherine 4 read-2010 3.92 1980 Firestarter
author: Stephen King
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at: 2010/03/14
date added: 2010/03/15
shelves: read-2010
review:

]]>
The Tommyknockers 17660 Librarian's Note: This is alternate cover edition #2
ISBN 10: 0451156609
ISBN13: 9780451156600

See: Original Record Here

Late Last Night and the Night Before ...
... Tommyknockers, tommyknockers, knocking at the door.

Something was happening in Bobbi Anderson's idyllic small town of Haven, Maine. Something that gave every man, woman, and child in town powers far beyond ordinary mortals. Something that turned the town into a death trap for all outsiders. Something that came from a metal object, buried for millennia, that Bobbi accidentally stumbled across.

It wasn't that Bobbi and the other good folks of Haven had sold their souls to reap the rewards of the most deadly evil this side of hell. It was more like a diabolical takeover...an invasion of body and soul--and mind....

Note: All information herein, such as number of pages, publisher, etc., refer to this alternate cover edition and may or may not coincide with the main entry for this ISBN or any other alternate covers.

~]]>
747 Stephen King Katherine 3 read-2010 3.61 1987 The Tommyknockers
author: Stephen King
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1987
rating: 3
read at: 2010/03/15
date added: 2010/03/15
shelves: read-2010
review:

]]>
James Fairfax 6636761 504 Adam Campan 1607620383 Katherine 2 read-2010 3.38 2009 James Fairfax
author: Adam Campan
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2009
rating: 2
read at: 2010/02/16
date added: 2010/02/19
shelves: read-2010
review:
Interesting concept but too little grasp of history to make it even mildly plausible. I had less trouble accepting zombies than I had wrapping my mind around the blithe acceptance of same-sex marriage in Regency England. A fantastic subject for a long conversation on a cold winter night, but doesn't translate well to a 500 page retelling of Emma. Minor annoyance - there were several times when the author missed changing a pronoun from the original gender - which for me only reinforced how difficult *real* change might have been.
]]>
<![CDATA[Every Last Drop (Joe Pitt, #4)]]> 2933286 –Publishers Weekly (starred review), on Half the Blood of Brooklyn

It’s like a series of bullet-riddled bad breaks has seen rogue Vampyre and terminal tough guy Joe Pitt go from PI for hire to Clan-connected enforcer to dead man walking in a New York minute. And after burning all his bridges, the only one left to cross leads to the Bronx, where Joe’s brass knuckles and straight razor can’t keep him from running afoul of a sadistic old bloodsucker with a bad bark and a worse bite. Even if every Clan in Manhattan is hollering for Joe’s head on a stick, it’s got to be better than trying to survive in the outer-borough wilderness.

So it’s a no-brainer when Clan boss Dexter Predo comes looking to make a deal. All Joe has to do to win back breathing privileges on his old turf is infiltrate an upstart Clan whose plan to cure the Vyrus could expose the secret Vampyre world to mortal eyes and set off a panic-driven massacre. Not cool. But Joe’s all over it. To save the Undead future, he just has to wade neck-deep through all the archenemies, former friends, and assorted heavy hitters he’s crossed in the past. No sweat? Maybe not, but definitely more blood than he’s ever seen or hungered for. And maybe even some tears–over the horror and heartbreaking truth about the evil men do no matter who or what they are.

Praise for Charlie Huston and his Joe Pitt novels

“In conceiving his world (a New York City divided by vampire clans, each with different reasons to hate Pitt), Huston gives a fading genre a fresh afterlife. [] A.�
–Entertainment Weekly

“[Huston] creates a world that is at once supernatural and totally familiar, imaginative, and utterly convincing.�
–The Philadelphia Inquirer]]>
252 Charlie Huston 0345495888 Katherine 4 read-2010 3.98 2008 Every Last Drop (Joe Pitt, #4)
author: Charlie Huston
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2010/01/26
date added: 2010/02/19
shelves: read-2010
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Half the Blood of Brooklyn (Joe Pitt, #3)]]> 1061262 –Stephen King

“Hard-boiled horror, pulp noir vampires, decaying urban souls� you’re gonna need a shower after this one. . . . [Huston] kicks down the door of horror.�
–Fangoria, on Already Dead

There’s only so much room on the Island, only so much blood, and Manhattan’s Vampyre Clans aren’t interested in sharing. So when the Vyrus-infected dregs of New York’s outer boroughs start creeping across the bridges and through the tunnels, the Clans want to know why.

Bad luck for PI and general hard case Joe Pitt.

See, Joe used to be a Rogue, used to work off his own dime, picked his own gigs, but tight times and a terminally ill girlfriend pushed him into the arms of the renegade Society Clan. Now he has all the cash and blood he needs, but at a steep price. The price tonight is crossing the bridge, rolling to Coney Island, finding the Freak Clan, and figuring out what’s driving that bunch of savages to scratch at the Society’s door. No need to look far. The answer lies around the corner in Gravesend. Convenient, all those graves.

From uptown to the boardwalk, war drums are beating. Murderous family feuds and personal grudges are being drawn and brandished, along with the long knives. Blood will spill and, big surprise, Joe’s in the middle. But hey, why should this night be different from any other?

Sunset to put off a war, keep your head attached to your neck, and save your girl. Check. Joe’s on the case.


Praise for Charlie Huston and his Joe Pitt novels

“In conceiving his world (a New York City divided by vampire clans, each with different reasons to hate Pitt), Huston gives a fading genre a fresh afterlife. [] A.�
–Entertainment Weekly

“[Huston] creates a world that is at once supernatural and totally familiar, imaginative, and utterly convincing.�
–The Philadelphia Inquirer]]>
223 Charlie Huston 034549587X Katherine 4 read-2010 3.95 2007 Half the Blood of Brooklyn (Joe Pitt, #3)
author: Charlie Huston
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2010/01/10
date added: 2010/02/19
shelves: read-2010
review:

]]>
No Dominion (Joe Pitt, #2) 7263
So it’s time for Joe to gut up and swallow that pride and follow the leads wherever they go. It won’t be long before he’s slapping stoolies, getting sapped, and being taken for a ride above 110th Street. Someone’s pulling Joe’s strings, and now he’s riding the A train, looking to find who it is. He’s gonna cut them when he finds them–the strings and the hands that hold them.]]>
251 Charlie Huston 0345478258 Katherine 4 3.99 2006 No Dominion (Joe Pitt, #2)
author: Charlie Huston
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2009/12/30
date added: 2010/02/19
shelves:
review:

]]>
Already Dead (Joe Pitt, #1) 21277
There’s a shambler on the loose. Some fool who got himself infected with a flesh-eating bacteria is lurching around, trying to munch on folks� brains. Joe hates shamblers, but he’s still the one who has to deal with them. That’s just the kind of life he has. Except afterlife might be better word.

From the Battery to the Bronx, and from river to river, Manhattan is crawling with Vampyres. Joe is one of them, and he’s not happy about it. Yeah, he gets to be stronger and faster than you, and he’s tough as nails and hard to kill. But spending his nights trying to score a pint of blood to feed the Vyrus that’s eating at him isn’t his idea of a good time. And Joe doesn’t make it any easier on himself. Going his own way, refusing to ally with the Clans that run the undead underside of Manhattan–it ain’t easy. It’s worse once he gets mixed up with the Coalition–the city’s most powerful Clan–and finds himself searching for a poor little rich girl who’s gone missing in Alphabet City.

Now the Coalition and the girl’s high-society parents are breathing down his neck, anarchist Vampyres are pushing him around, and a crazy Vampyre cult is stalking him. No time to complain, though. Got to find that girl and kill that shambler before the whip comes down . . . and before the sun comes up.]]>
268 Charlie Huston 034547824X Katherine 4 3.84 2005 Already Dead (Joe Pitt, #1)
author: Charlie Huston
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2009/12/10
date added: 2010/02/19
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Three Men in a Boat (Three Men, #1)]]> 4921
"We agree that we are overworked, and need a rest - A week on the rolling deep? - George suggests the river -"

And with the co-operation of several hampers of food and a covered boat, the three men (not forgetting the dog) set out on a hilarious voyage of mishaps up the Thames. When not falling in the river and getting lost in Hampton Court Maze, Jerome K. Jerome finds time to express his ideas on the world around - many of which have acquired a deeper fascination since the day at the end of the 19th century when this excursion was so lightly undertaken.]]>
185 Jerome K. Jerome Katherine 3 read-2010 3.86 1889 Three Men in a Boat (Three Men, #1)
author: Jerome K. Jerome
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1889
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/19
date added: 2010/02/19
shelves: read-2010
review:

]]>
Where Angels Fear to Tread 3677 148 E.M. Forster 1419193775 Katherine 4 read-2010 3.62 1905 Where Angels Fear to Tread
author: E.M. Forster
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1905
rating: 4
read at: 2010/01/30
date added: 2010/02/05
shelves: read-2010
review:
I love Forester's snark. Even more I love the way he always manages to deliver a moment when the world becomes clear, when a character experiences that wonderful exhilarating and ultimately crushing insight that sets you free or sets you adrift. This book delivers both the snark and the insight - once again exploring what happens when the British are confronted with another, seductive, culture. Germans may be offended:)
]]>
The Great Gatsby 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]>
180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Katherine 4 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Animal Farm 7613
The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.

One night, all the animals at Mr. Jones' Manor Farm assemble in a barn to hear old Major, a pig, describe a dream he had about a world where all animals live free from the tyranny of their human masters. Old Major dies soon after the meeting, but the animals � inspired by his philosophy of Animalism � plot a rebellion against Jones.

Two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, prove themselves important figures and planners of this dangerous enterprise. When Jones forgets to feed the animals, the revolution occurs, and Jones and his men are chased off the farm. Manor Farm is renamed Animal Farm, and the Seven Commandments of Animalism are painted on the barn wall...]]>
129 George Orwell Katherine 2 3.90 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1945
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Of Mice and Men 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.�

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]>
107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 Katherine 3 3.88 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Slaughterhouse-Five 4981 Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.�

An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it.

Fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut's portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.]]>
275 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Katherine 3 4.10 1969 Slaughterhouse-Five
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1969
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
One Hundred Years of Solitude 320 417 Gabriel García Márquez Katherine 4 4.10 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Romeo and Juliet 18135 Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud.

In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers� final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers.]]>
281 William Shakespeare 0743477111 Katherine 4 3.74 1597 Romeo and Juliet
author: William Shakespeare
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1597
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Katherine 3 3.70 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]> 2956 327 Mark Twain 0142437174 Katherine 3 3.82 1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
author: Mark Twain
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1884
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
A Tale of Two Cities 1953 A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.]]> 489 Charles Dickens 0141439602 Katherine 4 3.86 1859 A Tale of Two Cities
author: Charles Dickens
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1859
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Frankenstein 18490 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780141439471

'Now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart ...'

Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley near Byron's villa on Lake Geneva. It would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity.

Based on the third edition of 1831, this volume contains all the revisions Mary Shelley made to her story, as well as her 1831 introduction and Percy Bysshe Shelley's preface to the first edition. This revised edition includes as appendices a select collation of the texts of 1818 and 1831 together with 'A Fragment' by Lord Byron and Dr John Polidori's 'The Vampyre: A Tale'.]]>
288 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Katherine 4 3.77 1818 Frankenstein
author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1818
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Moby-Dick or, The Whale 153747 "It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."

So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.

This edition of Moby-Dick, which reproduces the definitive text of the novel, includes invaluable explanatory notes, along with maps, illustrations, and a glossary of nautical terms.]]>
720 Herman Melville 0142437247 Katherine 1 3.53 1851 Moby-Dick or, The Whale
author: Herman Melville
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1851
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Lolita 7604 Librarian's note: Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141182537.

Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Dolores Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.]]>
368 Vladimir Nabokov 0679723161 Katherine 3 3.87 1955 Lolita
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1955
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)]]> 968 The da Vinci Code, The da Vinci Code, The da Vinci Code, and The da Vinci Code

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.

The Da Vinci Code heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightning-paced, intelligent thriller utterly unpredictable right up to its stunning conclusion.]]>
489 Dan Brown Katherine 2 3.92 2003 The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)
author: Dan Brown
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Diary of a Young Girl 48855
In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annexe� of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly humorous, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.
--back cover]]>
283 Anne Frank Katherine 4 4.19 1947 The Diary of a Young Girl
author: Anne Frank
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1947
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
In Cold Blood 168642
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.]]>
343 Truman Capote 0679745580 Katherine 0 to-read 4.08 1966 In Cold Blood
author: Truman Capote
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1966
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America]]> 1869
Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.]]>
240 Barbara Ehrenreich 0805063897 Katherine 4 3.65 2001 Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
author: Barbara Ehrenreich
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal]]> 1097
Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from California's subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many fast food's flavors are concocted. Along the way, he unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths -- from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate.
(back cover)]]>
383 Eric Schlosser 0060838582 Katherine 4 3.75 2001 Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
author: Eric Schlosser
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)]]> 3 309 J.K. Rowling 0439554934 Katherine 5 4.47 1997 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Twilight (The Twilight Saga, #1)]]> 41865
First, Edward was a vampire.

Second, there was a part of him - and I didn't know how dominant that part might be - that thirsted for my blood.

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Deeply seductive and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight is a love story with bite.]]>
498 Stephenie Meyer 0316015849 Katherine 2 3.66 2005 Twilight (The Twilight Saga, #1)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Pride and Prejudice 1885 Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780679783268]]>
279 Jane Austen 1441341706 Katherine 4 4.28 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1813
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Jane Eyre 10210 Alternate editions can be found here and here.

A gothic masterpiece of tempestuous passions and dark secrets, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis in Penguin Classics.

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.]]>
532 Charlotte Brontë 0142437204 Katherine 4 4.14 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1847
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
1984 5470 328 George Orwell Katherine 3 4.15 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Brave New World 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]>
268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 Katherine 3 3.99 1932 Brave New World
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Fahrenheit 451 4381 158 Ray Bradbury 0307347974 Katherine 3 3.96 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Katherine
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1953
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)]]> 11
Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!]]>
216 Douglas Adams Katherine 0 to-read 4.21 1979 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Katherine
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>