Michael's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 11 Dec 2024 15:22:47 -0800 60 Michael's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Minority Report and Other Stories]]> 534004 Viewed by many as the greatest science fiction writer on any planet, Philip K. Dick has written some of the most intriguing, original and thought-provoking fiction of our time. This collection includes stories that will make you laugh, cringe...and stop and think.

The Minority Report: a special unit that employs those with the power of precognition to prevent crimes proves itself less than reliable...
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale: an everyguy's yearning for more exciting "memories" places him in a danger he never could have imagined (basis of the feature film Total Recall)...
Paycheck: a mechanic who has no memory of the previous two years of his life finds that a bag of seemingly worthless and unrelated objects can actually unlock the secret of his recent past � and insure that he has a future...
Second Variety: the UN's technological advances to win a global war veer out of control, threatening to destroy all of humankind (basis of the movie Screamers)...
The Eyes Have It: a whimsical, laugh-out-loud play on the words of the title.

]]> 6 Philip K. Dick 0060095261 Michael 4 3.95 1987 Minority Report and Other Stories
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Michael
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1987
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero]]> 64329
On New Year’s Eve 1972, following eighteen magnificent seasons in the major leagues, Roberto Clemente died a hero’s death, killed in a plane crash as he attempted to deliver food and medical supplies to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake. David Maraniss now brings the great baseball player brilliantly back to life in The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero, a book destined to become a modern classic. Much like his acclaimed biography of Vince Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered, Maraniss uses his narrative sweep and meticulous detail to capture the myth and a real man.

Anyone who saw Clemente, as he played with a beautiful fury, will never forget him. He was a work of art in a game too often defined by statistics. During his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he won four batting titles and led his team to championships in 1960 and 1971, getting a hit in all fourteen World Series games in which he played. His career ended with three-thousand hits, the magical three-thousandth coming in his final at-bat, and he and the immortal Lou Gehrig are the only players to have the five-year waiting period waived so they could be enshrined in the Hall of Fame immediately after their deaths.

There is delightful baseball here, including thrilling accounts of the two World Series victories of Clemente’s underdog Pittsburgh Pirates, but this is far more than just another baseball book. Roberto Clemente was that rare athlete who rose above sports to become a symbol of larger themes. Born near the canebrakes of rural Carolina, Puerto Rico, on August 18, 1934, at a time when there were no blacks or Puerto Ricans playing organized ball in the United States, Clemente went on to become the greatest Latino player in the major leagues. He was, in a sense, the Jackie Robinson of the Spanish-speaking world, a ballplayer of determination, grace, and dignity who paved the way and set the highest standard for waves of Latino players who followed in later generations and who now dominate the game.

The Clemente that Maraniss evokes was an idiosyncratic character who, unlike so many modern athletes, insisted that his responsibilities extended beyond the playing field. In his final years, his motto was that if you have a chance to help others and fail to do so, you are wasting your time on this earth. Here, in the final chapters, after capturing Clemente’s life and times, Maraniss retraces his final days, from the earthquake to the accident, using newly uncovered documents to reveal the corruption and negligence that led the unwitting hero on a mission of mercy toward his untimely death as an uninspected, overloaded plane plunged into the sea.]]> 416 David Maraniss 074329999X Michael 5 4.12 2006 Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero
author: David Maraniss
name: Michael
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2020/08/04
date added: 2020/08/04
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]]> Strike (Hit, #2) 25785763
TIME TO STRIKE BACK.

After faking her own death to escape her term as an indentured assassin for Valor Savings Bank, Patsy is on the run with her boyfriend, Wyatt. All she wants to do is go home, but that’s never going to happen—not as long as Valor’s out to get her and the people she loves.

Left with no good choices, Patsy’s only option is to meet with a mysterious group that calls itself the Citizens for Freedom. Led by the charismatic Leon Crane, the CFF seem like just what Patsy has been looking for. Leon promises that if she joins, she’ll finally get revenge on Valor for everything they’ve done to her—and for everything they’ve made her do.

But Patsy knows the CFF has a few secrets of their own. One thing is certain: they’ll do absolutely anything to complete their mission, no matter who’s standing in their way. Even if it’s Patsy herself.

Delilah S. Dawson brings anarchy and high-octane drama to the next explosive level in this sequel to the “practically movie-ready� (Kirkus Reviews) novel Hit.]]> 470 Delilah S. Dawson 1481423428 Michael 0 to-read 3.84 2016 Strike (Hit, #2)
author: Delilah S. Dawson
name: Michael
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/04/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories: Unforgettable Tales from the House That Ruth Built]]> 9474868
Contributors


This is a special book for every fan of “the big ballpark in the Bronx.”]]> 256 Alex Belth 1602399794 Michael 0 to-read 4.00 2010 Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories: Unforgettable Tales from the House That Ruth Built
author: Alex Belth
name: Michael
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/03/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read]]> 261204
André Schiffrin can write about these changes with authority because he witnessed them from inside a conglomerate, as head of Pantheon, co-founded by his father, bought (and sold) by Random House. And he can write about them with candor because he is no longer on the inside, having quit corporate publishing in disgust to set up a flourishing independent house, The New Press. Schiffrin's evident affection for his authors sparkles throughout a story woven around publishing the work of those such as Studs Terkel, Noam Chomsky, Gunnar Myrdal, George Kennan, Juliet Mitchell, R. D. Laing, Eric Hobsbawm and E.P.Thompson.

Part-memoir, part-history, here is an account of the collapsing standards of contemporary publishing that is irascible, acute and passionate. An engaging counterpoint to recent, celebratory memoirs of the industry written by those with more stock options and fewer scruples than Schiffrin, The Business of Books warns of the danger to adventurous, intelligent publishing in the bullring of today's marketplace.]]> 208 André Schiffrin 185984362X Michael 4 3.86 1999 The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read
author: André Schiffrin
name: Michael
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1999
rating: 4
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date added: 2014/01/04
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]]> The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Michael 5 4.17 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Michael
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 5
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date added: 2013/10/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?]]> 7082 244 Philip K. Dick Michael 4 4.08 1968 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Michael
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1968
rating: 4
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date added: 2013/04/23
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]]> Starship Troopers 17214
In one of Robert A. Heinlein’s most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe—and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind’s most alarming enemy.
]]> 264 Robert A. Heinlein Michael 3 4.01 1959 Starship Troopers
author: Robert A. Heinlein
name: Michael
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1959
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2013/04/23
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]]> The Minority Report 581125 112 Philip K. Dick 0375421874 Michael 4 3.85 1956 The Minority Report
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Michael
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1956
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/03/20
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]]> Contact 61666 semblent à présent impatients d'établir le contact : ils nous surveillent depuis longtemps, et le moment est peut-être venu pour eux de nous juger...]]> 580 Carl Sagan 2266079999 Michael 3 4.14 1985 Contact
author: Carl Sagan
name: Michael
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1985
rating: 3
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date added: 2013/03/20
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]]> The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon 11564
As night falls, Trisha has only her ingenuity as a defense against the elements, and only her courage and faith to withstand her mounting fears. For solace, she tunes her Walkman to broadcasts of Boston Red Sox baseball games and follows the gritty performances of her hero, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. And when her radio's reception begins to fade, Trisha imagines that Tom Gordon is with her - protecting her from an all-too-real enemy who has left a trail of slaughtered animals and mangled trees in the dense, dark woods...]]> 264 Stephen King 1416524290 Michael 3 3.65 1999 The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
author: Stephen King
name: Michael
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1999
rating: 3
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date added: 2013/03/20
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]]> The Codex 136640
"Greetings from the dead," declares Maxwell Broadbent on the videotape he left behind after his mysterious disappearance. A notorious treasure hunter and tomb robber, Broadbent accumulated over a half a billion dollars' worth of priceless art, gems, and artifacts before vanishing---along with his entire collection---from his mansion in New Mexico.

At first, robbery is suspected, but the truth proves far stranger: As a final challenge to his three sons, Broadbent has buried himself and his treasure somewhere in the world, hidden away like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. If the sons wish to claim their fabulous inheritance, they must find their father's carefully concealed tomb.

The race is on, but the three brothers are not the only ones competing for the treasure. This secret is so astounding it cannot be kept quiet for long. With half a billion dollars at stake, as well as an ancient Mayan codex that may hold a cure for cancer and other deadly diseases, others soon join the hunt---and some of them will stop at nothing to claim the grave goods.]]> 404 Douglas Preston 076534629X Michael 2 3.89 2003 The Codex
author: Douglas Preston
name: Michael
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2003
rating: 2
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date added: 2013/03/20
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]]> Stranger in a Strange Land 350 NAME: Valentine Michael Smith
ANCESTRY: Human
ORIGIN: Mars

Valentine Michael Smith is a human being raised on Mars, newly returned to Earth. Among his people for the first time, he struggles to understand the social mores and prejudices of human nature that are so alien to him, while teaching them his own fundamental beliefs in grokking, watersharing, and love.]]> 525 Robert A. Heinlein Michael 0 to-read 3.93 1961 Stranger in a Strange Land
author: Robert A. Heinlein
name: Michael
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1961
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/03/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The New York Times 1000 Gardening Questions and Answers: Based on the New York Times Column "Garden Q & A."]]> 192548
Carefully selected, updated, and expanded by Leslie Land, one of the column's two authors, here are 1,000 Q&As that add up to an informal encyclopedia of gardening knowledge. The book covers flowers, trees, shrubs, the lawn, vegetables, herbs, fruit, indoor plants, soil, pests, and troublemakers. It addresses problems and provides answers to difficulties in every North American zone. Hundreds of line drawings illustrate the book, providing botanical identification and demonstrating how-to gardening techniques. In addition, sidebars throughout supply supplemental information--"Dos and Don'ts of Deadheading," "Annuals that Beat the Heat," "To Prune or Not to The Clematis Question," "Air Layering," "Windowsill Bonsai"--plus quirky facts, trivia, lore, and myth. It's big, it's got heft, it's filled to the brim with information. And it's so lively, it reads like a novel--and belongs on every gardener's potting bench and bedside table.]]> 672 Dora Galitzki 0761119973 Michael 4 4.25 2002 The New York Times 1000 Gardening Questions and Answers: Based on the New York Times Column "Garden Q & A."
author: Dora Galitzki
name: Michael
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2012/12/19
date added: 2012/12/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Handwritten Recipes: A Bookseller's Collection of Curious and Wonderful Recipes Forgotten Between the Pages]]> 13542910
By day, Michael Popek works in his family’s used bookstore. By night, he’s the voyeuristic force behind the websites ForgottenBookmarks and HandwrittenRecipes, where he shares the weird, wonderful objects he has found among the stacks at his store.

Handwritten Recipes is a treasury of Michael’s most fascinating found recipes. You’ll find classic Americana like pies and casseroles alongside ethnic mainstays such as Italian cookies, springerle, and German dumplings. Some are perfectly clear and complete, while others leave crucial elements—like cooking times and ingredient measurements—to the reader’s imagination. You can venture to try any recipe, or just enjoy Popek’s findings as a time capsule from kitchens of generations gone by.]]> 208 Michael Popek 0399160140 Michael 5 3.94 2012 Handwritten Recipes: A Bookseller's Collection of Curious and Wonderful Recipes Forgotten Between the Pages
author: Michael Popek
name: Michael
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2012
rating: 5
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date added: 2012/10/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Damn Yankees: Twenty-Four Major League Writers on the World's Most Loved (and Hated) Team]]> 13115836 304 Rob Fleder 0062059629 Michael 0 currently-reading 3.81 2012 Damn Yankees: Twenty-Four Major League Writers on the World's Most Loved (and Hated) Team
author: Rob Fleder
name: Michael
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/04/23
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Replay: The History of Video Games]]> 8343159 515 Tristan Donovan 0956507204 Michael 0 to-read 4.03 2010 Replay: The History of Video Games
author: Tristan Donovan
name: Michael
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/03/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Lake of Dead Languages 120274
Since freshmen year, Jane and her two roommates, Lucy Toller and Deirdre Hall, were inseparable–studying the classics, performing school girl rituals on the lake, and sneaking out after curfew to meet Lucy’s charismatic brother Matt. However, the last winter before graduation, everything changed. For in that sheltered, ice-encrusted wonderland, three lives were taken, all victims of senseless suicide. Only Jane was left to carry the burden of a mystery that has stayed hidden for more than two decades in the dark depths of Heart Lake.

Now pages from Jane’s missing journal, written during that tragic time, have reappeared, revealing shocking, long-buried secrets. And suddenly, young, troubled girls are beginning to die again . . . as piece by piece the shattering truth slowly floats to the surface.

At once compelling, sensuous, and intelligent, The Lake of Dead Languages is an eloquent thriller, an intricate balance of suspense and fine storytelling that proves Carol Goodman is a rare new talent with a brilliant future.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 390 Carol Goodman 034548715X Michael 4 3.78 2002 The Lake of Dead Languages
author: Carol Goodman
name: Michael
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2002
rating: 4
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date added: 2012/01/25
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]]> <![CDATA[The Serious Gardener: Rock Gardens (New York Botanical Gardens)]]> 3885749 192 Anne Halpin 0609800876 Michael 0 to-read 3.20 1997 The Serious Gardener: Rock Gardens (New York Botanical Gardens)
author: Anne Halpin
name: Michael
average rating: 3.20
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/01/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classic Guide to World Literature]]> 249186 The New Lifetime Reading Plan provides readers with brief, informative and entertaining introductions to more than 130 classics of world literature. From Homer to Hawthorne, Plato to Pascal, and Shakespeare to Solzhenitsyn, the great writers of Western civilization can be found in its pages. In addition, this new edition offers a much broader representation of women authors, such as Charlotte Brontë, Emily Dickinson and Edith Wharton, as well as non-Western writers such as Confucius, Sun-Tzu, Chinua Achebe, Mishima Yukio and many others. This fourth edition also features a simpler format that arranges the works chronologically in five sections (The Ancient World; 300-1600; 1600-1800; and The 20th Century), making them easier to look up than ever before. It deserves a place in the libraries of all lovers of literature.]]> 378 Clifton Fadiman 0062720732 Michael 5 3.94 1960 The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classic Guide to World Literature
author: Clifton Fadiman
name: Michael
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1960
rating: 5
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date added: 2012/01/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Wicked as They Come (Blud, #1)]]> 12381722
Half the inhabitants of Sang are Pinkies—human—and the other half are Bludmen, who in Tish’s world would be called vampires. But they don’t mess with any of the bat/coffin/no sunlight nonsense. They’re rather like you and me, just more fabulous, long living, and mostly indestructible. (They're also very good kissers.) But when the evil Mayor of Manchester (formerly Bludchester) redoubles his efforts to rid Sang of the Bludmen once and for all, stealing Tish’s locket in hopes of traveling back to her world himself for reinforcements, Criminy and Tish must battle ghosts, sea monsters, wayward submarines, a secret cabal, and thundering Bludmares to get the locket back and allow Tish to return home…but has she found love with Criminy? Could she stay in Sang forever?]]> 395 Delilah S. Dawson 1451657889 Michael 5 to-read 3.64 2012 Wicked as They Come (Blud, #1)
author: Delilah S. Dawson
name: Michael
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/01/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had]]> 86145 The Well-Educated Mind, Susan Wise Bauer provides a welcome and encouraging antidote to the distractions of our age, electronic and otherwise. In her previous book, The Well-Trained Mind, the author provided a road map of classical education for parents wishing to home-school their children, and that book is now the premier resource for home-schoolers. In this new book, Bauer takes the same elements and techniques and adapts them to the use of adult readers who want both enjoyment and self-improvement from the time they spend reading.

The Well-Educated Mind offers brief, entertaining histories of five literary genres—fiction, autobiography, history, drama, and poetry—accompanied by detailed instructions on how to read each type. The annotated lists at the end of each chapter—ranging from Cervantes to A. S. Byatt, Herodotus to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich—preview recommended reading and encourage readers to make vital connections between ancient traditions and contemporary writing.

The Well-Educated Mind reassures those readers who worry that they read too slowly or with below-average comprehension. If you can understand a daily newspaper, there's no reason you can't read and enjoy Shakespeare's Sonnets or Jane Eyre. But no one should attempt to read the "Great Books" without a guide and a plan. Susan Wise Bauer will show you how to allocate time to your reading on a regular basis; how to master a difficult argument; how to make personal and literary judgments about what you read; how to appreciate the resonant links among texts within a genre—what does Anna Karenina owe to Madame Bovary?—and also between genres. Followed carefully, the advice in The Well-Educated Mind will restore and expand the pleasure of the written word.]]> 432 Susan Wise Bauer 0393050947 Michael 4 3.98 2003 The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had
author: Susan Wise Bauer
name: Michael
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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date added: 2012/01/25
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]]> Baseball Prospectus 2012 13381325 576 Baseball Prospectus 0470622075 Michael 0 to-read 4.20 2012 Baseball Prospectus 2012
author: Baseball Prospectus
name: Michael
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/01/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides]]> 1519 Alternate covers of this ISBN here, here, here, here. Most recent cover is here.

In the Oresteia—the only trilogy in Greek drama which survives from antiquity—Aeschylus took as his subject the bloody chain of murder and revenge within the royal family of Argos.

Moving from darkness to light, from rage to self-governance, from primitive ritual to civilized institution, their spirit of struggle and regeneration becomes an everlasting song of celebration.]]> 336 Aeschylus Michael 5 4.03 -458 The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides
author: Aeschylus
name: Michael
average rating: 4.03
book published: -458
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/11/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract]]> 232459
Like the original, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is really several books in one. The Game provides a century's worth of American baseball history, told one decade at a time, with energetic facts and figures about How, Where, and by Whom the game was played. In The Players , you'll find listings of the top 100 players at each position in the major leagues, along with James's signature stats-based ratings method called “Win Shares,� a way of quantifying individual performance and calculating the offensive and defensive contributions of catchers, pitchers, infielders, and outfielders. And there's the Reference section covers Win Shares for each season and each player, and even offers a Win Share team comparison. A must-have for baseball fans and historians alike, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is as essential, entertaining, and enlightening as the sport itself.]]> 1012 Bill James 0743227220 Michael 0 to-read 4.26 1985 The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
author: Bill James
name: Michael
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/11/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America]]> 315783 276 Joe Posnanski 0060854030 Michael 4 4.36 2007 The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America
author: Joe Posnanski
name: Michael
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2007
rating: 4
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date added: 2011/11/29
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]]> <![CDATA[One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]]> 332613 9780451163967

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy � the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.]]> 325 Ken Kesey Michael 3 4.20 1962 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
author: Ken Kesey
name: Michael
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1962
rating: 3
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date added: 2011/11/29
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]]> Metamorphoses 1715
In Metamophoses, Ovid brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation—often as a result of love or lust—where men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the deification of Augustus, Ovid interweaves many of the best-known myths and legends of ancient Greece and Rome, including Daedalus and Icarus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Pygmalion, Perseus and Andromeda, and the fall of Troy. Erudite but light-hearted, dramatic and yet playful, Metamorphoses has influenced writers and artists throughout the centuries from Shakespeare and Titian to Picasso and Ted Hughes.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 723 Ovid 014044789X Michael 5 4.08 8 Metamorphoses
author: Ovid
name: Michael
average rating: 4.08
book published: 8
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/11/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Forgotten Bookmarks: A Bookseller's Collection of Odd Things Lost Between the Pages]]> 11093313
By day, Michael Popek works in his family's used bookstore. By night, he's the voyeuristic force behind , where he shares the weird objects he has found among the stacks at his store.

Forgotten Bookmarks is a scrapbook of Popek's most interesting finds. Sure, there are actual bookmarks, but there are also pictures and ticket stubs, old recipes and notes, valentines, unsent letters, four-leaf clovers, and various sordid, heartbreaking, and bizarre keepsakes. Together this collection of lost treasures offers a glimpse into other readers' lives that they never intended for us to see.]]> 182 Michael Popek 0399537015 Michael 5 3.56 2011 Forgotten Bookmarks: A Bookseller's Collection of Odd Things Lost Between the Pages
author: Michael Popek
name: Michael
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/11/22
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]]> <![CDATA[I Saw Esau: The Schoolchild's Pocket Book]]> 380645 That's what children chant when they are being teased; it's what their parents chanted, and their grandparents and their great grandparents before them. Collected in this invaluable book are the wit and wisdom of generations of schoolchildren—more than one hundred and seventy rhymes ranging from insults and riddles to tongue twisters, jeers and jump-rope rhymes.
With Iona Opie's introduction and detailed notes and Maurice Sendak's remarkable pictures—vignettes, sequences, and full-page paintings both wickedly funny and comically sad—this book offers knowledge and entertainment to all who open it. Like a collection of Mother Goose nursery rhymes or Grimms� fairy tales, I Saw Esau deserves a place among the classic texts of childhood.]]> 160 Iona Opie 0763611999 Michael 4 3.96 1947 I Saw Esau: The Schoolchild's Pocket Book
author: Iona Opie
name: Michael
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1947
rating: 4
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date added: 2011/11/10
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]]> Man in Black 35470 300 Johnny Cash 0310223210 Michael 5 4.01 1975 Man in Black
author: Johnny Cash
name: Michael
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1975
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/11/03
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]]> <![CDATA[When You Are Engulfed in Flames]]> 1044355 When You Are Engulfed in Flames confirms once again that David Sedaris is a master of mystery and suspense.

Or how about...

when set on fire, most of us either fumble for our wallets or waste valuable time feeling sorry for ourselves. David Sedaris has studied this phenomenon, and his resulting insights may very well save your life. Author of the national bestsellers Should You Be Attacked By Snakes and If You Are Surrounded by Mean Ghosts, David Sedaris, with When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is clearly at the top of his game.

Oh, all right...

David Sedaris has written yet another book of essays (his sixth). Subjects include a parasitic worm that once lived in his mother-in-law's leg, an encounter with a dingo, and the recreational use of an external catheter. Also recounted is the buying of a human skeleton and the author's attempt to quit smoking In Tokyo.

Master of nothing, at the dead center of his game, Sedaris proves that when you play with matches, you sometimes light the whole pack on fire.
(front flap)]]> 323 David Sedaris 0316143472 Michael 0 to-read 4.08 2005 When You Are Engulfed in Flames
author: David Sedaris
name: Michael
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/11/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> An Arm and a Leg 12246949 16 Emma Span Michael 5 3.20 2011 An Arm and a Leg
author: Emma Span
name: Michael
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2011/10/28
date added: 2011/10/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number]]> 24081
The Golden Ratio is a captivating journey through art and architecture, botany and biology, physics and mathematics. It tells the human story of numerous phi-fixated individuals, including the followers of Pythagoras who believed that this proportion revealed the hand of God; astronomer Johannes Kepler, who saw phi as the greatest treasure of geometry; such Renaissance thinkers as mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa; and such masters of the modern world as Goethe, Cezanne, Bartok, and physicist Roger Penrose. Wherever his quest for the meaning of phi takes him, Mario Livio reveals the world as a place where order, beauty, and eternal mystery will always coexist.]]> 294 Mario Livio 0767908163 Michael 0 currently-reading 3.80 2002 The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number
author: Mario Livio
name: Michael
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2011/10/27
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> The Cannibal 587678 195 John Hawkes 0811200639 Michael 3 3.78 1949 The Cannibal
author: John Hawkes
name: Michael
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1949
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2011/10/12
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]]> <![CDATA[From Abba-Dabba to Zorro: The World of Baseball Nicknames]]> 1530043 Book by Don Zminda 192 STATS Inc. 1884064698 Michael 0 currently-reading 3.00 1999 From Abba-Dabba to Zorro: The World of Baseball Nicknames
author: STATS Inc.
name: Michael
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/10/11
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams]]> 728070 406 Robert W. Peterson 0517205017 Michael 4 4.13 1970 Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams
author: Robert W. Peterson
name: Michael
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1970
rating: 4
read at: 2011/10/11
date added: 2011/10/11
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]]> The Day of the Locust 113441 The Day of the Locust is a novel about Hollywood and its corrupting touch, about the American dream turned into a sun-drenched California nightmare. Nathanael West's Hollywood is not the glamorous "home of the stars" but a seedy world of little people, some hopeful, some despairing, all twisted by their by their own desires -- from the ironically romantic artist narrator, to a macho movie cowboy, a middle-aged innocent from America's heartland, and the hard-as-nails call girl would-be-star whom they all lust after. An unforgettable portrayal of a world that mocks the real and rewards the sham, turns its back on love to plunge into empty sex, and breeds a savage violence that is its own undoing, this novel stands as a classic indictment of all that is most extravagant and uncontrolled in American life.]]> 208 Nathanael West 0451523482 Michael 5 3.74 1939 The Day of the Locust
author: Nathanael West
name: Michael
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1939
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/09/24
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]]> The Joy of Cooking 327847
All the recipes have been reconceived and tested with an eye to modern taste, and the cooking knowledge imparted with each subject enriched to the point where everyone from a beginning to an experienced cook will feel completely supported.

The new Joy continues the vision of American cooking that began with the first edition of Joy. It is still the book you can turn to for perfect Beef Wellington and Baked Macaroni and Cheese. It's also the book where you can now find Turkey on the Grill, Spicy Peanut Sesame Noodles, and vegetarian meals.

The new Joy provides more thorough descriptions of ingredients, from the familiar to the most exotic. For instance, almost all the varieties of apples grown domestically are described-- the months they become available, how they taste, what they are best used for, and how long they keep. But for the first time Joy features a complete section on fresh and dried chili peppers: how to roast and grill them, how to store them, and how long they keep-- with illustrations of each pepper.

An all-new "RULES" section in many chapters gives essential cooking basics at a glance: washing and storing salad greens, selecting a pasta and a matching sauce, determining when a piece of fish is cooked through, stuffing a chicken, and making a perfect souffle.

New chapters reflect changing American tastes and lifestyles:

Separate new chapters on grains, beans, and pasta include recipes for grits, polenta, pilafs, risottos, vegetarian chills, bean casseroles, and make-ahead lasagnes.

New baking and dessert chapters promise to enhance Joy of Cooking's reputation as a bible for bakers. Quick and yeast bread recipes range from focaccia, pizza, and sourdoughs to muffins and coffee cakes. Separate chapters cover custards and puddings, pies and tarts, cookies, cakes, cobblers, and other American fruit desserts revived for this edition. Recipes include one-bowl cakes, gingerbread, angel and sponge cakes, meringues, pound cakes, fruitcakes, 6 different kinds of cheesecake-- there's even an illustrated wedding cake recipe, which takes you through all the stages from building a stand, making and decorating the cake, to transporting it to the reception without a hitch.

Little Dishes showcases foods from around the world: hummus, baba ghanoush, bruschetta, tacos, empanadas, and fried wontons.

AII new drawings of techniques, ingredients, and equipment, integrated throughout an elegant new design, and over 300 more pages round out the new Joy.

Among this book's other unique features: microwave instructions for preparing beans, grains, and vegetables; dozens of new recipes for people who are lactose intolerant and allergic to gluten; expanded ingredients chart now features calories, essential vitamins, and levels of fats and cholesterol. There are ideas for substitutions to lower fat in recipes and reduced-fat recipes in the baking sections.

From cover to cover, Joy's chapters have been imbued with the knowledge and passion of America's greatest cooks and cooking teachers. An invaluable combination of old and new, this edition of Joy of Cooking promises to keep you cooking for years to come.]]> 1152 Irma S. Rombauer 0684818701 Michael 4 4.12 1931 The Joy of Cooking
author: Irma S. Rombauer
name: Michael
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1931
rating: 4
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]]> The Reivers 210825 305 William Faulkner 0679741925 Michael 2 3.78 1962 The Reivers
author: William Faulkner
name: Michael
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1962
rating: 2
read at: 2011/08/25
date added: 2011/08/25
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]]> <![CDATA[The Adventures of a Treasure Hunter: A Rare Bookman in Search of American History]]> 291365 264 Charles P. Everitt 091663812X Michael 5 4.07 1951 The Adventures of a Treasure Hunter: A Rare Bookman in Search of American History
author: Charles P. Everitt
name: Michael
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1951
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/08/25
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]]> <![CDATA[The Principles of Psychology: Volume 1]]> 1001304 Long Course in Principles of Psychology, one of the great classics of modern Western literature and science and the source of the ripest thoughts of America’s most important philosopher. As such, it should not be confused with the many abridgements that omit key sections.
The book presents lucid descriptions of human mental activity, with detailed considerations of the stream of thought, consciousness, time perception, memory, imagination, emotions, reason, abnormal phenomena, and similar topics. In its course it takes into account the work of Berkeley, Binet, Bradley, Darwin, Descartes, Fechner, Galton, Green, Helmholtz, Herbart, Hume, Janet, Kant, Lange, Lotze, Locke, Mill, Royce, Schopenhauer, Spinoza, Wundt, and scores of others. It examines contrasting interpretations of mental phenomena, treating introspective analysis, philosophical interpretations, and experimental research.
It remains unsurpassed today as a brilliantly written survey of William James� timeless view of psychology.]]> 720 William James 0486203816 Michael 2 4.19 1868 The Principles of Psychology: Volume 1
author: William James
name: Michael
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1868
rating: 2
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]]> <![CDATA[The Varieties of Religious Experience]]> 28820
When William James went to the University of Edinburgh in 1901 to deliver a series of lectures on "natural religion," he defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine." Considering religion, then, not as it is defined by--or takes place in--the churches, but as it is felt in everyday life, he undertook a project that, upon completion, stands not only as one of the most important texts on psychology ever written, not only as a vitally serious contemplation of spirituality, but for many critics one of the best works of nonfiction written in the 20th century. Reading The Varieties of Religious Experience, it is easy to see why. Applying his analytic clarity to religious accounts from a variety of sources, James elaborates a pluralistic framework in which "the divine can mean no single quality, it must mean a group of qualities, by being champions of which in alternation, different men may all find worthy missions." It's an intellectual call for serious religious tolerance � indeed, respect � the vitality of which has not diminished through the subsequent decades.]]> 519 William James 1402199031 Michael 3 4.00 1902 The Varieties of Religious Experience
author: William James
name: Michael
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1902
rating: 3
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]]> Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Michael 3 3.70 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: Michael
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 3
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]]> The Canterbury Tales 2696 The procession that crosses Chaucer's pages is as full of life and as richly textured as a medieval tapestry. The Knight, the Miller, the Friar, the Squire, the Prioress, the Wife of Bath, and others who make up the cast of characters -- including Chaucer himself -- are real people, with human emotions and weaknesses. When it is remembered that Chaucer wrote in English at a time when Latin was the standard literary language across western Europe, the magnitude of his achievement is even more remarkable. But Chaucer's genius needs no historical introduction; it bursts forth from every page of The Canterbury Tales.

If we trust the General Prologue, Chaucer intended that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back. He never finished his enormous project and even the completed tales were not finally revised. Scholars are uncertain about the order of the tales. As the printing press had yet to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, The Canterbury Tales has been passed down in several handwritten manuscripts.

]]> 504 Geoffrey Chaucer 0140424385 Michael 3 3.51 1400 The Canterbury Tales
author: Geoffrey Chaucer
name: Michael
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1400
rating: 3
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]]> Beowulf 52357 259 Unknown 0393320979 Michael 5 3.46 1000 Beowulf
author: Unknown
name: Michael
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1000
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso]]> 6656 This Everyman’s Library edition–containing in one volume all three cantos, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso–includes an introduction by Nobel Prize—winning poet Eugenio Montale, a chronology, notes, and a bibliography. Also included are forty-two drawings selected from Botticelli’s marvelous late-fifteenth-century series of illustrations.

Translated in this edition by Allen Mandelbaum, The Divine Comedy begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year 1300. It proceeds on a journey that, in its intense recreation of the depths and the heights of human experience, has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own identity.

Mandelbaum’s astonishingly Dantean translation, which captures so much of the life of the original, renders whole for us the masterpiece of that genius whom our greatest poets have recognized as a central model for all poets.]]> 798 Dante Alighieri 0679433139 Michael 4 4.08 1320 The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso
author: Dante Alighieri
name: Michael
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1320
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Vol. 2]]> 132692
Working from the principle that “mastering any art is a continuing process,� Julia Child and Simone Beck gathered together a brilliant selection of new dishes to bring you to a yet higher level of culinary mastery.

They have searched out more of the classic dishes and regional specialties of France, and adapted them so that Americans, working with American ingredients, in American kitchens, can achieve the incomparable flavors and aromas that bring up a rush of memories—of lunch at a country inn in Provence, of an evening at a great Paris restaurant, of the essential cooking of France.

From French bread to salted goose, from peasantĚý ragoĂ»ts Ěýto royal Napoleons, recipes are written with the same detail, exactness, and clarity that are the soul ofĚý Mastering the Art of French Cooking .]]> 648 Julia Child 0394721772 Michael 5 4.42 1970 Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Vol. 2
author: Julia Child
name: Michael
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1970
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/08/14
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]]> Sam and the Firefly 826281 Sam and the Firefly, P. D. Eastman (author of Are You My Mother? and Go, Dog. Go!) introduces us to the dynamic duo of Sam and Gus, who soar through the air writing words in the night sky. But when Gus’s words end up causing confusion and chaos for the people on the ground, it’s up to Sam to help Gus “write� his wrongs.

Originally created by Dr. Seuss, Beginner Books encourage children to read all by themselves, with simple words and illustrationsĚýthat give clues to their meaning.

"...provides interest, suspense and word repetition. Illustrations excellent. Recommended."--(starred) School Library Journal. ]]> 62 P.D. Eastman 0394800060 Michael 5 4.19 1958 Sam and the Firefly
author: P.D. Eastman
name: Michael
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1958
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/07/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bookman's Wake (Cliff Janeway, #2)]]> 445576 352 John Dunning 0751514969 Michael 3 3.92 1995 The Bookman's Wake (Cliff Janeway, #2)
author: John Dunning
name: Michael
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1995
rating: 3
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date added: 2011/07/29
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]]> Alcestis 1494 142 Euripides 0195061667 Michael 2 3.85 -438 Alcestis
author: Euripides
name: Michael
average rating: 3.85
book published: -438
rating: 2
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date added: 2011/07/21
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]]> <![CDATA[90% of the Game Is Half Mental: And Other Tales from the Edge of Baseball Fandom]]> 6911008
Yogi Berra once “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.� But for lifelong baseball aficionado Emma Span, it hasn’t always been that simple. Now, in this winning collection of essays, Span chronicles her love of the sport, from childhood hobby to full-blown obsession, from big break (becoming The Village Voice ’s first staff sports reporter in years) to heartbreak (getting a pink slip within a year). She recounts elbowing her way to get a quote from Yankees captain Derek Jeter and waiting for Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez to put some pants on for an interview. She literally gives her lifeblood to see the Mets and hops a plane to Taiwan, home to perhaps the largest concentration of Yankees fans outside of the five boroughs. But after getting laid off and being forced to leave her press pass behind, Span wonders if her passion for the sport will fade. Highly unlikely. Baseball helped Span forge a lasting bond with her father, connect with total strangers, and endure even the toughest times.

With a fresh voice, a devastating wit, and an alarmingly encyclopedic knowledge of the game,ĚýSpan offers a new perspective on America’s favorite pasttime—as a journalist, a baseball nerd, a daughter, and a fervent stay-until-the-last-out fan.]]> 192 Emma Span 0345501756 Michael 5 3.68 2009 90% of the Game Is Half Mental: And Other Tales from the Edge of Baseball Fandom
author: Emma Span
name: Michael
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2009
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/07/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Booked to Die (Cliff Janeway, #1)]]> 445593 Turning to his lifelong passion, Janeway opens a small bookshop -- all the while searching for evidence to put Newton away. But when prized volumes in a highly sought-after collection begin to appear, so do dead bodies. Now, Janeway's life is about to start a precarious new chapter as he attempts to find out who's dealing death along with vintage Chandlers and Twains.]]> 394 John Dunning 0743410653 Michael 3 3.89 1992 Booked to Die (Cliff Janeway, #1)
author: John Dunning
name: Michael
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1992
rating: 3
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date added: 2011/07/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture]]> 250102
Since Phillips launched the compact audio cassette at the 1963 Berlin Radio Show, our relationship with music has never been the same. Portable, inexpensive, and durable, the new format was an instant success. By the early 1970s, we were voraciously recording music onto blank cassettes: LPs, concerts, tunes from the radio. It allowed us to listen to music in a new way, privately.

Artist and musician Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) looks back at the plastic gadget that first let us make our own compilations. Mix Tape shares the treasured works (and the stories behind them) of over 50 dedicated home tapers, including Elizabeth Peyton, DJ Spooky, Jim O'Rourke, Allison Anders, and Mike Watt. From the Romantic Tape to the Break-up Tape, the Road Trip Tape to the 'Indoctrination' Tape, the art and text that emerged was of the mix cassette as a new way of resequencing music to make sense of our most stubbornly inexpressible feelings—a way of explaining ourselves to someone we love, or to ourselves.

Ask any ex of yours from the early '90s about the amorous mix tapes you once made, and chances are, Sonic Youth appears somewhere among the track listing. So, perhaps it's fitting that Thurston Moore is working on a book that takes a nostalgic look at that most humble vehicle of adolescent expression. Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture explores the sound mixes and art we created in our bedrooms long before iTunes and Photoshop.

-- Michael Dougherty, Blackbook Magazine. Fall 2004]]> 96 Thurston Moore 0789311992 Michael 4 3.73 2005 Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture
author: Thurston Moore
name: Michael
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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date added: 2011/05/25
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]]> The Little Friend 775346
The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents� yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet - unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town’s rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family’s history of loss.]]> 624 Donna Tartt 1400031699 Michael 3 3.47 2002 The Little Friend
author: Donna Tartt
name: Michael
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2002
rating: 3
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date added: 2011/05/13
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]]> The Martian Chronicles 76778
The Martian Chronicles tells the story of humanity’s repeated attempts to colonize the red planet. The first men were few. Most succumbed to a disease they called the Great Loneliness when they saw their home planet dwindle to the size of a fist. They felt they had never been born. Those few that survived found no welcome on Mars. The shape-changing Martians thought they were native lunatics and duly locked them up.

But more rockets arrived from Earth, and more, piercing the hallucinations projected by the Martians. People brought their old prejudices with them � and their desires and fantasies, tainted dreams. These were soon inhabited by the strange native beings, with their caged flowers and birds of flame.

Contents:
Rocket Summer
Ylla
The Summer Night
The Earth Men
The Taxpayer
The Third Expedition
-And the Moon Be Still As Bright
The Settlers
The Green Morning
The Locusts
Night Meeting
The Shore
Interim
The Musicians
Way in the Middle of the Air
The Naming of Names
Usher II
The Old Ones
The Martian
The Luggage Store
The Off Season
The Watchers
The Silent Towns
The Long Years
There Will Come Soft Rains
The Million Year Picnic]]> 182 Ray Bradbury 0553278223 Michael 3 4.16 1950 The Martian Chronicles
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Michael
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1950
rating: 3
read at: 2011/05/13
date added: 2011/05/13
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]]> The Member of the Wedding 330244
The novel that became an award-winning play and a major motion picture and that has charmed generations of readers, Carson McCullers's classic The Member of the Wedding is now available in small-format trade paperback for the first time.

"A marvelous study of the agony of adolescence" (Detroit Free Press), The Member of the Wedding showcases Carson McCullers at her most sensitive, astute, and lasting best.

An alternate-cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 163 Carson McCullers 0618492399 Michael 5 3.82 1946 The Member of the Wedding
author: Carson McCullers
name: Michael
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1946
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/05/05
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]]> The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter 37380 359 Carson McCullers 0618084746 Michael 5 3.99 1940 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
author: Carson McCullers
name: Michael
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1940
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/05/05
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]]> The Iliad 10386021 Akhilleus' anger, doomed and ruinous,
that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss
and crowded brave souls into the undergloom,
leaving so many dead men-carrion
for dogs and birds; and the will of Zeus was done.
-Lines 1-6

Since it was first published more than twenty-five years ago, Robert Fitzgerald's prizewinning translation of Homer's battle epic has become a classic in its own right: a standard against which all other versions of The Iliad are compared. Fitzgerald's work is accessible, ironic, faithful, written in a swift vernacular blank verse that "makes Homer live as never before" (Library Journal).

This edition includes a new foreword by Andrew Ford.]]> 632 Homer Michael 4 4.27 -800 The Iliad
author: Homer
name: Michael
average rating: 4.27
book published: -800
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History]]> 29036 The Great Influenza is ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, which provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. John M. Barry has written a new afterword for this edition that brings us up to speed on the terrible threat of the avian flu and suggest ways in which we might head off another flu pandemic.]]> 546 John M. Barry 0143036491 Michael 3 3.97 2004 The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
author: John M. Barry
name: Michael
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2011/04/06
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]]> The Plague 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 Michael 4 4.05 1947 The Plague
author: Albert Camus
name: Michael
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1947
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Paul The Dauntless: The Course Of A Great Adventure (1916)]]> 11019025 436 Basil Joseph Mathews 1120671841 Michael 3 4.00 2009 Paul The Dauntless: The Course Of A Great Adventure (1916)
author: Basil Joseph Mathews
name: Michael
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2009
rating: 3
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date added: 2011/04/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Mastering the Art of French Cooking]]> 129650 New York Times bestseller Mastering the Art of French Cooking has been the definitive book on the subject for American readers. Featuring 524 delicious recipes, in its pages home cooks will find something for everyone, from seasoned experts to beginners who love good food and long to reproduce the savory delights of French cuisine, from historic Gallic masterpieces to the seemingly artless perfection of a dish of spring-green peas. Here Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle break down the classic foods of France into a logical sequence of themes and variations rather than presenting an endless and diffuse catalogue of dishes. Throughout, the focus is on key recipes that form the backbone of French cookery and lend themselves to an infinite number of elaborations--bound to increase anyone's culinary repertoire. With over 100 instructive illustrations to guide readers every step of the way, Mastering the Art of French Cooking deserves a place of honor in every kitchen in America.]]> 684 Julia Child 0375413405 Michael 5 4.25 1961 Mastering the Art of French Cooking
author: Julia Child
name: Michael
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1961
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/04/06
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]]> The Odyssey 10085758 “A revelation. Never have I been so aware at once of the beauty of the poetry, the physicality of Homer’s world, and the moral ambiguity of those who inhabit it.� —SUSAN CHIRA, New York Times Book Review, “New & Noteworthy�



“â€Each generation must translate for itself,â€� T. S. Eliot declared. Emily Wilson has convincingly answered this hers is a vital Odyssey for the twenty-first century that brings into rhythmic English the power, dignity, variety, and immediacy of this great poem.â€� —LAURA SLATKIN, New York University


This Norton Critical Edition Ěý



Emily Wilson’s authoritative translation of Homer’s masterpiece, accompanied by her informative introduction, explanatory footnotes, and book-by-book summaries.
Four maps, created especially for this translation.
Contextual materials including sources and analogues by Homer, Sappho, Pindar, and others. Also included are carefully chosen passages from (mainly) ancient texts that provide insight into The Odyssey and its reception by Plato, Aristotle, Ovid, Pseudo-Longinus, Lucian, Apollodorus, Heraclitus, Porphyry, Proclus, Hyginus, Dante Alighieri, Alfred Lord Tennyson, C. P. Cavafy, Derek Walcott, and Margaret Atwood.
Nine critical essays addressing key topics—composition; representation of religion and the gods; class and slavery; gender; colonization and the meaning of home; trickery, intelligence, and lying; and more� essential to the study of The Odyssey. Essays by Robert Fowler, Laurel Fulkerson, Barbara Graziosi, Laura M. Slatkin, Sheila Murnaghan, Patrice Rankine, Helene P. Foley, Egbert J. Bakker, and Lillian Eileen Doherty are included.
A glossary and a list of suggested further readings.


Ěý


About the Series

Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format—annotated text, contexts, and criticism—helps students to better understand, analyze, and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need.]]> 426 Homer Michael 5 4.12 -700 The Odyssey
author: Homer
name: Michael
average rating: 4.12
book published: -700
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/03/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Iphigenia / Phaedra / Athaliah]]> 27832
Strongly influenced by Classical drama, Jean Racine (1639-99) broke away from the grandiose theatricality of baroque drama to create works of intense psychological realism, with characters manipulated by cruel and vengeful gods. Iphigenia depicts a princess's absolute submission to her father's will, despite his determination to sacrifice her to gain divine favour before going to war. Described by Voltaire as 'the masterpiece of the human mind', Phaedra shows a woman's struggle to overcome her overwhelming passion for her stepson - an obsession that brings destruction to a noble family. And Athaliah portrays a ruthless pagan queen, who defies Jehovah in her desperate attempt to keep the throne of Jerusalem from its legitimate heir.]]> 320 Jean Racine 0140441220 Michael 4 3.81 1963 Iphigenia / Phaedra / Athaliah
author: Jean Racine
name: Michael
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1963
rating: 4
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date added: 2011/02/05
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]]> The Crack-Up 16893 347 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0811212475 Michael 3 3.93 1936 The Crack-Up
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Michael
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1936
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2011/02/05
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]]> The Republic 30289 416 Plato 0140449140 Michael 4 3.97 -400 The Republic
author: Plato
name: Michael
average rating: 3.97
book published: -400
rating: 4
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]]> The Courage of Turtles 463857 These fifteen essays, by perhaps our finest personal essayist, range over the widest possible territory - county fairs, rodeos, the circus, boxing, taxidermy, bear hunting, about being a writer, about tugboats, and about the courage of the animal kingdom. They explore compassion, pain, love, and the densely textured spectacle of a world endlessly compelling to its author. And they are brilliant. (5 1/2 X 8 1/4, 256 pages)
]]> 239 Edward Hoagland 0865471967 Michael 5 3.93 1985 The Courage of Turtles
author: Edward Hoagland
name: Michael
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1985
rating: 5
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]]> Hoagland on Nature: Essays 925771 No one who admires John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, John Burroughs, and Edward Abbey should miss this definitive collection. It will forever change the way you view the natural world.

]]> 498 Edward Hoagland 1585746525 Michael 0 to-read 4.30 2003 Hoagland on Nature: Essays
author: Edward Hoagland
name: Michael
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Walking the Dead Diamond River]]> 1219247 340 Edward Hoagland 0394483618 Michael 4 4.00 1973 Walking the Dead Diamond River
author: Edward Hoagland
name: Michael
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1973
rating: 4
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]]> The Edward Hoagland reader 77196 399 Edward Hoagland 0394740378 Michael 4 3.90 1979 The Edward Hoagland reader
author: Edward Hoagland
name: Michael
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1979
rating: 4
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]]> Season Ticket 1199774 Roger Angell once again journeys through five seasons of America's national pastime--chronicling the larger-than-life narratives and on-field intricacies of baseball from 1982 to 1987. Angell's collected "New Yorker" essays, written in his unique voice as a fan and baseball aficionado, cover the development of the game both on the diamond and off. While diving into subjects such as Sparky Anderson's '84 Detroit Tigers, the legendary 1986 World Series and the Curse of the Bambino, and the increasingly pervasive issue of player drug use, Angell reveals the craft and technique of the game, and the unforgettable stories of those who played it.]]> 406 Roger Angell 0345358147 Michael 4 4.36 1988 Season Ticket
author: Roger Angell
name: Michael
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1988
rating: 4
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]]> The Summer Game (Bison Book) 603712 303 Roger Angell 0803259514 Michael 4 4.30 1972 The Summer Game (Bison Book)
author: Roger Angell
name: Michael
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1972
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Five Seasons: A Baseball Companion]]> 313298 413 Roger Angell 0803259506 Michael 5 4.37 1977 Five Seasons: A Baseball Companion
author: Roger Angell
name: Michael
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1977
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Fair Ball: A Fan's Case for Baseball]]> 286502
In this cogent--and provocative--book, Costas examines the growing financial disparities that have resulted in nearly two-thirds of the teams in major league baseball having virtually no chance of contending for the World Series. He argues that those who run baseball have missed the crucial difference between mere change and real progress. And he presents a withering critique of the positions of both the owners and players while providing insights on the wild-card system, the designated-hitter rule, and interleague play. Costas answers each problem he cites with an often innovative, always achievable strategy for restoring genuine competition and rescuing fans from the forces that have diluted the sheer joy of the game.

Balanced by Costas's unbridled appreciation for what he calls the "moments of authenticity" that can still make baseball inspiring, Fair Ball offers a vision of our national pastime as it can be, a game that retains its traditional appeal while initiating thoughtful changes that will allow it to thrive into the next century.]]> 197 Bob Costas 0767904664 Michael 1 3.65 2000 Fair Ball: A Fan's Case for Baseball
author: Bob Costas
name: Michael
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2000
rating: 1
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]]> <![CDATA[Jimmie Johnson: Nascar Driver (Behind the Wheel)]]> 5974567 48 Emily Farmer 1404209816 Michael 5 4.60 2007 Jimmie Johnson: Nascar Driver (Behind the Wheel)
author: Emily Farmer
name: Michael
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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date added: 2011/02/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Understanding the World of User-Generated Content (Digital and Information Literacy)]]> 10396213 48 Emily Popek 1448805988 Michael 5 4.50 2010 Understanding the World of User-Generated Content (Digital and Information Literacy)
author: Emily Popek
name: Michael
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2010
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Copyright and Digital Ethics (Digital and Information Literacy)]]> 10396211 48 Emily Popek 1448813239 Michael 5 3.62 2011 Copyright and Digital Ethics (Digital and Information Literacy)
author: Emily Popek
name: Michael
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards]]> 7569907 Cardboard Gods is the memoir of Josh Wilker, a brilliant writer who has marked the stages of his life through the baseball cards he collected as a child. It also captures the experience of growing up obsessed with baseball cards and explores what it means to be a fan of the game. Along the way, as we get to know Josh, his family, and his friends, we also get Josh’s classic observations about the central artifacts from his life: the baseball cards themselves. Josh writes about an imagined correspondence with his favorite player, Carl Yastrzemski; he uses the magical bubble-blowing powers of journeyman Kurt Bevacqua to shed light on the weakening of the powerful childhood bond with his older brother; he considers the doomed utopian back-to-the-land dreams of his hippie parents against the backdrop of inimitable 1970s baseball figures such as “Designated Pinch Runner� Herb Washington and Mark “The Bird� Fidrych. Cardboard Gods is more than just the story of a man who can’t let go of his past, it’s proof that � to paraphrase Jim Bouton � as children we grow up holding baseball cards but in the end we realize that it’s really the other way around.]]> 243 Josh Wilker 1934734160 Michael 5 3.81 2010 Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards
author: Josh Wilker
name: Michael
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2010
rating: 5
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]]> Men at Work 77772 Sports Research Baseball 384 George F. Will 0060973722 Michael 2 3.92 1990 Men at Work
author: George F. Will
name: Michael
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1990
rating: 2
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]]> <![CDATA[Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game Is Wrong]]> 365100 Baseball Between the Numbers is that book. In separate chapters covering every aspect of the game, from hitting, pitching, and fielding to roster construction and the scouting and drafting of players, the experts at Baseball Prospectus examine the subtle, hidden aspects of the game, bring them out into the open, and show us how our favorite teams could win more games. This is a book that every fan, every follower of sports radio, every fantasy player, every coach, and every player, at every level, can learn from and enjoy.]]> 518 Baseball Prospectus 0465005470 Michael 5 4.01 2006 Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game Is Wrong
author: Baseball Prospectus
name: Michael
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog]]> 763031 The peaches
A visit to Grandpa's
Patricia, Edith & Arnold
The fight
Extraordinary little cough
Just like little dogs
Where Tawe flows
Who do you wish was with us
Old Garbo
One warm Saturday]]> 120 Dylan Thomas 0811202070 Michael 3 3.98 1940 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog
author: Dylan Thomas
name: Michael
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1940
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies]]> 1842
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a national bestseller: the global account of the rise of civilization that is also a stunning refutation of ideas of human development based on race.

In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth Club of California's Gold Medal]]> 498 Jared Diamond 0739467352 Michael 4 4.04 1997 Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
author: Jared Diamond
name: Michael
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1997
rating: 4
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]]> The Complete Maus 15195
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust� (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.]]> 296 Art Spiegelman 0141014083 Michael 3 4.57 1980 The Complete Maus
author: Art Spiegelman
name: Michael
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1980
rating: 3
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]]> <![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 Michael 3 3.64 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
author: James Joyce
name: Michael
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1916
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Old and Rare : Thirty Years in the Book Business]]> 1616776 256 Madeleine B. Stern 0839001312 Michael 2 3.43 1975 Old and Rare : Thirty Years in the Book Business
author: Madeleine B. Stern
name: Michael
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1975
rating: 2
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]]> <![CDATA[Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future]]> 512744 226 Jason Epstein 0393322343 Michael 3 3.53 2001 Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future
author: Jason Epstein
name: Michael
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2001
rating: 3
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]]> The Invisible Man 17184 192 H.G. Wells 0451528522 Michael 3 3.63 1897 The Invisible Man
author: H.G. Wells
name: Michael
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1897
rating: 3
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]]> 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 Michael 5 3.91 1952 Invisible Man
author: Ralph Ellison
name: Michael
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1952
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages]]> 20941 The Western Canon is more than a required reading list—it is a vision. Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues brilliantly against the politicization of literature and presents a guide to the great works ofĚýthe western literary traditionĚýand essential writers of the ages. The Western Canon was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award.]]> 546 Harold Bloom 1573225142 Michael 5 3.88 1994 The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
author: Harold Bloom
name: Michael
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1994
rating: 5
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]]> How to Read and Why 20943 Shedding all polemic, Bloom addresses the solitary reader, who, he urges, should read for the purest of all reasons: to discover and augment the self. His ultimate faith in the restorative power of literature resonates on every page of this infinitely rewarding and important book.]]> 288 Harold Bloom 0684859076 Michael 5 3.63 2000 How to Read and Why
author: Harold Bloom
name: Michael
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human]]> 20942 New York Review of Books. A landmark achievement as expansive, erudite, and passionate as its renowned author, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, writing about, and teaching Shakespeare. Preeminent literary critic-and ultimate authority on the western literary tradition-Harold Bloom leads us through a comprehensive reading of every one of the dramatist's plays, brilliantly illuminating each work with unrivaled warmth, wit and insight. At the same time, Bloom presents one of the boldest theses of Shakespearean scholarships: that Shakespeare not only invented the English language, but also created human nature as we know it today.]]> 745 Harold Bloom 157322751X Michael 4 4.03 1998 Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
author: Harold Bloom
name: Michael
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1998
rating: 4
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]]> 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 Michael 5 3.81 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Michael
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Stardust: The David Bowie Story]]> 95023 interesting biog Henry Edwards 0553269283 Michael 2 3.40 1986 Stardust: The David Bowie Story
author: Henry Edwards
name: Michael
average rating: 3.40
book published: 1986
rating: 2
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]]> To Kill a Mockingbird 2657 "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film.]]> 323 Harper Lee 0060935464 Michael 3 4.25 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: Michael
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Graph Out Loud: Music. Movies. Graphs. Awesome.]]> 6945201 144 Graphjam 1592404871 Michael 3 3.75 2009 Graph Out Loud: Music. Movies. Graphs. Awesome.
author: Graphjam
name: Michael
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2009
rating: 3
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]]> Dance Dance Dance 17800 Alternate cover edition here.

High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem. Combine this offbeat cast of characters with Murakami's idiosyncratic prose and out comes Dance Dance Dance.]]> 393 Haruki Murakami 0099448769 Michael 3 4.06 1988 Dance Dance Dance
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Michael
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1988
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[All Mixed Up: A Mix-and-Match Book]]> 3136097 46 Carin Berger 081184966X Michael 4 4.25 2006 All Mixed Up: A Mix-and-Match Book
author: Carin Berger
name: Michael
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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]]> The Little Yellow Leaf 3367827 I'm not ready yet.

As the seasons change all around, Little Yellow Leaf holds on to the tree. Still not ready.

Will Little Yellow Leaf ever be ready?

This is a story for anyone who has ever been afraid of facing the unknown—and a celebration of the friends who help us take the leap.]]> 40 Carin Berger 0061452238 Michael 4 4.04 2008 The Little Yellow Leaf
author: Carin Berger
name: Michael
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2008
rating: 4
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]]> OK Go 5197643 32 Carin Berger 0061576662 Michael 5 3.15 2009 OK Go
author: Carin Berger
name: Michael
average rating: 3.15
book published: 2009
rating: 5
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]]>