Iris's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 30 Apr 2025 14:43:49 -0700 60 Iris's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Empire of Silence (The Sun Eater, #1)]]> 36454667 Hadrian Marlowe, a man revered as a hero and despised as a murderer, chronicles his tale in the galaxy-spanning debut of the Sun Eater series, merging the best of space opera and epic fantasy.

It was not his war.
On the wrong planet, at the right time, for the best reasons, Hadrian Marlowe started down a path that could only end in fire. The galaxy remembers him as a the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives—even the Emperor himself—against Imperial orders.
But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier.
Fleeing his father and a future as a torturer, Hadrian finds himself stranded on a strange, backwater world. Forced to fight as a gladiator and into the intrigues of a foreign planetary court, he will find himself fight a war he did not start, for an Empire he does not love, against an enemy he will never understand.]]> 753 Christopher Ruocchio 0756413028 Iris 0 4.01 2018 Empire of Silence (The Sun Eater, #1)
author: Christopher Ruocchio
name: Iris
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: to-read, fantasy, sci-fi, series-to-start
review:

]]> <![CDATA[She Who Became the Sun (The Radiant Emperor, #1)]]> 55077538
In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu uses the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness.

Mulan meets The Song of Achilles; an accomplished, poetic debut of war and destiny, sweeping across an epic alternate China.]]> 414 Shelley Parker-Chan 1250621801 Iris 0 currently-reading 3.80 2021 She Who Became the Sun (The Radiant Emperor, #1)
author: Shelley Parker-Chan
name: Iris
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Iris 4 4.61 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Iris
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves:
review:
This was a fan service book but I am a fan and I enjoyed it!
]]> <![CDATA[The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex]]> 30652093
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded gathers essays by radical activists, educators, and non-profit staff from around the globe who critically rethink the long-term consequences of what they call the "non-profit industrial complex." Drawing on their own experiences, the contributors track the history of non-profits and provide strategies to transform and work outside them. Urgent and visionary, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded presents a biting critique of the quietly devastating role the non-profit industrial complex plays in managing dissent.

Contributors: Christine E. Ahn, Robert L. Allen, Alisa Bierria, Nicole Burrowes, Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), William Cordery, Morgan Cousins, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Stephanie Guilloud, Adjoa FlorĂŞncia Jones de Almeida, Tiffany Lethabo King, Paul Kivel, Soniya Munshi, Ewuare Osayande, Amara H. PĂ©rez, Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide, Dylan RodrĂ­guez, Paula X. Rojas, Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, Sisters in Action for Power, Andrea Smith, Eric Tang, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Ije Ude, Craig Willse]]> 272 0822369001 Iris 5
Although it does get a little repetitive at times, because this is a series of essays, they really drive home the point of how the state has been able to co-opt organizing power by making organization into nonprofit, and therefore turning that energy and time that could be used towards making systemic change to getting funding to pay employees (they use examples from the 60s and 70s when most organizing was volunteer-based). It also means that nonprofits are focusing on social services, when they should be focusing on social change.

There was a lot of critique on foundations, saying that "valuable time is spent securing cozy relationships with major donors instead of organizing to dismantle the very systems of oppression that allow this owning class to accumulate unearned wealth," where major donors are both foundations and individuals donating large amounts of money.

I also liked the final section where they talked about revolutionary movements in Latin America and how almost none of them are through nonprofits, if they work with nonprofits it is to help the movement along, nonprofits are specifically NOT the movement. A quote I liked from that section was "revolution is about the process of making power and creating autonomous communities that divest from the state."

At the risk of leaving an insanely long review, I'll leave you with this question from the preface, "Do you think the system is really going to fund you to dismantle it?" ]]> 4.40 2007 The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
author: Incite! Women of Color Against Violence
name: Iris
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/29
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves:
review:
This was genuinely a phenomenal book and made me reconsider so much of what I thought I knew about nonprofits and organizing. I became interested in this book because I took a class on Fundraising in Nonprofits last quarter and became increasing distressed about the amount of groveling we were being taught to do in order to secure mediocre fundraising to help people in need. Reading this sort of confirmed what I was already thinking, but expanded it so much more than I had conceived of. Anyone who wants to work in the nonprofit sector should definitely read this.

Although it does get a little repetitive at times, because this is a series of essays, they really drive home the point of how the state has been able to co-opt organizing power by making organization into nonprofit, and therefore turning that energy and time that could be used towards making systemic change to getting funding to pay employees (they use examples from the 60s and 70s when most organizing was volunteer-based). It also means that nonprofits are focusing on social services, when they should be focusing on social change.

There was a lot of critique on foundations, saying that "valuable time is spent securing cozy relationships with major donors instead of organizing to dismantle the very systems of oppression that allow this owning class to accumulate unearned wealth," where major donors are both foundations and individuals donating large amounts of money.

I also liked the final section where they talked about revolutionary movements in Latin America and how almost none of them are through nonprofits, if they work with nonprofits it is to help the movement along, nonprofits are specifically NOT the movement. A quote I liked from that section was "revolution is about the process of making power and creating autonomous communities that divest from the state."

At the risk of leaving an insanely long review, I'll leave you with this question from the preface, "Do you think the system is really going to fund you to dismantle it?"
]]> The Emperor of Gladness 219848315 Ocean Vuong returns with a big-hearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing � formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness � are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.]]> 416 Ocean Vuong 059383187X Iris 0 4.35 2025 The Emperor of Gladness
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Iris
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: to-read, lit-fic, new-or-recent, queer-books
review:

]]> No One Is Talking About This 53733106
As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats—from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness—begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?"

Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.

Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature.]]> 210 Patricia Lockwood 0593189582 Iris 0 to-read, lit-fic, fantasy 3.56 2021 No One Is Talking About This
author: Patricia Lockwood
name: Iris
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: to-read, lit-fic, fantasy
review:

]]> Pedagogy of the Oppressed 72657 Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire's work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm. With a substantive new introduction on Freire's life and the remarkable impact of this book by writer and Freire confidant and authority Donaldo Macedo, this anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed will inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come.]]> 183 Paulo Freire 0826412769 Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction 4.30 1968 Pedagogy of the Oppressed
author: Paulo Freire
name: Iris
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1968
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: to-read, nonfiction
review:

]]> How Beautiful We Were 59854829 From the celebrated author of the New York Times bestseller Behold the Dreamers, comes a sweeping, wrenching story about the collision of a small African village and an America oil company.

"We should have known the end was near."

So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company.

Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean-up and financial reparations to the villagers are made—and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interest. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. Their struggle would last for decades and come at a steep price.

Told through the perspective of a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary, How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold onto its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom.

"The unforgettable story of a community on the wrong end of Western greed, How Beautiful We Were will enthrall you, appall you, and show you what is possible when a few people stand up and say this is not right. A masterful novel by a spellbinding writer engaged with the most urgent questions of our day.”—David Ebershoff, bestselling author of The Danish Girl]]> 368 Imbolo Mbue 1838851372 Iris 3 3.85 2021 How Beautiful We Were
author: Imbolo Mbue
name: Iris
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves:
review:
3.5. Such an important, albeit fictional, story to tell but I wasn't really a fan of the structure of the book, specifically the jumping timelines and the POVs.
]]> The Magic Mountain 88077
The Magic Mountain is a monumental work of erudition and irony, sexual tension and intellectual ferment, a book that pulses with life in the midst of death.]]> 706 Thomas Mann Iris 0 to-read, classics 4.12 1924 The Magic Mountain
author: Thomas Mann
name: Iris
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1924
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: to-read, classics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder]]> 58045504 An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here.

The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognize only his spiritual and social distance from them.]]> 480 Evelyn Waugh 0141182482 Iris 0 4.04 1945 Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder
author: Evelyn Waugh
name: Iris
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1945
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: to-read, historical-fiction, classics
review:

]]> Women, Race & Class 635635 From one of our most important scholars and civil rights activist icon, a powerful study of the women’s liberation movement and the tangled knot of oppression facing Black women.

"Angela Davis is herself a woman of undeniable courage. She should be heard." �The New York Times

Angela Davis provides a powerful history of the social and political influence of whiteness and elitism in feminism, from abolitionist days to the present, and demonstrates how the racist and classist biases of its leaders inevitably hampered any collective ambitions. While Black women were aided by some activists like Sarah and Angelina Grimke and the suffrage cause found unwavering support in Frederick Douglass, many women played on the fears of white supremacists for political gain rather than take an intersectional approach to liberation. Here, Davis not only contextualizes the legacy and pitfalls of civil and women's rights activists, but also discusses Communist women, the murder of Emmitt Till, and Margaret Sanger's racism. Davis shows readers how the inequalities between Black and white women influence the contemporary issues of rape, reproductive freedom, housework and child care in this bold and indispensable work.]]> 271 Angela Y. Davis 0394713516 Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction 4.58 1981 Women, Race & Class
author: Angela Y. Davis
name: Iris
average rating: 4.58
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: to-read, nonfiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement]]> 25330108
Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.

Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and buildĚýthe movement for human liberation.ĚýAnd in doing so, she reminds us that "Freedom is a constant struggle."]]> 158 Angela Y. Davis 1608465640 Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction 4.45 2015 Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement
author: Angela Y. Davis
name: Iris
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: to-read, nonfiction
review:

]]> Are Prisons Obsolete? 108428
In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. She argues forthrightly for "decarceration", and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole.]]> 128 Angela Y. Davis 1583225811 Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction 4.53 2003 Are Prisons Obsolete?
author: Angela Y. Davis
name: Iris
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: to-read, nonfiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness]]> 6792458
As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status--much like their grandparents before them.

In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community--and all of us--to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.]]> 290 Michelle Alexander Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction 4.52 2010 The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
author: Michelle Alexander
name: Iris
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: to-read, nonfiction
review:

]]> Gifted & Talented 211004124 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes the story of three siblings who, upon the death of their father, are forced to reckon with their long-festering rivalries, dangerous abilities, and the crushing weight of all their unrealized adolescent potential.

Where there’s a will, there’s a war.

Thayer Wren, the brilliant CEO of Wrenfare Magitech and so-called father of modern technology, is dead. Any one of his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children would be a plausible inheritor to the Wrenfare throne.

Or at least, so they like to think.

Meredith, textbook accomplished eldest daughter and the head of her own groundbreaking biotech company, has recently cured mental illness. You're welcome! If only her father's fortune wasn't her last hope for keeping her journalist ex-boyfriend from exposing what she really is: a total fraud.

Arthur, second-youngest congressman in history, fights the good fight every day of his life. And yet, his wife might be leaving him, and he's losing his re-election campaign. But his dead father’s approval in the form of a seat on the Wrenfare throne might just turn his sinking ship around.

Eilidh, once the world's most famous ballerina, has spent the last five years as a run-of-the-mill marketing executive at her father’s company after a life-altering injury put an end to her prodigious career. She might be lacking in accolades compared to her siblings, but if her father left her everything, it would finally validate her worth—by confirming she'd been his favorite all along.

On the pipeline of gifted kid to clinically depressed adult, nobody wins—but which Wren will come out on top?]]> 512 Olivie Blake 1250883407 Iris 2 3.83 2025 Gifted & Talented
author: Olivie Blake
name: Iris
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves:
review:
2.5. This book actually did start to grow on me at the end because I started to genuinely like some of the characters but GOOD LORD is the writing bad. Olivie Blake has never been my favorite, but this is by far my least favorite and she needs and editor that will tell her the truth. Also I can't stand millennial speak or voice in books, just don't do it, it's a disservice to your writing.
]]> <![CDATA[Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet]]> 123627807 A New York Times Notable Book of 2023 and Editors' Choice � A Science News Favorite Book of 2023 � A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2023 � A Smithsonian Staff Favorite of 2023 � A New Yorker Best Book of 2023 � Finalist for the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism � Finalist for the Reading the West Award � Finalist for the Colorado Book Award � Winner of the Banff Mountain Book Competition in Environmental Literature � Winner of the Sierra Club's Rachel Carson Award for Excellence in Environmental Writing

An eye-opening account of the global ecological transformations wrought by roads, from the award-winning author of Eager. Some 40 million miles of roadways encircle the earth, yet we tend to regard them only as infrastructure for human convenience. While roads are so ubiquitous they’re practically invisible to us, wild animals experience them as entirely alien forces of death and disruption. In Crossings, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb travels throughout the United States and around the world to investigate how roads have transformed our planet. A million animals are killed by cars each day in the U.S. alone, but as the new science of road ecology shows, the harms of highways extend far beyond roadkill. Creatures from antelope to salmon are losing their ability to migrate in search of food and mates; invasive plants hitch rides in tire treads; road salt contaminates lakes and rivers; and the very noise of traffic chases songbirds from vast swaths of habitat. Yet road ecologists are also seeking to blunt the destruction through innovative solutions. Goldfarb meets with conservationists building bridges for California’s mountain lions and tunnels for English toads, engineers deconstructing the labyrinth of logging roads that web national forests, animal rehabbers caring for Tasmania’s car-orphaned wallabies, and community organizers working to undo the havoc highways have wreaked upon American cities. Today, as our planet’s road network continues to grow exponentially, the science of road ecology has become increasingly vital. Written with passion and curiosity, Crossings is a sweeping, spirited, and timely investigation into how humans have altered the natural world―and how we can create a better future for all living beings. 20 illustrations]]> 384 Ben Goldfarb 1324005890 Iris 0 4.42 2023 Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet
author: Ben Goldfarb
name: Iris
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read, mother-earth, nonfiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore]]> 201751300 An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations

Bookstores have always been unlike any other kind of store, shaping readers and writers, and influencing our tastes, thoughts, and politics. They nurture local communities while creating new ones of their own. Bookshops are powerful spaces, but they are also endangered ones. In The Bookshop, we see those stakes: what has been, and what might be lost.

Evan Friss’s history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many. The story begins with Benjamin Franklin’s first bookstore in Philadelphia and takes us to a range of booksellers including The Strand, Chicago’s Marshall Field & Company, Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, and Parnassus. The Bookshop is also a history of the leading figures in American bookselling, often impassioned eccentrics, and a history of how books have been marketed and sold over more than two centuries—including, for example, a 3,000-pound elephant who appeared to sign books at Marshall Field’s in 1944.

The Bookshop is a love letter to bookstores, a charming chronicle for anyone who cherishes these sanctuaries of literature, and essential reading to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life—and why we still need them.]]> 416 Evan Friss 0593299922 Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction 3.92 2024 The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore
author: Evan Friss
name: Iris
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read, nonfiction
review:

]]> Wild Dark Shore 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]> 303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 Iris 0 4.27 2025 Wild Dark Shore
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Iris
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read, horror-thriller, new-or-recent
review:

]]> Crush 213870131 When a husband asks his reluctant wife to consider what might be missing from their marriage, what follows surprises them both—sex, heartbreak and heart rekindling, and a rediscovered sense of all that is possible

She’s happy and settled and productive and content in her full life—a child, a career, an admirable marriage, deep friendships, happy parents, and a spouse she still loves. But when her husband urges her to address what the narrow labels of “husbandâ€� and “wifeâ€� force them to edit out of their lives, the very best kind of hell breaks loose.Ěý

Using the author’s personal experiences as a jumping-off point, Crush is about the danger and liberation of chasing desire, the havoc it can wreak, and most of all the clear sense of self one finds when the storm passes. Destined to become a classic novel of marriage, and tackling the big questions being asked about partnership in postpandemic relationships, Crush is a sharp, funny, seductive, and revelatory novel about holding on to everything it’s possible to love—friends, children, parents, passion, lovers, husbands, all of the world’s good books, and most of all one’s own deep sense of purpose.]]> 288 Ada Calhoun 0593832027 Iris 0 3.01 2025 Crush
author: Ada Calhoun
name: Iris
average rating: 3.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read, lit-fic, romance, new-or-recent
review:

]]> Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) 209439446
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.]]> 527 Rebecca Yarros 1649374186 Iris 0 4.17 2025 Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Iris
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read, fantasy, new-or-recent
review:

]]> All Fours 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]> 336 Miranda July 0593190262 Iris 0 to-read, lit-fic 3.52 2024 All Fours
author: Miranda July
name: Iris
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2024
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]]> <![CDATA[Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story]]> 214175066 Ěý
Leslie Jamison has become one of our most beloved contemporary voices, a scribe of the real, the true, the complex. She has been compared to Joan Didion and Susan Sontag, acclaimed for her powerful thinking, deep feeling, and electric prose. But while Jamison has never shied away from challenging material—scouring her own psyche and digging into our most unanswerable questions across four books� Splinters enters a new realm.
Ěý
In her first memoir, Jamison turns her unrivaled powers of perception on some of the most intimate relationships of her her consuming love for her young daughter, a ruptured marriage once swollen with hope, and the shaping legacy of her own parents� complicated bond. In examining what it means for a woman to be many things at once—a mother, an artist, a teacher, a lover—Jamison places the magical and the mundane side by side in surprising pumping breastmilk in a shared university office, driving the open highway in the throes of new love, growing a tender second skin of consciousness as she watches her daughter come alive to the world. The result is a work of nonfiction like no other, an almost impossibly deep reckoning with the muchness of life and art, and a book that grieves the departure of one love even as it celebrates the arrival of another.
Ěý
How do we move forward into joy when we are haunted by loss? How do we claim hope alongside the harm we’ve caused? A memoir for which the very term tour de force seems to have been coined, Splinters plumbs these and other pressing questions with writing that is revelatory to the last page. Jamison has delivered a book with the linguistic daring and emotional acuity that made The Empathy Exams and The Recovering instant classics, even as she reaches new depths of understanding, piercing the reader to the core. A master of nonfiction, she evinces once again her ability to “stitch together the intellectual and the emotional with the finesse of a crackerjack surgeon� (NPR).]]> 272 Leslie Jamison 0316374989 Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction, essays 4.00 2024 Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story
author: Leslie Jamison
name: Iris
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution]]> 220999030 It's time for us to rewrite the story of what we are and how we came to be, no matter how weird or hilarious the truth is.

From the way we grow our nails to how we think, everything we call human is fundamentally shaped by how our bodies evolved. Whether we are in pain or joy, abled or disabled, in sickness and in health until death do we disassemble, our bodies and brains are simply what we are.

For too long, in a world largely built for and by men, women have been systematically ignored. In this bold and provocative book, Cat Bohannon deftly traces the evolution of women's bodies for the first time to unravel how each of our features really came to be. From tits to toes, Eve is a no-nonsense, hard-hitting account of the evolution of one half of a very young, complex and fascinating species. This book will radically change the way we understand our bodies - and the world around us.]]> 624 Cat Bohannon 0345806204 Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction 4.19 2023 Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
author: Cat Bohannon
name: Iris
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape]]> 61340227 320 Katie Holten 1953534686 Iris 0 to-read, mother-earth 3.97 2023 The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape
author: Katie Holten
name: Iris
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World]]> 35820369 Noch immer haftet den Dinosauriern das Image der schwerfälligen, primitiven Monster an, die zu groĂź waren, um zu ĂĽberleben. Doch bevor sie von der Erdoberfläche verschwanden, beherrschten die faszinierenden Giganten ĂĽber 150 Millionen Jahre lang unseren Planeten. Modernste Technologien und spektakuläre Funde erlauben nun neue Einblicke in ihre Erfolgsgeschichte.Ěý
Steve Brusatte, einer der führenden Paläontologen der Welt, führt uns anschaulich durch das untergegangene Reich der Dinosaurier. Lebendig erzählt er ihre Geschichte von den ersten Rieseneidechsen bis zum Aussterben. Dabei gibt er spannende Einblicke in seine Forschung und berichtet von spektakulären Ausgrabungen, etwa von Fleischfressern, die sogar größer waren als der Tyrannosaurus rex.

]]> 404 Steve Brusatte 0062490427 Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction 4.24 2018 The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World
author: Steve Brusatte
name: Iris
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us]]> 58986604 528 Steve Brusatte 0062951513 Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction 4.35 2022 The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us
author: Steve Brusatte
name: Iris
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World]]> 208840291 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love.

Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”]]> 112 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1668072246 Iris 0 to-read, mother-earth 4.38 2024 The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Iris
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> The Kite Runner 17165596 The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies.

A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic.

The 10th anniversary edition of the New York Times bestseller and international classic loved by millions of readers.

]]> 371 Khaled Hosseini Iris 0 to-read, historical-fiction 4.47 2003 The Kite Runner
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Iris
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> If Beale Street Could Talk 38463 197 James Baldwin 0307275930 Iris 0 to-read, classics 4.28 1974 If Beale Street Could Talk
author: James Baldwin
name: Iris
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1974
rating: 0
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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 Iris 0 to-read, classics 3.81 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Iris
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 0
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]]> As I Lay Dying 10974 As I Lay Dying, originally published in 1930, remains a captivating and stylistically innovative work. The story revolves around a grim yet darkly humorous pilgrimage, as Addie Bundren's family sets out to fulfill her last wish: to be buried in her native Jefferson, Mississippi, far from the miserable backwater surroundings of her married life. Told through multiple voices, As I Lay Dying vividly brings to life Faulkner's imaginary South, one of literature's great invented landscapes, and is replete with the poignant, impoverished, violent, and hypnotically fascinating characters that were his trademark.

Along with a new foreword by E. L. Doctorow, this edition reproduces the corrected text of As I Lay Dying as established in 1985 by Faulkner expert Noel Polk.]]> 231 William Faulkner 0375504524 Iris 0 to-read, classics 3.82 1930 As I Lay Dying
author: William Faulkner
name: Iris
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1930
rating: 0
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]]> Audition 216247518 One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. A mesmerizing Mobius strip of a novel that asks who we are to the people we love.

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an elegant and accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, and young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In Audition, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day—partner, parent, creator, muse—and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us best.]]> 208 Katie Kitamura 059385232X Iris 0 3.56 2025 Audition
author: Katie Kitamura
name: Iris
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> The Incandescent 217387935 Naomi Novik's Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

"Look at you, eating magic like you're one of us."

Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood Academy and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school's boundaries from demonic incursions.

Walden is good at her job―no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from―is herself.]]> 432 Emily Tesh 1250835011 Iris 0 4.24 2025 The Incandescent
author: Emily Tesh
name: Iris
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> Their Eyes Were Watching God 37415 238 Zora Neale Hurston 0061120065 Iris 0 to-read, classics 3.98 1937 Their Eyes Were Watching God
author: Zora Neale Hurston
name: Iris
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1937
rating: 0
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]]> 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 Iris 0 to-read, classics 3.81 1926 The Sun Also Rises
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Iris
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1926
rating: 0
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]]> Go Tell It on the Mountain 17143 Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves.]]> 256 James Baldwin 0141185910 Iris 0 to-read, classics 4.06 1953 Go Tell It on the Mountain
author: James Baldwin
name: Iris
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1953
rating: 0
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]]> The Iliac Crest 14920903 136 Cristina Rivera Garza 1558614354 Iris 5 favorites, to-buy 3.82 2002 The Iliac Crest
author: Cristina Rivera Garza
name: Iris
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/11
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: favorites, to-buy
review:
One of the most beautifully written and surreal books I've ever read. My only wish is that I was fluent in Spanish so I could see how Garza plays with gender in the book.
]]> 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 Iris 5 3.91 1952 Invisible Man
author: Ralph Ellison
name: Iris
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1952
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/10
date added: 2025/04/10
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review:
Truly phenomenal. It took me a little bit to get into but the themes and issues he talks about are (obviously) still incredibly relevant today, and everyone should read this book!!
]]> <![CDATA[Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years #1)]]> 92141 When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

]]> 560 Gregory Maguire 0061350966 Iris 0 3.43 1995 Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years #1)
author: Gregory Maguire
name: Iris
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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]]> The Unworthy 214151601 The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 192 Agustina Bazterrica 1668051885 Iris 0 to-read, horror-thriller 3.64 2023 The Unworthy
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Iris
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, horror-thriller
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]]> <![CDATA[Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud]]> 200621
Laqueur begins with the question of why, in the late eighteenth century, woman’s orgasm came to be regarded as irrelevant to conception, and he then proceeds to retrace the dramatic changes in Western views of sexual characteristics over two millennia. Along the way, two “master plots� emerge. In the one-sex story, woman is an imperfect version of man, and her anatomy and physiology are construed the vagina is seen as an interior penis, the womb as a scrotum, the ovaries as testicles. The body is thus a representation, not the foundation, of social gender. The second plot tends to dominate post-Enlightenment thinking while the one-sex model is firmly rooted in classical learning. The two-sex story says that the body determines gender differences, that woman is the opposite of man with incommensurably different organs, functions, and feelings. The two plots overlap; neither ever holds a monopoly. Science may establish many new facts, but even so, Laqueur argues, science was only providing a new way of speaking, a rhetoric and not a key to female liberation or to social progress. Making Sex ends with Freud, who denied the neurological evidence to insist that, as a girl becomes a woman, the locus of her sexual pleasure shifts from the clitoris to the vagina; she becomes what culture demands despite, not because of, the body. Turning Freud’s famous dictum around, Laqueur posits that destiny is anatomy. Sex, in other words, is an artifice.

This is a powerful story, written with verve and a keen sense of telling detail (be it technically rigorous or scabrously fanciful). Making Sex will stimulate thought, whether argument or surprised agreement, in a wide range of readers.]]> 336 Thomas W. Laqueur 0674543556 Iris 0 3.92 1990 Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud
author: Thomas W. Laqueur
name: Iris
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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shelves: to-read, women-feminism, nonfiction
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]]> The Count of Monte Cristo 7126 The epic tale of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge, in its definitive translation

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to use the treasure to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas� epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.

Translated with an Introduction by Robin Buss

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here]]> 1276 Alexandre Dumas 0140449264 Iris 0 to-read, classics 4.29 1846 The Count of Monte Cristo
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Iris
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1846
rating: 0
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]]> Hotel du Lac 251665
But instead of peace and rest, Edith finds herself sequestered at the hotel with an assortment of love's casualties and exiles. She also attracts the attention of a worldly man determined to release her unused capacity for mischief and pleasure. Beautifully observed, witheringly funny, Hotel du Lac is Brookner at her most stylish and potently subversive.]]> 184 Anita Brookner 0679759328 Iris 0 to-read, classics, lit-fic 3.59 1984 Hotel du Lac
author: Anita Brookner
name: Iris
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America]]> 32191706 de facto segregation—that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation—the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments—that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.

Through extraordinary revelations and extensive research that Ta-Nehisi Coates has lauded as "brilliant" (The Atlantic), Rothstein comes to chronicle nothing less than an untold story that begins in the 1920s, showing how this process of de jure segregation began with explicit racial zoning, as millions of African Americans moved in a great historical migration from the south to the north.

As Jane Jacobs established in her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, it was the deeply flawed urban planning of the 1950s that created many of the impoverished neighborhoods we know. Now, Rothstein expands our understanding of this history, showing how government policies led to the creation of officially segregated public housing and the demolition of previously integrated neighborhoods. While urban areas rapidly deteriorated, the great American suburbanization of the post–World War II years was spurred on by federal subsidies for builders on the condition that no homes be sold to African Americans. Finally, Rothstein shows how police and prosecutors brutally upheld these standards by supporting violent resistance to black families in white neighborhoods.

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited future discrimination but did nothing to reverse residential patterns that had become deeply embedded. Yet recent outbursts of violence in cities like Baltimore, Ferguson, and Minneapolis show us precisely how the legacy of these earlier eras contributes to persistent racial unrest. “The American landscape will never look the same to readers of this important book� (Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund), as Rothstein’s invaluable examination shows that only by relearning this history can we finally pave the way for the nation to remedy its unconstitutional past.]]> 368 Richard Rothstein 1631492853 Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction 4.44 2017 The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
author: Richard Rothstein
name: Iris
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> The Unmaking of June Farrow 66087062 A woman risks everything to end her family’s centuries-old curse, solve her mother’s disappearance, and find love in this mesmerizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Spells for Forgetting.

In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.

It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.

After her grandmother’s death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’s decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.

With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible—a story you will never forget.]]> 320 Adrienne Young 0593598679 Iris 0 to-read, fantasy 4.13 2023 The Unmaking of June Farrow
author: Adrienne Young
name: Iris
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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shelves: to-read, fantasy
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]]> The Question of Palestine 57546 Orientalism and an exile's passion (he is Palestinian by birth and has been a member of the Palestine National Council), Edward W. Said traces the fatal collision between two peoples in the Middle East and its repercussions in the lives of both the occupier and the occupied—as well as in the conscience of the West. He has now updated this landmark work to portray the changed status of Palestine and its people in light of such developments as the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the intifada, the Gulf War, and the ongoing Middle East peace initiative.

For anyone interested in this region and its future, The Question of Palestine remains the most useful and authoritative account available.]]> 273 Edward W. Said 0679739882 Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction 4.36 1979 The Question of Palestine
author: Edward W. Said
name: Iris
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1979
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[All Quiet on the Western Front]]> 355697
In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the â€glorious warâ€�. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young â€unknown soldierâ€� experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.]]> 296 Erich Maria Remarque 0449213943 Iris 0 to-read, classics 4.04 1928 All Quiet on the Western Front
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Iris
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1928
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> The Long Walk 9014 370 Richard Bachman 0451196716 Iris 0 4.11 1978 The Long Walk
author: Richard Bachman
name: Iris
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, sci-fi, horror-thriller
review:

]]> Eros the Bittersweet 150255 Eros is Anne Carson's exploration of the concept of "eros" in both classical philosophy and literature. Beginning with: "It was Sappho who first called eros 'bittersweet.' No one who has been in love disputes her. What does the word mean?", Carson examines her subject from numerous points of view and styles, transcending the constraints of the scholarly exercise for an evocative and lyrical meditation in the tradition of William Carlos William's Spring and All and William H. Gass's On Being Blue.
]]> 190 Anne Carson 1564781887 Iris 0 to-read, essays, poetry 4.48 1986 Eros the Bittersweet
author: Anne Carson
name: Iris
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, essays, poetry
review:

]]> She Gets the Girl 58437812 She’s All That meets What If It’s Us in this swoon-worthy hate-to-love YA romantic comedy from #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Five Feet Apart Rachael Lippincott and debut writer Alyson Derrick.

Alex Blackwood is a little bit headstrong, with a dash of chaos and a whole lot of flirt. She knows how to get the girl. Keeping her on the other hand…not so much. Molly Parker has everything in her life totally in control, except for her complete awkwardness with just about anyone besides her mom. She knows she’s in love with the impossibly cool Cora Myers. She just…hasn’t actually talked to her yet.

Alex and Molly don’t belong on the same planet, let alone the same college campus. But when Alex, fresh off a bad (but hopefully not permanent) breakup, discovers Molly’s hidden crush as their paths cross the night before classes start, they realize they might have a common interest after all. Because maybe if Alex volunteers to help Molly learn how to get her dream girl to fall for her, she can prove to her ex that she’s not a selfish flirt. That she’s ready for an actual commitment. And while Alex is the last person Molly would ever think she could trust, she can’t deny Alex knows what she’s doing with girls, unlike her.

As the two embark on their five-step plans to get their girls to fall for them, though, they both begin to wonder if maybe they’re the ones falling…for each other.]]> 384 Rachael Lippincott 1534493794 Iris 0 to-read, rom-com, queer-books 4.09 2022 She Gets the Girl
author: Rachael Lippincott
name: Iris
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, rom-com, queer-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle]]> 42397849
Burnout. Many women in America have experienced it. What’s expected of women and what it’s really like to be a woman in today’s world are two very different things—and women exhaust themselves trying to close the gap between them. How can you “love your body� when every magazine cover has ten diet tips for becoming “your best self�? How do you “lean in� at work when you’re already operating at 110 percent and aren’t recognized for it? How can you live happily and healthily in a sexist world that is constantly telling you you’re too fat, too needy, too noisy, and too selfish?

Sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, are here to help end the cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Instead of asking us to ignore the very real obstacles and societal pressures that stand between women and well-being, they explain with compassion and optimism what we’re up against—and show us how to fight back. In these pages you’ll learn

� what you can do to complete the biological stress cycle—and return your body to a state of relaxation
� how to manage the “monitor� in your brain that regulates the emotion of frustration
� how the Bikini Industrial Complex makes it difficult for women to love their bodies—and how to defend yourself against it
� why rest, human connection, and befriending your inner critic are keys to recovering and preventing burnout

With the help of eye-opening science, prescriptive advice, and helpful worksheets and exercises, all women will find something transformative in these pages—and will be empowered to create positive change. Emily and Amelia aren’t here to preach the broad platitudes of expensive self-care or insist that we strive for the impossible goal of “having it all.� Instead, they tell us that we are enough, just as we are—and that wellness, true wellness, is within our reach.]]> 277 Emily Nagoski 198481706X Iris 0 to-read, nonfiction 3.93 2019 Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
author: Emily Nagoski
name: Iris
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, nonfiction
review:

]]> Vampires of El Norte 63892214 Vampires and vaqueros face off on the Texas-Mexico border in this supernatural western from the author of The Hacienda.

As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead.

Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago.

Believing Nena dead, NĂ©stor has been on the run from his grief ever since, moving from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind.

When the United States attacks Mexico in 1846, the two are brought abruptly together on the road to war: Nena as a curandera, a healer striving to prove her worth to her father so that he does not marry her off to a stranger, and Néstor as a member of the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and vaqueros. But the shock of their reunion—and Nena’s rage at Néstor for seemingly abandoning her long ago—is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh.

And unless Nena and Néstor work through their past and face the future together, neither will survive to see the dawn.]]> 371 Isabel Cañas 0593436725 Iris 0 3.87 2023 Vampires of El Norte
author: Isabel Cañas
name: Iris
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, fantasy, horror-thriller
review:

]]> Brutes 61324696
We would not be born out of sweetness, we were born out of rage, we felt it in our bones.

In Falls Landing, Florida—a place built of theme parks, swampy lakes, and scorched bougainvillea flowers—something sinister lurks in the deep. A gang of thirteen-year-old girls obsessively orbit around the local preacher's daughter, Sammy. She is mesmerizing, older, and in love with Eddie. But suddenly, Sammy goes missing. Where is she? Watching from a distance, they edge ever closer to discovering a dark secret about their fame-hungry town and the cruel cost of a ticket out. What they see will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Through a darkly beautiful and brutally compelling lens, Dizz Tate captures the violence, horrors, and manic joys of girlhood. Brutes is a novel about the seemingly unbreakable bonds in the "we" of young friendship, and the moment it is broken forever.]]> 304 Dizz Tate 1646221672 Iris 0 3.16 2023 Brutes
author: Dizz Tate
name: Iris
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, lit-fic, horror-thriller
review:

]]> Fear of Flying 9654 The groundbreaking #1 New York Times Bestseller—updated for the 50th Anniversary with a New Foreword by Molly Jong-Fast and a New Introduction by Taffy Brodesser-Akner!

“The boundary-breaking novel that redefined sexuality.”�O Magazine

Isadora Wing is tired. Tired of being psychoanalyzed. Tired of grad school. Tired of fighting with her husband. Tired of having unfulfilled desires. She thinks she knows what she's searching for and how to achieve it. But her quest to engage in no-strings-attached sex quickly shifts into a journey of self-discovery that will leave her questioning her own mind, her ideals, and what she truly wants in life....

Originally published in 1973, the ground-breaking, uninhibited story of Isadora Wing and her desire to fly free caused a national sensation. It fueled fantasies, ignited debates, and introduced a notorious new phrase to the English language. Now, after fifty years, this revolutionary novel still stands as a timeless tale of self-discovery, liberation, and womanhood.

“Smart, bold, bracing and, importantly, extremely funny.”—Meg Wolitzer]]> 461 Erica Jong Iris 0 3.47 1973 Fear of Flying
author: Erica Jong
name: Iris
average rating: 3.47
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, women-feminism, classics
review:

]]> Our Hideous Progeny 61067597 It is not the monster you must fear, but the monster it makes of men. . .

For readers of Circe or Ariadne, a brilliant literary revisiting of Mary Shelley's classic Frankenstein with a fresh, queer, provocative twist.

Mary is the great-niece of Victor Frankenstein. She knows her great uncle disappeared in mysterious circumstances in the Arctic, but she doesn't know why or how...

The 1850s is a time of discovery, and London is ablaze with the latest scientific theories and debates, especially when a spectacular new exhibition of dinosaur sculptures opens at the Crystal Palace. Mary, with a sharp mind and a sharper tongue, is keen to make her name in this world of science alongside her geologist husband Henry, but without wealth and connections, their options are limited.

But when Mary discovers some old family papers that allude to the shocking truth behind her great-uncle's past, she thinks she may have found the key to securing their future... Their quest takes them to the wilds of Scotland, to Henry's intriguing but reclusive sister Maisie, and to a deadly chase with a rival who is out to steal their secret.

Our Hideous Progeny is a sumptuous tale of ambition and obsession, of forbidden love and sabotage; an adventure story that blends classic, immersive storytelling with contemporary themes.]]> 400 C.E. McGill 0857529048 Iris 0 3.92 2023 Our Hideous Progeny
author: C.E. McGill
name: Iris
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, horror-thriller, fantasy, historical-fiction, queer-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies, #1)]]> 7747374
Our plan was to grow, and train, and become strong, and become one, and fight them. But they found us and started hunting us first. Now all of us are running. Spending our lives in shadows, in places where no one would look, blending in. We have lived among you without you knowing.

But they know.

They caught Number One in Malaysia.
Number Two in England.
And Number Three in Kenya.
They killed them all.

I am Number Four.

I am next.]]> 440 Pittacus Lore 0061969559 Iris 0 3.94 2010 I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies, #1)
author: Pittacus Lore
name: Iris
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves:
review:

]]> Piranesi 49255502 Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has.

In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls.

On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food and waterlilies to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone.

Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims?

Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous.

The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.]]> 245 Susanna Clarke 1526622424 Iris 5 4.27 2020 Piranesi
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Iris
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves:
review:
Such a cool and interesting concept!
]]> <![CDATA[The Rise of Nine (Lorien Legacies, #3)]]> 12971616
'Number Four is a hero for this generation' Michael Bay, director of Transformers

***
Until I met John Smith, Number Four, I'd been on the run alone, hiding and fighting to stay alive. Together we are much more powerful. But it could only last so long before we had to separate to find the others . . .

I went to Spain to find Seven, and I found even more, including a tenth member of the Garde who escaped from Lorien alive. Ella is younger than the rest of us, but just as brave. Now we're looking for the others - including John.

But so are they.

I am Number Six. To finish what they started, they'll have to fight us first.]]> 372 Pittacus Lore 0061974587 Iris 0 4.17 2012 The Rise of Nine (Lorien Legacies, #3)
author: Pittacus Lore
name: Iris
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Power of Six (Lorien Legacies, #2)]]> 8659601
Nine of us came here, but sometimes I wonder if time has changed us—if we all still believe in our mission. How can I know? There are six of us left. We're hiding, blending in, avoiding contact with one another . . . but our Legacies are developing, and soon we'll be equipped to fight. Is John Number Four, and is his appearance the sign I've been waiting for? And what about Number Five and Six? Could one of them be the raven-haired girl with the stormy eyes from my dreams. The girl with powers that are beyond anything I could ever imagine. The girl who may be strong enough to bring the six of us together?

They caught Number One in Malaysia.
Number Two in England.
And Number Three in Kenya.
They tried to catch Number Four in Ohio—and failed.

I am Number Seven. One of six still alive.

And I'm ready to fight.]]> 406 Pittacus Lore 0061974552 Iris 0 4.15 2011 The Power of Six (Lorien Legacies, #2)
author: Pittacus Lore
name: Iris
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves:
review:

]]> Girl One 54785541 Orphan Black meets Margaret Atwood in this twisty supernatural thriller about female power and the bonds of sisterhood

Josephine Morrow is Girl One, the first of nine “Miracle Babies� conceived without male DNA, raised on an experimental commune known as the Homestead. When a suspicious fire destroys the commune and claims the lives of two of the Homesteaders, the remaining Girls and their Mothers scatter across the United States and lose touch.

Years later, Margaret Morrow goes missing, and Josie sets off on a desperate road trip, tracking down her estranged sisters who seem to hold the keys to her mother’s disappearance. Tracing the clues Margaret left behind, Josie joins forces with the other Girls, facing down those who seek to eradicate their very existence while uncovering secrets about their origins and unlocking devastating abilities they never knew they had.]]> 368 Sara Flannery Murphy 0374601747 Iris 3 3.68 2021 Girl One
author: Sara Flannery Murphy
name: Iris
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves:
review:
3.5, it took awhile for me to get into this book, but I did end up liking it at the end. Reminded me of the I Am Number 4 series with the kids scattered across the country with secret powers.
]]> <![CDATA[The Goblin Emperor (The Chronicles of Osreth, #1)]]> 17910048 A lush tale of deadly court intrigue and a modern classic of fantasy by Locus award winner and Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award finalist Katherine Addison

The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three half brothers in line for the throne are killed in an "accident," he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir.

Entirely unschooled in the art of court politics, he has no friends, no advisors, and the sure knowledge that whoever assassinated his father and brothers could make an attempt on his life at any moment.

Surrounded by sycophants eager to curry favor with the naïve new emperor, and overwhelmed by the burdens of his new life, he can trust nobody. Amid the swirl of plots to depose him, offers of arranged marriages, and the specter of the unknown conspirators who lurk in the shadows, he must quickly adjust to life as the Goblin Emperor. All the while, he is alone, and trying to find even a single friend . . . and hoping for the possibility of romance, yet also vigilant against the unseen enemies that threaten him, lest he lose his throne–or his life.]]> 446 Katherine Addison 076532699X Iris 0 4.04 2014 The Goblin Emperor (The Chronicles of Osreth, #1)
author: Katherine Addison
name: Iris
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: to-read, fantasy, series-to-start
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Dark Mirror (The Bone Season, #5)]]> 211003763
As she makes her way back to the revolution, her journey takes her to Venice, where she learns a dangerous secret � one that could change the face of the war between humans and immortals. Before she can return to London, she must help the Domino Programme unravel the sinister Operation Ventriloquist.

And it soon becomes clear that the one person who could recover her memories � Arcturus Mesarthim � might also hold the key to saving Italy.

Lyrical and action-packed, The Dark Mirror drives the Bone Season series forward, showing Samantha Shannon at the height of her powers.]]> 576 Samantha Shannon 1639733965 Iris 4 4.66 2025 The Dark Mirror (The Bone Season, #5)
author: Samantha Shannon
name: Iris
average rating: 4.66
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Muse of Nightmares (Strange the Dreamer, #2)]]> 25446343 Sarai has lived and breathed nightmares since she was six years old.

She believed she knew every horror and was beyond surprise.

She was wrong.

In the wake of tragedy, neither Lazlo nor Sarai are who they were before. One a god, the other a ghost, they struggle to grasp the new boundaries of their selves as dark-minded Minya holds them hostage, intent on vengeance against Weep.

Lazlo faces an unthinkable choice—save the woman he loves, or everyone else?—while Sarai feels more helpless than ever. But is she? Sometimes, only the direst need can teach us our own depths, and Sarai, the Muse of Nightmares, has not yet discovered what she's capable of.

As humans and godspawn reel in the aftermath of the citadel's near fall, a new foe shatters their fragile hopes, and the mysteries of the Mesarthim are resurrected: Where did the gods come from, and why? What was done with thousands of children born in the citadel nursery? And most important of all, as forgotten doors are opened and new worlds revealed: Must heroes always slay monsters, or is it possible to save them instead?

Love and hate, revenge and redemption, destruction and salvation all clash in this astonishing and heart-stopping sequel to the New York Times bestseller, Strange the Dreamer.]]> 514 Laini Taylor 0316341711 Iris 5 to-buy AHHHHHH this was so good!! 4.41 2018 Muse of Nightmares (Strange the Dreamer, #2)
author: Laini Taylor
name: Iris
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-buy
review:
AHHHHHH this was so good!!
]]> Firekeeper's Daughter 57812106 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team.

Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.

Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complicated than Daunis imagined, exposing secrets and old scars. At the same time, she grows concerned with an investigation that seems more focused on punishing the offenders than protecting the victims.

Now, as the deceptions—and deaths—keep growing, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go for her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.]]> 494 Angeline Boulley Iris 5 4.34 2021 Firekeeper's Daughter
author: Angeline Boulley
name: Iris
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/24
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves:
review:
A really amazing book about the struggles that Native communities go through, especially Native women. Although this was a fictional story, it was very meaningful.
]]> <![CDATA[Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants]]> 17465709 Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.]]> 408 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1571313354 Iris 0 4.52 2013 Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Iris
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read, nonfiction, mother-earth, need-to-read-soon
review:

]]> Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2) 60652997 Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell.

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex� Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies� most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.]]> 481 Leigh Bardugo 1250313104 Iris 5 to-buy 4.09 2023 Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2)
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Iris
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/16
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Mask Falling (The Bone Season, #4)]]> 52185490
The mysterious Domino Program has plans for Paige, but she has ambitions of her own in this new citadel. With Arcturus Mesarthim-her former enemy-at her side, she embarks on an adventure that will lead her from the catacombs of Paris to the glittering hallways of Versailles. Her risks promise high reward: the Parisian underworld could yield the means to escalate her rebellion to outright war.


As Scion widens its bounds and the free world trembles in its shadow, Paige must fight her own memories after her ordeal at the hands of Scion. Meanwhile, she strives to understand her bond with Arcturus, which grows stronger by the day. But there are those who know the revolution began with them-and could end with them...]]> 528 Samantha Shannon 1408865564 Iris 4 to-buy 4.44 2021 The Mask Falling (The Bone Season, #4)
author: Samantha Shannon
name: Iris
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/26
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:
4.5, I’m so obsessed I am SO obsessed with this series
]]> <![CDATA[The Song Rising (The Bone Season, #3)]]> 28260402 The third book in the New York Times bestselling Bone Season series.

Following a fierce battle for the Rose Crown, Paige Mahoney has risen to the dangerous position of Underqueen, ruling over the clairvoyant syndicate of London. But with vengeful enemies still at large, the task of stabilizing the fractured underworld has never seemed so challenging.

As Paige rallies her army of criminals, she continues to meet in secret with her former enemy, Arcturus Mesarthim. Should they be discovered, the fragile alliance with the Ranthen will fail.

But all bets are off when Scion introduces Senshield, a deadly technology that spells doom for clairvoyants. Now Paige must race against the clock to stop her reign ending in blood.]]> 384 Samantha Shannon 1632866242 Iris 4 to-buy 4.15 2017 The Song Rising (The Bone Season, #3)
author: Samantha Shannon
name: Iris
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/20
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:
Probably the best book in the series so far
]]> <![CDATA[The Mime Order (The Bone Season, #2)]]> 17901125
As Scion turns its all-seeing eye on the dreamwalker, the mime-lords and mime-queens of the city's gangs are invited to a rare meeting of the Unnatural Assembly. Jaxon Hall and his Seven Seals prepare to take centre stage, but there are bitter fault lines running through the clairvoyant community and dark secrets around every corner.

Then the Rephaim begin crawling out from the shadows. Paige must keep moving, from Seven Dials to Grub Street to the secret catacombs of Camden, until the fate of the underworld can be decided.]]> 510 Samantha Shannon 1408857391 Iris 3 to-buy 4.19 2015 The Mime Order (The Bone Season, #2)
author: Samantha Shannon
name: Iris
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/17
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> The Left Hand of Darkness 59445215 The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can choose—and change—their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.]]> Ursula K. Le Guin Iris 4 to-buy 3.50 1969 The Left Hand of Darkness
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Iris
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/11
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> Orlando 1421722 333 Virginia Woolf 0606208356 Iris 5 favorites, to-buy Virginia Woolf I love you 3.92 1928 Orlando
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Iris
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1928
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/19
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: favorites, to-buy
review:
Virginia Woolf I love you
]]> Giovanni’s Room 17288631 169 James Baldwin 0345806565 Iris 4 to-buy 4.41 1956 Giovanni’s Room
author: James Baldwin
name: Iris
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1956
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/14
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:
4.5, the bisexual struggle of seeing an attractive person and not knowing if you want to be them or be with them
]]> <![CDATA[In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose]]> 37772689 397 Alice Walker Iris 5 to-buy 4.80 1983 In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose
author: Alice Walker
name: Iris
average rating: 4.80
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/02
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:
I think I will always love anything that Alice Walker writes
]]> The Sun Collective 51651035 From the National Book Award finalist and "one of our most gifted writers" ( Chicago Tribune )--a timely and unsettling novel about the people drawn to and unmoored by a local activist group more dangerous than it appears

Once a promising actor, Tim Brettigan has gone missing. His father thinks he may have seen him among some homeless people. And though she knows he left on purpose, his mother has been searching for him all over the city. She checks the usual places--churches, storefronts, benches--and stumbles upon a local community group with lofty goals and an enigmatic leader who will alter all of their lives. Christina, a young woman rapidly becoming addicted to a boutique drug that gives her a feeling of blessedness, is inexplicably drawn to the same collective by a man who's convinced he may start a revolution. As the lives of these four characters intertwine, a story of guilt, anxiety, and feverish hope unfolds in the city of Minneapolis.
A vision of modern American society and the specters of the consumerism, fanaticism, and fear that haunt it, The Sun Collective captures both the mystery and the violence that punctuate our daily lives.]]> 322 Charles Baxter 1524748854 Iris 4 to-buy 3.25 2020 The Sun Collective
author: Charles Baxter
name: Iris
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/25
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:
4.5 stars. I really really enjoyed this book, even though it unnerved me a lot, I think mostly because it was set in Minneapolis and therefore felt more realistic. There was this deep sense of unease because you could tell that the political climate and the atrocities happening in the world were different from ours and a lot worse and also a bit of magical realism (one of the quotes on the back said Baxter is the American Murakami).
]]> Sirens & Muses 59336344
“Captures the ache-inducing quality of art and desire . . . a deeply relatable and profoundly enjoyable read, one drenched in prismatic color and light.”—Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of With Teeth

It’s 2011: America is in a deep recession and Occupy Wall Street is escalating. But at the elite Wrynn College of Art, students paint and sculpt in a rarefied bubble. Louisa Arceneaux is a thoughtful, observant nineteen-year-old when she transfers to Wrynn as a scholarship student, but she soon finds herself adrift in an environment that prizes novelty over beauty. Complicating matters is Louisa’s unexpected attraction to her charismatic roommate, Karina Piontek, the preternaturally gifted but mercurial daughter of wealthy art collectors. Gradually, Louisa and Karina are drawn into an intense sensual and artistic relationship, one that forces them to confront their deepest desires and fears. But Karina also can’t shake her fascination with Preston Utley, a senior and anti-capitalist Internet provocateur, who is publicly feuding with visiting professor and political painter Robert Berger—a once-controversial figurehead seeking to regain relevance.

When Preston concocts an explosive hoax, the fates of all four artists are upended as each is unexpectedly thrust into the cutthroat New York art world. Now all must struggle to find new identities in art, in society, and among each other. In the process, they must find either their most authentic terms of life—of success, failure, and joy—or risk losing themselves altogether.

With a canny, critical eye, Sirens & Muses overturns notions of class, money, art, youth, and a generation’s fight to own their future.]]> 368 Antonia Angress Iris 5 favorites, to-buy 3.91 2022 Sirens & Muses
author: Antonia Angress
name: Iris
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/28
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: favorites, to-buy
review:
I love this book so much, it makes me want to be an artist involved in a very intense, gay relationship with another artist.
]]> <![CDATA[The Storm of Echoes (The Mirror Visitor Quartet, #4)]]> 56986571
In this thrilling finale to the Mirror Visitor saga, Christelle Dabos takes us on a journey to the heart of a great game to which the all-too-human affairs of her book’s protagonists are ominously connected.

The distrust between them has been overcome and now Ophelia and Thorn love each other passionately. However, they must keep their love hidden. Only in this way can they continue their journeys toward an understanding of the indecipherable code of God and the truth behind the mysterious figure of the Other, whose devastating power continues to bring down entire pieces of arks, plunging thousands of innocents into the void.

Ophelia and Thorn arrive at the observatory of the Deviations, an institute shrouded in absolute secrecy and overseen by a sect of mystical scientists who secretly conduct terrifying experiments. There, Ophelia and Thorn hope to discover truths that will halt the destruction and death and bring the world back into balance.]]> 540 Christelle Dabos 1609456971 Iris 4 to-buy 3.60 2019 The Storm of Echoes (The Mirror Visitor Quartet, #4)
author: Christelle Dabos
name: Iris
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/21
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:
This review is for the book series as a whole, but the rating for this book is 3.5 stars because I'm so mad about the ending. The whole series is amazing and innovative and so complex that I want to read it all again now that I know everything. That being said, the first two books are my favorites and then the quality/my enjoyment of them went down for the third and the fourth book. I have conflicting emotions about if this book would've been better if the ending had been different, I feel like it was perhaps a little rushed, but the ending of a series doesn't change how amazing it is. If you like the Wrinkle in Time books or the Golden Compass books, this whole series feels very much like them!
]]> <![CDATA[The Memory of Babel (The Mirror Visitor Quartet, #3)]]> 51184571
After two years and seven months biding her time on Anima, her home ark, it is finally time to act, to put what she has discovered in the Book of Faruk to good use. Under an assumed identity she travels to Babel, a cosmopolitan and thoroughly modern ark that is the jewel of the universe, and where automata have taken over the most humble jobs from humans. But under the surface of this pacific and orderly ark social unrest stirs, fed by the memories of a fateful purge long ago, and the inhabitants� growing fear of being replaced altogether. Will Ophelia’s talent as a reader suffice to avoid her being lured into a deadly trap by her ever more fearful adversaries? Will she ever see Thorn, her betrothed, again?]]> 508 Christelle Dabos 1609455738 Iris 4 to-buy 4.12 2017 The Memory of Babel (The Mirror Visitor Quartet, #3)
author: Christelle Dabos
name: Iris
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/28
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> The Missing of Clairdelune 53297441
Beneath the golden rafters of Pole's capitol, she discovers that the only person she may be able to trust is Thorn, her enigmatic and emotionally distant fiancé. As one influential courtier after another disappears, Ophelia again finds herself unintentionally implicated in an investigation that will lead her to see beyond Pole's many illusions to the heart of a formidable truth.

Step through the mirror at [website, The Mirror Visitor]

Officiellement introduite à la cour comme Vice-conteuse, Ophélie découvre les mondanités d'un univers où complots et tensions politiques sont à l’œuvre derrière les belles apparences. Entre l'arrivée de sa famille au Pôle et les exigences de Farouk, elle n'a d'autre choix que de s'appuyer sur Thorn, son énigmatique fiancé. Quand des nobles disparaissent les uns après les autres, la liseuse d'Anima doit user de ses talents pour mener l'enquête. Une mission qui va l'entraîner beaucoup plus loin que prévu, au cœur d'une vérité plus redoutable que tout ce à quoi elle s'était préparée...]]> 512 Christelle Dabos 1609456084 Iris 5 to-buy 4.37 2015 The Missing of Clairdelune
author: Christelle Dabos
name: Iris
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/12
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> Solaris 95558
When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others examining the planet, Kelvin learns, are plagued with their own repressed and newly corporeal memories. The Solaris ocean may be a massive brain that creates these incarnate memories, though its purpose in doing so is unknown, forcing the scientists to shift the focus of their quest and wonder if they can truly understand the universe without first understanding what lies within their hearts.]]> 204 Stanisław Lem Iris 4 to-buy 4.00 1961 Solaris
author: Stanisław Lem
name: Iris
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1961
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/25
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:
I didn’t get this book at first and then I got it and it’s not an alien book it’s about humanity not truly knowing itself and if we don’t even understand our brains and how we interact with each other how can we even begin to fathom how to communicate with an alien entity. The big mind reading planet is not scary!!! It’s just trying to communicate in incredibly creepy ways!!!
]]> The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Iris 4 to-buy 4.17 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Iris
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2022/10/16
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:
As with all Donna Tartt books, beautifully written and a bit too long.
]]> Gone Girl 19288043 What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone.

So what did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?]]> 415 Gillian Flynn 0307588378 Iris 5 to-buy 4.22 2012 Gone Girl
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Iris
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/02
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:
I am so sorry about this 5 star review again but this book is truly so good. I don’t want to even talk about who was in the right because both Amy and Nick are horrible despicable people but Amy was a little right for what she did at first. Gillian Flynn is an amazing amazing amazing author. I knew the general concept of this book but she still managed to surprise me with plots points. Unreliable narrators, intentional and unintentional, are always simply amazing and the uncertain narration makes so much sense with how unhinged Amy and Nick are. Would definitely read this book again to see just how brilliantly Flynn lays out the plot.
]]> <![CDATA[The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]> 311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X Iris 5 favorites, to-buy 4.15 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Iris
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/07
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: favorites, to-buy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bone Season (The Bone Season, #1)]]> 17199504 Welcome to Scion. No safer place.

The year is 2059. For two centuries, the Republic of Scion has led an oppressive campaign against unnaturalness in Europe.

In London, Paige Mahoney holds a high rank in the criminal underworld. The right hand of the ruthless White Binder, Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare and formidable kind of clairvoyant. Under Scion law, she commits treason simply by breathing.

When Paige is arrested for murder, she meets the mysterious founders of Scion, who have designs on her uncommon abilities. If she is to survive and escape, Paige must use every skill at her disposal � and put her trust in someone who ought to be her enemy.]]> 466 Samantha Shannon 1620401398 Iris 3 to-buy 3.81 2013 The Bone Season (The Bone Season, #1)
author: Samantha Shannon
name: Iris
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/14
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:
3.5 maybe??? This is my second time reading it and I think I like it more this time, still not my favorite but the world is interesting so I want to finish the whole series.
]]> <![CDATA[Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans—except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]> 390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Iris 0 to-buy 4.10 2010 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Iris
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)]]> 6148028 Sparks are igniting.
Flames are spreading.
And the Capitol wants revenge.

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol—a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest that she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.]]> 391 Suzanne Collins 0439023491 Iris 0 to-buy 4.34 2009 Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Iris
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> Frankenstein: The 1818 Text 35031085 This is a previously-published edition of ISBN 9780143131847.

Mary Shelley's seminal novel of the scientist whose creation becomes a monster.

This edition is the original 1818 text, which preserves the hard-hitting and politically charged aspects of Shelley's original writing, as well as her unflinching wit and strong female voice. This edition also includes a new introduction and suggestions for further reading by author and Shelley expert Charlotte Gordon, literary excerpts and reviews selected by Gordon and a chronology and essay by preeminent Shelley scholar Charles E. Robinson.]]> 260 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 0143131842 Iris 5 to-buy 4.02 1818 Frankenstein: The 1818 Text
author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
name: Iris
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1818
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
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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 Iris 0 to-buy 4.19 1966 Flowers for Algernon
author: Daniel Keyes
name: Iris
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1966
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
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review:

]]> 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 Iris 0 to-buy 4.25 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: Iris
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
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 Iris 0 to-buy 3.86 1859 A Tale of Two Cities
author: Charles Dickens
name: Iris
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1859
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> Animal Farm 170448 Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.]]> 141 George Orwell 0451526341 Iris 0 to-buy 4.07 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Iris
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1945
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
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 Iris 0 to-buy 4.13 1967 The Outsiders
author: S.E. Hinton
name: Iris
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings]]> 5081331
Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.]]> 289 Maya Angelou 0345514408 Iris 0 to-buy 4.25 1969 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
author: Maya Angelou
name: Iris
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1969
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> The Things They Carried 133518
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.

Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing. The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.]]> 246 Tim O'Brien 0767902890 Iris 0 to-buy 4.14 1990 The Things They Carried
author: Tim O'Brien
name: Iris
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> 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 Iris 0 to-buy 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Iris
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A History of the World in 6 Glasses]]> 3872
A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important to Mesopotamia and Egypt that it was used to pay wages. In ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad. Spirits such as brandy and rum fueled the Age of Exploration, fortifying seamen on long voyages and oiling the pernicious slave trade. Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual exchange. And hundreds of years after the Chinese began drinking tea, it became especially popular in Britain, with far-reaching effects on British foreign policy. Finally, though carbonated drinks were invented in 18th-century Europe they became a 20th-century phenomenon, and Coca-Cola in particular is the leading symbol of globalization.

For Tom Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by which he demonstrates the intricate interplay of different civilizations. You may never look at your favorite drink the same way again.
]]> 336 Tom Standage 0802715524 Iris 0 to-buy 3.79 2005 A History of the World in 6 Glasses
author: Tom Standage
name: Iris
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-buy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Foxhole Court (All for the Game, #1)]]> 17259690
Signing a contract with the PSU Foxes is the last thing a guy like Neil should do. The team is high profile and he doesn't need sports crews broadcasting pictures of his face around the nation. His lies will hold up only so long under this kind of scrutiny and the truth will get him killed.

But Neil's not the only one with secrets on the team. One of Neil's new teammates is a friend from his old life, and Neil can't walk away from him a second time. Neil has survived the last eight years by running. Maybe he's finally found someone and something worth fighting for.]]> 237 Nora Sakavic 1301529044 Iris 0 to-read, queer-books 4.03 2013 The Foxhole Court (All for the Game, #1)
author: Nora Sakavic
name: Iris
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read, queer-books
review:

]]> Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic 26135825
Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the Fun Home. It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve.]]> 232 Alison Bechdel 0618871713 Iris 0 to-read, queer-books 4.07 2006 Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
author: Alison Bechdel
name: Iris
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read, queer-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1)]]> 228665
Moiraine Damodred arrives in Emond’s Field on a quest to find the one prophesized to stand against The Dark One, a malicious entity sowing the seeds of chaos and destruction. When a vicious band of half-men, half beasts invade the village seeking their master’s enemy, Moiraine persuades Rand al’Thor and his friends to leave their home and enter a larger unimaginable world filled with dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light.]]> 800 Robert Jordan 0812511816 Iris 0 4.19 1990 The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1)
author: Robert Jordan
name: Iris
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read, fantasy, series-to-start
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Darkness Outside Us (The Darkness Outside Us, #1)]]> 55200663
After the first settler on Titan trips her distress signal, neither remaining country on Earth can afford to scramble a rescue of its own, and so two sworn enemies are installed in the same spaceship.

Ambrose wakes up on the Coordinated Endeavor, with no memory of a launch. There’s more that doesn’t add up: Evidence indicates strangers have been on board, the ship’s operating system is voiced by his mother, and his handsome, brooding shipmate has barricaded himself away. But nothing will stop Ambrose from making his mission succeed—not when he’s rescuing his own sister.

In order to survive the ship’s secrets, Ambrose and Kodiak will need to work together and learn to trust one another� especially once they discover what they are truly up against. Love might be the only way to survive.]]> 397 Eliot Schrefer 0062888285 Iris 0 4.31 2021 The Darkness Outside Us (The Darkness Outside Us, #1)
author: Eliot Schrefer
name: Iris
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read, sci-fi, queer-books, series-to-start
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1)]]> 213075476 This is an alternative cover edition for ISBN-13: 9781595148049.

Laia is a slave.ĚýElias is a soldier.ĚýNeither is free.

Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.

It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.

But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.

There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.]]> 480 Sabaa Tahir 1595148043 Iris 0 4.18 2015 An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1)
author: Sabaa Tahir
name: Iris
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read, fantasy, series-to-start
review:

]]>