Keith 's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 31 Dec 2024 10:46:46 -0800 60 Keith 's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg For Whom the Bell Tolls 46170 For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.]]> 471 Ernest Hemingway Keith 4 3.98 1940 For Whom the Bell Tolls
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Keith
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1940
rating: 4
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Mockingbird Wish Me Luck 39774 Mockingbird Wish Me Luck captures glimpses of Charles Bukowski's view on life through his poignant poetry: the pain, the hate, the love, and the beauty. He writes of lechery and pain while finding still being able to find its beauty.]]> 160 Charles Bukowski 0876851383 Keith 5 4.12 1972 Mockingbird Wish Me Luck
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Keith
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1972
rating: 5
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Cinema Speculation 55922488 The long-awaited first work of nonfiction from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: a deliriously entertaining, wickedly intelligent cinema book as unique and creative as anything by Quentin Tarantino.

In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans—and all movie lovers—could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he first saw as a young moviegoer at the time, this book is as intellectually rigorous and insightful as it is rollicking and entertaining. At once film criticism, film theory, a feat of reporting, and wonderful personal history, it is all written in the singular voice recognizable immediately as QT’s and with the rare perspective about cinema possible only from one of the greatest practitioners of the artform ever.]]>
391 Quentin Tarantino 0063112582 Keith 3 4.04 2022 Cinema Speculation
author: Quentin Tarantino
name: Keith
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 3
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Notes of a Dirty Old Man 38502 Notes of a Dirty Old Man is a collection of articles written by Charles Bukowski for the underground, L.A.-based newspaper Open City, which operated from 1967 to 1969. Bukowski uses his own life as the basis for his series of articles, and characteristically leaves nothing out.]]> 204 Charles Bukowski Keith 5 3.97 1969 Notes of a Dirty Old Man
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Keith
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1969
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/13
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<![CDATA[Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century]]> 34451647 458 Chuck Klosterman 0399184171 Keith 4 3.99 2017 Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century
author: Chuck Klosterman
name: Keith
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2020/09/01
date added: 2024/09/28
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On Love 25741055 On Writing and On Cats: A raw and tender poetry collection that captures the Dirty Old Man of American letters at his fiercest and most vulnerable, on a subject that hits home with all of us.

Charles Bukowski was a man of intense emotions, someone an editor once called a “passionate madman.� In On Love, we see Bukowski reckoning with the complications and exaltations of love, lust, and desire. Alternating between tough and gentle, sensitive and gritty, Bukowski lays bare the myriad facets of love—its selfishness and its narcissism, its randomness, its mystery and its misery, and, ultimately, its true joyfulness, endurance and redemptive power.

Bukowski is brilliant on love—often amusing, sometimes playful, and fleetingly sweet. On Love offers deep insight into Bukowski the man and the artist; whether writing about his daughter, his lover, his friends, or his work, he is piercingly honest and poignantly reflective, using love as a prism to see the world in all its beauty and cruelty, and his own fragile place in it. “My love is a hummingbird sitting that quiet moment on the bough,� he writes, “as the same cat crouches.�

Brutally honest, flecked with humor and pathos, On Love reveals Bukowski at his most candid and affecting.]]>
224 Charles Bukowski 0062396021 Keith 4 3.84 On Love
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Keith
average rating: 3.84
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rating: 4
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<![CDATA[A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail]]> 9791 A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).]]> 397 Bill Bryson 0307279464 Keith 5 4.07 1998 A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
author: Bill Bryson
name: Keith
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1998
rating: 5
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In a Sunburned Country 24
Ignoring such dangers - and yet curiously obsessed by them - Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extroverted, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging: their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. Life doesn't get much better than this...]]>
335 Bill Bryson 0767903862 Keith 5 4.06 2000 In a Sunburned Country
author: Bill Bryson
name: Keith
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking]]> 40137
Before stunning the world with his bestselling Kitchen Confidential , Anthony Bourdain, host of the celebrated TV shows Parts Unknown and No Reservations, spent years serving some of the best French brasserie food in New York. With its no-nonsense, down-to-earth atmosphere, Les Halles matched Bourdain's style a restaurant where you can dress down, talk loudly, drink a little too much wine, and have a good time with friends. Now, Bourdain brings you his Les Halles Cookbook , a cookbook like no candid, funny, audacious, full of his signature charm and bravado.

Bourdain teaches you everything you need to know to prepare classic French bistro fare. While you're being guided, in simple steps, through recipes like roasted veal short ribs and steak frites, escargots aux noix and foie gras au pruneaux, you'll feel like he's in the kitchen beside you-reeling off a few insults when you've scorched the sauce, and then patting you on the back for finally getting the steak tartare right.

As practical as it is entertaining, Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook is a can't-miss treat for cookbook lovers, aspiring chefs, and Bourdain fans everywhere.]]>
304 Anthony Bourdain 158234180X Keith 0 to-read 4.14 2004 Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: Keith
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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America Fantastica 199531649 464 Tim O'Brien 0063318512 Keith 0 to-read 3.52 2023 America Fantastica
author: Tim O'Brien
name: Keith
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century]]> 108220 Kingdom of Fear traces the course of Hunter S. Thompson’s life as a rebel—from a smart-mouthed Kentucky kid flaunting all authority to a convention-defying journalist who came to personify a wild fusion of fact, fiction, and mind-altering substances.

Brilliant, provocative, outrageous, and brazen, Hunter S. Thompson's infamous rule breaking—in his journalism, in his life, and under the law—changed the shape of American letters, and the face of American icons.

Call it the evolution of an outlaw. Here are the formative experiences that comprise Thompson’s legendary trajectory alongside the weird and the ugly. Whether detailing his exploits as a foreign correspondent in Rio, his job as night manager of the notorious O’Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, his epic run for sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket, or the sensational legal maneuvering that led to his full acquittal in the famous 99 Days trial, Thompson is at the peak of his narrative powers in Kingdom of Fear. And this boisterous, blistering ride illuminates as never before the professional and ideological risk taking of a literary genius and transgressive icon.]]>
384 Hunter S. Thompson 0684873249 Keith 4 3.95 2003 Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century
author: Hunter S. Thompson
name: Keith
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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The Invisible Man 17184 192 H.G. Wells 0451528522 Keith 3 3.63 1897 The Invisible Man
author: H.G. Wells
name: Keith
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1897
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical]]> 201608160 Alternate cover edition can be found here

From the host of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown and bestselling author of Kitchen Confidential comes the true, thrilling story of Mary Mallon, otherwise known as the infamous Typhoid Mary.

This is a tale of pursuit through the kitchens of New York City at the turn of the century. By the late nineteenth century, it seemed that New York City had put an end to the outbreaks of typhoid fever that had so frequently decimated the city's population. That is until 1904, when the disease broke out in a household in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Authorities suspected the family cook, Mary Mallon, of being a carrier. But before she could be tested, the woman, soon to be known as Typhoid Mary, had disappeared. Over the course of the next three years, Mary worked at several residences, spreading her pestilence as she went. In 1907, she was traced to a home on Park Avenue, and taken into custody.

Institutionalized at Riverside Hospital for three years, she was released only when she promised never to work as a cook again. She promptly disappeared. For the next five years Mary worked in homes and institutions in and around New York, often under assumed names. In February 1915, a devastating outbreak of typhoid at the Sloane Hospital for Women was traced to her. She was finally apprehended and re-institutionalized at Riverside Hospital, where she would remain for the rest of her life. Typhoid Mary is the story of her infamous life.

Anthony Bourdain reveals the seedier side of the early 1900s, and writes with his renowned panache about life in the kitchen, uncovering the horrifying conditions that allowed the deadly spread of typhoid over a decade. Typhoid Mary is a true feast for history lovers and Bourdain lovers alike.]]>
160 Anthony Bourdain 1639734694 Keith 0 to-read 3.86 2001 Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: Keith
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly]]> 33313 A deluxe, annotated edition of Kitchen Confidential to celebrate the life of Anthony Bourdain, featuring new photo inserts

Over two decades ago, the New Yorker published a now infamous article, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,� by then little-known chef Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain spared no one’s appetite as he revealed what happens behind the kitchen door. The article was a sensation, and the book it spawned, the now iconic Kitchen Confidential, became an even bigger sensation and megabestseller. Frankly confessional, addictively acerbic, and utterly unsparing, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business.

Fans will love to return to this deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade, laying out Bourdain’s more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute cuisine. Including a handwritten introduction and annotations done by Bourdain about a decade after the book was originally published, this edition also features previously unpublished photos to accompany the now-classic text.]]>
312 Anthony Bourdain 0060899220 Keith 5 4.17 2000 Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: Keith
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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Naked 4138 Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview—a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics, to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertaken (of course!) with a quadriplegic companion; a family gathers for a wedding in the face of imminent death. Through it all is Sedaris's unmistakable voice, without doubt one of the freshest in American writing.]]> 304 David Sedaris Keith 4 4.10 1997 Naked
author: David Sedaris
name: Keith
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1997
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit]]> 70885 128 Charles Bukowski Keith 5 4.15 1979 Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Keith
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/08
date added: 2024/08/08
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<![CDATA[The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke]]> 46201
The influence and popularity of Rilke’s poetry in America have never been greater than they are today, more than fifty years after his death. Rilke is unquestionably the most significant and compelling poet of romantic transformation, of spiritual quest, that the twentieth century has known. His poems of ecstatic identification with the world exert a seemingly endless fascination for contemporary readers.

In Stephen Mitchell’s versions, many readers feel that they have discovered an English rendering that captures the lyric intensity, fluency, and reach of Rilke’s poetry more accurately and convincingly than has ever been done before.

Mr. Mitchell is impeccable in his adherence to Rilke’s text, to his formal music, and to the complexity of his thoughts; at the same time, his work has authority and power as poetry in its own right. Few translators of any poet have arrived at the delicate balance of fidelity and originality that Mr. Mitchell has brought off with seeming effortlessness.

Originally published: New York : Random House, 1982.]]>
356 Rainer Maria Rilke 0679722017 Keith 0 to-read 4.40 1926 The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
author: Rainer Maria Rilke
name: Keith
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1926
rating: 0
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Watchmen 472331 Watchmen, the groundbreaking series from award-winning author Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, presents a world where the mere presence of American superheroes changed history—the U.S. won the Vietnam War, Nixon is still president, and the Cold War is in full effect.

Considered the greatest graphic novel in the history of the medium, the Hugo Award-winning story chronicles the fall from grace of a group of superheroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the superhero is dissected as an unknown assassin stalks the erstwhile heroes.]]>
416 Alan Moore 0930289234 Keith 0 to-read 4.38 1987 Watchmen
author: Alan Moore
name: Keith
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Boy in the Striped Pajamas]]> 4378870
Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter one.]]>
218 John Boyne 0385751893 Keith 0 to-read 3.91 2006 The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
author: John Boyne
name: Keith
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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The Handmaid's Tale 11506026 alternate cover for ISBN 9780860688662

The Republic of Gilead allows Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like all dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire � neither Offred's nor that of the two men on whom her future hangs...

Cover illustration by Paul Collicutt]]>
324 Margaret Atwood Keith 0 to-read 4.22 1985 The Handmaid's Tale
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Keith
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter, #2)]]> 28014193 Alternative cover edition of ISBN 074930054X / 9780749300548

A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname � Buffalo Bill � is stalking women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it, for the bodies are discovered in different states. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the FBI Academy, is surprised to be summoned by Jack Crawford, chief of the Bureau's Behavioral Science section. Her assignment: to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter � Hannibal the Cannibal � who is kept under close watch in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Dr. Lecter is a former psychiatrist with a grisly history, unusual tastes, and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of The Silence of the Lambs � an ingenious, masterfully written book and an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.]]>
352 Thomas Harris Keith 0 to-read 4.44 1988 The Silence of the Lambs  (Hannibal Lecter, #2)
author: Thomas Harris
name: Keith
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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Journals 58547 304 Kurt Cobain 157322359X Keith 4 4.03 2002 Journals
author: Kurt Cobain
name: Keith
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2002
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music]]> 59582974 The #1 New York Times Bestseller * Named one of Variety's Best Music Books of 2021 * Included in Audible's Best of The Year list * A Business Insider Best Memoirs of 2021 * One of NME's Best Music Books of 2021


So, I've written a book.

Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities (It's a piece of cake! Just do 4 hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!) I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I've recorded and can't wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child.

This certainly doesn't mean that I'm quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it's like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters...the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.]]>
384 Dave Grohl 139850372X Keith 0 to-read 4.35 2021 The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
author: Dave Grohl
name: Keith
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2021
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<![CDATA[The Handmaid's Tale: The Graphic Novel]]> 40654428 Provocative, startling, prophetic, and more relevant than ever, The Handmaid's Tale has become a global phenomenon. Now, in this stunning graphic novel edition of Margaret Atwood's modern classic, the terrifying reality of Gilead is brought to vivid life like never before.

"Everything Handmaids wear is red: the colour of blood, which defines us." Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships. She serves in the household of the Commander and his wife, and under the new social order she has only one purpose: once a month, she must lie on her back and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, ecause in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if they are fertile. But Offred remembers the years before Gilead, when she was an independent woman who had a job, a family, and a name of her own. Now, her memories and her will to survive are acts of rebellion.

The Handmaid's Tale and its iconic images - the red of the Handmaids, the blue of the Wives, the looming Gileadean Eye - have been adapted into a film, an opera, a ballet, and multi-award-winning TV series. This groundbreaking new graphic novel edition, adapted and featuring arresting artwork by Renée Nault, is destined to become a classic in its own right.]]>
240 Renée Nault 0224101935 Keith 0 to-read 4.27 2019 The Handmaid's Tale: The Graphic Novel
author: Renée Nault
name: Keith
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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Acid for the Children 32709156
But the family soon fell apart. 'I was raised in a very violent, alcoholic household,' Flea later said. 'I grew up being terrified of my parents, particularly my father figures. It caused [me] a lot of trouble later in life.' He began smoking weed at 13 and became a daily user of harder drugs. He was on the streets by 14 and soon after, met another social outcast and drug user named Anthony Kiedis. They formed a band that would become the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Acid for the Children is pure, uncut Flea, with nothing left unsaid.]]>
384 Flea 1472230817 Keith 0 to-read 4.24 2019 Acid for the Children
author: Flea
name: Keith
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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Hunger 32585 134 Knut Hamsun 0486431681 Keith 3 4.09 1890 Hunger
author: Knut Hamsun
name: Keith
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1890
rating: 3
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The Essential Rumi 304079 The Essential Rumi includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks and more than 80 never-before-published poems.

Through his lyrical translations, Coleman Barks has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to a remarkably wide range of readers, making the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenth-century Sufi Mystic Rumi more popular than ever.

The Essential Rumi continues to be the bestselling of all Rumi books, and the definitive selection of his beautiful, mystical poetry.]]>
416 Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi 0062509594 Keith 0 to-read 4.40 1273 The Essential Rumi
author: Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
name: Keith
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1273
rating: 0
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The Poetry of Pablo Neruda 5936
"In his work a continent awakens to consciousness." So wrote the Swedish Academy in awarding the Nobel Prize to Pablo Neruda, the author of more than thirty-five books of poetry and one of Latin America's most revered writers, lionized during his lifetime as "the people's poet." This selection of Neruda's poetry, the most comprehensive single volume available in English, presents nearly six hundred poems. Scores of them are in new and sometimes multiple translations, and many accompanied by the Spanish original. In his introduction, Ilan Stavans situates Neruda in his native milieu as well as in a contemporary English-language one, and a group of new translations by leading poets testifies to Neruda's enduring, vibrant legacy among English-speaking writers and readers today.]]>
1040 Pablo Neruda 0374529604 Keith 0 to-read 4.44 1951 The Poetry of Pablo Neruda
author: Pablo Neruda
name: Keith
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1951
rating: 0
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The Selected Poems 22992 The Selected Poems of Federico GarcĂ­a Lorca has introduced generations of readers to mesmerizing poetry since 1955. Lorca (1898-1937) is admired all over the world for the lyricism, immediacy and clarity of his poetry, as well as for his ability to encompass techniques of the symbolist movement with deeper psychological shadings. But Lorca's poems are, most of all, admired for their beauty. Undercurrents of his major influences--Spanish folk traditions from his native Andalusia and Granada, gypsy ballads, and his friends the surrealists Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel--stream throughout Lorca's work. Poets represented here as translators are as diverse as Stephen Spender, Langston Hughes, Ben Belitt, William Jay Smith, and W.S. Merwin.]]> 186 Federico GarcĂ­a Lorca 0811216225 Keith 0 to-read 4.35 1936 The Selected Poems
author: Federico GarcĂ­a Lorca
name: Keith
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1936
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 Keith 5 4.04 1928 All Quiet on the Western Front
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Keith
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1928
rating: 5
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Jailbird 4987
Jailbird takes us into a fractured and comic, pure Vonnegut world of high crimes and misdemeanors in government—and in the heart. This wry tale follows bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentiary as Watergate’s least known co-conspirator. But the humor turns dark when Vonnegut shines his spotlight on the cold hearts and calculated greed of the mighty, giving a razor-sharp edge to an unforgettable portrait of power and politics in our times.

Praise for Jailbird

“[Vonnegut] is our strongest writer . . . the most stubbornly imaginative.� —John Irving
Ěý
“A gem . . . a mature, imaginative novel—possibly the best he has written . . .Ěý Jailbird Ěýis a guided tour de force of America. Take it!â€� â€� Playboy

“A profoundly humane comedy . . .Ěý Jailbird Ěýdefinitely mounts up on angelic wings—in its speed, in its sparkle, and in its high-flying intent.â€� â€� Chicago Tribune Book World
Ěý
“Joyously inventive . . . gleams with the loony magic Vonnegut alone can achieve.� � Cosmopolitan
Ěý
“Vonnegut is our great apocalyptic writer, the closest thing we’ve had to a prophet since . . . Lenny Bruce.� � Chicago Sun-Times
Ěý
“Vonnegut at his impressive best. . . . His imaginative leaps alone . . . are worth the price of admission. . . . His far-reaching metaphysical and cultural concerns . . . are ultimately serious and worth our contemplation.� � The Washington Post]]>
310 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385333900 Keith 2 3.83 1979 Jailbird
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Keith
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1979
rating: 2
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/07/31
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<![CDATA[Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!]]> 9595 Slapstick presents an apocalyptic vision as seen through the eyes of the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the United States), a wickedly irreverent look at the all-too-possible results of today’s follies. But even the end of life-as-we-know-it is transformed by Kurt Vonnegut’s pen into hilarious farce—a final slapstick that may be the Almighty’s joke on us all.]]> 288 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385334230 Keith 2 3.87 1976 Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Keith
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1976
rating: 2
read at: 2024/07/28
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A Farewell to Arms 10799 A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield - the weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote his ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right.]]> 293 Ernest Hemingway 0099910101 Keith 5 3.83 1929 A Farewell to Arms
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Keith
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1929
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/21
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Essential Vonnegut Interviews 9596 0 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0061153516 Keith 3 3.98 2006 Essential Vonnegut Interviews
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Keith
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2006
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[The Tragedy of Puddinghead Wilson ]]> 10095249
Two children, a white boy and a mulatto, are born on the same day. Roxy, mother of the mulatto, is given charge of the children; in fear that her son will be sold, she exchanges the babies. The mulatto, though he grows up as a white boy, turns out to be a scoundrel. He sells his mother, murders and robs his uncle, then blames the murder on Luigi, one of a pair of twins. Pudd'nhead, a lawyer, undertakes Luigi's defense and, on the basis of fingerprint evidence, exposes the real murderer.

The book implicitly condemns a society that allows slavery. It concludes with a series of witty aphorisms from Pudd'nhead's calendar.]]>
130 Mark Twain Keith 3 3.51 1893 The Tragedy of Puddinghead Wilson
author: Mark Twain
name: Keith
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1893
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/07/07
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<![CDATA[Absence of the Hero: Uncollected Stories and Essays, Volume 2 : 1946-1992]]> 7016279 Absence of the Hero is an anthology of this scattered body of work, most of it unseen in decades. Beginning with his early magazine fiction from the late 1940s, Absence of the Hero takes the reader on a countercultural journey through the literary battles of the '50s, the psychedelic upheaval of the '60s, the narcissistic pleasures of the '70s, and the Reaganite dystopia of the '80s. Along the way Bukowski furnishes tales of his infamous public readings, reviews of his own work, hilarious installments of his newspaper column, "Notes of a Dirty Old Man," and a number of newly discovered, previously unpublished gems. Yet the book also demonstrates the other Bukowski—an astute if offbeat literary critic. From his own "Manifesto" to his idiosyncratic evaluations of Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creely, LeRoi Jones and Louis Zukofsky, Absence of the Hero reveals the intellectual hidden beneath his gruff exterior.]]> 275 Charles Bukowski 0872865312 Keith 3 3.94 2010 Absence of the Hero: Uncollected Stories and Essays, Volume 2 : 1946-1992
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Keith
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2010
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[The Continual Condition: Poems]]> 6436330 144 Charles Bukowski 0061771201 Keith 4 3.87 The Continual Condition: Poems
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Keith
average rating: 3.87
book published:
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/06/28
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Bill Bryson's African Diary 22 55 Bill Bryson 0767915062 Keith 2 3.43 2002 Bill Bryson's African Diary
author: Bill Bryson
name: Keith
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2002
rating: 2
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Carrie 10592
Make a date with terror and live the nightmare that is...Carrie
--back cover]]>
272 Stephen King 1416524304 Keith 3 4.00 1974 Carrie
author: Stephen King
name: Keith
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1974
rating: 3
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Bucky F*cking Dent 25666054
When Ted hears the news that his estranged father, Marty, is dying of lung cancer, he immediately moves back into his childhood home, where a whirlwind of revelations ensues. The browbeating absentee father of his youth is living to make up for lost time, but his health dips drastically whenever his beloved Red Sox lose. And so, with help from a crew of neighborhood old-timers and the lovely Mariana--Marty's Nuyorican grief counselor--Ted orchestrates the illusion of a Sox winning streak, enabling Marty and the Red Sox to reverse the Curse of the Bambino and cruise their way to World Series victory. Well, sort of.

David Duchovny's richly drawn Bucky F*cking Dent is a story of the bond between fathers and sons, Yankee fans and the Fenway faithful, and grapples with the urgent need to find our story in an age of irony and artifice. Culminating in that fateful moment in October of '78 when the meek Bucky Dent hit his way into baseball history with the unlikeliest of home runs, this tragicomic novel demonstrates that life truly belongs to the losers--that the long shots are the ones worth betting on.

Bucky F*cking Dent is a singular tale that brims with the hilarity, poignancy, and profound solitude of modern life.]]>
308 David Duchovny 0374110425 Keith 4 3.82 2016 Bucky F*cking Dent
author: David Duchovny
name: Keith
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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Holy Cow 22561345 A rollicking, globe-trotting adventure with a twist: a four-legged heroine you won't soon forget

Elsie Bovary is a cow, and a pretty happy one at that-her long, lazy days are spent eating, napping, and chatting with her best friend, Mallory. One night, Elsie and Mallory sneak out of their pasture; but while Mallory is interested in flirting with the neighboring bulls, Elsie finds herself drawn to the farmhouse. Through the window, she sees the farmer's family gathered around a bright Box God-and what the Box God reveals about something called an "industrial meat farm" shakes Elsie's understanding of her world to its core.

There's only one solution: escape to a better, safer world. And so a motley crew is formed: Elsie; Jerry-excuse me, Shalom-a cranky, Torah-reading pig who's recently converted to Judaism; and Tom, a suave (in his own mind, at least) turkey who can't fly, but who can work an iPhone with his beak. Toting stolen passports and slapdash human disguises, they head for the airport.

Elsie is our wise-cracking, pop-culture-reference-dropping, slyly witty narrator; Tom-who does eventually learn to fly (sort of)-dispenses psychiatric advice in a fake German accent; and Shalom, rejected by his adopted people in Jerusalem, ends up unexpectedly uniting Israelis and Palestinians. David Duchovny's charismatic creatures point the way toward a mutual understanding and acceptance that the world desperately needs.]]>
206 David Duchovny 0374172072 Keith 3 3.35 2015 Holy Cow
author: David Duchovny
name: Keith
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2015
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]> 17125 The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.]]>
182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Keith 3 3.98 1962 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Keith
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 3
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Antony and Cleopatra 104837 336 William Shakespeare 0743482859 Keith 3 3.70 1606 Antony and Cleopatra
author: William Shakespeare
name: Keith
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1606
rating: 3
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The Tempest 12985
Each edition includes:
� Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play

� Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play

� Scene-by-scene plot summaries

� A key to famous lines and phrases

� An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language

� An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play

� Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books]]>
218 William Shakespeare Keith 3 3.78 1611 The Tempest
author: William Shakespeare
name: Keith
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1611
rating: 3
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Much Ado About Nothing 12957 Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare includes two quite different stories of romantic love. Hero and Claudio fall in love almost at first sight, but an outsider, Don John, strikes out at their happiness. Beatrice and Benedick are kept apart by pride and mutual antagonism until others decide to play Cupid.]]> 249 William Shakespeare Keith 3 4.06 1598 Much Ado About Nothing
author: William Shakespeare
name: Keith
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1598
rating: 3
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Tales of Ordinary Madness 38503 Exceptional stories that came pounding out of Bukowski's violent and depraved life. Horrible and holy, you cannot read them and ever come away the same again.

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

From prostitutes to classical music, Bukowski ingeniously mixes high and low culture in his "tales of ordinary madness." These stories are humorous and haunting, angry yet tender portrayals of life in the underbelly of Los Angeles.]]>
238 Charles Bukowski 0872861554 Keith 4 4.01 1983 Tales of Ordinary Madness
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Keith
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1983
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage]]> 4988
“Honest and scarily funny, and it offers a rare insight into an author who has customarily hidden his heart.”� New York Times

Here we have a collection of essays and speeches by me, with breezy autobiographical commentary serving as connective tissue and splints and bandages. Here we go again with real life and opinions made to look like one big, preposterous animal not unlike an invention by Dr. Seuss...

—Kurt Vonnegut, from Fates Worse Than DeathĚý]]>
240 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0425134067 Keith 3 3.88 1982 Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Keith
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1982
rating: 3
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The Visible Man 10373933 New York Times bestselling author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and Downtown Owl, “the Ethicist� of the New York Times Magazine, Chuck Klosterman returns to fiction with his second novel—an imaginative page-turner about a therapist and her unusual patient, a man who can render himself invisible.

Therapist Victoria Vick is contacted by a cryptic, unlikable man who insists his situation is unique and unfathomable. As he slowly reveals himself, Vick becomes convinced that he suffers from a complex set of delusions: Y__, as she refers to him, claims to be a scientist who has stolen cloaking technology from an aborted government project in order to render himself nearly invisible. He says he uses this ability to observe random individuals within their daily lives, usually when they are alone and vulnerable. Unsure of his motives or honesty, Vick becomes obsessed with her patient and the disclosure of his increasingly bizarre and disturbing tales. Over time, it threatens her career, her marriage, and her own identity.

Interspersed with notes, correspondence, and transcriptions that catalog a relationship based on curiosity and fear, The Visible Man touches on all of Chuck Klosterman’s favorite themes—the consequence of culture, the influence of media, the complexity of voyeurism, and the existential contradiction of normalcy. Is this comedy, criticism, or horror? Not even Y__ seems to know for sure.]]>
230 Chuck Klosterman 1439184461 Keith 1 3.73 2011 The Visible Man
author: Chuck Klosterman
name: Keith
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2011
rating: 1
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The Little Prince 157993
Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince, presented here in a stunning new translation with carefully restored artwork. The definitive edition of a worldwide classic, it will capture the hearts of readers of all ages.]]>
96 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 0152023984 Keith 4 4.32 1943 The Little Prince
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: Keith
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1943
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!]]> 251180 296 Fredy Perlman 0934868255 Keith 0 to-read 4.18 1983 Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!
author: Fredy Perlman
name: Keith
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Last Night of the Earth Poems]]> 70884 The Last Night of the Earth Poems explores writing, death, immortality, city life, war, and the past.]]> 408 Charles Bukowski Keith 5 4.31 1992 The Last Night of the Earth Poems
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Keith
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1992
rating: 5
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Happy Birthday, Wanda June 1267866 224 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0440504848 Keith 3 3.55 1970 Happy Birthday, Wanda June
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Keith
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1970
rating: 3
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Mother Night 9592 Librarian note: Alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.]]>
282 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385334141 Keith 5 4.23 1961 Mother Night
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Keith
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1961
rating: 5
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Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems 50468 368 Charles Bukowski 157423028X Keith 4 4.04 1997 Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Keith
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1997
rating: 4
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date added: 2023/08/08
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<![CDATA[From Cradle to Stage: Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars]]> 31374727
While the Grohl family had always been musical-the family sang together on long car trips, harmonizing to Motown and David Bowie-Virginia never expected her son to become a musician, let alone a rock star. But when she saw him perform in front of thousands of screaming fans for the first time, she knew that rock stardom was meant to be for her son. And as Virginia watched her son's star rise, she often wondered about the other mothers who raised sons and daughters who became rock stars. Were they as surprised as she was about their children's fame? Did they worry about their children's livelihood and wellbeing in an industry fraught with drugs and other dangers? Did they encourage their children's passions despite the odds against success, or attempt to dissuade them from their grandiose dreams? Do they remind their kids to pack a warm coat when they go on tour?

Virginia decided to seek out other rock star mothers to ask these questions, and so began a two-year odyssey in which she interviewed such women as Verna Griffin, Dr. Dre's mother; Marianne Stipe, Michael Stipe of REM's mother; Janis Winehouse, Amy Winehouse's mother; Patsy Noah, Adam Levine's mother; Donna Haim, mother of the Haim sisters; Hester Diamond, Mike D of The Beastie Boys' mother.

With exclusive family photographs and a foreword by Dave Grohl, From Cradle to Stage will appeal to mothers and rock fans everywhere.]]>
240 Virginia Hanlon Grohl 158005644X Keith 2 3.81 2017 From Cradle to Stage: Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars
author: Virginia Hanlon Grohl
name: Keith
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2023/08/06
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<![CDATA[Perfume: The Story of a Murderer]]> 343 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.

In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.]]>
263 Patrick SĂĽskind Keith 3 4.05 1985 Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
author: Patrick SĂĽskind
name: Keith
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1985
rating: 3
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Rock â€nâ€� Roll Witch 61060273
Pleasant Gehman could write the phonebook and I'd read it. In Rock & Roll Witch , she ties together tales of cemetery adventures from childhood through her wild days as a Hollywood punk rocker in the 1970's and beyond. Her language is thrilling and the stories remind me of great pulp fiction, except it's all real!
- John Doe from X, Austin, TX


Reading this book is like sidling up to the bar in a dark and dangerous dive, sitting next to a stranger who begins telling you a story that draws you in and weaves a magnetic web of fascination. Her stories prove that ghost stories are not just "stories." It's a true mystical, magical page-turner that will leave you spellbound.
- Madame Pamita, author of Madame Pamita's Magical Tarot (Weiser)]]>
225 Pleasant Gehman 1940213118 Keith 0 to-read 4.20 Rock â€n’ Roll Witch
author: Pleasant Gehman
name: Keith
average rating: 4.20
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The Stranger 49552 The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."]]> 123 Albert Camus Keith 4 4.04 1942 The Stranger
author: Albert Camus
name: Keith
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1942
rating: 4
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The Communist Manifesto 30474 The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels' revolutionary 1848 summons to the working classes, is one of the most influential political theories ever formulated. After four years of collaboration, the authors produced this incisive account of their idea of Communism, in which they envisage a society without classes, private property, or a state. They argue that increasing exploitation of industrial workers will eventually lead to a revolution in which capitalism is overthrown. Their vision transformed the world irrevocably, and remains relevant as a depiction of global capitalism today.]]> 288 Karl Marx 0140447571 Keith 4 3.67 1848 The Communist Manifesto
author: Karl Marx
name: Keith
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1848
rating: 4
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Sightings 2522478 272 Susan Michaels 0684823691 Keith 2 3.58 1996 Sightings
author: Susan Michaels
name: Keith
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1996
rating: 2
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<![CDATA[Borderlands: The Ultimate Exploration of the Unknown]]> 1037360 Borderlands...

* The charred remains of Helen Conway, whose body "exploded."
ĚýĚý Was this a case of spontaneous combustion?
* Discoveries of 130-foot-long boa constrictors and twelve-foot giant kangaroos.
ĚýĚýWhat other species have gone undiscovered?
*In England, a town is pelted from the sky by hundreds of tiny rose-colored frogs.
ĚýĚýIs this a one-time event, an omen, or a bizarre natural phenomenon?

Near-death experiences...lake monsters...crop circles...fairies...visions of the Virgin Mary...Using his vast research and privileged access to case files, noted paranormal investigator Mike Dash has compiled this unprecedented collection of the most baffling puzzles of our time. Touring the globe and sifting through a vast array of eyewitness accounts and film and photographic evidence, Dash separates genuine cases from hoaxes and dares to record those macabre, inexplicable, and terrifying events where there is no other explanation except--that what people saw, heard, and sometimes lived to tell about is true!]]>
544 Mike Dash 0440236568 Keith 2 3.67 1997 Borderlands: The Ultimate Exploration of the Unknown
author: Mike Dash
name: Keith
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1997
rating: 2
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<![CDATA[The Amplified Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana]]> 75289869 624 Michael Azerrad 0063279932 Keith 0 to-read 4.43 The Amplified Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana
author: Michael Azerrad
name: Keith
average rating: 4.43
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The Trial 17690 The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.]]> 255 Franz Kafka Keith 3 4.00 1925 The Trial
author: Franz Kafka
name: Keith
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1925
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/03/06
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Going After Cacciato 3446 Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

Winner of the 1979 National Book Award, Going After Cacciato captures the peculiar mixture of horror and hallucination that marked this strangest of wars.

In a blend of reality and fantasy, this novel tells the story of a young soldier who one day lays down his rifle and sets off on a quixotic journey from the jungles of Indochina to the streets of Paris. In its memorable evocation of men both fleeing from and meeting the demands of battle, Going After Cacciato stands as much more than just a great war novel. Ultimately it's about the forces of fear and heroism that do battle in the hearts of us all.]]>
351 Tim O'Brien 0767904427 Keith 4 3.91 1978 Going After Cacciato
author: Tim O'Brien
name: Keith
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1978
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/23
date added: 2023/02/23
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<![CDATA[The Sandman, Vol. 3: Dream Country]]> 25100 160 Neil Gaiman 156389226X Keith 3 4.26 1990 The Sandman, Vol. 3: Dream Country
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Keith
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1990
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[The Sandman, Vol. 2: The Doll's House]]> 25099 The Doll's House, after a decades-long imprisonment, the Sandman has returned to find that a few dreams and nightmares have escaped to reality. Looking to recapture his lost possessions, Morpheus ventures to the human plane only to learn that a woman named Rose Walker has inadvertently become a dream vortex and threatens to rip apart his world. Now as Morpheus takes on the last escaped nightmare at a serial killers convention, the Lord of Dreams must mercilessly murder Rose or risk the destruction of his entire kingdom.

Collecting issues #9-16, this new edition of The Doll's House features the improved production values and coloring from the Absolute Edition.

]]>
232 Neil Gaiman 1563892251 Keith 4 4.44 1990 The Sandman, Vol. 2: The Doll's House
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Keith
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1990
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[You Will Find Your People: How to Make Meaningful Friendships as an Adult]]> 61783791 How to Be Alone, comes a searingly intimate, yet wildly funny exploration of the frustrating, messy, and, at times, deeply joyful experience of learning how to make meaningful friendships as an adult.

Part memoir, part self-help, You Will Find Your People uncovers the complex, frightening, and often vulnerable process of building real, healthy friendships and finally creating your chosen family. Moore takes readers on a journey that examines and challenges the ideas of friendship we’ve seen in pop culture, answers every question you’ve ever had about friend breakups, and teaches us how to fearlessly ask for what we want in friendships once and for all.

Full of Moore’s hilarious personal anecdotes, advice on how to identify your attachment style, and real tools to create better communication and boundaries, this book is your personal guide on how to heal from your past friendships, improve your current ones, and finally have the friendships we know we deserve.]]>
208 Lane Moore 1419762567 Keith 0 to-read 3.27 2023 You Will Find Your People: How to Make Meaningful Friendships as an Adult
author: Lane Moore
name: Keith
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath]]> 228694
When he was a student in Paris, Truong Nhu Tang met Ho Chi Minh. Later he fought in the Vietnamese jungle and emerged as one of the major figures in the "fight for liberation"—and one of the most determined adversaries of the United States. He became the Vietcong's Minister of Justice, but at the end of the war he fled the country in disillusionment and despair. He now lives in exile in Paris, the highest level official to have defected from Vietnam to the West. This is his candid, revealing and unforgettable autobiography.]]>
368 Truong Nhu Tang 0394743091 Keith 2 3.96 1985 A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath
author: Truong Nhu Tang
name: Keith
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1985
rating: 2
read at: 2022/09/16
date added: 2022/09/16
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<![CDATA[Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus, #1)]]> 629 Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an examination of how we live, a meditation on how to live better set around the narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America's Northwest, undertaken by a father & his young son.]]> 540 Robert M. Pirsig 0060589469 Keith 0 to-read 3.78 1974 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus, #1)
author: Robert M. Pirsig
name: Keith
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1974
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A History of Fear 60508839 “A disorientating, creepy, paranoia-inducing reimagining of the devil-made-me-do-it tale� (Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World) following the harrowing downfall of a tortured graduate student arrested for murder.

The Devil is in Scotland.

Grayson Hale, the most infamous murderer in Scotland, is better known by a different name: the Devil’s Advocate. The twenty-five-year-old American grad student rose to instant notoriety when he confessed to the slaughter of his classmate Liam Stewart, claiming the Devil made him do it.

When Hale is found hanged in his prison cell, officers uncover a handwritten manuscript that promises to answer the question that’s haunted the nation for years: was Hale a lunatic, or had he been telling the truth all along?

Unnervingly, Hale doesn’t fit the bill of a killer. The first-person narrative that centers this novel reveals an acerbic young atheist, newly enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to carry on the legacy of his recently deceased father. In need of cash, he takes a job ghostwriting a mysterious book for a dark stranger, but has misgivings when the project begins to reawaken his satanophobia, a rare condition that causes him to live in terror that the Devil is after him. As he struggles to disentangle fact from fear, Grayson’s world is turned upside-down after events force him to confront his growing suspicion that he’s working for the one he has feared all this time—and that the book is only the beginning of their partnership.​�

A History of Fear is a propulsive foray into the darkness of the human psyche, marrying dread-inducing atmosphere and heart-palpitating storytelling.]]>
368 Luke Dumas 1982199040 Keith 0 to-read 3.68 2022 A History of Fear
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<![CDATA[A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life]]> 53487237 A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.

In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?� He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.]]>
403 George Saunders 1984856049 Keith 5 4.55 2021 A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
author: George Saunders
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average rating: 4.55
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Emma 6969 The newest edition is here. Another alternate cover can be found here.

Emma Woodhouse is one of Austen's most captivating and vivid characters. Beautiful, spoilt, vain and irrepressibly witty, Emma organizes the lives of the inhabitants of her sleepy little village and plays matchmaker with devastating effect.]]>
474 Jane Austen 0141439580 Keith 3 4.05 1815 Emma
author: Jane Austen
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average rating: 4.05
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<![CDATA[Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization]]> 59808487 Bringing his cosmic perspective to civilization on Earth, Neil deGrasse Tyson shines new light on the crucial fault lines of our time—war, politics, religion, truth, beauty, gender, and race—in a way that stimulates a deeper sense of unity for us all.

In a time when our political and cultural views feel more polarized than ever, Tyson provides a much-needed antidote to so much of what divides us, while making a passionate case for the twin chariots of enlightenment—a cosmic perspective and the rationality of science.

After thinking deeply about how science sees the world and about Earth as a planet, the human brain has the capacity to reset and recalibrates life’s priorities, shaping the actions we might take in response. No outlook on culture, society, or civilization remains untouched.

With crystalline prose, Starry Messenger walks us through the scientific palette that sees and paints the world differently. From insights on resolving global conflict to reminders of how precious it is to be alive, Tyson reveals, with warmth and eloquence, an array of brilliant and beautiful truths that apply to us all, informed and enlightened by knowledge of our place in the universe.]]>
271 Neil deGrasse Tyson 1250861500 Keith 0 to-read 4.09 2022 Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization
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The Last White Man 58885796 From the New York Times -bestselling author of Exit West , a story of love, loss, and rediscovery in a time of unsettling change.

One morning, a man wakes up to find himself transformed. Overnight, Anders’s skin has turned dark, and the reflection in the mirror seems a stranger to him. At first he shares his secret only with Oona, an old friend turned new lover. Soon, reports of similar events begin to surface. Across the land, people are awakening in new incarnations, uncertain how their neighbors, friends, and family will greet them. Some see the transformations as the long-dreaded overturning of the established order that must be resisted to a bitter end. In many, like Anders’s father and Oona’s mother, a sense of profound loss and unease wars with profound love. As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different a chance at a kind of rebirth--an opportunity to see ourselves, face to face, anew.
Ěý
In Mohsin Hamid’s lyrical and urgent prose, The Last White Man powerfully uplifts our capacity for empathy and the transcendence over bigotry, fear, and anger it can achieve.]]>
192 Mohsin Hamid 0593538811 Keith 0 to-read 3.43 2022 The Last White Man
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Fox 8 17620753 A darkly comic short story, a fable about the all too real impact that we humans have on the environment

Fox 8 has always been known as the daydreamer in his pack, the one his fellow foxes regarded with a knowing snort and a roll of the eyes. That is, until Fox 8 develops a unique skill: He teaches himself to speak "Yuman" by hiding in the bushes outside a house and listening to children's bedtime stories. The power of language fuels his abundant curiosity about people—even after "danjer" arrives in the form of a new shopping mall that cuts off his food supply, sending Fox 8 on a harrowing quest to help save his pack.]]>
21 George Saunders 0812995325 Keith 0 to-read 4.14 2013 Fox 8
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In Persuasion Nation 28746 In Persuasion Nation are easily his best work yet. "The Red Bow," about a town consumed by pet-killing hysteria, won a 2004 National Magazine Award and "Bohemians," the story of two supposed Eastern European widows trying to fit in in suburban USA, is included in The Best American Short Stories 2005. His new book includes both unpublished work, and stories that first appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, and Esquire. The stories in this volume work together as a whole whose impact far exceeds the simple sum of its parts. Fans of Saunders know and love him for his sharp and hilarious satirical eye. But In Persuasion Nation also includes more personal and poignant pieces that reveal a new kind of emotional conviction in Saunders's writing.

Saunders's work in the last six years has come to be recognized as one of the strongest—and most consoling—cries in the wilderness of the millennium's political and cultural malaise. In Persuasion Nation's sophistication and populism should establish Saunders once and for all as this generation's literary voice of wisdom and humor in a time when we need it most.]]>
228 George Saunders 159448242X Keith 0 to-read 4.11 2006 In Persuasion Nation
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<![CDATA[The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil]]> 28749 Animal Farm for the 21st century, this is an incendiary political satire of unprecedented imagination, spiky humor, and cautionary appreciation for the hysteric in everyone.]]> 130 George Saunders 1594481520 Keith 0 to-read 3.72 2005 The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
author: George Saunders
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The Braindead Megaphone 381960
George Saunders's first foray into nonfiction is composed of essays on literature, travel, and politics. At the core of this unique collection are Saunders's travel essays based on his trips to seek out the mysteries of the "Buddha Boy" of Nepal; to attempt to indulge in the extravagant pleasures of Dubai; and to join the exploits of the minutemen at the Mexican border. Saunders expertly navigates the works of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and Esther Forbes, and leads the reader across the rocky political landscape of modern America. Emblazoned with his trademark wit and singular vision, Saunders's endeavor into the art of the essay is testament to his exceptional range and ability as a writer and thinker.]]>
257 George Saunders 159448256X Keith 0 to-read 3.99 2007 The Braindead Megaphone
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<![CDATA[The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip]]> 28748 From the bestselling author of Tenth of December comes a splendid new edition of his acclaimed collaboration with the illustrator behind The Stinky Cheese Man and James and the Giant Peach! Featuring fifty-two haunting and hilarious images, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is a modern fable for people of all ages that touches on the power of kindness, generosity, compassion, and community.

In the seaside village of Frip live three families: the Romos, the Ronsens, and a little girl named Capable and her father. The economy of Frip is based solely on goat’s milk, and this is a problem because the village is plagued by gappers: bright orange, many-eyed creatures the size of softballs that love to attach themselves to goats. When a gapper gets near a goat, it lets out a high-pitched shriek of joy that puts the goats off giving milk, which means that every few hours the children of Frip have to go outside, brush the gappers off their goats, and toss them into the sea. The gappers have always been everyone’s problem, until one day they get a little smarter, and instead of spreading out, they gang up: on Capable’s goats. Free at last of the tyranny of the gappers, will her neighbors rally to help her? Or will they turn their backs, forcing Capable to bear the misfortune alone?

Featuring fifty-two haunting and hilarious illustrations by Lane Smith and a brilliant story by George Saunders that explores universal themes of community and kindness, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is a rich and resonant story for those that have all and those that have not.]]>
84 George Saunders 1932416374 Keith 0 to-read 4.13 2000 The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip
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Pastoralia 14295
The stories in Pastoralia are set in a slightly skewed version of America, where elements of contemporary life have been merged, twisted, and amplified, casting their absurdity—and our humanity—in a startling new light. Whether he writes a gothic morality tale in which a male exotic dancer is haunted by his maiden aunt from beyond the grave, or about a self-help guru who tells his followers his mission is to discover who's been "crapping in your oatmeal," Saunders's stories are both indelibly strange and vividly real.]]>
188 George Saunders 0747553866 Keith 0 to-read 4.10 2000 Pastoralia
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CivilWarLand in Bad Decline 28747 179 George Saunders 0099595818 Keith 0 to-read 4.25 1996 CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
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Tenth of December 13641208 Tenth of December is his most honest, accessible, and moving collection yet.

In the taut opening, "Victory Lap," a boy witnesses the attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with a harrowing choice: Does he ignore what he sees, or override years of smothering advice from his parents and act? In "Home," a combat-damaged soldier moves back in with his mother and struggles to reconcile the world he left with the one to which he has returned. And in the title story, a stunning meditation on imagination, memory, and loss, a middle-aged cancer patient walks into the woods to commit suicide, only to encounter a troubled young boy who, over the course of a fateful morning, gives the dying man a final chance to recall who he really is. A hapless, deluded owner of an antique store; two mothers struggling to do the right thing; a teenage girl whose idealism is challenged by a brutal brush with reality; a man tormented by a series of pharmaceutical experiments that force him to lust, to love, to kill—the unforgettable characters that populate the pages of Tenth of December are vividly and lovingly infused with Saunders' signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation.

Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human.

Unsettling, insightful, and hilarious, the stories in Tenth of December—through their manic energy, their focus on what is redeemable in human beings, and their generosity of spirit—not only entertain and delight; they fulfill Chekhov's dictum that art should "prepare us for tenderness."]]>
251 George Saunders 0812993802 Keith 3 3.98 2013 Tenth of December
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Liberation Day 60471573 Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose--wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned--Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.

Love Letter is a tender missive from grandfather to grandson, in the midst of a dystopian political situation in the not-too-distant future, that reminds us of our obligations to our ideals, ourselves, and each other. Ghoul is set in a Hell-themed section of an underground amusement park in Colorado, and follows the exploits of a lonely, morally complex character named Brian, who comes to question everything he takes for granted about his "reality." In Mother's Day, two women who loved the same man come to an existential reckoning in the middle of a hailstorm. And in Elliott Spencer, our eighty-nine-year-old protagonist finds himself brainwashed--his memory "scraped"--a victim of a scheme in which poor, vulnerable people are reprogrammed and deployed as political protesters.

Together, these nine subversive, profound, and essential stories coalesce into a case for viewing the world with the same generosity and clear-eyed attention as Saunders does, even in the most absurd of circumstances.]]>
256 George Saunders 0525509593 Keith 0 to-read 3.99 2022 Liberation Day
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<![CDATA[Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories: House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar, and A Christmas Memory]]> 15785457 Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's. In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape—her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm.

This volume also includes three of Capote's best-known stories, “House of Flowers,� “A Diamond Guitar,� and “A Christmas Memory,� which the Saturday Review called “one of the most moving stories in our language.� It is a tale of two innocents—a small boy and the old woman who is his best friend—whose sweetness contains a hard, sharp kernel of truth.]]>
141 Truman Capote Keith 4 3.82 1958 Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories: House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar, and A Christmas Memory
author: Truman Capote
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average rating: 3.82
book published: 1958
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<![CDATA[I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: Stories]]> 51540889 An urgent and unsettling collection of women on the verge from Laura van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel

I Hold a Wolf by the Ears, Laura van den Berg's first story collection since her acclaimed and prizewinning Isle of Youth, draws readers into a world of wholly original, sideways ghost stories that linger in the mouth and mind like rotten, fragrant fruit. Both timeless and urgent, these eleven stories confront misogyny, violence, and the impossible economics of America with van den Berg's trademark spiky humor and surreal eye. Moving from the peculiarities of Florida to liminal spaces of travel in Mexico City, Sicily, and Spain, I Hold a Wolf by the Ears is uncannily attuned to our current moment, and to the thoughts we reveal to no one but ourselves.

In "Lizards," a man mutes his wife's anxieties by giving her a La Croix-like seltzer laced with sedatives. In the title story, a woman poses as her more successful sister during a botched Italian holiday, a choice that brings about strange and violent consequences, while in "Karolina," a woman discovers her prickly ex-sister-in-law in the aftermath of an earthquake and is forced to face the truth about her violent brother.

I Hold a Wolf by the Ears presents a collection of women on the verge, trying to grasp what's left of life: grieving, divorced, and hyperaware, searching, vulnerable, and unhinged, they exist in a world that deviates from our own only when you look too close. With remarkable control and transcendent talent, van den Berg dissolves, in the words of the narrator of "Slumberland," "that border between magic and annihilation," and further establishes herself as a defining fiction writer of our time.]]>
224 Laura van den Berg 0374102090 Keith 3 3.81 2020 I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: Stories
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average rating: 3.81
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The Nineties 58082714 The Nineties: a wise and funny reckoning with the decade that gave us slacker/grunge irony about the sin of trying too hard, during the greatest shift in human consciousness of any decade in American history.

It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. In the beginning, almost every name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines because you didn't know who it was. By the end, exposing someone's address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their new cell phone if they didn't know who it was. The '90s brought about a revolution in the human condition we're still groping to understand. Happily, Chuck Klosterman is more than up to the job.

Beyond epiphenomena like Cop Killer and Titanic and Zima, there were wholesale shifts in how society was perceived: the rise of the internet, pre-9/11 politics, and the paradoxical belief that nothing was more humiliating than trying too hard. Pop culture accelerated without the aid of a machine that remembered everything, generating an odd comfort in never being certain about anything. On a '90s Thursday night, more people watched any random episode of Seinfeld than the finale of Game of Thrones. But nobody thought that was important; if you missed it, you simply missed it. It was the last era that held to the idea of a true, hegemonic mainstream before it all began to fracture, whether you found a home in it or defined yourself against it.

In The Nineties, Chuck Klosterman makes a home in all of it: the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality, the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan. In perhaps no other book ever written would a sentence like, "The video for 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was not more consequential than the reunification of Germany" make complete sense. Chuck Klosterman has written a multi-dimensional masterpiece, a work of synthesis so smart and delightful that future historians might well refer to this entire period as Klostermanian.]]>
370 Chuck Klosterman 0735217955 Keith 4 3.86 2022 The Nineties
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Lapvona 59089897 In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot in a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test, in a spellbinding novel that represents Ottessa Moshfegh's most exciting leap yet

Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life's few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby, as she did for many of the village's children.

Ina's gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers, however religious they might be. For some people, Ina's home in the woods outside the village is a place to fear and to avoid, a godless place.

Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor, Villiam, whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of riches. The people's desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest, especially in this year of record drought and famine.

But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord's family, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year's end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural world and the spirit world will prove to be very thin indeed.]]>
304 Ottessa Moshfegh 0593300262 Keith 0 to-read 3.54 2022 Lapvona
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
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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 Keith 5 4.14 1990 The Things They Carried
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average rating: 4.14
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A Clockwork Orange 227463 A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?"

This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."]]>
192 Anthony Burgess Keith 4 3.98 1962 A Clockwork Orange
author: Anthony Burgess
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average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young]]> 17894477
This expanded second edition includes more than sixty pages of further thoughts from Kurt (whose good advice wasn’t limited to graduation speeches).

As edited by Dan Wakefield, this book reads like a narrative in the unique voice that made Vonnegut a hero to readers of all ages. At times hilarious, razor-sharp, freewheeling, and deeply serious, these reflections are ideal for anyone undergoing what Vonnegut would call their “long-delayed puberty ceremony”—marking the passage from student to full-time adult.]]>
144 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 1480537373 Keith 4 3.94 2013 If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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average rating: 3.94
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<![CDATA[Your Favorite Band is Killing Me]]> 26245024
Beatles vs. Stones. Biggie vs. Tupac. Kanye vs. Taylor. Who do you choose? And what does that say about you? Actually -- what do these endlessly argued-about pop music rivalries say about us?

Music opinions bring out passionate debate in people, and Steven Hyden knows that firsthand. Each chapter in Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me focuses on a pop music rivalry, from the classic to the very recent, and draws connections to the larger forces surrounding the pairing.

Through Jimi Hendrix vs. Eric Clapton, Hyden explores burning out and fading away, while his take on Miley vs. Sinead gives readers a glimpse into the perennial battle between old and young. Funny and accessible, Hyden's writing combines cultural criticism, personal anecdotes, and music history -- and just may prompt you to give your least favorite band another chance.]]>
304 Steven Hyden 0316259152 Keith 4 3.79 2016 Your Favorite Band is Killing Me
author: Steven Hyden
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average rating: 3.79
book published: 2016
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<![CDATA[If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home]]> 3445 Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

A CLASSIC FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

Before writing his award-winning Going After Cacciato, Tim O'Brien gave us this intensely personal account of his year as a foot soldier in Vietnam. The author takes us with him to experience combat from behind an infantryman's rifle, to walk the minefields of My Lai, to crawl into the ghostly tunnels, and to explore the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war gone terribly wrong. Beautifully written and searingly heartfelt, If I Die in a Combat Zone is a masterwork of its genre.

Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content]]>
225 Tim O'Brien 0767904435 Keith 4 3.95 1973 If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home
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average rating: 3.95
book published: 1973
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<![CDATA[Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana]]> 104961 Nevermind, whose thunderous sound and indelible melodies embodied the confusion, frustration and passion of the emerging Generation X.

As one of the greatest music biographies of all time, Come As You Are is the up-close, intimate story of Nirvana, with exclusive in-depth interviews with band members Kurt Cobain, Chris Novoselic and Dave Grohl, as well as friends, relatives, former band members and associates. A final chapter details the last year of Kurt Cobain's life.

From their early days in rural Aberdeen, Washington, to their domination of the world music scene in the early 90's, Come As You Are tells the Nirvana story as no other book does, candidly and first-hand: the allegations of heroin use; the soul-crushing pressures of sudden success; the burden of their unasked-for role as spokesman for a generation; and the tragic spiral that culminated in Kurt Cobain's death in April 1994.

With close analyses of every song on each of the band's three major albums, a comprehensive discography and more than one hundred rare and never before-seen photographs, posters and original lyric sheets, Come As You Are is by far the most intimate look ever at one of rock's most influential and significant groups.]]>
355 Michael Azerrad 0385471998 Keith 5 4.07 1993 Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana
author: Michael Azerrad
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average rating: 4.07
book published: 1993
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Black Hole 38333
As we inhabit the heads of several key characters—some kids who have it, some who don't, some who are about to get it—what unfolds isn't the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it, or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself—the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape.

And then the murders start.

As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, Black Hole transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it—back when it wasn't exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird.

To say nothing of sprouting horns and molting your skin…]]>
368 Charles Burns 037542380X Keith 4 3.85 2005 Black Hole
author: Charles Burns
name: Keith
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/17
date added: 2022/04/17
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<![CDATA[The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories]]> 24885533
With his debut novel, The Grace of Kings, taking the literary world by storm, Ken Liu now shares his finest short fiction in The Paper Menagerie. This mesmerizing collection features all of Ken’s award-winning and award-finalist stories, including: “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary� (Finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards), “Mono No Aware� (Hugo Award winner), “The Waves� (Nebula Award finalist), “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species� (Nebula and Sturgeon award finalists), “All the Flavors� (Nebula award finalist), “The Litigation Master and the Monkey King� (Nebula Award finalist), and the most awarded story in the genre’s history, “The Paper Menagerie� (The only story to win the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards).

A must-have for every science fiction and fantasy fan, this beautiful book is an anthology to savor.]]>
450 Ken Liu 1481442546 Keith 5 4.36 2016 The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
author: Ken Liu
name: Keith
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2022/04/15
date added: 2022/04/15
shelves:
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The Book of Fred 294100 Filled with soulful humor and quiet pathos, Abby Bardi's boldly drawn first novel marks the debut of a joyfully talented chronicler of the quest for connection in contemporary life.

Mary Fred Anderson, raised in an isolated fundamentalist sect whose primary obsessions seem to involve an imminent Apocalypse and the propagation of the name "Fred," is hardly your average fifteen-year-old. She has never watched TV, been to a supermarket, or even read much of anything beyond the inscrutable dogma laid out by the prophet Fred. But this is all before Mary Fred's whole world tilts irrevocably on its axis: before her brothers, Fred and Freddie, take sick and pass on to the place the Reverend Thigpen calls "the World Beyond"; before Mama and Papa are escorted from the Fredian Outpost in police vans; and Mary Fred herself is uprooted and placed in foster care with the Cullison family. It is here, at Alice Cullison's suburban home outside Washington, D.C., where everything really changes -- for all parties involved.

Mary Fred's new guardian, Alice, is a large-hearted librarian who, several years after her divorce, can't seem to shake her grief and loneliness. Meanwhile, Alice's daughter Heather, also known as Puffin, buries any hint of her own adolescent loneliness beneath an impenetrable armor of caustic sarcasm, studied apathy, and technicolor hair. And the enigmatic Uncle Roy is Alice's perennially jobless and intensely private brother. As Mary Fred struggles to adjust to the oddities of this alien world, from sordid daytime television and processed food to aromatherapy and transsexuality, she gradually begins to have an unmistakable influence on the lives of her housemates. But when a horrifying act of violence shakes the foundations of Mary Fred's fragile new family, she finds herself forced to confront, painfully, the very nature of the way she was raised.

With a knack for laying bare the absurdities of daily life, Abby Bardi captures, with grace and authority, all the ambivalence and emotional uncertainty at the heart of these quirky characters' awakenings.]]>
320 Abby Bardi 0743411943 Keith 0 to-read 3.75 2001 The Book of Fred
author: Abby Bardi
name: Keith
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/11
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994�2007)]]> 54738201 464 Dan Ozzi 0358239966 Keith 5 4.41 2021 Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994–2007)
author: Dan Ozzi
name: Keith
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/11/21
date added: 2021/11/21
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<![CDATA[Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647]]> 380887 Mayflower, the first harsh winter in the new colony, and the help fromĚýfriendly Native Americans that saved their lives.
No one was better equipped to report on the affairs of the Plymouth community than William Bradford. Revered for his patience, wisdom, and courage, Bradford was elected to the office of governor in 1621, and he continued to serve in that position forĚýmore than threeĚýdecades. His memoirs of the colony remained virtually unknown until the nineteenth century. Lost during the American Revolution, they were discovered years later in London and published after a protracted legal battle. The current edition rendered into modern English and with an introduction by Harold Paget, remains among the most readable books from seventeenth-century America.]]>
416 William Bradford 0075542811 Keith 2 3.36 1651 Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647
author: William Bradford
name: Keith
average rating: 3.36
book published: 1651
rating: 2
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2021/11/16
shelves:
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The Awakening 58345 The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the confines of her domestic situation.

Aside from its unusually frank treatment of a then-controversial subject, the novel is widely admired today for its literary qualities. Edmund Wilson characterized it as a work "quite uninhibited and beautifully written, which anticipates D. H. Lawrence in its treatment of infidelity." Although the theme of marital infidelity no longer shocks, few novels have plumbed the psychology of a woman involved in an illicit relationship with the perception, artistry, and honesty that Kate Chopin brought to The Awakening.]]>
195 Kate Chopin 0543898083 Keith 2 3.69 1899 The Awakening
author: Kate Chopin
name: Keith
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1899
rating: 2
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2021/11/16
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Selected Poems 112200 256 Emily Dickinson 0517206064 Keith 4 4.22 1890 Selected Poems
author: Emily Dickinson
name: Keith
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1890
rating: 4
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2021/11/16
shelves:
review:

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