en-US Sun, 27 Apr 2025 21:18:31 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 35501026 Anne et Claire Berest sont les arrière-petites-filles de łŇ˛ą˛ú°ůľ±Ă«±ô±đ Buffet-Picabia.]]> 450 Anne Berest 2234080320 Katharine 0 Impressionism to cubism to dada. It was fun to look up each artist and connect with what they were creating at the time.]]> 4.01 2017
author: Anne Berest
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves:
review:
I absolutely loved The Postcard, by the same author. Similar to The Postcard, this book explored the fascinating history of family members of Anne and Claire Berest, in this case Gabriele and Francis Picabia. As with The Postcard, the writing was wonderful. However, I didn’t connect as closely with the topic, but can guarantee it would be deeply appreciated by an art enthusiast. Just as Francis Picabia was a notable artist, so too were so many of the Picabia’s friends. The endless stories and relationships made for fascinating connections in the art world of the early 1900s from
Impressionism to cubism to dada. It was fun to look up each artist and connect with what they were creating at the time.
]]> 202468422 From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time.

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains.

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.

A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.�]]> 464 Elif Shafak 0593801717 Katharine 3 to-read 4.39 2024
author: Elif Shafak
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/19
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216437557 disastrously close. A gorgeous veterinarian giving Greek god vibes—all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediately yes. That is until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolute wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha loves more than proving an asshole wrong�

. . . unless, of course, he can admit he made a mistake. But after one incredible and seemingly endless date—possibly the best in living history—Samantha is forced to admit the truth, that her family is in crisis and any kind of relationship would be impossible. Samantha begs Xavier to forget her. To remember their night together as a perfect moment, as crushing as that may be.

Only no amount of distance or time is nearly enough to forget that something between them. And the only thing better than one single perfect memory is to make a life—and even a love—worth remembering.]]> 416 Abby Jimenez 0349442827 Katharine 0 4.13 2025
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/26
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves:
review:
In between serious novels and non fiction I love a sweet romance. This completely fit the bill. More "real life" than "romance" but still very sweet and Abby Jimenez is undeniably VERY clever in her witty character dialogue. It really works!
]]> 206673322 She thrives in chaos. He prefers routine. The only thing they have in common? How much they hate each other. From the author of Done and Dusted and Swift and Saddled, the highly anticipated next book in the Rebel Blue Ranch series, a small town romance featuring enemies to lovers and forced proximity.

Teddy Andersen doesn't have a plan. She's never needed one before. She's always been more of a go with the flow type of girl, but for some reason, the flow doesn't seem to be going her way this time. Her favorite vintage suede jacket has a hole in it, her sewing machine is broken, and her best friend just got engaged. Suddenly, everything feels like it's starting to change. Teddy's used to being a leader, but now she feels like she's getting left behind, wondering if the life she lives in the small town she loves is enough for her anymore.

Gus Ryder has a lot on his plate. He doesn't know what's taking care of his family's 8,000 acre ranch, or parenting his spunky six-year-old daughter, who is staying with him for the summer. Gus has always been the dependable one, but when his workload starts to overwhelm him, he slips up, and he has to admit that he can't manage everything on his own. He needs help. His little sister's best friend, the woman he can't stand, is not who he had in mind. But when no one else can step in, Teddy's the only option he's got. Teddy decides to use the summer to try and figure out what she wants out of life. Gus, on the other hand, starts to worry that he'll never find what he needs. Tempers flare, tension builds, and for the first time ever, Gus and Teddy start to see each other in a different light. As new feelings start to simmer below the surface, they must decide whether or not to act on them. Can they keep things cool? Or will both of them get burned?]]> 368 Lyla Sage 1529436729 Katharine 0 4.19 2024
author: Lyla Sage
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves:
review:
I stumbled upon Lost and Lassoed in both a recommended reads article and a podcast. When in Rome... or, in this case, because I live in Texas, why not a cute romance with a rancher as a main character (though this is set in Wyoming). Enemies to lovers story line with a lot more spice than I have read in a book in a very long time. Still, liked the characters and very cute!
]]> 3040 372 Thomas Sowell 1594030863 Katharine 0 to-read 4.34 2005
author: Thomas Sowell
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 212924015
After nearly losing the election to a geriatric but wildly popular donkey named Maurizio, newly installed Mayor Delizia Miccuci can’t help but feel like the sun has finally set on the rural Italian village of Lazzarini Boscarino. Tourists only stop by to ask for directions, Nonna Amara’s cherished ristorante is long shuttered, and the town hall is disgustingly overrun with glis glis poo—even Postman Duccio has been disgraced. All that’s left is Bar Celebrità, a rustic establishment where weary locals gather to quibble over decades-long disputes, submit their poor stomachs to bartender Giuseppina’s volcanic espresso, and wonder what will become of the place where together they’ve spent their entire lives.

Little do the villagers know that, mere miles away in the forest, local truffle hunter Giovanni Scarpazza has just happened upon something that could change everything. Swollen to massive proportions, soaking the atmosphere in its pungent fumes, potentially worth six figures in certain international circles, a truffle—un tartufo, that is—sits beneath the soil with the power to either be the greatest gift or the foulest curse the village has ever seen—they’re not completely sure which since Giuseppina’s psychic was a bit unclear on the matter.

Tartufo is much more than a charming romp through the foothills of Tuscany. Written in the same enchanting style and raucous humor that defines Hollow Kingdom and Feral Creatures, Buxton’s newest story is a reflection on the interconnectedness of life in all its manifestations—and how holding on to harmony in the face of hardship can grow something beautiful and rare beneath the surface.]]> 352 Kira Jane Buxton 1538770814 Katharine 0 to-read 3.77 2025
author: Kira Jane Buxton
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 51002129 Ěý
Tensions during the Yalta Conference in February 1945 threatened to tear apart the wartime alliance among Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin just as victory was close at hand. Catherine Grace Katz uncovers the dramatic story of the three young women who were chosen by their fathers to travel with them to Yalta, each bound by fierce family loyalty, political savvy, and intertwined romances that powerfully colored these crucial days.

Kathleen Harriman was a champion skier, war correspondent, and daughter of U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman. Sarah Churchill, an actress-turned-RAF officer, was devoted to her brilliant father, who depended on her astute political mind. Roosevelt’s only daughter, Anna, chosen instead of her mother Eleanor to accompany the president to Yalta, arrived there as keeper of her father’s most damaging secrets. Situated in the political maelstrom that marked the transition to a post- war world, The Daughters of Yalta is a remarkable story of fathers and daughters whose relationships were tested and strengthened by the history they witnessed and the future they crafted together.]]> 417 Catherine Grace Katz 0358117828 Katharine 0 to-read 4.10 2020
author: Catherine Grace Katz
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223889073 An extraordinary work from the author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights

In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had had “a rough few years.� She described the sessions in a journal she created for her husband, John Gregory Dunne.

For several months, Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter, Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work, which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods. There were discussions about her own childhood—misunderstandings and lack of communication with her mother and father, her early tendency to anticipate catastrophe—and the question of legacy, or, as she put it, “what it’s been worth.� The analysis would continue for more than a decade.

Didion’s journal was crafted with the singular intelligence, precision, and elegance that characterize all of her writing. It is an unprecedently intimate account that reveals sides of her that were unknown, but the voice is unmistakably hers—questioning, courageous, and clear in the face of a wrenchingly painful journey.]]> 224 Joan Didion 0593803671 Katharine 0 to-read 4.27
author: Joan Didion
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214537772 In this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she’s willing to risk for the life of a stranger, from the New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical fiction as Hour of the Witch and The Sandcastle Girls.

ĚýĚýĚýĚýVirginia, 1864—Libby Steadman’s husband has been away for so long that she can barely conjure his voice in her dreams. While she longs for him in the night, fearing him dead in a Union prison camp, her days are spent running a gristmill with her teenage niece, a hired hand, and his wife, all the grain they can produce requisitioned by the Confederate Army. It’s an uneasy life in the Shenandoah Valley, the territory frequently changing hands, control swinging back and forth like a pendulum between North and South, and Libby awakens every morning expecting to see her land a battlefield.Ěý
ĚýĚýĚýĚýAnd then she finds a gravely injured Union officer left for dead in a neighbor’s house, the bones of his hand and leg shattered. Captain Jonathan Weybridge of the Vermont Brigade is her enemy â€� but he’s also a human being, and Libby must make a terrible decision: Does she leave him to die alone? Or does she risk treason and try to nurse him back to health? And if she succeeds, does she try to secretly bring him across Union lines, where she might negotiate a trade for news of her own husband?Ěý
ĚýĚýĚýĚýA vivid and sweeping story of two people navigating the boundaries of love and humanity in a landscape of brutal violence, The Jackal’s Mistress is a heart-stopping new novel, based on a largely unknown piece of American history, from one of our greatest storytellers.]]> 336 Chris Bohjalian 0385547641 Katharine 3 4.11 2025
author: Chris Bohjalian
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/21
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves:
review:
The Jackal’s Mistress is the story of characters from Northern Virginia (who had freed their slaves years earlier) and Vermont (who seemingly wanted to be anywhere other than initiating conbat) caught in the grey of allegiances, politics and humanity during The Civil War. I devoured this book in 1.5 days because the story keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. For me, the novel was not as deep than I’d hoped. Because of the lack of depth, certain scenarios felt forced or too abrupt. I would have liked a longer book with more nuance, detail and description, especially since Bohjalian’s voice and creativity are obviously well developed and this historical fiction is based on an interesting friendship. That said, I do think if you’re looking for a quick read set during an interesting time period, this is a great choice.
]]> 218553007 From internationally bestselling author John Boyne, a contemplative story about one man trying to move forward from the trauma of his youth to become a better father to his son.

Being in limbo, 30,000 feet in the air, offers time to reflect and take stock. For Aaron Umber, it’s an opportunity to connect with his 15-year-old son as they travel halfway across the world to meet a woman who isn’t expecting them.

Unsettled by his past, and anxious for his future, Aaron is at a crossroads in life. The damage inflicted upon him during his youth has made him the man he is, but now threatens to widen the growing fissures between him and his only child. This trip could bind them closer together, or tear them further apart.

In this penetrating examination of action and consequence, fault and attribution, acceptance and resolution, John Boyne gives us a redemptive story of a father and a son on a moving journey to mend their troubled lives.]]> 176 John Boyne 0857529854 Katharine 5 In summary, this is a book containing interconnected stories related to trauma that humans inflict on one another. However, I would not call this "trauma lit". While the plot and interwoven themes are important to the forward-motion of this novel, what stands out to me primarily is the genius of Boyne's writing. My personal favorites were Water and Air. I know this novel will stay with me for years. One of the best I've read.
Note: not that it matters, but I am not a fan of the US cover art. The UK books more closely convey the richness of the stories to me!

Air picks up with a character from Fire who, we learn later, is also connected to characters from Water and then Earth.

As this is the final book in the series, I was pleased to feel a sense of relief. Contrary to the angst I felt at the end of Fire, here I felt sated. Satisfied. Despite going through the emotional ringer throughout the series, I felt closure. Air and Water - last and first - were my clear favorites from the quartet.

Air will be published in the UK on May 1 and as part of The Elements in the US in September.]]> 4.33 2025
author: John Boyne
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves:
review:
The Elements by John Boyne is a quartet of stories named for the four elements: Water, Earth, Fire, Air. In the UK, these novellas were published as individual books and that is how I stumbled upon them. I am fortunate enough to have been given the ARC by NetGalley for the US Version containing all four stories as "The Elements", to be published in September 2025.
In summary, this is a book containing interconnected stories related to trauma that humans inflict on one another. However, I would not call this "trauma lit". While the plot and interwoven themes are important to the forward-motion of this novel, what stands out to me primarily is the genius of Boyne's writing. My personal favorites were Water and Air. I know this novel will stay with me for years. One of the best I've read.
Note: not that it matters, but I am not a fan of the US cover art. The UK books more closely convey the richness of the stories to me!

Air picks up with a character from Fire who, we learn later, is also connected to characters from Water and then Earth.

As this is the final book in the series, I was pleased to feel a sense of relief. Contrary to the angst I felt at the end of Fire, here I felt sated. Satisfied. Despite going through the emotional ringer throughout the series, I felt closure. Air and Water - last and first - were my clear favorites from the quartet.

Air will be published in the UK on May 1 and as part of The Elements in the US in September.
]]> 222631674 From bestselling author John Boyne, a gripping and profound exploration of guilt, blame, trauma, and the human capacity for redemption.

In The Elements, acclaimed Irish novelist John Boyne has created an epic saga that weaves together four interconnected narratives, each representing a different perspective on the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator, and the victim.

The narrative follows a mother on the run from her past, a young soccer star facing a trial, a successful surgeon grappling with childhood trauma, and a father on a transformative journey with his son. Each is somehow connected to the next, and as the story unfolds, their lives intersect in unimaginable ways.

Boyne’s most ambitious work yet, The Elements is both an engrossing drama and a moving investigation of why and how we allow crime to occur. With masterful, spellbinding prose, he navigates this complex subject with extraordinary empathy and unflinching honesty. The story resonates on a deeply emotional level, challenging readers to confront their own conceptions of guilt and innocence at every step. Amid the wildly engrossing storytelling, the book ultimately What would you do when faced with the unthinkable?]]> 496 John Boyne 1250410363 Katharine 5 In summary, this is a book containing interconnected stories related to trauma that humans inflict on one another. However, I would not call this "trauma lit". While the plot and interwoven themes are important to the forward-motion of this novel, what stands out to me primarily is the genius of Boyne's writing. No matter the topic or circumstance he writes in such a way that I can not look away; can not put the book down. From the setting descriptions to the story, told primarily through dialogue, the reader feels as if INSIDE the communities being examined. The four stories in this novel are told from different characters' perspectives, each of whom has played a role in a trauma from perpetrator to victim. The traumas vary, but are all inflicted by another person with lasting consequences. One of the stories in particular gets extremely dark and disturbing. And yet, with Boyne's masterful story telling, the reader, tempted to put down the book, carries on. These character driven stories made me reflect deeply on the human condition and how we treat one another, the role of community, and the beauty of connection. The brilliantly interconnected characters, the settings, the dialogue and the multiple storylines (even the disturbing bits) are impossibly perfect. My personal favorites were Water and Air. I know this novel will stay with me for years. One of the best I've read.
Note: not that it matters, but I am not a fan of the US cover art. The UK books more closely convey the richness of the stories to me!]]> 4.64 2025
author: John Boyne
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves:
review:
The Elements by John Boyne is a quartet of stories named for the four elements: Water, Earth, Fire, Air. In the UK, these novellas were published as individual books and that is how I stumbled upon them. I am fortunate enough to have been given the ARC by NetGalley for the US Version containing all four stories as "The Elements", to be published in September 2025.
In summary, this is a book containing interconnected stories related to trauma that humans inflict on one another. However, I would not call this "trauma lit". While the plot and interwoven themes are important to the forward-motion of this novel, what stands out to me primarily is the genius of Boyne's writing. No matter the topic or circumstance he writes in such a way that I can not look away; can not put the book down. From the setting descriptions to the story, told primarily through dialogue, the reader feels as if INSIDE the communities being examined. The four stories in this novel are told from different characters' perspectives, each of whom has played a role in a trauma from perpetrator to victim. The traumas vary, but are all inflicted by another person with lasting consequences. One of the stories in particular gets extremely dark and disturbing. And yet, with Boyne's masterful story telling, the reader, tempted to put down the book, carries on. These character driven stories made me reflect deeply on the human condition and how we treat one another, the role of community, and the beauty of connection. The brilliantly interconnected characters, the settings, the dialogue and the multiple storylines (even the disturbing bits) are impossibly perfect. My personal favorites were Water and Air. I know this novel will stay with me for years. One of the best I've read.
Note: not that it matters, but I am not a fan of the US cover art. The UK books more closely convey the richness of the stories to me!
]]> 215807543 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERĚýâ€� From a renowned National Book Award–winning scholar, an extraordinary new account of the life of Jesus that explores the mystery of how a poor young man inspired a religion that reshaped the world.

“This a brilliant and necessary book. Sober, wise, respectful, and fearless."Ěý—Jon Meacham, author of The Soul of America

"Pagels� story is for believers and non-believers alike.� —Tara Westover, author of Educated

"The depth of spirituality she uncovers is profound.� —The New York Times Book Review

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.

The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?

The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.

In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract.]]> 290 Elaine Pagels 0385547498 Katharine 0 to-read 4.27
author: Elaine Pagels
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 19351 Epic of GilgameshĚýis, above all, about mankind’s eternal struggle with the fear of death.

The Babylonian version has been known for over a century, but linguists are still deciphering new fragments in Akkadian and Sumerian.]]> 72 Anonymous 0141026286 Katharine 0 to-read 3.69 -1200
author: Anonymous
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.69
book published: -1200
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> 3412
The central figures in this enthralling story are the indomitable Meggie, the only Cleary daughter, and the one man she truly loves, the stunningly handsome and ambitious priest Ralph de Bricassart. Ralph's course moves him a long way indeed, from a remote Outback parish to the halls of the Vatican; and Meggie's except for a brief and miserable marriage elsewhere, is fixed to the Drogheda that is part of her bones - but distance does not dim their feelings though it shapes their lives.

Wonderful characters people this book; strong and gentle, Paddy, hiding a private memory; dutiful Fiona, holding back love because it once betrayed her, violent, tormented Frank, and the other hardworking Cleary sons who give the boundless lands of Drogheda the energy and devotion most men save for women; Meggie; Ralph; and Meggie's children, Justine and Dane. And the land itself; stark, relentless in its demands, brilliant in its flowering, prey to gigantic cycles of drought and flood, rich when nature is bountiful, surreal like no other place on earth.

Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 0380018179 (ISBN13: 9780380018178)]]> 692 Colleen McCullough Katharine 4
Even my husband knew the premise of this book so I won’t rehash it. Instead I will say that this novel has certainly stood the test of time. It was an excellent multi generational family drama. My only critique is that I wish the audiobook had been narrated by an Australian (or with Australian accents). I do think it would have added to the sense of place evoked throughout.]]> 4.24 1977
author: Colleen McCullough
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves:
review:
The Thorn Birds - I yearned for a saga to read to pass the days of being tied to the house during home repairs. While I thought maybe I had read The Thorn Birds, I think perhaps only saw the movie.

Even my husband knew the premise of this book so I won’t rehash it. Instead I will say that this novel has certainly stood the test of time. It was an excellent multi generational family drama. My only critique is that I wish the audiobook had been narrated by an Australian (or with Australian accents). I do think it would have added to the sense of place evoked throughout.
]]> 62365896 A charming, deeply moving novel about second chances, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.

Our Reasons meet us in the morning and whisper to us at night. Mine is an innocent, unsuspecting, eternally sixty-one-year-old woman named Lorraine Daigle�

Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn’t yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed.

When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland—Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman—their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways.

How to Read a Book Ěýis an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.Ěý .Ěý]]> 288 Monica Wood 0063243679 Katharine 0 to-read 4.21 2024
author: Monica Wood
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58420822 So by the grace of a photograph that had inexplicably gone viral, Tony had found me. Or: he’d found Maggie.

I had no way of knowing whether he was nuts or not; whether he might go to the cops. Maybe that sounds paranoid, but I don’t think it’s so ridiculous. People have gone to prison for much lesser things than accusations of child-killing.

A quiet, small-town existence. An unexpected Facebook message, jolting her back to the past. A history she’s reluctant to revisit: dark memories and unspoken trauma, bruised thighs and warning knocks on bedroom walls, unfathomable loss.

She became a new person a long time ago. What happens when buried stories are dragged into the light?

This epic novel from the two-time Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year is a masterwork of tragedy and heartbreak—the story of a life in full. Sublimely wrought in devastating detail, Bodies of Light confirms Jennifer Down as one of the writers defining her generation.]]> 448 Jennifer Down 1925773590 Katharine 0 to-read 4.25 2021
author: Jennifer Down
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 197156017 If you knew then what you know now, would you make the same choices? Imagine having a second chance with the one you never forgot.

From the author of the global breakout bestseller The Last Love Note comes the story of a young woman struggling to piece her life back together in the wake of a tragic accident, and the man who gives up everything to help her.

When Evie Hudson wakes in an unfamiliar hospital room, she thinks she’s fresh out of a teenage party with her best friend, Bree. Except, Bree isn’t around anymore and high school was years ago. Evie had just survived the crash that killed her husband, Oliver—whom she can't remember either. After suffering a traumatic loss of memory, she’s left to connect the dots. But how?

Drew, a promising photographer whose chance encounter with Evie unravels the elusive details of her marriage and her husband’s death. As Drew watches Evie stitch the story of her life together, secrets emerge that might shatter both of their worlds.

This tangled second-chance romance leads Evie to question every decision she ever made. This time around, she’s seeing all the things she missed–and the life she gets to choose...again.]]> 416 Emma Grey 195850646X Katharine 0 to-read 4.00 2024
author: Emma Grey
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 593965 692 B.G. Burkett 096670360X Katharine 0 to-read 4.36 1998
author: B.G. Burkett
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 199797582
Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch.

Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam won’t see a penny until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents � his unpolished, not-so-ex-wife.

But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.]]> 352 Christina Lauren 1668017725 Katharine 4 4.07 2024
author: Christina Lauren
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/04
date added: 2025/04/04
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Cute. Summer beach read for cold days in Dallas.
]]> 223436601 An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them.

From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite.

Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.�

Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.]]> 400 Sarah Wynn-Williams 1250391237 Katharine 0 to-read 4.30 2025
author: Sarah Wynn-Williams
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 214151202 “The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.�

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.]]> 320 Clare Leslie Hall 166807818X Katharine 0 4.41 2025
author: Clare Leslie Hall
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves:
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This book hurt my heart a little - I’m going to need to think about my review for a bit.
]]> 139400713 Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others—in which a newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Katharine 4 4.22 2024
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
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]]> 60333032 "We are matter and long to be received by an Earth that conceived us, which accepts and reconstitutes us, its children, each of us, without exception, every one. The journey is long, and then we start homeward, fathomless as to what home might make of us."--from All of It Everywhere When Chris Dombrowski burst onto the literary scene with Body of Water, the book was acclaimed as "a classic" (Jim Harrison) and its author compared with John McPhee. Dombrowski begins the highly anticipated All of It Everywhere with a question as timely as it is profound: "What does a meaningful, mindful, sustainable inhabitance on this small planet look like in the anthropocene?" He answers this fundamental question of our time initially by listening lovingly to rivers and the land they pulse through in his adopted home of Montana. Transplants from the post-industrial Midwest, he and his partner, Mary, assemble a life based precariously on her income as a schoolteacher, his as a poet and fly-fishing guide. Before long, their first child arrives, followed soon after by two more, all "free beings in whom flourishes an essential kind of knowing [...], whose capacity for wonder may be the beacon by which we see ourselves through this dark epoch." And around the young family circles a community of friends -- river-rafting guides and conservationists, climbers and wildlife biologists -- who seek to cultivate a way of living in place that moves beyond the mythologized West of appropriation and extraction. Moving seamlessly from the quotidian -- diapers, the mortgage, a threadbare bank account -- to the metaphysical -- time, memory, how to live a life of integrity -- Dombrowski illuminates the experience of fatherhood with intimacy and grace. Spending time in wild places with their children, he learns that their youthful sense of wonder at the beauty and connectivity of the more-than-human world is not naivete to be shed, but rather wisdom most of us lose along the way -- wisdom that is essential for the possibility of transformation.]]> 326 Chris Dombrowski 1571319530 Katharine 0 to-read 4.27
author: Chris Dombrowski
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> 44107480
Aubrey Edwards is also headed toward the trenches. A gifted musician who's played Carnegie Hall, he's a member of the 15th New York Infantry, an all-African-American regiment being sent to Europe to help end the Great War. Love is the last thing on his mind. But that's before he meets Colette Fournier, a Belgian chanteuse who's already survived unspeakable tragedy at the hands of the Germans.

Thirty years after these four lovers' fates collide, the Greek goddess Aphrodite tells their stories to her husband, Hephaestus, and her lover, Ares, in a luxe Manhattan hotel room at the height of World War II. She seeks to answer the age-old question: Why are Love and War eternally drawn to one another? But her quest for a conclusion that will satisfy her jealous husband uncovers a multi-threaded tale of prejudice, trauma, and music and reveals that War is no match for the power of Love.

A sweeping, multi-layered romance with a divine twist, by the Printz Honor-winning author of The Passion of Dolssa, set in the perilous days of World Wars I and II.]]> 471 Julie Berry Katharine 4 4.23 2019
author: Julie Berry
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves:
review:
Meaningful YA novel involving the love stories of two blossoming couples during tumultuous WW1� narrated by Aphrodite who storytells with details from the Gods of love (herself), Art, War and Death in the context of these mortal couples. Unique structure keeps the pages turning. Quick read, despite heavy topics within.
]]> 49625550 A bold reimagining of Maslow's famous hierarchy of needs--and new insights for realizing your full potential and living your most creative, fulfilled, and connected life.

When psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman first discovered Maslow's unfinished theory of transcendence, sprinkled throughout a cache of unpublished journals, lectures, and essays, he felt a deep resonance with his own work and life. In this groundbreaking book, Kaufman picks up where Maslow left off, unraveling the mysteries of his unfinished theory, and integrating these ideas with the latest research on attachment, connection, creativity, love, purpose and other building blocks of a life well lived.

Kaufman's new hierarchy of needs provides a roadmap for finding purpose and fulfillment--not by striving for money, success, or happiness, but by becoming the best version of ourselves, or what Maslow called self-actualization. While self-actualization is often thought of as a purely individual pursuit, Maslow believed that the full realization of potential requires a merging between self and the world. We don't have to choose either self-development or self-sacrifice, but at the highest level of human potential we show a deep integration of both. Transcend reveals this level of human potential that connects us not only to our highest creative potential, but also to one another.

With never-before-published insights and new research findings, along with exercises and opportunities to gain insight into your own unique personality, this empowering book is a manual for self-analysis and nurturing a deeper connection not only with our highest potential but also with the rest of humanity.]]> 432 Scott Barry Kaufman 0143131206 Katharine 0 to-read 4.12 2020
author: Scott Barry Kaufman
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]> 303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 Katharine 5
Like the remote island itself, interspersed with the drama, are moments of exquisite beauty. McConaghy’s writing of nature and humans alike is achingly beautiful. The storyline had me on the edge of my seat and I begrudged the ending. McConaghy has a true gift for absorbing the reader into her natural world. No matter how many times I rewrite this review, it never adequately describes how much I loved this book. For the first time this year, the characters, circumstances, and setting caused my tears to flow - 5 stars!]]> 4.28 2025
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves:
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Wild Dark Shore is one of the most atmospheric novels I have ever read. Pounding waves, dark skies, driving rain, violent seas. Isolated land where human society is quieted enough to expand, at length, on their relationship with the natural world. As with McConaghy’s prior books, the natural world struggles against dramatic conditions driven by a changing Earth. Perhaps metaphorically, the few humans on Shearwater Island, which lies between Australia and Antarctica, also struggle. Repetitive back breaking work, crises, and a foreboding mystery drive the lives of the caretakers and researchers upon this harsh island, .

Like the remote island itself, interspersed with the drama, are moments of exquisite beauty. McConaghy’s writing of nature and humans alike is achingly beautiful. The storyline had me on the edge of my seat and I begrudged the ending. McConaghy has a true gift for absorbing the reader into her natural world. No matter how many times I rewrite this review, it never adequately describes how much I loved this book. For the first time this year, the characters, circumstances, and setting caused my tears to flow - 5 stars!
]]> 75665931 From one of contemporary literature’s most exciting new voices, a haunting story centered on the Hungarian polymath John von Neumann, tracing the impact of his singular legacy on the dreams and nightmares of the twentieth century and the nascent age of AI

Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World electrified a global readership. A Booker Prize and National Book Award finalist, and one of the New York Times� Ten Best Books of the Year, it explored the life and thought of a clutch of mathematicians and physicists who took science to strange and sometimes dangerous new realms. In The MANIAC, Labatut has created a tour de force on an even grander scale.

A prodigy whose gifts terrified the people around him, John von Neumann transformed every field he touched, inventing game theory and the first programable computer, and pioneering AI, digital life, and cellular automata. Through a chorus of family members, friends, colleagues, and rivals, Labatut shows us the evolution of a mind unmatched and of a body of work that has unmoored the world in its wake.

The MANIAC places von Neumann at the center of a literary triptych that begins with Paul Ehrenfest, an Austrian physicist and friend of Einstein, who fell into despair when he saw science and technology become tyrannical forces; it ends a hundred years later, in the showdown between the South Korean Go Master Lee Sedol and the AI program AlphaGo, an encounter embodying the central question of von Neumann's most ambitious unfinished project: the creation of a self-reproducing machine, an intelligence able to evolve beyond human understanding or control.

A work of beauty and fabulous momentum, The MANIAC confronts us with the deepest questions we face as a species.]]> 368 BenjamĂ­n Labatut 0593654471 Katharine 0 to-read 4.33 2023
author: BenjamĂ­n Labatut
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> 59678827 DEA Special Agent Garrett Kohl must rescue a CIA officer when she’s kidnapped in Texas by a nefarious band of criminals in this pulse-pounding thriller for fans of C. J. Box.

Special Agent Garrett Kohl has just taken down a dangerous and deadly cartel boss when he finds trouble brewing back on his family’s homestead. A powerful energy consortium, Talon Corporation, has started an aggressive mining operation that threatens to destroy Garrett’s land, his family’s way of life, and everything they hold dear. To achieve its goals, Talon is flouting the law, bribing public officials, and meeting anyone who challenges it with physical violence. When the Kohls themselves are attacked by Talon guards, Garrett goes on the offensive, embarking on an investigation that he hopes will rid the Texas High Plains of the intruders once and for all.

Garrett soon discovers that the company has origins in the dark hinterlands of countries across the globe. Using coercion and assassination levied by men from former Russian special operations forces, Talon is working on a highly secretive scheme to commandeer precious U.S. resources. The tit for tat exchange between Talon and the Kohls erupts into a full-scale war when Russian spy, Alexi Orlov, kidnaps Garrett’s friend and ally, CIA operative Kim Manning. While Talon may be accustomed to getting its way in many places around the world, they have yet to encounter this rare breed of warrior down in Texas—a man who will fight to the death to protect those that he loves.ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý]]> 320 Taylor Moore 0063066556 Katharine 0 4.08 2022
author: Taylor Moore
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
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]]> 86508963 332 Taylor Moore 0063292378 Katharine 4 4.15 2023
author: Taylor Moore
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
review:
Another fabulous special ops meets West Texas page turner by Taylor Moore. Both an excellent writer and engaging storyteller, Moore transports the reader into the story with his atmospheric prose and page-turning action. As I "read" this via audiobook, I must give compliments to the selection of Jeremy Arthur as narrator. Arthur's pronunciation and cadence is Texas-perfection... making the story, and our connection with protagonist Garrett Kohl and his family, that much more enjoyable. Special ops - international crimes and intrigue - family - loyal friendships. The Garrett Kohl series has it all. Buckle up for a great ride! This would make a great film or series.
]]> 33253215 real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from � and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.]]> 582 John Boyne Katharine 0 to-read 4.51 2017
author: John Boyne
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> 195100472
But scandals follow like hunting dogs. And she has some questions of her own to answer. If her ex-husband is really the monster everyone says he is, then how complicit was she in his crimes?

Escaping her old life might seem like a good idea but the choices she has made throughout her marriage have consequences. Here, on the island, Vanessa must reflect on what she did - and did not do. Only then can she discover whether she is worthy of finding peace at all.]]> 176 John Boyne 0857529811 Katharine 4 4.29 2023
author: John Boyne
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/04
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
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In Water, the first of a quartet of short novels named after the four elements, John Boyne dives deeply into characters living on a remote island off the coast of Ireland. Like the rough conditions living on this wind swept, weather dependent island, the characters in this tight knit community struggle personally. Boyne moves flawlessly between characters as he reveals their back story, many of which hold deep secrets, and the manner in which they connect with one another. Between the compelling characters beautifully described by Boyne and the strong atmospheric prose, I simply could not put down this book and I'm still thinking of the characters over 6 months later. And, as the final scenes leave one character's future in the balance, I know I will learn more about him in the next book in the series: Earth.
]]> 200484931 In the grand finale of "queen of the beach read" Elin Hilderbrand's beloved Nantucket novels, there's a new couple in town... and they instantly shake things up. Amid the extravagant parties on land and sea, there's trouble on the island, forcing Chief of Police Ed Kapanesh to postpone his retirement and changing the fabric of life on the picturesque island forever...

After thirty-five years serving as the Chief of Police on the island of Nantucket, Ed Kapenash's heart can no longer take the stress. But his plans to retire are thwarted when, with only three days left to serve, he receives a phone call. A 22-million-dollar summer home, recently purchased by the flashy new couple in town, the Richardsons, has burned to the ground. The Richardsons are far from hurt—in fact, they're out on the water, throwing a lavish party on their yacht—but when news of the fire reaches them, they discover that their personal assistant has vanished. The Chief is well-acquainted with the Richardsons, and his daughter is best friends with the now-missing girl, leaving him no choice but to postpone his retirement and take on the double case.

On a small island like Nantucket, the Richardsons shook things up from the second they stepped on to the scene, throwing luxurious parties and doing whatever they could to gain admittance to the coveted lunches at the Field & Oar Club (with increasing desperation). They instantly captured the attention of local real estate agent Fast Eddie, and the town gossip Blond Sharon, both dealing with their own personal dramas. Blond Sharon is going through a divorce, and in order to avoid becoming a cliché, she's enrolled in a creative writing class, putting her natural affinity for scandal towards a more noble purpose. To solve the case of the fire and track down his daughter's best friend, the Chief will have to string together the pieces of the lives of all of these characters and more, rallying his strength for his final act of service to the tight-knit community he knows and loves.

The last of Elin Hilderbrand's bestselling Nantucket novels, Swan Song is a propulsive medley of glittering gatherings, sun-soaked drama, wisdom and heart, featuring the return of some of her most beloved characters, including, most importantly, the beautiful and timeless island of Nantucket itself.]]> 384 Elin Hilderbrand 0316258873 Katharine 3 3.98 2024
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
review:
My first Elin Hilderbrand book! It was just as you would imagine, a fun, sometimes outlandish, always coastal, truly Nantucket romp. Great quick read that transports me to summer vibes on a dreary February week.
]]> 208460840
Did what happened to Freya as a child one fateful summer influence the adult she would become � or was she always destined to be that person? Was she born with cruelty in her heart or did something force it into being?

In Fire, John Boyne takes the reader on a chilling, uncomfortable but utterly compelling psychological journey to the epicentre of the human condition, asking the age-old question: nurture � or nature?]]> 176 John Boyne 0857529870 Katharine 4 4.21 2024
author: John Boyne
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
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In this continuation of John Boyne's Elements quartet we see characters introduced in previous novels. Like Water and Earth, there are dark elements to the highly flawed characters, all informed by their own trauma, but this one was the most disturbing story line to me. I felt the least connected to the characters and the trauma inflicted on others (as is a theme in all of the books in the series) seems deepest and most disturbing. Despite my distaste with the darkness of the storyline, it left me with a lot to think about. As with the prior books, Boyne's character writing is flawless and the interconnectedness achieved in such short books, is genius. I am anxious to read the final book in the series: Air, which I will be ordering from the UK as it comes out earlier than the US. While the books are stand-alone, I can't imagine reading just one. Start with Water, it is my favorite so far!
]]> 215362651 “The story of relationships built and broken, mistakes inherited and repeated, and the beauty of trying again�.already one of the year’s best.”�People

Cece is in love. She has arrived early at her future in-laws� lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a young doctor with a brilliant life ahead of him. Charlie has asked Garrett, his best friend from college, to officiate the ceremony, though Cece can’t imagine anyone more ill-suited for the task—an airport baggage handler haunted by a tragedy from his and Charlie’s shared past. But as Cece spends time with Garrett, his gruff mask slips, and she grows increasingly uncertain about her future. And why does Garrett, after meeting Cece, begin to feel, well, human again? As a contagious stomach flu threatens to scuttle the wedding, and Charlie and Garrett’s friendship is put to the ultimate test, Cece must decide between the life she’s dreamed of and a life she’s never imagined.

The events of that summer have long-lasting repercussions, not only on the three friends caught in its shadow but also on their children, who struggle to escape their parents� story. Spanning fifty years and set against the backdrop of a rapidly warming Montana, Dream State explores what it means to live with the mistakes of the past—both our own and the ones we’ve inherited.

Written with humor, precision, and enormous heart, both a love letter and an elegy to the American West, Dream State is a thrillingly ambitious ode to the power of friendship, the weird weather of marriage, and the beauty of impermanence.]]> 448 Eric Puchner 0385550669 Katharine 4 3.61 2025
author: Eric Puchner
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
review:
4.5 I waited a week before reviewing this book because I really was not sure how I felt at the end. I didn't connect with several of the characters and, at points, I wanted MORE of the story line. However, the more I think about this novel covering two generations over 50 years, the more I absolutely love it. As my brain has been percolating over this book, I have realized the layer upon layer built in its pages. And, the title relates to so many elements in the story. On the surface the novel made me think about parenting, marriage, friendships and the arc of the choices one makes in life with consequences immediate and long into the future . Beneath the surface, as I've continued to contemplate, it also leaves me with thoughts of impermanence and life's unfair randomness. Immediately upon finishing the novel, I wasn't sure how much I liked it because of the flaws of the characters, and yet, I could not stop reading it. In the end I've concluded this is an excellent literary fiction book. Not entertaining or a summer read, but a deep thinker! If you're in the mood for a book like that, dive in! If you're looking for lovable characters and a tidy ending, this book is not for you. If you do read it, please, let's discuss!
]]> 214268979 From the New York Times�bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones, an unforgettable story of hardship and hope, courage and resilience, that follows one young woman’s journey through war-torn Italy

1940, Emilia Romagna. Lili and Esti have been best friends since meeting at the University of Ferrara; when Esti’s son Theo is born, they become as close as sisters. There is a war being fought across borders, and in Italy, Mussolini’s Racial Laws have deemed Lili and Esti descendants of an �inferior� Jewish race, but life somehow goes on—until Germany invades northern Italy, and the friends find themselves in occupied territory

Esti, older and fiercely self-assured, convinces Lili to flee first to a villa in the countryside to help hide a group of young war orphans, then to a convent in Florence, where they pose as nuns and forge false identification papers for the Underground. When disaster strikes at the convent, a critically wounded Esti asks Lili to take a much bigger step: To go on the run with Theo. Protect him while Esti can’t.

Terrified to travel on her own, Lili sets out on an epic journey south toward Allied territory, through Nazi-occupied villages and bombed-out cities, doing everything she can to keep Theo safe.

A remarkable tale of friendship, motherhood, and survival,One Good Thing is a tender reminder that love for another person, even amidst darkness and uncertainty, can be reason to keep going.]]> 432 Georgia Hunter 1984880934 Katharine 0 to-read 4.28 2025
author: Georgia Hunter
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214269337 A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare.

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.

In February 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she brings it home, only to discover how impossible it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton’s house by day. Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, stoats, feral cats, raptors, and even people, she never tried to restrict it to the house. Each time the hare leaves, Chloe knows she may never see it again. Yet she also understands that to confine it would be its own kind of death.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together, while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness first-hand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them.]]> 285 Chloe Dalton 0593701844 Katharine 0 recommendations-for-the-girls 4.42 2025
author: Chloe Dalton
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: recommendations-for-the-girls
review:

]]> 213870084 From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in the heart of an Empire which doesn’t consider you fully human.

On Oct 25th, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.â€� This tweet was viewed over 10 million times.Ěý

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This chronicles the deep fracture which has occurred for Black, brown, indigenous Americans, as well as the upcoming generation, many of whom had clung to a thread of faith in western ideals, in the idea that their countries, or the countries of their adoption, actually attempted to live up to the values they espouse.Ěý

This book is a reckoning with what it means to live in the west, and what it means to live in a world run by a small group of countries—America, the UK, France and Germany.â€� It will be The Fire Next Time for a generation that understands we’re undergoing a shift in the so-called â€�rules-based order,â€� a generation that understands the west can no longer be trusted to police and guide the world, or its own cities and campuses. It draws on intimate details of Omar’s own story as an emigrant who grew up believing in the western project, who was catapulted into journalism by the rupture of 9/11.Ěý

This book is his heartsick breakup letter with the west. It is a breakup we are watching all over the U.S., on college campuses, on city streets, and the consequences of this rupture will be felt by all of us. His book is for all the people who want something better than what the west has served up. This is the book for our time.]]> 208 Omar El Akkad 0593804147 Katharine 0 to-read 4.68 2025
author: Omar El Akkad
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.68
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214151565 A read-in-one-night suspense thriller narrated by a compulsive liar whose little white lies allow her to enter into the life and comfort of a wealthy married couple who are harboring much darker secrets themselves. For the millions of us still chasing those gone girls, this is perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, Lucy Foley, and Laura Dave.

Sloane Caraway is a liar.

Harmless lies, mostly, to make her self-proclaimed sad, little life a bit more interesting.

So when Sloane sees a young girl in tears at a park one afternoon, she can't help herself—she tells the girl's (very attractive) dad she's a nurse and helps him pull a bee stinger from the girl's foot.

With this lie, and chance encounter, Sloane becomes the nanny for the wealthy, and privileged Jay and Violet Lockhart. The perfect New York couple, with a brownstone, a daughter in private school, and summers on Block Island.

But maybe Sloane isn't the only one lying, and all that's picture-perfect harbors a much more dangerous truth. To say anything more is to spoil the most exciting, twisty, and bitingly smart suspense novel to come out in years.

The thing about lies is that they add up, form their own truth and a twisted prison of a world. And in Count My Lies, Sophie Stava spins a breakneck, unputdownable thriller about the secrets we keep, and the terrifying dangers that lurk just under the images we spend so much time trying to maintain.

Careful what you lie for.]]> 336 Sophie Stava 1668079348 Katharine 0 to-read 3.73 2025
author: Sophie Stava
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 134115463 La situation exige discrétion, loyauté, sensibilité artistique et sens politique. L’Europe est une poudrière. Cosimo de Médicis doit faire face aux convoitises de sa cousine Catherine, reine de France, alliée à son vieil ennemi, le républicain Piero Strozzi. Les couvents de la ville pullulent de nostalgiques de Savonarole tandis qu'à Rome, le pape condamne les nudités de le chapelle Sixtine.
Perspective(s) est un polar historique Ă©pistolaire. Du broyeur de couleurs Ă  la reine de France en passant par les meilleurs peintres, sculpteurs et architectes, chacun des correspondants joue sa carte. Tout le monde est suspect.]]> 304 Laurent Binet 2246829356 Katharine 4
The story begins with the shocking murder of a famous artist engaged by the Duke of Florence to paint immense frescoes in a church. Through letters between characters, the mystery is slowly unraveled with a satisfying conclusion I had not guessed. The mystery’s setting in Renaissance Florence alone would have made this a compelling novel for me but Binet’s unique format and writing style is what made it all the more satisfying to me.

Perhaps personal taste, but I prefer thrillers and mysteries to be page turners, which the letter based format satisfied perfectly. Though letters have a certain economy of words that could lend themselves to a lack of connection to the historical time period, Binet’s writing in form and function successfully conveyed the social, art, and political strife of the day alongside the central mystery to be solved. Beyond the arc of the mystery, and most importantly to me, as the novel concluded I found myself more deeply interested in the characters and a deeper curiosity of the time period. The story line may soon be forgotten, but the enhanced knowledge of the day, especially the controversy around transitioning art styles, will not. As with all historical fiction, one is also left with the feeling that so many elements from our past, resonate today. If this review has not already conveyed this message, please know that if you are looking for eloquent literary fiction diving into renaissance art and society with deeply developed characters, this book will not be for you. It's a quick but satisfying read!
Thank you Net Galley for the Advanced Reader Copy.]]> 3.70 2023
author: Laurent Binet
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves:
review:
Perspective (s) by Laurent Binet is an epistolary thriller set in Renaissance Florence with well-known characters of the day. For me, this novel hit the trifecta - successfully marrying compelling characters with a fascinating time period using the perfect writing style to transport the reader to the time period while moving the storyline along expeditiously.

The story begins with the shocking murder of a famous artist engaged by the Duke of Florence to paint immense frescoes in a church. Through letters between characters, the mystery is slowly unraveled with a satisfying conclusion I had not guessed. The mystery’s setting in Renaissance Florence alone would have made this a compelling novel for me but Binet’s unique format and writing style is what made it all the more satisfying to me.

Perhaps personal taste, but I prefer thrillers and mysteries to be page turners, which the letter based format satisfied perfectly. Though letters have a certain economy of words that could lend themselves to a lack of connection to the historical time period, Binet’s writing in form and function successfully conveyed the social, art, and political strife of the day alongside the central mystery to be solved. Beyond the arc of the mystery, and most importantly to me, as the novel concluded I found myself more deeply interested in the characters and a deeper curiosity of the time period. The story line may soon be forgotten, but the enhanced knowledge of the day, especially the controversy around transitioning art styles, will not. As with all historical fiction, one is also left with the feeling that so many elements from our past, resonate today. If this review has not already conveyed this message, please know that if you are looking for eloquent literary fiction diving into renaissance art and society with deeply developed characters, this book will not be for you. It's a quick but satisfying read!
Thank you Net Galley for the Advanced Reader Copy.
]]> 55867753 In this action-packed debut thriller for fans of C. J. Box and Jack Carr, DEA agent Garrett Kohl fights to protect his home on the Texas High Plains when a vicious criminal enterprise comes after his family.

As a decorated undercover DEA special agent, Garrett Kohl has traveled the world—and fought in most of it—but it’s the High Plains of northwest Texas he calls home and dreams of returning to one day. Kohl is in the middle of an assignment in Afghanistan when his commander orders him back to Texas on a short mission expected to take a week at most. But he’s unsettled to discover that he’s moved from one kind of war to another.

The once-peaceful ranching community he loves is under attack by a band of criminals who have infiltrated law enforcement, corrupted local businesses, and is now terrorizing Kohl’s own family. Hoping to prevent bloodshed, Kohl tries to resolve matters peacefully. But when the group strikes first, he has no choice but to go on the attack.

Unfortunately for the criminal crew, besides being an elite undercover officer for the DEA, Garrett Kohl is a battle-hardened Green Beret who spent the better part of his career hunting terrorists. Although outnumbered and outgunned, Kohl knows the wild and forsakenĚýLlano Estacado Ěý region of Texas better than anyone. And like so many trespassers before them, these murderers will find out the hard way that the only thing tougher than this land is the people who call it home.]]> 352 Taylor Moore 0063066505 Katharine 4 4.01 2021
author: Taylor Moore
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 196585876 An Unfinished Love A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of America’s most beloved historians, artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history. She takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin embarked upon in the last years of his life.

Dick and Doris Goodwin were married for forty-two years and married to American history even longer. In his twenties, Dick was one of the brilliant young men of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier. In his thirties he both named and helped design Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and was a speechwriter and close advisor to Robert Kennedy. Doris Kearns was a twenty-four-year-old graduate student when selected as a White House Fellow. She worked directly for Lyndon Johnson and later assisted on his memoir.

Over the years, with humor, anger, frustration, and in the end, a growing understanding, Dick and Doris had argued over the achievements and failings of the leaders they served and observed, debating the progress and unfinished promises of the country they both loved.

The Goodwins� last great adventure involved finally opening the more than three hundred boxes of letters, diaries, documents, and memorabilia that Dick had saved for more than fifty years. They soon realized they had before them an unparalleled personal time capsule of the 1960s, illuminating public and private moments of a decade when individuals were powered by the conviction they could make a difference; a time, like today, marked by struggles for racial and economic justice, a time when lines were drawn and loyalties tested.

Their expedition gave Dick’s last years renewed purpose and determination. It gave Doris the opportunity to connect and reconnect with participants and witnesses of pivotal moments of the 1960s. And it gave them both an opportunity to make fresh assessments of the central figures of the time—John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, and especially Lyndon Johnson, who greatly impacted both their lives. The voyage of remembrance brought unexpected discoveries, forgiveness, and the renewal of old dreams, reviving the hope that the youth of today will carry forward this unfinished love story with America.]]> 480 Doris Kearns Goodwin 1982108665 Katharine 0 recommendations-for-the-girls 4.53 2024
author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: recommendations-for-the-girls
review:

]]> 200262412 The follow-up to the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling modern classic The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Familiaris is the stirring origin story of the Sawtelle family and the remarkable dogs that carry the Sawtelle name.

It is spring 1919, and John Sawtelle's imagination has gotten him into trouble ... again. Now John and his newlywed wife, Mary, along with their two best friends and their three dogs, are setting off for Wisconsin's north woods, where they hope to make a fresh start—and, with a little luck, discover what it takes to live a life of meaning, purpose, and adventure. But the place they are headed for is far stranger and more perilous than they realize, and it will take all their ingenuity, along with a few new friends—human, animal, and otherworldly—to realize their dreams.

By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, mysterious and enchanting, Familiaris takes readers on an unforgettable journey from the halls of a small-town automobile factory, through an epic midwestern firestorm and an ambitious WWII dog training program, and far back into mankind's ancient past, examining the dynamics of love and friendship, the vexing nature of families, the universal desire to create something lasting and beautiful, and of course, the species-long partnership between Homo sapiens and Canis familiaris.]]> 979 David Wroblewski Katharine 0 to-read, recs-for-mike 4.07 2024
author: David Wroblewski
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read, recs-for-mike
review:

]]> 60510873 Are you ready to stop living reactively, feeling emotionally exhausted, and being pulled in multiple directions?

We struggle to keep up with the demands of life--but God invites us into freedom.
We feel anxious and overwhelmed--but God promises peace.
We're stretched and empty--but God offers purpose.

The Intentional Year is an invitation to stop right now, right where you are, and choose to live on purpose. This isn't just about aspirations or self-improvement--a flourishing life is tangible and possible. With stories, practices, and a road map into intentionality, Holly and Glenn Packiam will guide you into simple ways to grow personally. Experience freedom to invest time and energy into the people you value most and into the purpose you were made for.

As you step into your intentional year, you'll . . .

reflect on the lessons and celebrations of the past season;
identify themes and a sense of calling for the season ahead; and
implement new rhythms of prayer, rest, renewal, relationships, and work.

Life doesn't have to be something that just happens to us. It's time to start practicing the life-giving rhythms of an intentional life--starting today.]]> 224 Glenn Packiam 1641583975 Katharine 0 to-read 4.03
author: Glenn Packiam
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214152457 A dazzling piece of narrative nonfiction about land lust and the American West, The Crazies tells the story of a wind farm that triggers a 21st century range war between a struggling fifth-generation rancher and the billionaires next door.

Big Timber, Montana (population 1,673) is one of the windiest towns in one of the windiest states in the country. Arctic chinooks and slashing westerlies howl down from the Crazy Mountains like a pack of coyotes, nudging semi-trucks sideways on Interstate 90. Most locals learn to live with the wind. Rick Jarrett sought his fortune in it. Like his pioneer ancestors who staked their claims in the Treasure State, he believed in his right to make a living off the land—and a newly precious resource, its million-dollar wind.

The trouble was, Jarrett’s neighbors were some of the wealthiest and most well-connected men in America, trophy ranchers who’d come West to enjoy magnificent mountain views, not stare at 500-foot wind turbines.

And so began an epic a wildly entertaining yarn that would pull in an ever-widening cast of characters, including a Texas oil and gas tycoon, a roguish wind prospector, a Crow activist fighting for his tribe’s rights to the mountains they hold sacred, and an Olympic athlete-turned-attorney whose path to redemption would lead to Jarrett’s wind farm. All the while, the most coveted rangeland in the West was being threatened by forces more powerful than anything one man could dwindling snowpack, record drought, raging wildfires. In time, the brawl over Crazy Mountain Wind would become a fight over the future of an iconic landscape—and the values that define us as Americans.

The Crazies is a Western for a warming planet, full of cowboys and billionaires and billionaire cowboys—a real-life Yellowstone. But it’s also so much more. It’s an exquisitely reported, ruggedly beautiful elegy for a vanishing way of life, and an electrifying inquiry into what it means to love the land.]]> 464 Amy Gamerman 1982158166 Katharine 0 to-read 4.09
author: Amy Gamerman
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62080187
But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate� with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end.

In search of a book to keep her entertained until the snow abates, Tricia happens upon a secret room. One that contains audio transcripts from every single patient Dr. Hale has ever interviewed. As Tricia listens to the cassette tapes, she learns about the terrifying chain of events leading up to Dr. Hale’s mysterious disappearance.

Tricia plays the tapes one by one, late into the night. With each one, another shocking piece of the puzzle falls into place, and Dr. Adrienne Hale’s web of lies slowly unravels.

And then Tricia reaches the final cassette.

The one that reveals the entire horrifying truth.]]> 286 Freida McFadden Katharine 3 4.09 2022
author: Freida McFadden
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
Several people recommended Freida McFadden’s books as thrilling, immersive page turners. Indeed, Never Lie, was one of the twistiest, turniest books I’ve read in some time. Of course, as with all books in this genre, the circumstances bringing newlyweds Ethan and Trisha to the mysterious home that served as the setting for this novel were a stretch! But reality is an unfair expectation from a book I wanted to read for escape! So if you’re looking for a thriller, albeit implausible, look no further.
]]> 196846120
Since 1984, Nicholas Kristof has worked almost continuously for The New York Times as a reporter, foreign correspondent, bureau chief, and now columnist, becoming one of the foremost reporters of his generation. Here, he recounts his event-filled path from a small-town farm in Oregon to every corner of the world.

Reporting from Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo, while traveling far afield to India, Africa, and Europe, Kristof witnessed and wrote about century-defining the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the Yemeni civil war, the Darfur genocide in Sudan, and the wave of addiction and despair that swept through his hometown and a broad swath of working-class America. Fully aware that coverage of atrocities generates considerably fewer page views than the coverage of politics, he nevertheless continued to weaponize his pen against regimes and groups violating basic human rights, raising the cost of oppression and torture. Some of the risks he took while doing so make for hair-raising reading.

Kristof writes about some of the great members of his profession and introduces us to extraordinary people he has met, such as the dissident whom he helped escape from China and a Catholic nun who browbeat a warlord into releasing schoolgirls he had kidnapped. These are the people, the heroes, who have allowed Kristof to remain optimistic. Side by side with the worst of humanity, you always see the best.

This is a candid memoir of vulnerability and courage, humility and purpose, mistakes and learning—a singular tale of the trials, tribulations, and hope to be found in a life dedicated to the pursuit of truth.]]> 480 Nicholas D. Kristof 0593536568 Katharine 4 4.47
author: Nicholas D. Kristof
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.47
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
I am intensely curious and would strike up a conversation with others about their lives every day if it wouldn't be viewed as so odd! So, a well written detailed memoir about a life well lived is like candy for me. That said, I'm not sure I've read a single biography or memoir about a writer / print journalist. I've gotten close to reading from the journalism profession with books by/about Anderson Cooper and Katharine Graham and certainly read many books BY journalists. The very high Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ rating on this book drove me to pick it up immediately. If you have a mild interest in journalism or current events of the 1990s-2010s I think you will find this book fascinating. And, if you are feeling like the world is a little less ethical, transparent and honest these days, I think you'll find Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life, an excellent reminder that good people still abound. (especially enjoyed on audio as it is read by the author) Now I'll be going to find Kristof's newest news project. I normally do not rate memoirs, but I wanted to call attention to it by sharing my rating with my network who might not read the review!
]]> 208503280 She's looking for the perfect man. He's looking for the perfect victim.

Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot.

Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet.

Then the brutal murder of a young woman―the latest in a string of deaths across the coast―confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them.

Sydney should feel safe. After all, she is dating the guy of her dreams. But she can’t shake her own suspicions that the perfect man may not be as perfect as he seems. Because someone is watching her every move, and if she doesn’t get to the truth, she’ll be the killer’s next victim...

A dark story about obsession and the things we’ll do for love, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden proves that crimes of passion are often the bloodiest…]]> 368 Freida McFadden 1728296226 Katharine 4 3.95 2024
author: Freida McFadden
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
Sometimes you need an immersive, murderous, mystery thriller. The Boyfriend is my second Freida McFadden book and it did not disappoint. The twisty tale that jumps between past and present follows New Yorker Sydney and her real life nightmare after her dear friend and neighbor Bonnie turns up murdered by a serial killer. A true departure from reality that will keep you guessing. If you don't want to miss out on who-dun-it, don't skip a single paragraph.
]]> 216601219 An overwhelmed new mother becomes obsessed with the unsolved disappearance of a young girl from her small Texas hometown—and unearths her own family’s dark secret.

It’s 2011 and Deecie Jeffries’s missing person’s case in Austin, Texas, is still cold. New mom Bee, struggling with postpartum depression, is living in Portland, Maine, having left Austin–and those memories–far behind. Until Leo, her childhood crush and her estranged twin Gus’s best friend, suddenly resurfaces, drawing Bee back into their shared past.

Bee’s predictable life is upended, pushing her to return to her childhood home and piece together a neighborhood’s shattered history. Bee becomes consumed with a need to uncover the truth about Deecie’s disappearance and what happened to the families who lived across the field from one another—Gus, Leo, and their mothers: Mary, a homemaker, whose only escape is the local community theater, and Diana, a serious academic dedicated to her studies.

Told in multiple perspectives with two different timelines, The Undercurrent is a gripping portrait of motherhood, obsession, broken family bonds, and buried secrets.]]> 288 Sarah Sawyer 1958506435 Katharine 3 3.47 2025
author: Sarah Sawyer
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. The Undercurrent was a slow burn short novel about Deecie Jeffries, a girl who vanished one night in a small community in Texas. Over two time horizons, the time of the disappearance and current day, friends recall and retell bits about the evening and devise hypothesis and assumptions about what happened on one fateful evening. Instead of clues about the disappearance the story evolves into a character study, one which reveals many aspects of the family life and resulting life experience of the main characters. Sawyer slowly peels back the onion with each new chapter and I sat on the edge of my seat until the truth had been revealed. Though it is short, it is not a quick read. The language is descriptive and beautiful but the plot does not move forward as fast as you might think for a thriller. Instead you learn alot about the characters, their motivations, and, ultimately, how they are all connected. Recommend if you can handle the fact that it's a thriller without the fast pace!
]]> 207252770
Once home to Vanessa: A famous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared twenty years ago.

Now home to Grace: A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation.

But when a shocking discovery is made in an art gallery far away in London, a visitor comes calling.

And the secrets of Eris threaten to emerge . . .

A masterful novel that is as page-turning as it is unsettling, The Blue Hour recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith, and cements Hawkins’s place among the very best of our most nuanced and stylish storytellers.]]> 320 Paula Hawkins 0063396521 Katharine 3 3.27 2024
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
I'm not sure why the reviews for The Blue Hour are so low. I found the setting, mystery and characters to be consistent for Paula Hawkins and a quick read mystery with the twists and turns you'd expect. 3.5 stars!
]]> 209456057 'Historical fiction at its finest' MAIL ON SUNDAY

From the award-winning author of MIDNIGHT AT MALABAR HOUSE and THE LOST MAN OF BOMBAY comes a brilliant new mystery featuring the inimitable Persis Wadia.

Bombay, 1950.

A political rally ends in tragedy when Persis kills a lone gunman as he attempts to assassinate India's divisive Home Minister, a man calling for war with neighbouring Pakistan.

With the Malabar House team tasked to hunt down his co-conspirators, Persis is given a second case when the burned body of an unidentified white man is found on a Bombay beach. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, lies in a hospital fighting for his life, as all around him the country tears itself apart as a prelude to war...]]> 368 Vaseem Khan 1399707655 Katharine 3 Vaseem Khan's historical mystery, City of Destruction, from the Malabar House series, highlights detective Persis Wadia in pursuit of answers on two crimes: the attempted assassination of the Minister of Defense and the murder of an unknown person whose charred body was left to be swept out to sea with the tide. While I really loved the setting in post-partition India, and the main character Persis Wadia, the first female detective in India, the story line did not have me flying through the pages in search of the clues that lead to solving the crime. The beginning of the book started off strong and the ending was nice and tidy, but the process was not as compelling for me and just did not draw me in. That said, this was my first Malabar House novel and it was so nice to read a book with a different setting and historical context. I will definitely be trying out another one in the series.]]> 4.18 2024
author: Vaseem Khan
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars
Vaseem Khan's historical mystery, City of Destruction, from the Malabar House series, highlights detective Persis Wadia in pursuit of answers on two crimes: the attempted assassination of the Minister of Defense and the murder of an unknown person whose charred body was left to be swept out to sea with the tide. While I really loved the setting in post-partition India, and the main character Persis Wadia, the first female detective in India, the story line did not have me flying through the pages in search of the clues that lead to solving the crime. The beginning of the book started off strong and the ending was nice and tidy, but the process was not as compelling for me and just did not draw me in. That said, this was my first Malabar House novel and it was so nice to read a book with a different setting and historical context. I will definitely be trying out another one in the series.
]]> 216497043
Behind the scenes, Laurie’s life is frequently chaotic, an often pleasurable buffet of bad decisions at which she frequently overstays her welcome. Acerbic and wryly self-deprecating, Laurie attempts to carve her own space as a woman in this world that is by turns toxic and intoxicating. Laurie seeks to try it all—from a seedy Atlantic City strip club to the Park Hyatt Tokyo, from a hippie vegetarian co-op to the legendary El Bulli—while balancing her consuming work with her sometimes ambivalent relationship to marriage and motherhood.

As the food world careens toward an overdue reckoning and Laurie’s mentors face their own high-profile descents, she is confronted with the questions of where she belongs and how to hold on to the parts of her life’s work that she truly values: care and feeding.]]> 352 Laurie Woolever 0063327600 Katharine 0 recommendations-for-the-girls 3.58
author: Laurie Woolever
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.58
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: recommendations-for-the-girls
review:

]]> 219520678 The announcement of a major literary debut: What begins as a celebration takes a sudden turn when a shocking betrayal shatters the trust between families.

It’s an autumn weekend at a comfortable New York country house where two deeply intertwined families have gathered to mark the host’s fifty-second birthday.

Together, the group forms an enviable portrait of middle age. The wives and husbands have been friends for over thirty years, their teenage daughters have grown up together, and the drinks, dinners, rituals, and games that form their days all reflect the rich bonds between them.

This weekend, however, something is different. An unforeseen curdling of envy and resentment will erupt into an unspeakable act, the ramifications of which are enormous. Accusations, denials, and shattered illusions follow, driving wedges between friends, spouses, children and parents, and exposing the treacherous fault lines on which these families have dwelt.

Written with hypnotic elegance and molten precision, and announcing the arrival of a major literary talent, Hal Ebbott’s Among Friends examines the aftermath of betrayal within the sanctuary of a defining relationship. It explores themes of class, marriage, friendship, and power, as well as the things we tell ourselves to preserve our finely made worlds.]]> 320 Hal Ebbott 0593854195 Katharine 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Hal Ebbott
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.00
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]]> 191746386
On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution . Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment?

Hampton Sides� bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science-–the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment.

Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter.

At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.]]> 408 Hampton Sides 0385544766 Katharine 4 4.47 2024
author: Hampton Sides
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/03/03
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In a eulogy Captain James Cook was remembered in this way: �(he) enlarged natural philosophy, extended nautical science, disclosed long concealed and admirable arrangements of the almighty in formation of the globe.� A swashbuckling nautical adventure full of riches and battles this is not. A serious, journal-paced book covering the incredible work, diverse in its breadth and depth, it is. from exploration and mapping of the world’s nooks and crannies, to study of the natural world, to liaising with indigenous cultures familiar and unfamiliar to Europeans, to nearly perfect navigation of adverse conditions at sea, to leading a huge organization of men between the Resolution and Discovery, the man seemingly did it all. Like a 1,200+ day voyage must have been, there are long and tedious details in some places which caused me to inadvertently zone out, but overall I loved this book! Hampton Sides is an excellent author and Cook and his compatriots on this final voyage made for fascinating subjects.
]]> 217137164 In this heartfelt, magical romcom, a down-and-out podcaster gets a second chance—at her career and love—when she’s cast in the audio drama adaptation of her favorite paranormal romance series . . . alongside the one who got away.

Juniper Green doesn’t believe in magic anymore. Not since her mom died, her dreams of a publishing career fizzled, and her podcast—the one bright spot in her life—was stolen out from under her. Now, at thirty-two, she’s living in her dad’s spare room and wondering if life peaked when she was a teenager with a stack of vampire books and an unhealthy obsession with enigmatic immortals.

Then comes the email: an invitation to audition for the lead role in the audio drama adaptation of The Meadow, the wildly popular vampire romance series that once defined her teenage years. It’s a dream opportunity—until she learns her co-star is James Neely, the brooding, talented actor who played Romeo to her Juliet in a one-night-only college show before breaking her heart and disappearing from the stage and her life . . . right along with the magic.

To save the project (and her career), Juniper and James must revive their on-stage chemistry, playing The Meadow’s star-crossed lovers for the microphones and social media alike. But as the lines between performance and reality blur, Juniper is left wondering: can you rewrite the ending of a story you thought was over? Because love, like magic, is a fragile thing to lose . . . and to find again.]]> Ashley Schumacher Katharine 0 to-read 3.93 2025
author: Ashley Schumacher
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 213243949 A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life,ĚýThree Days in JuneĚýis a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers

]]> 165 Anne Tyler 0593803485 Katharine 0 to-read 3.61 2025
author: Anne Tyler
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> 194803881
Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, author Amy Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world.

In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater—an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.]]> 291 Amy Tan 0593536134 Katharine 4 4.06 2024
author: Amy Tan
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
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Absolutely unique book of Amy Tan’s backyard birding journals. Sounds like a snooze but the short length of the entries accompanied by gorgeous sketches with cartoon like anthropomorphic dialogue and birding lessons charmed me throughout! If I could draw, this would be inspiration for my own backyard nature journal. It certainly did open my eyes to many things about backyard birds. Though I am already a fan of the nature that surrounds me, The Backyard Bird Chronicles will inspire me to take deeper and longer looks at the natural world just a few feet from our home.
]]> 213395473 An iconoclastic philosopher revives Socrates for our time, showing how we can answer—and, in the first place, ask—life’s most important questions.


We all know something about Socrates, though we often reduce him to a paragon of mere “critical thinking.� We think we understand his remark that “the unexamined life is not worth living.� But in Open Socrates, Agnes Callard—who has emerged as one of our most dazzling and provocative public intellectuals—shows that in fact we understand almost nothing about the Socratic project. Socrates� radical aim was to force us to confront the assumptions that prop up our lives and our worldviews, and to ask whether those assumptions are correct—or whether they hold us back. Teasing out the profound insights of the father of modern philosophy, Callard reveals that what we usually think of as “thinking� is in fact anything but. True thinking can only happen in a dialogue with another person; only through conversation can we inquire into the fundamental questions of our lives. And only by following Socrates� model, she demonstrates, can we truly understand politics, love, death, and everything else that matters.]]> 416 Agnes Callard 1631498460 Katharine 0 to-read 4.02 2025
author: Agnes Callard
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 209456106 The surprising history of old age in modern America, showing how we created unprecedented security for some and painful uncertainty for others On farms and in factories, Americans once had little choice but to work until death. As the nation prospered, a new idea was the right to a dignified and secure old age. That project has benefited millions, but it remains incomplete—and today it’s under siege.Ěý ĚýĚý In Golden Years, historian James Chappel shows how old age first emerged as a distinct stage of life and how it evolved over the last century, shaped by politiciansâ€� choices, activistsâ€� demands, medical advancements, and cultural models from utopian novels to The Golden Girls. Only after World War II did government subsidies and employer pensions allow people to retire en masse. Just one generation later, this model crumbled. Older people streamed back into the workforce, and free-market policymakers pushed the burdens of aging back onto older Americans and their families. We now confront an old age mired in ever longer lifespans and spiraling health-care costs, 401(k)s and economic precarity, unprecedented opportunity and often disastrous instability. ĚýĚý ĚýĚý As the population of older Americans grows, Golden Years urges us to look to the past to better understand old age today—and how it could be better tomorrow.]]> 368 James Chappel 1541619528 Katharine 0 to-read 3.67
author: James Chappel
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.67
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]]> 205902048
The question is no longer if electric vehicles will happen, or even when they'll happen, but how. Veteran automotive reporter Mike Colias takes you inside the transformation in this thoroughly reported profile of the hard pivot in the car business, a $2 trillion industry undergoing the biggest change in its 120-year history—a change that is already sending ripples across the entire global economy.

Colias documents the inevitable shift from pistons to electrons from every angle, taking you inside the boardrooms where executives battle over their EV strategies to take on Tesla and, more recently, emerging Chinese powerhouses such as BYD. He brings you to family-run car dealerships deciding if they'll sell EVs—or sell their businesses. He follows entrepreneurs along lonely stretches of road that will soon need charging stations. He talks to power-train engineers whose skills were once the beating heart of the automotive industry but who now find themselves being replaced by coders.

This is an epic exploration that stretches from Detroit to Japan to Germany to China, and from factories in Normal, Illinois, and Haywood County, Tennessee, to a burgeoning mining operation along the shores of California's briny, lithium-rich Salton Sea.

Inevitable is a deeply enjoyable and smart book that uses masterful storytelling to capture the expanse and dynamism of the transition to electric vehicles in profound detail, bringing to life its seismic effects on everything and everyone.]]> 320 Mike Colias 1647825385 Katharine 0 to-read 4.17
author: Mike Colias
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.17
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]]> 217171548 “Corinna Vallianatos can make an entire soul come shining out of the smallest phrase."―Kevin Brockmeier

The stories in Origin Stories take as their subject the sources of love, marriage, motherhood, friendship, artistic ambition, restiveness, and shame. Their narrators perceive more than is explicable, want more than they have, and contend with the bounty and frugality of their relationships. In “This Isn’t the Actual Sea,� a woman considers that her friend’s failure and sudden success have given her the material she needs to write something of her own, if she’s willing to risk the friendship to do so. “The Artist’s Wife� describes, in a painting stowed in a bowling alley broom closet, the chasm between seeing and being seen. “Dogwood� is a piece of lyric reportage on beauty, family, and survival whose sections range from the narrator’s childhood to her son’s new adulthood. And “Origin Story� acts as an accounting of the many different states where a woman and her husband have lived, and what it is they’ve been searching for.

In this keen, meditative collection set in Southern California and Virginia, Corinna Vallianatos dramatizes the bonds of mother and child, the self-destruction of young womanhood, the thrill and bewilderment of friendship, and the power of place.

Origin Stories is filled with humor, longing, beauty, and belief.]]> 192 Corinna Vallianatos 1644453215 Katharine 0 to-read 3.82
author: Corinna Vallianatos
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.82
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]]> 35522836
Darby Thorne is a college student stranded by a blizzard at a highway rest stop in the middle of nowhere. She’s on the way home to see her sick mother. She’ll have to spend the night in the rest stop with four complete strangers. Then she stumbles across a little girl locked inside one of their parked cars.

There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, no way out because of the snow, and she doesn’t know which one of the other travelers is the kidnapper.

Who is the little girl? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?]]> 287 Taylor Adams 1912106760 Katharine 0 to-read 3.98 2017
author: Taylor Adams
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> 63264519 From bestselling author Darcy Coates comes Dead of Winter, a remote cabin in the snowy wilderness thriller that will teach you to trust no one. There are eight strangers. One killer. Nowhere left to run.

When Christa joins a tour group heading deep into the snowy expanse of the Rocky Mountains, she's hopeful this will be her chance to put the ghosts of her past to rest. But when a bitterly cold snowstorm sweeps the region, the small group is forced to take shelter in an abandoned hunting cabin. Despite the uncomfortably claustrophobic quarters and rapidly dropping temperature, Christa believes they'll be safe as they wait out the storm.

She couldn't be more wrong.

Deep in the night, their tour guide goes missing...only to be discovered the following morning, his severed head impaled on a tree outside the cabin. Terrified, and completely isolated by the storm, Christa finds herself trapped with eight total strangers. One of them kills for sport...and they're far from finished. As the storm grows more dangerous and the number of survivors dwindles one by one, Christa must decide who she can trust before this frozen mountain becomes her tomb.]]> 352 Darcy Coates 1728270251 Katharine 0 to-read 3.79 2023
author: Darcy Coates
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> 60164470 A woman receives an unexpected visitor during a deadly snowstormĚýin this chilling thriller fromĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author Heather Gudenkauf

She thought she was alone�

True crime writer Wylie Lark doesn’t mind being snowed in at the isolated farmhouse where she’s retreated to write her new book. A cozy fire, complete silence. It would be perfect, if not for the fact that decades earlier, at this very house, two people were murdered in cold blood and a girl disappeared without a trace.

As the storm worsens, Wylie finds herself trapped inside the house, haunted by the secrets contained within its walls—haunted by secrets of her own. Then she discovers a small child in the snow just outside. After bringing the child inside for warmth and safety, she begins to search for answers. But soon it becomes clear that the farmhouse isn’t as isolated as she thought, and someone is willing to do anything to find them.]]> 316 Heather Gudenkauf 0778311937 Katharine 0 to-read 4.01 2022
author: Heather Gudenkauf
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> 195391623 From New York Times bestselling author Tracey Lange, a poignant story about the resilience of family, the importance of community, and the magic of middle school hockey

When Kyle McCray gets word his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, he returns to his hometown of Potsdam, New York, where he doesn’t expect a warm welcome. Kyle left suddenly two and a half years ago, abandoning people who depended on him: his father, his employees, his friends—not to mention Casey, his wife of sixteen years and a beloved teacher in town. He plans to lie low and help his dad recuperate until he can leave again, especially after Casey makes it clear she wants him gone.

The longer he’s home, the more Kyle understands the impact his departure has had on the people he left behind. When he’s presented with an opportunity for redemption as the coach of the floundering middle school hockey team, he begins to find compassion in unexpected places. Kyle even considers staying in Potsdam, but that’s only possible if he and Casey can come to some kind of peace with each other.

Full of love and hope, What Happened to the McCrays? takes an intimate look at both sides of a failed marriage and two people who must finally confront the awful pain of their past or risk being consumed by it.]]> 352 Tracey Lange 1250328438 Katharine 0 to-read 4.08 2025
author: Tracey Lange
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.08
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]]> 42299820 From the acclaimed, Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of All That Man Is, a stunning, virtuosic novel about twelve people, mostly strangers, and the surprising ripple effect each one has on the life of the next as they cross paths while in transit around the world.

A woman strikes up a conversation with the man sitting next to her on a plane after some turbulence. He returns home to tragic news that has also impacted another stranger, a shaken pilot on his way to another continent who seeks comfort from a journalist he meets that night. Her life shifts subtly as well, before she heads to the airport on an assignment that will shift more lives in turn.

In this wondrous, profoundly moving novel, Szalay's diverse protagonists circumnavigate the planet in twelve flights, from London to Madrid, from Dakar to Sao Paulo, to Toronto, to Delhi, to Doha, en route to see lovers or estranged siblings, aging parents, baby grandchildren, or nobody at all. Along the way, they experience the full range of human emotions from loneliness to love and, knowingly or otherwise, change each other in one brief, electrifying interaction after the next.

Written with magic and economy and beautifully exploring the delicate, crisscrossed nature of relationships today, Turbulence is a dazzling portrait of the interconnectedness of the modern world.]]> 160 David Szalay 1982122730 Katharine 3 3.59 2018
author: David Szalay
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
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The common theme of Turbulence could not be more in line with my personal philosophy and approach to the world. Ware all connected more closely than is immediately obvious in life's little moments. Tiny moments between strangers can ripple into big impact. In the novella, Turbulence brilliantly connects seemingly random characters who are all on a turbulent flight at the beginning of the book. The author smoothly brings us from character to character between different cultures and cities across the world. I was really enjoying this book and then, it abruptly ended. For all of the work that went into the majority of the book, I would have loved to see a circling back to explore the characters more. Alas, that was not in the cards. Overall great idea, well written, but far too short!
]]> 209439446
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.]]> 527 Rebecca Yarros 1649374186 Katharine 4 4.18 2025
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/02/14
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a fair follow up on the last two books... the last chapter was confusing and, dare I say, I am looking forward to learning more in the next book!
]]> 34409176
Mei, an outsider in the cliquish hierarchy of dorm life, finds herself thrust together with an eccentric, idealistic classmate. Two visiting professors try to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. A father succumbs to the illness, leaving his daughters to fend for themselves. And at the hospital, a new life grows within a college girl, unbeknownst to her—even as she sleeps. A psychiatrist, summoned from Los Angeles, attempts to make sense of the illness as it spreads through the town. Those infected are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, more than has ever been recorded. They are dreaming heightened dreams—but of what?]]> 303 Karen Thompson Walker 0812994167 Katharine 0 to-read 3.61 2019
author: Karen Thompson Walker
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/12
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]]> 216426697 An intimate and lyrical celebration of great love, great art, and the sacrifices we make for both

For fifty years Abe and Jane have been coming to Central Park, as starry-eyed young lovers, as frustrated and exhausted parents, as artists watching their careers take flight. They came alone when they needed to get away from each other, and together when they had something important to discuss. The Park has been their witness for half a century of love. Until now.

Jane is dying, and Abe is recounting their life together as a way of keeping them going: the parts they knew—their courtship and early marriage, their blossoming creative lives—and the parts they didn’t always want to know—the determined young student of Abe’s looking for a love story of her own, and their son, Max, who believes his mother chose art over parenthood and who has avoided love and intimacy at all costs. Told in various points of view, even in conversation with Central Park itself, these voices weave in and out to paint a portrait as complicated and essential as love itself.]]> 304 Jessica Soffer 0593851269 Katharine 0 to-read 3.21
author: Jessica Soffer
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.21
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]]> 196693307 Who is he, and why is he here?
He arrives early one spring and by chance - or is it? - he visits a coffee shop where 92 framed pencil portraits are on display. Inspired, Theo sets out on a mission of purchasing all the portraits one at a time and quietly bestowing them on their 'rightful owners.'
Stories are told; friendships are born; and lives are changed.
Theo of Golden is a beautifully crafted story about the power of creative generosity, the importance of wonder to a purposeful life, and the far-reaching possibilities of anonymous kindness.]]> 399 Allen Levi Katharine 0 to-read 4.65
author: Allen Levi
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.65
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]]> 22875069 The true story of an all-American girl and a boy from an impoverished city in Zimbabwe and the letter that changed both of their lives forever.

It started as an assignment. Everyone in Caitlin's class wrote to an unknown student somewhere in a distant place. All the other kids picked countries like France or Germany, but when Caitlin saw Zimbabwe written on the board, it sounded like the most exotic place she had ever heard of--so she chose it.
Martin was lucky to even receive a pen pal letter. There were only ten letters, and forty kids in his class. But he was the top student, so he got the first one.

That letter was the beginning of a correspondence that spanned six years and changed two lives.

In this compelling dual memoir, Caitlin and Martin recount how they became best friends --and better people--through letters. Their story will inspire readers to look beyond their own lives and wonder about the world at large and their place in it.]]> 392 Caitlin Alifirenka 0316241318 Katharine 0 to-read 4.36 2015
author: Caitlin Alifirenka
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/27
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]]> 50363137
Jonathan Alter tells the epic story of an enigmatic man of faith and his improbable journey from barefoot boy to global icon. Alter paints an intimate and surprising portrait of the only president since Thomas Jefferson who can fairly be called a Renaissance Man, a complex figure—ridiculed and later revered—with a piercing intelligence, prickly intensity, and biting wit beneath the patented smile. Here is a moral exemplar for our times, a flawed but underrated president of decency and vision who was committed to telling the truth to the American people.

Growing up in one of the meanest counties in the Jim Crow South, Carter is the only American president who essentially lived in three his early life on the farm in the 1920s without electricity or running water might as well have been in the nineteenth; his presidency put him at the center of major events in the twentieth; and his efforts on conflict resolution and global health set him on the cutting edge of the challenges of the twenty-first.

“One of the best in a celebrated genre of presidential biography,� ( The Washington Post ), His Very Best traces how Carter evolved from a timid, bookish child—raised mostly by a Black woman farmhand—into an ambitious naval nuclear engineer writing passionate, never-before-published love letters from sea to his wife and full partner, Rosalynn; a peanut farmer and civic leader whose guilt over staying silent during the civil rights movement and not confronting the white terrorism around him helped power his quest for racial justice at home and abroad; an obscure, born-again governor whose brilliant 1976 campaign demolished the racist wing of the Democratic Party and took him from zero percent to the presidency; a stubborn outsider who failed politically amid the bad economy of the 1970s and the seizure of American hostages in Iran but succeeded in engineering peace between Israel and Egypt, amassing a historic environmental record, moving the government from tokenism to diversity, setting a new global standard for human rights and normalizing relations with China among other unheralded and far-sighted achievements. After leaving office, Carter eradicated diseases, built houses for the poor, and taught Sunday school into his mid-nineties.

This “important, fair-minded, highly readable contribution� ( The New York Times Book Review ) will change our understanding of perhaps the most misunderstood president in American history.]]> 800 Jonathan Alter 1501125486 Katharine 0 currently-reading 4.34 2020
author: Jonathan Alter
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/22
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]]> 61918819
The title “Bullfrog� is given to the Navy SEAL who has served the longest on active duty. Admiral McRaven was honored to receive this honor in 2011 when he took charge of the United States Special Operations Command. When McRaven retired in 2014, he had 37 years as a Navy SEAL under his belt, leading men and women at every level of the special operations community. In the ensuing four years, he served as Chancellor to the entire University of Texas System, with its 230,000 students and 100,000 faculty and health care workers.

During those four decades, Admiral McRaven dealt with every conceivable leadership challenge, from commanding combat operations—including the capture of Saddam Hussein, the rescue of Captain Phillips, and the raid for Osama bin Laden.Ěý

THE WISDOM OF THE BULLFROG draws on these and countless other experiences from Admiral McRaven’s incredible life, including crisis situations, management debates, organizational transitions, and ethical dilemmas, to provide readers with the most important leadership lessons he has learned over the course of his forty years of service.ĚýEach chapter provides aĚý Make Your Bed -likeĚýparable, rich with insights like those featured in his bestselling memoir, Sea Stories , about the specific leadership traits required to be at the top of your game,ĚýĚýĚý THE WISDOM OF THE BULLFROG is Admiral McRaven’s clear-eyed treatise on the leadership qualities that separate the good from the truly great.]]> 224 William H. McRaven 1538707942 Katharine 4 4.37
author: William H. McRaven
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.37
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
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Excellent, brief, compelling leadership book. Nothing was rocket science but as McRaven himself suggests, leadership is simple but it is NOT easy. Listen to this book (4 hrs on audio, narrated by the author), you will not be disappointed. You will be rejuvenated and reminded how to be and how to spot great leaders.
]]> 209786389
A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty there is very little room to prove doubt. Framed shares ten true stories of men who were innocent but found guilty and forced to sacrifice friends, families, wives, and decades of their lives to prison while the guilty parties remained free. In each of the stories, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey recount the dramatic hard-fought battles for exoneration. They take a close look at what leads to wrongful convictions in the first place, and the racism, misconduct, flawed testimony, and the corrupt court system that can make them so hard to reverse.

Told with page-turning suspense as only John Grisham can deliver, Framed is the story of overcoming adversity when the battle already seems lost, and the deck is stacked against you.]]> 368 John Grisham 0385550448 Katharine 4 4.09 2024
author: John Grisham
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2025/01/20
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Quick review on the fly. We all know John Grisham from The Firm and other wonderful fictional legal page turners. Here, Grisham, along with co-author and leader of Centurion Ministries, Jim McCloskey shine a spotlight on true wrongful convictions. Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions was an excellent, albeit terrifying, collection of true stories of egregious wrongful convictions. Absolutely heart breaking. At times I didn't want to continue listening. As this book pointed out, wrongful convictions impact all ages, gender, race, socioeconomic levels. Even as technology advances, wrongful convictions with dire consequences continue. I highly recommend you learn more by reading this book. Just Mercy is another important book on the topic. With knowledge, hopefully the rate of wrongful convictions will decline.
]]> 210943364
The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk� city of “old traditions and new machinery,� but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.

He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning� of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.

And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.]]> 232 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0593230388 Katharine 4 4.51 2024
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves:
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]]> 154488337 A powerful, heartrending debut novel about ambition, survival, and our responsibilities to one another

Dixon was once an Olympic-level runner, but he missed the team by two-tenths of a second. Ever since that disappointment decades ago, he hasn’t allowed a goal to consume him. But when his charming older brother, Nate, suggests they attempt to be the first Black American men to summit Mount Everest, Dixon can’t refuse. The brothers are determined to prove something—to themselves and to each other. Dixon, Descending is a captivating, shattering portrait of the ways we’re reshaped by our decisions—and what it takes to angle ourselves, once again, toward hope.]]> 336 Karen Outen 0593473450 Katharine 4 3.92 2024
author: Karen Outen
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/01/20
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]]> 74045390 Rowan
I'm in the business of creating fairy tales.
Theme parks. Production companies. Five-star hotels.
Everything could be all mine if I renovated Dreamland.
My initial idea of hiring Zahra was good in theory, but then I kissed her.
Things spiraled out of control once I texted her using an alias.
By the time I realized where I went wrong, it was too late.
People like me don't get happy endings.
Not when we're destined to ruin them.

Zahra
After submitting a drunk proposal criticizing Dreamland's most expensive ride, I should have been fired.
Instead, Rowan Kane offered me a dream job.
The catch? I had to work for the most difficult boss I'd ever met.
Rowan was rude and completely off-limits, but my heart didn't care.
At least not until I discovered his secret.
It was time to teach the billionaire that money couldn't fix everything.
Especially not us.

The Fine Print is the first book in a series of interconnected standalones following three billionaire brothers.]]> 448 Lauren Asher 1737507714 Katharine 3 3.75 2021
author: Lauren Asher
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves:
review:
After several heavy and thought provoking books, I decided to pick up a quick-read romance to serve as a palate cleanser before I move on to my biography of Jimmy Carter and History of the Middle East. This sweet story follows an unlikely couple in a familiar story arc. No one could imagine stone cold Rowan falling for optimistic creative Zahra in the setting of - Disney like Dreamland. Sparks ensue, true feelings follow. Heart broken, then repaired. As all books in this genre elicit from me, I ended up cheering for the characters and being happy for the predictable resolution at the end. Vavavoom... I had no idea how spicy this book would be. If that is not for you, be forewarned! Not the least bit literary... but a fun and quick romance.
]]> 220687867 From the beloved New York Times bestselling author Adriana Trigiani, a “dazzlingâ€� storyteller (Washington Post), and a “comedy writer with a heart of goldâ€� (NYT), comes a novel about one woman’s quest to build her own life before it’s too late.Ěý

Jess Capodimonte Baratta is not living the life of her dreams. Not even close.
Ěý
In blue-collar Lake Como, New Jersey, family comes first. Recently divorced from Bobby Bilancia, “the perfect husband," Jess moves into her parentsâ€� basement to hide and heal. Jess is the overlooked daughter, who dutifully takes care of her parents, cooks Sunday dinner, and puts herself last. Despite her role as the family handmaiden, Jess is also a talented draftswoman in the marble business run by her confidant, her dapper uncle Louie, who believes she can do anything (once she invests in a better wardrobe). Ěý
Ěý
When the Capodimonte and Baratta families endure an unexpected loss, the shock unearths long-buried secrets that will force Jess to question her loyalty to those she trusted. Fueled by her lost dreams, Jess takes fate into her own hands and escapes to her ancestral home, Carrara, Italy.
Ěý
From the shadows of the majestic marble-capped mountains of Tuscany, to the glittering streets of Milan, and on the shores of enchanting Lake Como (the other one), Jess begins to carve a place in this new/old world. When she meets Angelo Strazza, a passionate artist who works in gold, she discovers her own skills are priceless. But as Jess uncovers the truth about her family history, it will change the course of her life and those she loves the most forever. ĚýIn love and work, in art and soul, Jess will need every tool she has mastered to reinvent her life.

Fed by the author’s cherished Italian roots comes a bighearted, hilarious novel of the the story of one woman’s determination to live a creative life that matters, with enough room left over for love. With a one-way ticket to Italy, Jess is determined to write a new story on her own terms--this time, in stone.]]> 416 Adriana Trigiani 0593183355 Katharine 0 to-read 4.26
author: Adriana Trigiani
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.26
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 220259184 Heartwood takes you on a journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.

At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.]]> 320 Amity Gaige 1668063603 Katharine 0 to-read 3.95 2025
author: Amity Gaige
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> 123136728 207 Samantha Harvey 0802161545 Katharine 3 3.56 2023
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves:
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]]> 203579067 Part memoir, part manifesto, the inspiring story of a Louisiana librarian advocating for inclusivity on the front lines of our vicious culture wars. One of the things small town librarian Amanda Jones values most about books is how they can affirm a young person's sense of self. So in 2022, when she caught wind of a local public hearing that would discuss “book content,� she knew what was at stake. Schools and libraries nationwide have been bombarded by demands for books with LGTBQ+ references, discussions of racism, and more to be purged from the shelves. Amanda would be damned if her community were to ban stories representing minority groups. She spoke out that night at the meeting. Days later, she woke up to a nightmare that is still ongoing. Amanda Jones has been called a groomer, a pedo, and a porn-pusher; she has faced death threats and attacks from strangers and friends alike. Her decision to support a collection of books with diverse perspectives made her a target for extremists using book banning campaigns-funded by dark money organizations and advanced by hard right politicians-in a crusade to make America more white, straight, and Christian. But Amanda Jones wouldn't give up without a she sued her harassers for defamation and urged others to join her in the resistance. Mapping the book banning crisis occurring all across the nation, That Librarian draws the battle lines in the war against equity and inclusion, calling book lovers everywhere to rise in defense of our readers.]]> 288 Amanda Jones 1639733531 Katharine 3 3.81 2024
author: Amanda Jones
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/13
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The Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America is a book by Amanda Jones, a Louisiana school librarian who was attacked vehemently for speaking her mind at a hearing for her public library. Irrespective of where you are on the spectrum of book challenges, if anyone were to actually read her comments, there would be no issue, no story. But, of course, we know in the world today there is too much time spent "on the bandwagon" and "skimming" or "assuming" and not enough time making measured statements, reading with attention to detail, standing behind our words and practicing civil discourse. People of every generation know that online attacks take place but it is something all together different to read the step by step actions by bullies and, in turn, their followers, then ignorant strangers who saw a false sound bite and piled on. This book is part memoir by this librarian about what she went through and part rant about the bullies. It is simply (another) good lesson about what is wrong in today's world of communication and interaction. Do better America. CIVILITY is the key to CIVILIZATION! It takes work, but we are all up to the task. 3.5 stars, not for the story, but because I didn't love the writing style. That said, I recommend!
]]> 3559 Friedman wrote a 17-page epilogue for the first paperback edition (Anchor Books, 1990) concerning the potential for peaceful resolution in Israel and Palestine.
In a book review for The Village Voice, Edward Said criticized what he saw as a naive, arrogant, and orientalist account of the Israel–Palestine conflict.]]> 541 Thomas L. Friedman 0385413726 Katharine 0 currently-reading 4.13 1989
author: Thomas L. Friedman
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 60321447
You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everythingâ€� from missiles to microwaves, smartphones to the stock market â€� runs on chips. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower. Now, America's edge isĚýslipping, undermined by competitors in Taiwan, Korea,ĚýEurope, and, above all, China. Today, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more money each year importing chips than it spends importing oil,Ěýis pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America's military superiority and economic prosperity.

Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the U.S. become dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems. America's victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. But here, too, China is catching up, with its chip-building ambitions and military modernization going hand in hand.ĚýAmerica has let key components of the chip-building process slip out of its grasp, contributing not only to a worldwide chip shortage but also a new Cold War with a superpower adversary that is desperate to bridge the gap.

Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War shows that, to make sense of the current state of politics, economics, and technology, we must first understand the vital role played by chips.]]> 464 Chris Miller 1982172002 Katharine 0 to-read 4.38 2022
author: Chris Miller
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> 177192239
Menopause and perimenopause are still a black box to most doctors, leaving patients exasperated as they grapple with symptoms ranging from hot flashes to insomnia to brain fog. As a leading neuroscientist and women’s brain health specialist, Dr. Mosconi unravels these mysteries by revealing how menopause doesn’t just impact the ovaries—it’s a hormonal show in which the brain takes center stage.
The decline of the hormone estrogen during menopause influences everything from body temperature to mood to memory, potentially paving the way for cognitive decline later in life. To conquer these challenges successfully, Dr. Mosconi brings us the latest approaches—explaining the role of cutting-edge hormone replacement therapies like “designer estrogens,� hormonal contraception, and key lifestyle changes encompassing diet, exercise, self-care, and self-talk.
Best of all, Dr. Mosconi dispels the myth that menopause signifies an end, demonstrating that it’s actually a transition. Contrary to popular belief, if we know how to take care of ourselves during menopause, we can emerge with a renewed, enhanced brain—ushering in a meaningful and vibrant new chapter of life.]]> 320 Lisa Mosconi 0593541243 Katharine 0 to-read 3.99 2024
author: Lisa Mosconi
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> 209456186 Vikram Seth and Thrity Umrigar meet Rebecca in this sweeping multi-generational debut novel by accomplished television executive Nayantara Roy, about a young Indian American book editor from Brooklyn who returns to Kolkata when she learns that she has inherited her family’s enormous ancestral home, and the secrets that lie within it.


It’s the summer of 2015, and Lila De is on the verge of a breakthrough in her career as an editor at a prestigious New York publishing house. But when she gets a call from her mother in India, informing her that she’s inherited her family’s sprawling estate, she must confront the legacy of an extended family she thought she left behind sixteen years ago. Returning to Kolkata reunites Lila with her mother after a decade of estrangement, and then there are her grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins, all of whom still live in the house, all of whom resent her sudden inheritance. To make matters more complicated, her first boyfriend seeks her out when she arrives, and her star author� and occasional lover� is suddenly determined to make things more serious.


As Lila tries to come to terms with both past and present, long-suppressed secrets from her family emerge, culminating in an act of shocking violence, and she must finally reckon with her inherited custom of keeping everything under the surface. For fans of Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes and All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews, The Magnificent Ruins is an utterly addictive read.]]> 448 Nayantara Roy 1643755846 Katharine 4 3.82 2024
author: Nayantara Roy
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
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Family and individual drama centered around young professional, Lila, whom unexpectedly inherits her family's ancestral home and the responsibilities for the property and people within. Set in Kolkata, India, the cultural references are rich and informative. I recently ready Wild Pavilions and loved the comparisons between the time periods covered in each novel. While the story starts off light and simple, as it progresses, serious topics emerge. Ends well and relatively tragedy-free, making it a great December read in my book.
]]> 192724951 A man lunges in front of a car. An elderly woman silently drowns herself. A corpse sits up in its coffin and speaks. On this reservation, not all is what it seems, in this new spine-chilling mythological horror from the author of Sisters of the Lost Nation.

All Noemi Broussard wanted was a fresh start. With a new boyfriend who actually treats her right and a plan to move from the reservation she grew up on—just like her beloved Uncle Louie before her—things are finally looking up for Noemi. Until the news of her boyfriend’s apparent suicide brings her world crumbling down.

But the facts about Roddy’s death just don’t add up, and Noemi isn’t the only one who suspects that something menacing might be lurking within their tribal lands.

After over a decade away, Uncle Louie has returned to the reservation, bringing with him a past full of secrets, horror, and what might be the key to determining Roddy’s true cause of death. Together, Noemi and Louie set out to find answers…but as they get closer to the truth, Noemi begins to wonder whether it might be best for some secrets to remain buried.]]> 370 Nick Medina 0593546881 Katharine 0 to-read 3.58 2024
author: Nick Medina
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 17465515 My Brilliant Friend introduced readers to the unforgettable Elena and Lila, whose lifelong friendship provides the backbone for the Neapolitan Novels. The Story of a New Name is the second book in this series. With these books, which the New Yorker's James Wood described as "large, captivating, amiably peopled ... a beautiful and delicate tale of confluence and reversal," Ferrante proves herself to be one of Italy's most accomplished storytellers. She writes vividly about a specific neighborhood of Naples from the late-1950s through to the current day and about two remarkable young women who are very much the products of that place and time. Yet in doing so she has created a world in which readers will recognize themselves and has drawn a marvelously nuanced portrait of friendship.

In The Story of a New Name, Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighborhood that she so often finds stifling. Love, jealousy, family, freedom, commitment, and above all friendship: these are signs under which both women live out this phase in their stories. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and is a source of strength in the face of life's challenges. In these Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante, the acclaimed author of The Days of Abandonment, gives readers a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging.]]> 471 Elena Ferrante Katharine 0 to-read 4.47 2012
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 27069447 142 Joaquin Zihuatanejo 0692424482 Katharine 0 to-read 4.29 2015
author: Joaquin Zihuatanejo
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 35036409 My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighbourhood, a city and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her two protagonists.]]> 331 Elena Ferrante Katharine 4 4.08 2011
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
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]]> 99300
Written from a feminist perspective, often focusing on the inferior status accorded to women by society, the tales include "turned," an ironic story with a startling twist, in which a husband seduces and impregnates a naĂŻve servant; "Cottagette," concerning the romance of a young artist and a man who's apparently too good to be true; "Mr. Peebles' Heart," a liberating tale of a fiftyish shopkeeper whose sister-in-law, a doctor, persuades him to take a solo trip to Europe, with revivifying results; "The Yellow Wallpaper"; and three other outstanding stories.

These charming tales are not only highly readable and full of humor and invention, but also offer ample food for thought about the social, economic, and personal relationship of men and women � and how they might be improved.

Collects:
—The Yellow Wallpaper
—Three Thanksgivings
—The Cottagette
—TłÜ°ů˛Ô±đ»ĺ
—Making a Change
—If I Were a Man
—Mr. Peebles' Heart]]> 129 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 0486298574 Katharine 0 to-read 4.05 1892
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1892
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> 205478762 The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.

They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.

Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.]]> 381 Richard Powers 1324086033 Katharine 4
To me, the story telling and the descriptions of the majestic seas therein were enough and would have left me satisfied.

Then, the ending happened. I was so hypnotized by the writing and the individual story lines I was stunned (!) as the ending revealed itself. I actually re-read the final chapters twice to be sure I fully absorbed it. I am glad I had not read any reviews before embarking on this novel because the conclusion gave me twice the pleasure. What a perfect read for Thanksgiving Week!]]> 4.16 2024
author: Richard Powers
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/27
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves:
review:
4.5 stars. I have been thinking about this novel for the two weeks since I completed it. Playground is told from multiple voices / characters, all of whom are tied to the sea in disparate ways across different time periods. This book ambled along in a pleasant way as we followed these characters and their compelling story lines. The chapters had just enough of a link to one another and a small cliff hanger to keep me reading late into the night. In addition to the story of each human character, the oceans and life within also felt like a character to me. The nature writing is simply beautiful.

To me, the story telling and the descriptions of the majestic seas therein were enough and would have left me satisfied.

Then, the ending happened. I was so hypnotized by the writing and the individual story lines I was stunned (!) as the ending revealed itself. I actually re-read the final chapters twice to be sure I fully absorbed it. I am glad I had not read any reviews before embarking on this novel because the conclusion gave me twice the pleasure. What a perfect read for Thanksgiving Week!
]]> 10222 958 M.M. Kaye 031215125X Katharine 4 4.20 1978
author: M.M. Kaye
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1978
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/21
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves:
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The Far Pavilions was an excellently written epic first published the late 1970s. It follows an Indian boy who is orphaned, subsequently educated in England, and ultimately returns to India as a British officer. Parental love, friendship, love, Colonialism / Crown rule in India, and culture were some of the sweeping themes throughout this novel. I could not read epics like this "on repeat", but I greatly enjoyed this one. It would make a lovely mini series if it hasn't already been produced.
]]> 62703226 At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope

Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life

It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer�I want to tell you everything.

“It wasn’t me,� Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead

As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.]]> 383 Riley Sager 0593183223 Katharine 3 4.12 2023
author: Riley Sager
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves:
review:
3.5. This was great to pass the time.
]]> 56922701
Sofia har ærlig talt heller ikke lyst til at byde Carmen velkommen. Hendes søster har altid været sarkastisk og umedgørlig. Men Sofia venter sig igen, boghandlen mangler hænder, og deres mors største ønske er, at de to søstre kommer bedre ud af det med hinanden. Måske skulle hun give Carmen en chance?

På Sofias foranledning hvirvles Carmen snart ind i den gamle boghandels daglige trummerum. Det viser sig dog, at det vil kræve et sandt julemirakel at få den på rette kurs igen. Kan Carmen mon overraske dem alle denne jul? Og kan hun klinke skårene med de vigtigste mennesker i hendes liv: sin familie?]]> 310 Jenny Colgan 0063141671 Katharine 3 3.61 2021
author: Jenny Colgan
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves:
review:
I loved the premise of this book but it just didn't feel authentic in the way that other cozy, family / light love interest books have. I had no emotional reaction to the story. Perhaps it hit me at the wrong time as I'm feeling very tactical this Christmas season and less warm and fuzzy. I'm going to try The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year next, perhaps that will satisfy!
]]> 201102273 An epic novel of star-crossed lovers set in a doomsday cult on the Texas prairie that asks: what would you sacrifice for the person you love?

Waco, Texas 1993. People from all walks of life have arrived to follow the Lamb’s gospel—signing over savings and pensions, selling their homes and shedding marriages. They’ve come here to worship at the feet of a former landscaper turned prophet who is preparing for the End Times with a staggering cache of weapons. Jaye’s mother is one of his newest and most devout followers, though Jaye herself has suspicions about the Lamb’s methods—and his motives.

Roy is the youngest son of the local sheriff; a 14 year old boy with a heart of gold and a nose for trouble who falls for Jaye without knowing of her mother’s attachment to the man who is currently making his father’s life hell. The two teenagers are drawn to each other immediately and completely, but their love may have dire consequences for their families. The Lamb has plans for them all—especially Jaye—and as his preaching and scheming move them closer and closer to unthinkable violence, Roy risks everything to save Jaye.

Based on the true events that unfolded thirty years ago during the siege of the Branch Davidian compound, Bret Anthony Johnston’s We Burn Daylight is an unforgettable love story, a heart-pounding literary page turner, and a profound exploration of faith, family, and what it means to truly be saved.]]> 352 Bret Anthony Johnston 0399590129 Katharine 0 to-read 3.80 2024
author: Bret Anthony Johnston
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199798198
The Grand Canyon is an American treasure, visited by more than 6 million people a year, many of whom are rendered speechless by its vast beauty, mystery, and complexity. Now, in A Walk in the Park , author Kevin Fedarko chronicles his year-long effort to find a 750-mile path along the length of the Grand Canyon, through a vertical wilderness suspended between the caprock along the rims of the abyss and the Colorado River, which flows along its bottom.

Consisting of countless cliffs and steep drops, plus immense stretches with almost no access to water, and the fact that not a single trail links its eastern doorway to its western terminus, this jewel of national parks is so challenging that when Fedarko departed fewer people had completed the journey in one single hike than had walked on the moon. The intensity of the effort required him to break his trip into several legs, each of which held staggering dangers and unexpected discoveries.

Accompanying Fedarko through this sublime yet perilous terrain is the award-winning photographer Peter McBride, who captures the stunning landscape in breathtaking photos. Together, they encounter long-lost Native American ruins, the remains of Old West prospectors� camps, present day tribal activists, and signs that commercial tourism is impinging on the park’s remote wildness.

An epic adventure, action-packed survival tale, and a deep spiritual journey, A Walk in the Park gives us an unprecedented glimpse of the crown jewel of America’s National an iconic landscape framed by ancient rock whose contours are recognized by all, but whose secrets and treasures are known to almost no one, and whose topography encompasses some of the harshest, least explored, most awe-inspiring terrain in the world.]]> 512 Kevin Fedarko 1501183052 Katharine 0 to-read 4.22 2024
author: Kevin Fedarko
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
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date added: 2024/12/01
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]]> 200776812 The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story.

There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine.

Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Center convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back.

Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?

Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, "The Konkatsu Killer," Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.]]> 464 Asako Yuzuki 0063236400 Katharine 0 to-read 3.50 2017
author: Asako Yuzuki
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/28
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]]> 201751300 An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations

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

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

The Bookshop is a love letter to bookstores, a charming chronicle for anyone who cherishes these sanctuaries of literature, and essential reading to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life—and why we still need them.]]> 416 Evan Friss 0593299922 Katharine 0 to-read 3.92 2024
author: Evan Friss
name: Katharine
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/22
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]]> 208840291 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

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

Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”]]> 112 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1668072246 Katharine 0 to-read 4.39 2024
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2024
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date added: 2024/11/22
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]]> 203956642 From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, a re-examination of one of the 20th century’s greatest unsung power players When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, obituaries that followed were predictably sexist. Written off as a party girl, courtesan and social climber, her real legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life spent in glittering, elite circles of power. That is, until with a wealth of new research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell is reclaiming her larger-than-life story of influence and power in full, spectacular depth for the first time. At age 20 Churchill’s beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weaponâ€� during World War II, wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and envoys to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) for the cause. She transformed Gianni Agnelli into a savvy businessman and heir to the Fiat empire, and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary quiet, subtle power to charm world leaders and broker an end to the conflict in Bosnia, in effect rehabilitating the reputation of the US on the world stage. There are few people in history with a greater scope of impact over as many decades and across continents, and there is no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whom she did not know, including Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Jackie Onassis, Truman Capote, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra among her friends and lovers.ĚýWritten with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman’s rightful place in history.]]> 528 Sonia Purnell 0593297806 Katharine 0 to-read 4.09
author: Sonia Purnell
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.09
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date added: 2024/11/22
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]]> 204753751 Reading the Room is Paul Yamazaki's love letter to the work of bookselling and an engaged life of the mind.



Over twenty-four hours, Paul Yamazaki leads us through the stacks of storied City Lights Booksellers in San Francisco; the care and prowess of his approach to book buying; his upbringing in a Japanese American family in Southern California and moving to San Francisco at the height of revolutionary foment; working with legendary figures in the book publishing industry like Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Sonny Mehta, and others; and his vision for the future of bookselling. Navigating building trust with readers and nurturing relationships across the literary industry, Yamazaki testifies to the value of generosity, sharing knowledge, and dialogue in a life devoted to books.]]> 100 Paul Yamazaki 1958846694 Katharine 0 to-read 4.17 2024
author: Paul Yamazaki
name: Katharine
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/22
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