Allison's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 17 Feb 2022 16:00:16 -0800 60 Allison's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[My Year of Rest and Relaxation]]> 44279110
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.]]> 289 Ottessa Moshfegh 0525522131 Allison 0 3.62 2018 My Year of Rest and Relaxation
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Allison
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/17
date added: 2022/02/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Find Me (Call Me By Your Name, #2)]]> 44581535 In this spellbinding exploration of the varieties of love, the author of the worldwide bestseller Call Me by Your Name revisits its complex and beguiling characters decades after their first meeting.

No novel in recent memory has spoken more movingly to contemporary readers about the nature of love than André Aciman’s haunting Call Me by Your Name. First published in 2007, it was hailed as “a love letter, an invocation . . . an exceptionally beautiful book� (Stacey D’Erasmo, The New York Times Book Review). Nearly three quarters of a million copies have been sold, and the book became a much-loved, Academy Award–winning film starring Timothée Chalamet as the young Elio and Armie Hammer as Oliver, the graduate student with whom he falls in love.

In Find Me, Aciman shows us Elio’s father, Samuel, on a trip from Florence to Rome to visit Elio, who has become a gifted classical pianist. A chance encounter on the train with a beautiful young woman upends Sami’s plans and changes his life forever.

Elio soon moves to Paris, where he, too, has a consequential affair, while Oliver, now a New England college professor with a family, suddenly finds himself contemplating a return trip across the Atlantic.

Aciman is a master of sensibility, of the intimate details and the emotional nuances that are the substance of passion. Find Me brings us back inside the magic circle of one of our greatest contemporary romances to ask if, in fact, true love ever dies.]]> 260 André Aciman 0374155011 Allison 0 3.26 2019 Find Me (Call Me By Your Name, #2)
author: André Aciman
name: Allison
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/11
date added: 2022/02/17
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]]> Narcissus and Goldmund 5954 Narcissus and Goldmund tells the story of two medieval men whose characters are diametrically opposite: Narcissus, an ascetic monk firm in his religious commitment, and Goldmund, a romantic youth hungry for knowledge and worldly experience. First published in 1930, Hesse's novel remains a moving and pointed exploration of the conflict between the life of the spirit and the life of the flesh. It is a theme that transcends all time.]]> 315 Hermann Hesse 0374506841 Allison 4 4.26 1930 Narcissus and Goldmund
author: Hermann Hesse
name: Allison
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1930
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/23
date added: 2022/01/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Call Me By Your Name (Call Me By Your Name, #1)]]> 36336078 Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.

The psychological maneuvers that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman's frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion. Call Me by Your Name is clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable.]]> 248 André Aciman 1786495252 Allison 5 4.08 2007 Call Me By Your Name (Call Me By Your Name, #1)
author: André Aciman
name: Allison
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/12
date added: 2022/01/23
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]]> In and Down 1285120 224 Brett Alexander Savory 1897142269 Allison 0 3.86 2007 In and Down
author: Brett Alexander Savory
name: Allison
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2021/11/10
date added: 2021/12/29
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]]> Girl Sex 101 58026411 Learn how to navigate the twists and turns of female sexuality, with special guidance from sixteen guest sex educators including Nina Hartley, Sex Nerd Sandra, Jiz Lee, Sunny Megatron, Dirty Lola, Julia Serano, Reid Mihalko and more!

GIRL SEX 101 WILL TEACH YOU�
* The bits and pieces that make up female sexual anatomy
* Simple ways to communicate in the heat of the moment
* How to build a “Road Map� of your partner’s pleasure
* Essential moves for cunnilingus, strap-ons, hand sex and more!
* Positions to avoid fatigue and generate the power you need to rock your girl’s world!

You’ll gain confidence to please your girl, no matter what your hands-on experience.

BUCKLE YOUR SEAT BELT AND GET READY TO RIDE!]]> 388 Allison Moon 0983830908 Allison 5 4.47 2015 Girl Sex 101
author: Allison Moon
name: Allison
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/09/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters]]> 342493 144 John Waters 0394755340 Allison 0 4.23 1986 Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters
author: John Waters
name: Allison
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at: 2021/03/21
date added: 2021/05/06
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]]> <![CDATA[To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface]]> 9711556 To the River is the story of the Ouse, the Sussex river in which Virginia Woolf drowned in 1941. One midsummer week over sixty years later, Olivia Laing walked Woolf's river from source to sea. The result is a passionate investigation into how history resides in a landscape - and how ghosts never quite leave the places they love. Along the way, Laing explores the roles rivers play in human lives, tracing their intricate flow through literature and mythology alike. To the River excavates all sorts of stories from the Ouse's marshy banks, from the brutal Barons' War of the thirteenth century to the 'Dinosaur Hunters', the nineteenth-century amateur naturalists who first cracked the fossil code. Central among these ghosts is, of course, Virginia Woolf herself: her life, her writing and her watery death. Woolf is the most constant companion on Laing's journey, and To the River can be read in part as a biography of this extraordinary English writer, refracted back through the river she loved. But other writers float through these pages too - among them Iris Murdoch, Shakespeare, Homer and Kenneth Grahame, author of the riverside classic The Wind in the Willows. The result is a wonderfully discursive read - which interweaves biography, history, nature writing and memoir, driven by Laing's deep understanding of science and cultural history. It's a beautiful, lyrical work that marks the arrival of a major new writer.]]> 279 Olivia Laing 1847677924 Allison 0 currently-reading 3.76 2011 To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface
author: Olivia Laing
name: Allison
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/07
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 11275
In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.]]> 607 Haruki Murakami 0965341984 Allison 0 4.16 1994 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Allison
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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]]> Masochism: A Jungian View 20570 137 Lyn Cowan 0882143670 Allison 0 4.27 1982 Masochism: A Jungian View
author: Lyn Cowan
name: Allison
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/07
date added: 2021/04/07
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]]> Heroes of the Fourth Turning 49088809 146 Will Arbery Allison 5 4.07 Heroes of the Fourth Turning
author: Will Arbery
name: Allison
average rating: 4.07
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2020/09/02
date added: 2021/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Getting It: A Guide to Hot, Healthy Hookups and Shame-Free Sex]]> 52987969 Girl Sex 101 author Allison Moon.

A comprehensive and fun-to-read guidebook for people of all sexual identities and experience levels, Getting It covers all the bases of hook-up culture from first moves and sex etiquette to navigating nonmonogamy and sexual health. In an era of endless crossed signals and heightened awareness of consent and respect, award-winning author and sex educator Allison Moon shows you how to achieve safe and enjoyable encounters by practicing clear communication and consideration of all parties involved--yourself included. Getting It helps you understand what casual sex means for you and offers an instructive and empowering deep dive into how to get it, do it well, and feel great about it every step of the way. And since we're all imperfect, Moon offers guidance for how to gracefully recover when you screw up--or get screwed over.

Refreshingly intersectional and respectful, Getting It is an honest guide to understanding the basics of hook-up culture and how to partake.]]> 288 Allison Moon 1984857150 Allison 0 4.29 Getting It: A Guide to Hot, Healthy Hookups and Shame-Free Sex
author: Allison Moon
name: Allison
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2020/08/02
date added: 2021/01/02
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]]> The World According to Garp 7069 610 John Irving 0345915593 Allison 4 4.11 1978 The World According to Garp
author: John Irving
name: Allison
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1978
rating: 4
read at: 2020/11/10
date added: 2021/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Beautiful Edible Garden: Design A Stylish Outdoor Space Using Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs]]> 13643016 220 Leslie Bennett 1607742330 Allison 0 3.64 2013 The Beautiful Edible Garden: Design A Stylish Outdoor Space Using Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs
author: Leslie Bennett
name: Allison
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2020/03/01
date added: 2021/01/02
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]]> Continent 92561 176 Jim Crace 0141005440 Allison 0 3.63 1986 Continent
author: Jim Crace
name: Allison
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at: 2020/11/30
date added: 2021/01/02
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]]> The Stranger 49552 The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."]]> 123 Albert Camus Allison 0 4.04 1942 The Stranger
author: Albert Camus
name: Allison
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1942
rating: 0
read at: 2020/12/10
date added: 2021/01/02
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]]> Slave Play 52707743 162 Jeremy O. Harris 1559369787 Allison 0 4.17 2020 Slave Play
author: Jeremy O. Harris
name: Allison
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/07/07
date added: 2021/01/02
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]]> The Crying of Lot 49 2794 The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executrix of a former lover's estate. The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her. But gradually, death, drugs, madness, and marriage combine to leave Oedipa in isolation on the threshold of revelation, awaiting the Crying of Lot 49.]]> 152 Thomas Pynchon 006091307X Allison 0 3.70 1966 The Crying of Lot 49
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: Allison
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1966
rating: 0
read at: 2019/05/14
date added: 2020/05/28
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]]> The Fever 243245 ]]> 68 Wallace Shawn 080214070X Allison 0 4.15 1990 The Fever
author: Wallace Shawn
name: Allison
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/14
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]]> Less (Arthur Less, #1) 39927096 You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years now engaged to someone else. You can’t say yes--it would all be too awkward--and you can’t say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of half-baked literary invitations you’ve received from around the world.

QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?

ANSWER: You accept them all.

If you are Arthur Less.

Thus begins an around-the-world-in-eighty-days fantasia that will take Arthur Less to Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India and Japan and put thousands of miles between him and the problems he refuses to face. What could possibly go wrong?

Well: Arthur will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Sahara sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and arrive in Japan too late for the cherry blossoms. In between: science fiction fans, crazed academics, emergency rooms, starlets, doctors, exes and, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to see. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. The second phase of life, as he thinks of it, falling behind him like the second phase of a rocket. There will be his first love. And there will be his last.

A love story, a satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, by an author The New York Times has hailed as “inspired, lyrical,� “elegiac,� “ingenious,� as well as “too sappy by half,� Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.]]> 273 Andrew Sean Greer Allison 0 3.61 2017 Less (Arthur Less, #1)
author: Andrew Sean Greer
name: Allison
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2020/02/14
date added: 2020/05/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Bright Before Us (A Tin House New Voice)]]> 9584332 280 Katie Arnold-Ratliff 1935639072 Allison 0 3.24 2011 Bright Before Us (A Tin House New Voice)
author: Katie Arnold-Ratliff
name: Allison
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2020/03/10
date added: 2020/05/14
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]]> Symptomatic 36768
A young woman moves to New York City for what promises to be a dream job. Displaced, she feels unsure of her fit in the world. Then comes a look of recognition, a gesture of friendship from an older woman named Greta who shares the same difficult-to-place color of skin. On common ground, a tenuous alliance grows between two women in racial limbo. So too, does the older woman's unnerving obsession, leading to a collision of two lives spiraling out of control. A beautifully written novel, at once suspenseful, erotic, and tantalizingly clever, Symptomatic is a groundbreaking contribution to the literature of racial identity.]]> 220 Danzy Senna 1594480672 Allison 0 3.39 2004 Symptomatic
author: Danzy Senna
name: Allison
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at: 2020/02/14
date added: 2020/05/14
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]]> The Snow Queen 18490596 The Snow Queen, beautiful and heartbreaking, comic and tragic, proves again that Cunningham is one of the great novelists of his generation.

Michael Cunningham's luminous novel begins with a vision. It's November 2004. Barrett Meeks, having lost love yet again, is walking through Central Park when he is inspired to look up at the sky; there he sees a pale, translucent light that seems to regard him in a distinctly godlike way. Barrett doesn't believe in visions -- or in God -- but he can't deny what he's seen.

At the same time, in the not-quite-gentrified Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, Tyler, Barrett's older brother, a struggling musician, is trying -- and failing -- to write a wedding song for Beth, his wife-to-be, who is seriously ill. Tyler is determined to write a song that will be not merely a sentimental ballad but an enduring expression of love.

Barrett, haunted by the light, turns unexpectedly to religion. Tyler grows increasingly convinced that only drugs can release his creative powers. Beth tries to face mortality with as much courage as she can summon.

Cunningham follows the Meeks brothers as each travels down a different path in his search for transcendence. In subtle, lucid prose, he demonstrates a profound empathy for his conflicted characters and a singular understanding of what lies at the core of the human soul.

The Snow Queen, beautiful and heartbreaking, comic and tragic, proves again that Cunningham is one of the great novelists of his generation.]]> 258 Michael Cunningham 0374266328 Allison 0 to-read 3.05 2014 The Snow Queen
author: Michael Cunningham
name: Allison
average rating: 3.05
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> A Field Guide to Getting Lost 76479 Wanderlust), or using the life of photographer Eadweard Muybridge as a lens to discuss the transformations of space and time in late nineteenth-century America (River of Shadows), Rebecca Solnit has emerged as an inventive and original writer whose mind is daring in the connections it makes. A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Solnit's own life to explore the issues of wandering, being lost, and the uses of the unknown. The result is a distinctive, stimulating, and poignant voyage of discovery.]]> 209 Rebecca Solnit 0143037242 Allison 0 3.97 2005 A Field Guide to Getting Lost
author: Rebecca Solnit
name: Allison
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Violence: Six Sideways Reflections]]> 2638701 Philosopher, cultural critic, and agent provocateur Slavoj Žižek constructs a fascinating new framework to look at the forces of violence in our world.

Using history, philosophy, books, movies, Lacanian psychiatry, and jokes, Slavoj Žižek examines the ways we perceive and misperceive violence. Drawing from his unique cultural vision, Žižek brings new light to the Paris riots of 2005; he questions the permissiveness of violence in philanthropy; in daring terms, he reflects on the powerful image and determination of contemporary terrorists.

Violence, Žižek states, takes three forms--subjective (crime, terror), objective (racism, hate-speech, discrimination), and systemic (the catastrophic effects of economic and political systems)--and often one form of violence blunts our ability to see the others, raising complicated questions.

Does the advent of capitalism and, indeed, civilization cause more violence than it prevents? Is there violence in the simple idea of "the neighbour"? And could the appropriate form of action against violence today simply be to contemplate, to think?

Beginning with these and other equally contemplative questions, Žižek discusses the inherent violence of globalization, capitalism, fundamentalism, and language, in a work that will confirm his standing as one of our most erudite and incendiary modern thinkers.]]> 272 Slavoj Žižek 0312427182 Allison 0 to-read 3.90 2007 Violence: Six Sideways Reflections
author: Slavoj Žižek
name: Allison
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/01/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell]]> 5128 The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell , both of which became essential for the counterculture during the 1960s and influenced a generation's perception of life.]]> 187 Aldous Huxley 0060595183 Allison 0 to-read 3.95 1956 The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Allison
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1956
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/01/11
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]]> The Way of Zen 514210 The Way of Zen begins as a succinct guide through the histories of Buddhism and Taoism leading up to the development of Zen Buddhism, which drew deeply from both traditions.It then goes on to paint a broad but insightful picture of Zen as it was and is practiced, both as a religion and as an element of diverse East Asian arts and disciplines.Watts's narrative clears away the mystery while enhancing the mystique of Zen.

Since the first publication of this book in 1957, Zen Buddhism has become firmly established in the West.As Zen has taken root in Western soil, it has incorporated much of the attitude and approach set forth by Watts in The Way of Zen, which remains one of the most important introductory books in Western Zen.]]> 236 Alan W. Watts 0375705104 Allison 0 to-read 4.17 1957 The Way of Zen
author: Alan W. Watts
name: Allison
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1957
rating: 0
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]]> Pym 8501708 The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Determined to seek out Tsalal, the remote island of pure and utter blackness that Poe describes, Jaynes convenes an all-black crew of six to follow Pym’s trail to the South Pole, armed with little but the firsthand account from which Poe derived his seafaring tale, a bag of bones, and a stash of Little Debbie snack cakes. Thus begins an epic journey by an unlikely band of adventurers under the permafrost of Antarctica, beneath the surface of American history, and behind one of literature’s great mysteries.]]> 322 Mat Johnson 0812981588 Allison 0 3.58 2011 Pym
author: Mat Johnson
name: Allison
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2020/01/11
date added: 2020/01/11
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]]> The Stone Gods 883195 207 Jeanette Winterson 0241143950 Allison 0 3.70 2007 The Stone Gods
author: Jeanette Winterson
name: Allison
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2019/01/23
date added: 2019/01/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)]]> 20603758 A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?
It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.]]> 386 Ernest Cline Allison 4 4.38 2011 Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)
author: Ernest Cline
name: Allison
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2018/02/23
date added: 2019/01/17
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]]> Your Art Will Save Your Life 36688118 136 Beth Pickens 1936932296 Allison 0 3.71 2018 Your Art Will Save Your Life
author: Beth Pickens
name: Allison
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2018/05/10
date added: 2018/05/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom]]> 11868932 I subscribe to the notion that if you can laugh at the shittiest moments in your life,you can transcend them. And if other people can laugh at your awful shit as well, then I guess you can officially call yourself a comedian.

In Boston, a college student fears leaving her own room—even to use the toilet. In Pennsylvania, a meek personal assistant finally confronts a perpetually enraged gay spiritual guru. In Texas, a rookie high school teacher deals with her male student’s unusually, er, hard personal problem. Sara Benincasa has been that terrified student, that embattled employee, that confused teacher—and so much more. Her hilarious memoir chronicles her attempts to forge a wonderfully weird adulthood in the midst of her lifelong struggle with agoraphobia, depression, and unruly hair.

Relatable, unpretentious, and unsentimental, Agorafabulous! celebrates eccentricity, resilience, and the power of humor to light up even the darkest corners of our lives. (There are also some sexy parts, but they’re really awkward. Like really, really awkward.)]]> 255 Sara Benincasa 0062024418 Allison 0 3.73 2012 Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom
author: Sara Benincasa
name: Allison
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2018/04/25
date added: 2018/04/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl]]> 35838277 354 Andrea Lawlor 0986086991 Allison 5 gender, fantasy 3.88 2017 Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
author: Andrea Lawlor
name: Allison
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2018/04/04
date added: 2018/04/04
shelves: gender, fantasy
review:

]]> Wolf in White Van 20575425
Brilliantly constructed, Wolf in White Van unfolds in reverse until we arrive at both the beginning and the climax: the event that has shaped so much of Sean’s life. Beautifully written and unexpectedly moving, John Darnielle’s audacious and gripping debut novel is a marvel of storytelling brio and genuine literary delicacy.]]> 211 John Darnielle 0374292086 Allison 0 to-read 3.72 2014 Wolf in White Van
author: John Darnielle
name: Allison
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/01/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Pillowman 133974
'Sometimes you don't even know what you've been craving until the real thing comes along.' New York Times

'McDonagh is more than just a very clever theatrical stylist. His tricks and turns have a purpose. They are bridges over a deep pit of sympathy and sorrow, illuminated by a tragic vision of stunted and frustrated lives.' Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times

Martin McDonagh's searingly brilliant new play premi�res at the National Theatre, London in November 2003.]]> 104 Martin McDonagh 0571220320 Allison 0 4.29 2003 The Pillowman
author: Martin McDonagh
name: Allison
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/11/14
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]]> Sexo Entre Mujeres 36529797
"No puedes pedir un recurso de educación sexual más directo, completo, divertido, y noble como éste." -Oh Joy Sex Toy

Sexo entre Mujeres es un libro de educación sexual como ningún otro. Ofrece información útil para las mujeres y les amantes de mujeres de todos los géneros e identidades sexuales. Contiene ilustraciones divertidas e informativas en cada página, refleja más de 100 voces, y además contiene historias eróticas que te explican cómo funciona lo apprendido. Aprende cómo navegar todos los aspectos de la sexualidad de la mujer, de la mano de los consejos de educadores sexuales como Nina Hartley, Sex Nerd Sandra, Jiz Lee, Ignacio Rivera, Julia Serano, Reid Mihalko, Kelly Shibari, y mas!

Sexo entre Mujeres te enseñará ...
* Todas las piezas de la anatomía femenina
* Formas simples de comunicarte en los momentos de pasión
* Como crear un mapa del placer erótico de tu pareja
* Trucos de cunnilingus, del uso de arneses con dildo, sexo con la mano, y mucho más
* Posiciones sexuales para evitar el cansancio y generar la potencia que necesitas para darle todo el placer del mundo a tu pareja

Ganarás confianza en ti misme para darle placer a tu chica, sin importar tu experiencia práctica. ¡Abróchate el cinturón y prepárate a dar un paseo!]]> 384 Allison Moon 0983830991 Allison 5 4.00 2015 Sexo Entre Mujeres
author: Allison Moon
name: Allison
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/11/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century]]> 22517 Global Brain is more than just a brilliantly original contribution to the ongoing debate on the inner workings of evolution. It is a ""grand vision,"" says the eminent evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson, a work that transforms our very view of who we are and why.]]> 320 Howard Bloom 0471419192 Allison 0 to-read 3.98 1999 Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
author: Howard Bloom
name: Allison
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/11/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[If on a Winter's Night a Traveler]]> 18624269 "You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel...Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." —from If On A Winter's Night a Traveler

Italo Calvino's stunning classic imagines a novel capable of endless possibilities in an intricately crafted, spellbinding story about writing and reading.

If on aWinter's Night a Traveleris a feat of striking ingenuity and intelligence, exploring how our reading choices can shape and transform our lives. Originally published in 1979, Italo Calvino's singular novel crafted a postmodern narrative like never seen before—offering not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together, the stories form a labyrinth of literature known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers pursue the story lines that intrigue them and try to read each other. Deeply profound and surprisingly romantic, this classic is a beautiful meditation on the transformative power of reading and the ways we make meaning in our lives.

"Calvino is a wizard...There is no halting [this book's] metamorphoses." —New York Times Review of Books]]> 278 Italo Calvino 0544133404 Allison 0 to-read 3.89 1979 If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
author: Italo Calvino
name: Allison
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1979
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/05/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?]]> 273200
“Twelve times a week,� answered Uta Hagen, when asked how often she’d like to play Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Like her, audiences and critics alike could not get enough of Edward Albee’s masterful play. A dark comedy, it portrays husband and wife George and Martha in a searing night of dangerous fun and games. By the evening’s end, a stunning, almost unbearable revelation provides a climax that has shocked audiences for years. With the play’s razor-sharp dialogue and the stripping away of social pretense, Newsweek rightly foresaw Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as “a brilliantly original work of art—an excoriating theatrical experience, surging with shocks of recognition and dramatic fire [that] will be igniting Broadway for some time to come.”]]> 257 Edward Albee 0451158717 Allison 0 3.96 1962 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
author: Edward Albee
name: Allison
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/03/22
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]]> Apocalypse Culture II 276480 Now Adam Parfrey offers a follow-up to that first book. Apocalypse Culture II is an entirely new collection of essays that reflect the most recent revelations of the New World Order. Through the extremes of postmodern culture it details the moral disintegration of the old world. Essays cover biological warfare, taboo art, sexual fetishism, mind control for corporate gain, government sex-slavery, creepy superstars, and more.

]]> 468 Adam Parfrey 0922915571 Allison 0 4.05 2000 Apocalypse Culture II
author: Adam Parfrey
name: Allison
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/03/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Acquainted With The Night: Excursions Through The World After Dark]]> 1055998 We prepare for it each evening, and spend half our lives in its embrace, yet night retains its mysteries. In "Acquainted with the Night," author Christopher Dewdney takes readers on a fascinating journey through the nocturnal realm. Twelve chapters correspond to the twelve hours of an "ideal" night, starting at 6PM and ending at 6AM, and serve as points of departure for night's central themes: sunsets, nocturnal animals, bedtime stories, festivals of the night, fireworks, nightclubs, astronomy, sleep and dreams, the graveyard shift, ladies of the night, the art of night, and endless nights. With boundless curiosity, a lyrical, intimate tone, and an eye for nighttime beauties both natural and manmade, Dewdney paints a captivating portrait of our hours in darkness.
]]> Christopher Dewdney 1582343969 Allison 0 3.53 2004 Acquainted With The Night: Excursions Through The World After Dark
author: Christopher Dewdney
name: Allison
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/03/22
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]]> Lives of the Circus Animals 1058527 341 Christopher Bram 0060542535 Allison 0 3.65 2003 Lives of the Circus Animals
author: Christopher Bram
name: Allison
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/03/22
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]]> <![CDATA[My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey]]> 3326756 184 Jill Bolte Taylor 0670020745 Allison 0 3.95 2006 My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
author: Jill Bolte Taylor
name: Allison
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/03/22
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]]> <![CDATA[In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1)]]> 237209
Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.]]> 429 Tana French 0670038601 Allison 4 3.75 2007 In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1)
author: Tana French
name: Allison
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2017/03/05
date added: 2017/03/05
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]]> Blackbird 814252
Blackbird was commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival and premiered at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2005. The production transferred to the Albery Theatre, London, in February 2006, and went on to open at the Manhattan Theater Club, New York City, in April 2007.]]> 96 David Harrower 0571233198 Allison 0 3.94 2005 Blackbird
author: David Harrower
name: Allison
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2016/11/08
date added: 2017/02/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting Paperback � November 29, 2005]]> 141560 American Beauty to Lord of the Rings�Screenplay presents a step-by-step, comprehensive technique for writing the screenplay that will succeed in Hollywood. Discover:

•Why the first ten pages of your script are crucially important
•How to visually “grab� the reader from page one, word one
•Why structure and character are the essential foundation of your screenplay
•How to adapt a novel, a play, or an article into a screenplay
•Tips on protecting your work—three legal ways to claim ownership of your screenplay
•The essentials of writing great dialogue, creating character, building a story line, overcoming writer’s block, getting an agent, and much more.

With this newly updated edition of his bestselling classic, Syd Field proves yet again why he is revered as the master of the screenplay—and why his celebrated guide has become the industry’s gold standard for successful screenwriting.]]> 309 Syd Field 0385339038 Allison 0 4.00 1979 Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting Paperback – November 29, 2005
author: Syd Field
name: Allison
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at: 2016/02/22
date added: 2017/02/22
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]]> By Nightfall 8100015
Like his legendary, Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Hours, Michael Cunningham’s masterly new novel is a heartbreaking look at the way we live now. Full of shocks and aftershocks, it makes us think and feel deeply about the uses and meaning of beauty and the place of love in our lives.<]]> 238 Michael Cunningham 0374299080 Allison 0 3.44 2010 By Nightfall
author: Michael Cunningham
name: Allison
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/02/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama]]> 74203 With a cultural range that encompasses Shakespeare, Brecht, and Ibsen, Death of a Salesman and Bad Day at Black Rock, Mamet shows us how to distinguish true drama from its false variants. He considers the impossibly difficult progression between one act and the next and the mysterious function of the soliloquy. The result, in Three Uses of the Knife, is an electrifying treatise on the playwright’s art that is also a strikingly original work of moral and aesthetic philosophy.
]]> 96 David Mamet 037570423X Allison 0 3.83 1991 Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama
author: David Mamet
name: Allison
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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]]> The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? 40107 110 Edward Albee 1585676470 Allison 0 3.92 2003 The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?
author: Edward Albee
name: Allison
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2017/01/04
date added: 2017/02/22
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]]> John 26196076 � New Yorker

� John , like any great play, raises a lot of questions–not just about the human experience, but also about the state of contemporary theater, it doesn’t provide many answers; it is not the playwright’s responsibility to do so.� In John she co-opts the viewer for her own aesthetic use, heightening the tension onstage and deepening the quiet relationships between her characters. Through John, she displays an understanding that the audience is part of the theatrical experience, an inevitability as certain as a Chekhovian gun.� � Slate


The week after Thanksgiving. A bed & breakfast in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A cheerful innkeeper. A young couple struggling to stay together. Thousands of inanimate objects, watching.

The description by the playwright of the setting is simple, but Annie Baker’s compelling new work is revolutionary in theme and structure and challenges the boundaries of what theatre can be. A kind of magical super-realism permeates throughout this quietly evolving tale, with both the actors and the audience fully vested together in a mesmerizing exploration of the frailty and loneliness of human experience.]]> 111 Annie Baker 1559365293 Allison 0 4.26 2016 John
author: Annie Baker
name: Allison
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2017/02/01
date added: 2017/02/22
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]]> Dreadnought (Nemesis, #1) 30279514 Danny Tozer has a problem: she just inherited the powers of Dreadnought, the world’s greatest superhero.

Until Dreadnought fell out of the sky and died right in front of her, Danny was trying to keep people from finding out she’s transgender. But before he expired, Dreadnought passed his mantle to her, and those secondhand superpowers transformed Danny’s body into what she’s always thought it should be. Now there’s no hiding that she’s a girl.

It should be the happiest time of her life, but Danny’s first weeks finally living in a body that fits her are more difficult and complicated than she could have imagined. Between her father’s dangerous obsession with “curing� her girlhood, her best friend suddenly acting like he’s entitled to date her, and her fellow superheroes arguing over her place in their ranks, Danny feels like she’s in over her head.

She doesn’t have much time to adjust. Dreadnought’s murderer—a cyborg named Utopia—still haunts the streets of New Port City, threatening destruction. If Danny can’t sort through the confusion of coming out, master her powers, and stop Utopia in time, humanity faces extinction.]]> 280 April Daniels 1682300684 Allison 0 4.10 2017 Dreadnought (Nemesis, #1)
author: April Daniels
name: Allison
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2017/02/22
date added: 2017/02/22
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]]> Tell the Wolves I'm Home 12875258
1987. There's only one person who has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus, and that's her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn's company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June's world is turned upside down. But Finn's death brings a surprise acquaintance into June's life—someone who will help her to heal, and to question what she thinks she knows about Finn, her family, and even her own heart.

At Finn's funeral, June notices a strange man lingering just beyond the crowd. A few days later, she receives a package in the mail. Inside is a beautiful teapot she recognizes from Finn's apartment, and a note from Toby, the stranger, asking for an opportunity to meet. As the two begin to spend time together, June realizes she's not the only one who misses Finn, and if she can bring herself to trust this unexpected friend, he just might be the one she needs the most.

An emotionally charged coming-of-age novel, Tell the Wolves I'm Home is a tender story of love lost and found, an unforgettable portrait of the way compassion can make us whole again.]]> 360 Carol Rifka Brunt 0679644199 Allison 0 4.01 2012 Tell the Wolves I'm Home
author: Carol Rifka Brunt
name: Allison
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2017/01/21
date added: 2017/01/21
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]]> Oleanna: A Play 19783891 98 David Mamet Allison 0 3.81 1993 Oleanna: A Play
author: David Mamet
name: Allison
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at: 2016/11/10
date added: 2017/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Last Safe Investment: Spending Now to Increase Your True Wealth Forever]]> 18114117 Myth: If you save for decades and invest in 401(k)s, IRAs, and a home, these investments will grow steadily, allowing twenty to thirty years of secure, peaceful retirement.

Reality: Though this might have been true at some point in the last century, it is not true any longer. If you want to get ahead and enjoy a life of prosperity, you must invest in the last safe investment: yourself, and your own skills, value to others, relationships, and overall happiness.

Business strategist Bryan Franklin and author Michael Ellsberg (The Education of Millionaires) team up here to present a blueprint for building “True Wealth�: the ability to generate not just financial value but also the experiences you cherish most—security, freedom, creative ex­pression, and love.

Discarding traditional advice, Franklin and Ellsberg propose the Self-Amplifying Financial Ecosystem (SAFE) plan. This plan teaches you:

·Small investments you can make for a big im­pact on your value to other people, multiply­ing your earning potential
·The secret to accumulating savings without willpower or deprivation
·How to invest in life’s richest experiences (which money can’t buy)
·The “Super Skills”—the most valuable, sought-after, rewarded, and universally ben­eficial human skills
·Why most people are throwing away huge sums of money in the quest for happiness, and how to spend that money more effectively

This bold manifesto will change the way you think about money, wealth, investment, and spending forever.]]> 288 Bryan Franklin 1591846110 Allison 0 to-read 3.76 2014 The Last Safe Investment: Spending Now to Increase Your True Wealth Forever
author: Bryan Franklin
name: Allison
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> Infinite Jest 6759
Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.

Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human—and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.]]> 1088 David Foster Wallace Allison 0 to-read 4.26 1996 Infinite Jest
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Allison
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The World More Full of Weeping]]> 6945369 101 Robert J. Wiersema 0980941091 Allison 0 3.72 2009 The World More Full of Weeping
author: Robert J. Wiersema
name: Allison
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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]]> The Morels 13642401
The Morels takes a unique look at the power of art─literature, music and film in particular─and challenges us as readers to think about some fascinating questions to which there are no easy answers. Where is the line between art and obscenity, between truth and fiction, between revolutionary thinking and brainless shock value, between craftsmanship and commerce? Is it possible to escape the past? Can you save your family by destroying it?]]> 396 Christopher Hacker 161695244X Allison 5 3.47 2013 The Morels
author: Christopher Hacker
name: Allison
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2013
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life]]> 30240076 At last, a book that shows you how to build--design--a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage

Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home--at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve.

In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 274 Bill Burnett Allison 0 4.06 2016 Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life
author: Bill Burnett
name: Allison
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2016/10/08
date added: 2016/10/08
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]]> A Head Full of Ghosts 23019294
To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.

Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface--and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.]]> 287 Paul Tremblay 0062363239 Allison 0 gender, horror 3.78 2015 A Head Full of Ghosts
author: Paul Tremblay
name: Allison
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2016/06/04
date added: 2016/06/04
shelves: gender, horror
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy]]> 24452 In the acclaimed Blood Rites , Barbara Ehrenreich delved into the origins of our species' attraction to war. Here, she explores the opposite impulse, one that has been so effectively suppressed that we lack even a term for the desire for collective joy, historically expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing.
Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture. Although sixteenth-century Europeans viewed mass festivities as foreign and "savage," Ehrenreich shows that they were indigenous to the West, from the ancient Greeks' worship of Dionysus to the medieval practice of Christianity as a "danced religion." Ultimately, church officials drove the festivities into the streets, the prelude to widespread Protestants criminalized carnival, Wahhabist Muslims battled ecstatic Sufism, European colonizers wiped out native dance rites. The elites' fear that such gatherings would undermine social hierarchies was the festive tradition inspired French revolutionary crowds and uprisings from the Caribbean to the American plains. Yet outbreaks of group revelry persist, as Ehrenreich shows, pointing to the 1960s rock-and-roll rebellion and the more recent "carnivalization" of sports.
Original, exhilarating, and deeply optimistic, Dancing in the Streets concludes that we are innately social beings, impelled to share our joy and therefore able to envision, even create, a more peaceable future.]]> 336 Barbara Ehrenreich 0805057234 Allison 5 3.84 2006 Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy
author: Barbara Ehrenreich
name: Allison
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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date added: 2016/05/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Rational Mysticism: Spirituality Meets Science in the Search for Enlightenment]]> 83462 The End of Science, chronicles the most advanced research into the mechanics � and meaning � of mystical experiences. How do trances, visions, prayer, satori, and other mystical experiences “work�? What induces and defines them? Is there a scientific explanation for religious mysteries and transcendent meditation?

John Horgan investigates a wide range of fields � chemistry, neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, theology, and more � to narrow the gap between reason and mystical phenomena. As both a seeker and an award-winning journalist, Horgan consulted a wide range of experts, including theologian Huston Smith, spiritual heir to Joseph Campbell; Andrew Newberg, the scientist whose quest for the “God module� was the focus of a Newsweek cover story; Ken Wilber, prominent transpersonal psychologist; Alexander Shulgin, legendary psychedelic drug chemist; and Susan Blackmore, Oxford-educated psychologist, parapsychology debunker, and Zen practitioner.

Horgan explores the striking similarities between “mystical technologies� like sensory deprivation, prayer, fasting, trance, dancing, meditation, and drug trips. He participates in experiments that seek the neurological underpinnings of mystical experiences. And, finally, he recounts his own search for enlightenment � adventurous, poignant, and sometimes surprisingly comic. Horgan’s conclusions resonate with the controversial climax of The End of Science, because, as he argues, the most enlightened mystics and the most enlightened scientists end up in the same place � confronting the imponderable depth of the universe.]]> 292 John Horgan 061844663X Allison 0 3.77 2003 Rational Mysticism: Spirituality Meets Science in the Search for Enlightenment
author: John Horgan
name: Allison
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/05/07
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]]> Do the Work 11041601 Could you be getting in your way of producing great work? Have you started a project but never finished? Would you like to do work that matters, but don't know where to start?

The answer is Do the Work, a manifesto by bestselling author Steven Pressfield, that will show you that it’s not about better ideas, it’s about actually doing the work.

Do the Work is a weapon against Resistance � a tool that will help you take action and successfully ship projects out the door.

“There is an enemy. There is an intelligent, active, malign force working against us. Step one is to recognize this. This recognition alone is enormously powerful. It saved my life, and it will save yours.�

Available in both a 5-pack and 48-pack for you to share, as well as a special collectible edition, Do the Work may be just what you need to get out of your own way.

For other titles like Do the Work, visit thedominoproject.com for more information.

]]> 112 Steven Pressfield 1936719053 Allison 0 3.99 2011 Do the Work
author: Steven Pressfield
name: Allison
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer]]> 6465940 Booklife steers readers through the bewildering options:

-What should authors avoid doing on the Internet?

-How does the new paradigm affect authors, readers, and the fundamentals of book publication?

-What’s the difference between letting Internet tools use you and having a strategic plan?

-How do authors protect their creativity while still advancing their careers?

-How do you filter out white noise and find the peace of mind to do good work?



Award-winning author, editor, and Web-entrepreneur Jeff VanderMeer shares his twenty-five years of experience to reveal how writers can go about:

-Using new media: blogs, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, podcasts, and IM

-Effectively networking in the modern era (why it’s not all about you)

-Understanding the lifecycle of a book and your role in the publication process

-Finding balance between your public and private lives and personas

-Creating a brand and identity tied to your strengths and your writing

-Working with your publisher: editors, publicists, marketing, and sales

-Taking the long view: establishing short- and long-term professional goals

-Getting through rejection and understanding the importance of persistence

-Enjoying and enhancing your creative process and more]]> 329 Jeff VanderMeer 1892391902 Allison 5 3.91 2007 Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Allison
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> Saga, Vol. 1 18623232 Collects SAGA #1-6]]> 160 Brian K. Vaughan Allison 5 4.29 2012 Saga, Vol. 1
author: Brian K. Vaughan
name: Allison
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/05/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art]]> 102920 222 Scott McCloud Allison 5 4.00 1993 Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
author: Scott McCloud
name: Allison
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/05/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too!]]> 13003706
Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon’s movies have made over a billion dollars at the box office—and now they show you how to do it yourself! This book is full of secret insider information about how to conquer the Hollywood studio how to write, pitch, structure, and get drunk with the best of them. Well…maybe not the best of them, but certainly the most successful. (If you’re aiming to win an Oscar, this is not the book for you!) But if you can type a little, and can read and speak English—then you too can start turning your words into stacks of money!

This is the only screenwriting book you will ever need (because all other ones pretty much suck). In these pages, Garant and Lennon provide the kind of priceless tips you won’t find anywhere else,

-The art of pitching
-Getting your foot in the door
-Taking notes from movie stars
-How to get fired and rehired
-How to get credit and royalties!

And most what to buy with the huge piles of money you’re going to make!

Writing Movies for Fun and Profit will take you through the highs and lows of life as a professional screenwriter. From the highs of hugging Gisele Bündchen and getting kung fu punched by Jackie Chan to the soul-crushing lows of Fully Loaded .

Read this book and you’ll have everything you need to make your first billion the old-fashioned way—by “selling out� in show business!

A portion of the authors� proceeds from this book are being contributed to the USO of Metropolitan Washington, a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to serving active duty military members and their families in the greater Washington, DC, region.]]> 336 Robert Ben Garant 1439186766 Allison 5 4.20 2011 Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too!
author: Robert Ben Garant
name: Allison
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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date added: 2016/05/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need]]> 49464 195 Blake Snyder 1932907009 Allison 5 4.00 2005 Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need
author: Blake Snyder
name: Allison
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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date added: 2016/05/07
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Your Best Year Yet!: Ten Questions for Making the Next Twelve Months Your Most Successful Ever]]> 25535438
Within every successful person is an ordinary person who found the courage, heart, and discipline to act...to face the big challenges and make dreams come true. The life you want is yours for the taking. This unique, bestselling guide from a successful corporate coach shows you how.

Jinny Ditzler has helped thousands of men and women achieve new milestones of personal and professional success over the past twenty years. YOUR BEST YEAR YET! is a fun, proven, interactive workshop-in-a-book that offers a transformational, goal-oriented program based on ten simple questions. These straightforward, life-changing practical steps will help you make this year -- and every year -- the best year of your life as you
-- Greater income -- Time for what matters -- Fulfilling relationships -- A satisfying career -- Physical wellness -- Spiritual abundance]]> 256 Jinny Ditzler 0446667846 Allison 0 4.30 1994 Your Best Year Yet!: Ten Questions for Making the Next Twelve Months Your Most Successful Ever
author: Jinny Ditzler
name: Allison
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/05/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Hungry Ghost (Tales of the Pack, #2)]]> 17561148
When Lexie discovers the eviscerated body of a fellow student, she knows the violent full-blood Rare wolves are back on the prowl. But with no proof, no plan, and no allies, Lexie and the Pack have to decide how to fight back. And they have to do so fast, before all the women of Milton become prey.]]> 298 Allison Moon 0983830932 Allison 5 3.76 2013 Hungry Ghost (Tales of the Pack, #2)
author: Allison Moon
name: Allison
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Bad Dyke: Salacious Stories from a Queer Life]]> 23566483
This collection of 18 sexy, touching memoirs celebrates the humor and tenderness of falling in and out of love and in and out of bed.

"Allison Moon is a queer woman with a bisexual boyfriend or a 'bad dyke'--an identity she’s settled on after stints as a 'greedy bisexual' and a garden-variety lesbian. She chronicles and analyzes this journey in an essay collection that’s heartfelt, thought-provoking, and good, not so clean fun. - Lambda Literary]]> 132 Allison Moon 0983830975 Allison 5 3.61 2014 Bad Dyke: Salacious Stories from a Queer Life
author: Allison Moon
name: Allison
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Lunatic Fringe (Tales of the Pack, #1)]]> 12506433 300 Allison Moon 0983830916 Allison 4 3.32 2011 Lunatic Fringe (Tales of the Pack, #1)
author: Allison Moon
name: Allison
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/02/24
shelves:
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]]> Palimpsest 3973532
Between life and death, dreaming and waking, at the train stop beyond the end of the world is the city of Palimpsest. To get there is a miracle, a mystery, a gift, and a curse—a voyage permitted only to those who’ve always believed there’s another world than the one that meets the eye. Those fated to make the passage are marked forever by a map of that wondrous city tattooed on their flesh after a single orgasmic night. To this kingdom of ghost trains, lion-priests, living kanji, and cream-filled canals come four Oleg, a New York locksmith; the beekeeper November; Ludovico, a binder of rare books; and a young Japanese woman named Sei. They’ve each lost something important—a wife, a lover, a sister, a direction in life—and what they will find in Palimpsest is more than they could ever imagine.]]> 367 Catherynne M. Valente 0553385763 Allison 5 3.66 2009 Palimpsest
author: Catherynne M. Valente
name: Allison
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Generation Loss (Cass Neary, #1)]]> 102880 265 Elizabeth Hand 1931520216 Allison 4 3.77 2007 Generation Loss (Cass Neary, #1)
author: Elizabeth Hand
name: Allison
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2011/09/18
date added: 2015/02/24
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]]> Huntress 9415946
To solve the crisis, the oracle stones are cast, and Kaede and Taisin, two seventeen-year-old girls, are picked to go on a dangerous and unheard-of journey to Tanlili, the city of the Fairy Queen. Taisin is a sage, thrumming with magic, and Kaede is of the earth, without a speck of the otherworldly. And yet the two girls' destinies are drawn together during the mission. As members of their party succumb to unearthly attacks and fairy tricks, the two come to rely on each other and even begin to fall in love. But the Kingdom needs only one huntress to save it, and what it takes could tear Kaede and Taisin apart forever.

The exciting adventure prequel to Malinda Lo's highly acclaimed novel Ash is overflowing with lush Chinese influences and details inspired by the I Ching, and is filled with action and romance.]]> 371 Malinda Lo 031604007X Allison 4 3.79 2011 Huntress
author: Malinda Lo
name: Allison
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2011/12/20
date added: 2015/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories]]> 763471 462 Angela Carter 0140255281 Allison 5 to-read 4.32 1995 Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories
author: Angela Carter
name: Allison
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2011/12/20
date added: 2015/02/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> Zazen 5762055
Reactions to the attacks are polarized. Police activity intensifies. Della’s revolutionary parents welcome the upheaval but are trapped within their own insular beliefs. Her activist restaurant co-workers, who would rather change their identities than the world around them, resume a shallow rebellion of hair-dye, sex parties, and self-absorption. As those bombs keep inching closer, thudding deep and real between the sounds of katydids fluttering in the still of the city night, and the destruction begins to excite her. What begins as terror threats called in to greasy bro-bars across the block boils over into a desperate plot, intoxicating and captivating Della and leaving her little chance for escape.

Zazen unfolds as a search for clarity soured by irresolution and catastrophe, yet made vital by the thin, wild veins of imagination run through each escalating moment, tensing and relaxing, unfurling and ensnaring. Vanessa Veselka renders Della and her world with beautiful, freighting, and phantasmagorically intelligent accuracy, crafting from their shattered constitutions a perversely perfect mirror for our own selves and state.]]> 264 Vanessa Veselka 1935869051 Allison 4 3.55 2011 Zazen
author: Vanessa Veselka
name: Allison
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2012/02/06
date added: 2015/02/24
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]]> Diary 22284
Suddenly, though, Misty finds her artistic talent returning as she begins a period of compulsive painting. Inspired but confused by this burst of creativity, she soon finds herself a pawn in a larger conspiracy that threatens to cost hundreds of lives. What unfolds is a dark, hilarious story from America’s most inventive nihilist, and Palahniuk’s most impressive work to date.]]> 262 Chuck Palahniuk 1400032814 Allison 4 3.65 2003 Diary
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Allison
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2014/07/23
date added: 2015/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[John Dies at the End (John Dies at the End, #1)]]> 1857440 STOP. You should not have touched this flyer with your bare hands. NO, don't put it down. It's too late. They're watching you. My name is David Wong. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours. You may not want to know about the things you'll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it's too late. You touched the book. You're in the game. You're under the eye. The only defense is knowledge. You need to read this book, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why? You just have to trust me.

The important thing is this: The drug is called Soy Sauce and it gives users a window into another dimension. John and I never had the chance to say no. You still do. I'm sorry to have involved you in this, I really am. But as you read about these terrible events and the very dark epoch the world is about to enter as a result, it is crucial you keep one thing in mind: None of this was my fault. ]]> 362 David Wong 0978970764 Allison 0 fantasy 3.89 2007 John Dies at the End (John Dies at the End, #1)
author: David Wong
name: Allison
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2015/02/24
date added: 2015/02/24
shelves: fantasy
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]]> Geek Love 13872 Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out � with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes � to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There's Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family's most precious � and dangerous � asset.

As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same.]]> 348 Katherine Dunn 0375713344 Allison 0 3.96 1989 Geek Love
author: Katherine Dunn
name: Allison
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at: 2015/02/24
date added: 2015/02/24
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]]> Letters to a Young Artist 23468 Newsweek), here is Anna Deavere Smith's brass tacks advice to aspiring artists of all stripes. In vividly anecdotal letters to the young BZ, she addresses the full spectrum of issues that people starting out will face: from questions of confidence, discipline, and self-esteem, to fame, failure, and fear, to staying healthy, presenting yourself effectively, building a diverse social and professional network, and using your art to promote social change. At once inspiring and no-nonsense, Letters to a Young Artist will challenge you, motivate you, and set you on a course to pursue your art without compromise.]]> 240 Anna Deavere Smith 1400032385 Allison 0 4.03 2006 Letters to a Young Artist
author: Anna Deavere Smith
name: Allison
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2015/02/24
date added: 2015/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory]]> 20663702 A young mortician goes behind the scenes, unafraid of the gruesome (and fascinating) details of her curious profession.

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty—a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre—took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Doughty learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Doughty soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.

Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?

Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Doughty's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Doughty argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).]]> 254 Caitlin Doughty 0393240231 Allison 5 3.98 2014 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory
author: Caitlin Doughty
name: Allison
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2014/12/12
date added: 2014/12/12
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Thoughtful, moving, and entertaining. Doughty mixes philosophy, profundity, and personal anecdote to illuminate her personal journey with death and help us understand America's bizarre relationship with aging and decay. A wonderful read.
]]> Sex and Cupcakes 23437733 76 Rachel Kramer Bussel Allison 5
Sex & Cupcakes is decidedly adult, curious, self-assured (even when Kramer Bussel experiences conflict or confusion), and forward-thinking. This book is a happy addition to a growing field of honest, nuanced examinations of modern sex.
]]> 3.85 2014 Sex and Cupcakes
author: Rachel Kramer Bussel
name: Allison
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2014/11/16
date added: 2014/11/16
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Sex & Cupcakes is a swift and engaging collection about sex from the perspective of a woman who's spent the bulk of her career examining it from every angle. Kramer Bussel's essays range from the personal to the political, often illuminating the large overlap between these two extremes. Her voice is spare and conversational, making these essays feel more like a chat (over cupcakes!) with a few girlfriends.

Sex & Cupcakes is decidedly adult, curious, self-assured (even when Kramer Bussel experiences conflict or confusion), and forward-thinking. This book is a happy addition to a growing field of honest, nuanced examinations of modern sex.

]]> The Fault in Our Stars 11870085
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.]]> 313 John Green Allison 5 4.13 2012 The Fault in Our Stars
author: John Green
name: Allison
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 5
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date added: 2014/01/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder]]> 72662 336 Kent Nerburn 1577312333 Allison 0 race, gender 4.37 2002 Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder
author: Kent Nerburn
name: Allison
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at: 2012/04/01
date added: 2013/05/02
shelves: race, gender
review:

]]> Room 7937843
Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience—and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough ... not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.]]> 321 Emma Donoghue Allison 0 4.04 2010 Room
author: Emma Donoghue
name: Allison
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2013/05/02
date added: 2013/05/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals]]> 102748 Rules for Radicals is Saul Alinsky's impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.� Written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best.
Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.

Contents

The Purpose
Of Means and Ends
A Word about Words
The Education of an Organizer
Communication
In the Beginning
Tactics
The Genesis of Tactic Proxy
The Way Ahead]]> 196 Saul D. Alinsky 0679721134 Allison 0 to-read 3.74 1971 Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals
author: Saul D. Alinsky
name: Allison
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/04/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> Drop City 24724 497 T. Coraghessan Boyle 0142003808 Allison 4 3.82 2003 Drop City
author: T. Coraghessan Boyle
name: Allison
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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date added: 2013/04/12
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]]> The Chronology of Water 9214995 The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch expertly moves the reader through issues of gender, sexuality, violence, and the family from the point of view of a lifelong swimmer turned artist. In writing that explores the nature of memoir itself, her story traces the effect of extreme grief on a young woman's developing sexuality that some define as untraditional because of her attraction to both men and women. Her emergence as a writer evolves at the same time and takes the narrator on a journey of addiction, self-destruction, and ultimately survival that finally comes in the shape of love and motherhood.]]> 310 Lidia Yuknavitch 0979018838 Allison 5 4.24 2011 The Chronology of Water
author: Lidia Yuknavitch
name: Allison
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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date added: 2013/04/03
shelves:
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]]> Specimen Days 2136
A novel of connecting and reconnecting, inspired by the writings of the great visionary poet Walt Whitman, Specimen Days is a genre-bending, haunting ode to life itself � a work of surpassing power and beauty by one of the most original and daring writers at work today]]> 336 Michael Cunningham 0312425023 Allison 4 3.61 2005 Specimen Days
author: Michael Cunningham
name: Allison
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2013/03/31
date added: 2013/04/03
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]]> The Road 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Allison 5 3.99 2006 The Road
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Allison
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2012/10/16
date added: 2012/10/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male]]> 3047652 In this highly anticipated follow-up to White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, activist Tim Wise examines the way in which institutional racism continues to shape the contours of daily life in the United States, and the ways in which white Americans reap enormous privileges from it. The essays included in this collection span the last ten years of Wise’s writing and cover all the hottest racial topics of the past decade: affirmative action, Hurricane Katrina, racial tension in the wake of the Duke lacrosse scandal, white school shootings, racial profiling, phony racial unity in the wake of 9/11, and the political rise of Barack Obama. Wise’s commentaries make forceful yet accessible arguments that serve to counter both white denial and complacency—two of the main obstacles to creating a more racially equitable and just society. Speaking Treason Fluently is a superbly crafted collection of Wise’s best work, which reveals the ongoing salience of race in America today and demonstrates that racial privilege is not only a real and persistent problem, but one that ultimately threatens the health and well-being of the entire society.]]> 368 Tim Wise 1593762070 Allison 0 to-read 4.04 2008 Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male
author: Tim Wise
name: Allison
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/10/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Rhetoric for Radicals: A Handbook for Twenty-First Century Activists]]> 5768314 Rhetoric for Radicals concludes on a hopeful note, with the wish that its activist readership will internalize the book's rhetorical tools and tactics, and will be that much better equipped to become "the rhetors of the past who created the future." And indeed, there can be butlittle doubt tht this thorough, well-organized, accessible - and even personal - little handbook is the best instrument imaginable for fulfilling this purpose. - Frank Kaminski, EnergyBulletin.net Radicals have important messages to deliver, but they are often so caught up in the passion of their causes that they lose sight of effective communication—which is their most powerful tool. The ability to speak with clarity and intelligence, without underestimating the challenge of breaking new ground and winning new converts, is crucial. Activists often suffer from a credibility gap because of their lack of a coherent message and strategic delivery. Rhetoric for Radicals addresses and helps solve these problems. It provides the tools to develop the all-important communication skills necessary to be effectively heard. If you accept that communication creates the social world, then you will agree that changing the way we communicate can change the world. Rhetoric for Radicals provides practical guidelines for public speaking, writing, conversation, persuasion, political correctness, propaganda analysis, street theatrics, and new languages. Chapters Geared to college-aged radical activists and organizers, this book will also appeal to activists of any age who want to sharpen their message. Jason Del Gandio is a lecturer at Temple University in Philadelphia. He is a post-Seattle activist who has worked on globalization and free/fair trade issues, anti-war campaigns, and Latin American solidarity.]]> 240 Jason Del Gandio 0865716285 Allison 0 to-read 3.49 2008 Rhetoric for Radicals: A Handbook for Twenty-First Century Activists
author: Jason Del Gandio
name: Allison
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/10/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> Troll: A Love Story 100485
Angel begins researching frantically. Angel searches the Internet, folklore, nature journals, and newspaper clippings, but his research doesn't tell him that trolls exude pheromones that have a profound aphrodisiac effect on all those around him. As Angel's life changes beyond recognition, it becomes clear that the troll is familiar with the man's most forbidden feelings, and that it may take him across lines he never thought he'd cross. A novel of sparkling originality, Troll is a wry, peculiar, and beguiling story of nature and man's relationship to wild things, and of the dark power of the wildness in ourselves.]]> 278 Johanna Sinisalo 0802141293 Allison 0 3.52 2000 Troll: A Love Story
author: Johanna Sinisalo
name: Allison
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2012/10/08
date added: 2012/10/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Girl Who Fell from the Sky]]> 6449290
In the tradition of Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, here is a portrait of a young girl - and society's ideas of race, class, and beauty.]]> 264 Heidi W. Durrow 1565126807 Allison 4 3.59 2010 The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
author: Heidi W. Durrow
name: Allison
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2012/08/03
date added: 2012/09/30
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]]> Imagine: How Creativity Works 12987640
From the New York Times best-selling author of How We Decide comes a sparkling and revelatory look at the new science of creativity. Shattering the myth of muses, higher powers, even creative “types,� Jonah Lehrer demonstrates that creativity is not a single gift possessed by the lucky few. It’s a variety of distinct thought processes that we can all learn to use more effectively.

Lehrer reveals the importance of embracing the rut, thinking like a child, daydreaming productively, and adopting an outsider’s perspective (travel helps). He unveils the optimal mix of old and new partners in any creative collaboration, and explains why criticism is essential to the process. Then he zooms out to show how we can make our neighborhoods more vibrant, our companies more productive, and our schools more effective.

You’ll learn about Bob Dylan’s writing habits and the drug addictions of poets. You’ll meet a Manhattan bartender who thinks like a chemist, and an autistic surfer who invented an entirely new surfing move. You’ll see why Elizabethan England experienced a creative explosion, and how Pixar’s office space is designed to spark the next big leap in animation.

Collapsing the layers separating the neuron from the finished symphony, Imagine reveals the deep inventiveness of the human mind, and its essential role in our increasingly complex world.


]]> 279 Jonah Lehrer 0547386079 Allison 4 3.97 2012 Imagine: How Creativity Works
author: Jonah Lehrer
name: Allison
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2012/09/12
date added: 2012/09/12
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]]> The Orange Eats Creeps 8075281
A girl with drug-induced ESP and an eerie connection to Patty Reed (a young member of the Donner Party who credited her survival to her relationship with a hidden wooden doll), searches for her disappeared foster sister along "The Highway That Eats People," stalked by a conflation of Twin Peaks' "Bob" and the Green River Killer, known as Dactyl.

With a scathing voice and penetrating delivery, Grace Krilanovich's The Orange Eats Creeps is one of the most ferocious debut novels in memory.]]> 172 Grace Krilanovich 0982015186 Allison 0 to-read 3.03 2010 The Orange Eats Creeps
author: Grace Krilanovich
name: Allison
average rating: 3.03
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/08/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Nightshifted (Edie Spence, #1)]]> 12905583
Edie's just trying to learn the ropes so she can get through her latest shift unscathed. But when a vampire servant turns to dust under her watch, all hell breaks loose. Now she's haunted by the man's dying words—Save Anna—and before she knows it, she's on a mission to rescue some poor girl from the undead. Which involves crashing a vampire den, falling for a zombie, and fighting for her soul.

Grey's Anatomy was never like this...]]> 331 Cassie Alexander 0312553390 Allison 0 fantasy 3.46 2012 Nightshifted (Edie Spence, #1)
author: Cassie Alexander
name: Allison
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2012/07/09
date added: 2012/07/11
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> Being Emily 12661444
They say that it gets better, be who are you and it’ll be fine. For Emily, telling her parents who she really is means a therapist who insists Christopher is normal and Emily is sick. Telling her girlfriend means lectures about how God doesn’t make that kind of mistake.

Emily desperately wants high school in her small Minnesota town to get better. She wants to be the woman she knows is inside, but it’s not until a substitute therapist and a girl named Natalie come into her life that she believes she has a chance of actually Being Emily.

A story for anyone who has ever felt that the inside and outside don’t match and no one else will understand...]]> 264 Rachel Gold 1594932832 Allison 0 to-read 3.96 2012 Being Emily
author: Rachel Gold
name: Allison
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/06/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama]]> 11566956
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home was a pop culture and literary phenomenon. Now, a second thrilling tale of filial sleuthery, this time about her mother: voracious reader, music lover, passionate amateur actor. Also a woman, unhappily married to a closeted gay man, whose artistic aspirations simmered under the surface of Bechdel's childhood . . . and who stopped touching or kissing her daughter good night, forever, when she was seven. Poignantly, hilariously, Bechdel embarks on a quest for answers concerning the mother-daughter gulf. It's a richly layered search that leads readers from the fascinating life and work of the iconic twentieth-century psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, to one explosively illuminating Dr. Seuss illustration, to Bechdel’s own (serially monogamous) adult love life. And, finally, back to Mother—to a truce, fragile and real-time, that will move and astonish all adult children of gifted mothers.]]> 290 Alison Bechdel 0618982507 Allison 0 to-read 3.71 2012 Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama
author: Alison Bechdel
name: Allison
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/06/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Gilda Stories 1063142 The Gilda Stories is a very lesbian American odyssey. Escaping from slavery in the 1850s Gilda's longing for kinship and community grows over two hundred years. Her induction into a family of benevolent vampyres takes her on an adventurous and dangerous journey full of loud laughter and subtle terror.]]> 252 Jewelle Gomez 093237994X Allison 0 to-read 3.94 1991 The Gilda Stories
author: Jewelle Gomez
name: Allison
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/06/18
shelves: to-read
review:

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