Andrew's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 08 Oct 2023 12:25:55 -0700 60 Andrew's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?]]> 6452731
Affirmative action, same-sex marriage, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, national service, the moral limits of markets―Sandel relates the big questions of political philosophy to the most vexing issues of the day, and shows how a surer grasp of philosophy can help us make sense of politics, morality, and our own convictions as well.

Justice is lively, thought-provoking, and wise―an essential new addition to the small shelf of books that speak convincingly to the hard questions of our civic life.]]> 308 Michael J. Sandel 0374180652 Andrew 5 4.30 2007 Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
author: Michael J. Sandel
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/10/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Red Mars (Mars Trilogy, #1) 77507 In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in the first of a trilogy chronicling the colonization of Mars.

For eons, sandstorms have swept the desolate landscape. For centuries, Mars has beckoned humans to conquer its hostile climate. Now, in 2026, a group of 100 colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.

John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers and Arkady Bogdanov lead a terraforming mission. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness. For others it offers an opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. For the genetic alchemists, it presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life and death. The colonists orbit giant satellite mirrors to reflect light to the surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth. Massive tunnels, kilometers deep, will be drilled into the mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves and friendships will form and fall to pieces—for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in evolution, creating a world in its entirety. It shows a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision.]]> 572 Kim Stanley Robinson 0553560735 Andrew 0 to-read 3.86 1992 Red Mars (Mars Trilogy, #1)
author: Kim Stanley Robinson
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72]]> 7748 Hilarious, terrifying, insightful, and compulsively readable, these are the articles that Hunter S. Thompson wrote for Rolling Stone magazine while covering the 1972 election campaign of President Richard M. Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George S. McGovern. Hunter focuses largely on the Democratic Party's primaries and the breakdown of the national party as it splits between the different candidates.

With drug-addled alacrity and incisive wit, Thompson turned his jaundiced eye and gonzo heart to the repellent and seductive race for president, deconstructed the campaigns, and ended up with a political vision that is eerily prophetic

]]> 481 Hunter S. Thompson 0446698229 Andrew 0 to-read 4.13 1973 Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72
author: Hunter S. Thompson
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time (The Gonzo Papers, #1)]]> 10878 Gonzo Papers offers brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in his signature style.

Originally published in 1979, the first volume of the bestselling “Gonzo Papers� is now back in print. The Great Shark Hunt is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s largest and, arguably, most important work, covering Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine. These essays offer brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in signature Thompson style.

Ranging in date from the National Observer days to the era of Rolling Stone, The Great Shark Hunt offers myriad, highly charged entries, including the first Hunter S. Thompson piece to be dubbed “gonzo”—“The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,� which appeared in Scanlan's Monthly in 1970. From this essay a new journalistic movement sprang which would change the shape of American letters. Thompson's razor-sharp insight and crystal clarity capture the crazy, hypocritical, degenerate, and redeeming aspects of the explosive and colorful �60s and �70s.]]> 624 Hunter S. Thompson 0743250451 Andrew 0 to-read 4.09 1979 The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time (The Gonzo Papers, #1)
author: Hunter S. Thompson
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Dune (Dune, #1) 44767458
When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.]]> 658 Frank Herbert 059309932X Andrew 0 to-read 4.33 1965 Dune (Dune, #1)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1965
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators]]> 51022071
All the while, Farrow and his producer faced a degree of resistance that could not be explained - until now. And a trail of clues revealed corruption and cover-ups from Hollywood, to Washington, and beyond.

This is the untold story of the exotic tactics of surveillance and intimidation deployed by wealthy and connected men to threaten journalists, evade accountability and silence victims of abuse - and it's the story of the women who risked everything to expose the truth and spark a global movement.

Both a spy thriller and a meticulous work of investigative journalism, Catch and Kill breaks devastating new stories about the rampant abuse of power - and sheds far-reaching light on investigations that shook the culture.

In a dramatic account of violence and espionage, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests hell-bent on covering up the truth, at any cost.]]> 608 Ronan Farrow 0316454133 Andrew 5 4.33 2019 Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators
author: Ronan Farrow
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/01/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The End of History and the Last Man]]> 57981 The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.]]> 464 Francis Fukuyama 0743284550 Andrew 5 3.61 1992 The End of History and the Last Man
author: Francis Fukuyama
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Do I Make Myself Clear? Why Writing Well Matters]]> 14781555
Harry Evans has edited everything from the urgent files of battlefield reporters to the complex thought processes of Henry Kissinger. He's even been knighted for his services to journalism. In DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?, he brings his indispensable insight to us all in his definite guide to writing well.

The right words are oxygen to our ideas, but the digital era, with all of its TTYL, LMK, and WTF, has been cutting off that oxygen flow. The compulsion to be precise has vanished from our culture, and in writing of every kind we see a trend towards more--more speed and more information but far less clarity.

Evans provides practical examples of how editing and rewriting can make for better communication, even in the digital age. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR? is an essential text, and one that will provide every writer an editor at his shoulder.]]> 416 Harold Evans 0316277177 Andrew 5 3.63 2017 Do I Make Myself Clear? Why Writing Well Matters
author: Harold Evans
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Birth of Politics: Eight Greek and Roman Political Ideas and Why They Matter]]> 23528936
In The Birth of Politics , Melissa Lane introduces the reader to the foundations of Western political thought, from the Greeks, who invented democracy, to the Romans, who created a republic and then transformed it into an empire. Tracing the origins of our political concepts from Socrates to Plutarch to Cicero, Lane reminds us that the birth of politics was a story as much of individuals as ideas. Scouring the speeches of lawyers alongside the speculations of philosophers, and the reflections of ex-slaves next to the popular comedies and tragedies of the Greek and Roman stages, this book brings ancient ideas to life in unexpected ways.

Lane shows how the Greeks and Romans defined politics with distinctive concepts, vocabulary, and practices―all of which continue to influence politics and political aspirations around the world today. She focuses on eight political ideas from the Greco-Roman world that are especially influential justice, virtue, constitution, democracy, citizenship, cosmopolitanism, republic, and sovereignty. Lane also describes how the ancient formulations of these ideas often challenge widely held modern assumptions―for example, that it is possible to have political equality despite great economic inequality, or that political regimes can be indifferent to the moral character of their citizens.

A stimulating introduction to the origins of our political ideas and ideals, The Birth of Politics demonstrates how much we still have to learn from the political genius of the Greeks and Romans.]]> 400 Melissa Lane 0691166471 Andrew 5 3.85 2015 The Birth of Politics: Eight Greek and Roman Political Ideas and Why They Matter
author: Melissa Lane
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> You Are Not So Smart 11709037 An entertaining illumination of the stupid beliefs that make us feel wise.

Whether you’re deciding which smart phone to purchase or which politician to believe, you think you are a rational being whose every decision is based on cool, detached logic, but here’s the truth: You are not so smart. You’re just as deluded as the rest of us--but that’s okay, because being deluded is part of being human.

Growing out of David McRaney’s popular blog, You Are Not So Smart reveals that every decision we make, every thought we contemplate, and every emotion we feel comes with a story we tell ourselves to explain them, but often these stories aren’t true. Each short chapter--covering topics such as Learned Helplessness, Selling Out, and the Illusion of Transparency--is like a psychology course with all the boring parts taken out.

Bringing together popular science and psychology with humor and wit, You Are Not So Smart is a celebration of our irrational, thoroughly human behavior.]]> 302 David McRaney 1592406599 Andrew 5 3.84 2011 You Are Not So Smart
author: David McRaney
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution]]> 9704856
Francis Fukuyama, author of the bestselling The End of History and the Last ManĚýand one of our mostĚýimportant political thinkers,Ěýprovides a sweeping account of how today’s basic political institutions developed. The first of a major two-volume work, The OriginsĚýof Political OrderĚýbegins with politics among our primate ancestors and follows the story through the emergence of tribal societies, the growth of the first modern state in China, the beginning ofĚýthe rule of law in India and the Middle East, and the development of political accountability in Europe up until the eve of the French Revolution.

Drawing on a vast body of knowledge—history, evolutionary biology, archaeology, and economics—Fukuyama has produced a brilliant, provocative work that offers fresh insights on the origins of democratic societies and raises essential questions about the nature of politics and its discontents.]]> 585 Francis Fukuyama 0374227349 Andrew 5 4.17 2011 The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
author: Francis Fukuyama
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion]]> 11324722 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780307377906 can be found here.

Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about the motives of their fellow citizens? In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding.
Ěý
His starting point is moral intuition—the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right. He blends his own research findings with those of anthropologists, historians, and other psychologists to draw a map of the moral domain. He then examines the origins of morality, overturning the view that evolution made us fundamentally selfish creatures. But rather than arguing that we are innately altruistic, he makes a more subtle claim—that we are fundamentally groupish. It is our groupishness, he explains, that leads to our greatest joys, our religious divisions, and our political affiliations. In a stunning final chapter on ideology and civility, Haidt shows what each side is right about, and why we need the insights of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians to flourish as a nation.]]> 419 Jonathan Haidt Andrew 5 4.18 2012 The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> Undisputed Truth 16158559 A bare-knuckled, tell-all memoir from Mike Tyson, the onetime heavyweight champion of the world—and a legend both in and out of the ring.
Ěý
Philosopher, Broadway headliner, fighter, felon—Mike Tyson has defied stereotypes, expectations, and a lot of conventional wisdom during his three decades in the public eye. Bullied as a boy in the toughest, poorest neighborhood in Brooklyn, Tyson grew up to become one of the most thrilling and ferocious boxers of all time—and the youngest heavyweight champion ever. But his brilliance in the ring was often compromised by reckless behavior. Years of hard partying, violent fights, and criminal proceedings took their toll: by 2003, Tyson had hit rock bottom, a convicted felon, completely broke, the punch line to a thousand bad late-night jokes. Yet he fought his way back; the man who once admitted being addicted to everything� regained his success, his dignity, and the love of his family. With a triumphant one-man stage show, his unforgettable performances in the Hangover films, and his newfound happiness and stability as a father and husband, Tyson’s story is an inspiring American original.
Brutally honest, raw, and often hilarious, Tyson chronicles his tumultuous highs and lows in the same sincere, straightforward manner we have come to expect from this legendary athlete. A singular journey from Brooklyn’s ghettos to worldwide fame to notoriety, and, finally, to a tranquil wisdom, Undisputed Truth is not only a great sports memoir but an autobiography for the ages.]]> 592 Mike Tyson 0399161287 Andrew 5 4.17 2013 Undisputed Truth
author: Mike Tyson
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House]]> 36595101 Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

Since Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, the country―and the world―has witnessed a stormy, outrageous, and absolutely mesmerizing presidential term that reflects the volatility and fierceness of the man elected Commander-in-Chief.

This riveting and explosive account of Trump’s administration provides a wealth of new details about the chaos in the Oval Office, including:
-- What President Trump’s staff really thinks of him
-- What inspired Trump to claim he was wire-tapped by President Obama
-- Why FBI director James Comey was really fired
-- Why chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner couldn’t be in the same room
-- Who is really directing the Trump administration’s strategy in the wake of Bannon’s firing
-- What the secret to communicating with Trump is
-- What the Trump administration has in common with the movie The Producers

Never before in history has a presidency so divided the American people. Brilliantly reported and astoundingly fresh, Fire and Fury shows us how and why Donald Trump has become the king of discord and disunion.]]> 322 Michael Wolff 1250158060 Andrew 5 3.36 2018 Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House
author: Michael Wolff
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign]]> 33874545 558 Jonathan Allen 0553447092 Andrew 5 3.68 2017 Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign
author: Jonathan Allen
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America]]> 52576769 480 Philip Rucker 198487750X Andrew 5 4.10 2020 A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America
author: Philip Rucker
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training]]> 2098799 320 Mark Rippetoe 0976805421 Andrew 5 4.43 2005 Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training
author: Mark Rippetoe
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential]]> 16158501 How People Judge You—And How To Come Out Looking Good

Required Reading at Harvard Business School

Everyone wants to know how to be more influential. But most of us don’t really think we can have the kind of magnetism or charisma that we associate with someone like Bill Clinton or Oprah Winfrey unless it comes naturally. Ěý

Now, in Compelling People, which is already being taught at Harvard and Columbia Business Schools, John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut show that this isn’t something we have to be born with—it’s something we can learn. Expanding on the themes in their co-authored Harvard Business Review cover story “Connect, Then Lead,â€� they trace the path to influence through a balance of strength (the root of respect) and warmth (the root of affection). Each seems simple, but only a few of us figure out the tricky task of projecting both at once. The ability to master this dynamic is so rare that we celebrate and elevate those people who have managed to do it.Ěý

Drawing on cutting-edge social science research as well as their own work with Fortune 500 executives, members of Congress, TED speakers, and Nobel Prize winners, Neffinger and Kohut reveal:
Ěý
The common thread connecting Machiavelli and Martin Luther King The secret technique behind the success of Bill Clinton, Ann Richards and Denzel Washington—one that you can use today How looks affect our career prospects The single best strategy for getting someone to agree with you Compelling People explains how we size each other up—and how we can learn to win the admiration, respect, and affection we desire.]]> 304 John Neffinger 1594631018 Andrew 5 3.70 2013 Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential
author: John Neffinger
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time]]> 24331490 260 Jeffrey Pfeffer 0062383167 Andrew 5 3.81 2015 Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time
author: Jeffrey Pfeffer
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance]]> 27213329
Why do some people succeed and others fail? Sharing new insights from her landmark research on grit, Angela Duckworth explains why talent is hardly a guarantor of success. Rather, other factors can be even more crucial such as identifying our passions and following through on our commitments.

Drawing on her own powerful story as the daughter of a scientist who frequently bemoaned her lack of smarts, Duckworth describes her winding path through teaching, business consulting, and neuroscience, which led to the hypothesis that what really drives success is not genius, but a special blend of passion and long-term perseverance. As a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Duckworth created her own character lab and set out to test her theory.

Here, she takes readers into the field to visit teachers working in some of the toughest schools, cadets struggling through their first days at West Point, and young finalists in the National Spelling Bee. She also mines fascinating insights from history and shows what can be gleaned from modern experiments in peak performance. Finally, she shares what she's learned from interviewing dozens of high achievers; from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to the cartoon editor of The New Yorker to Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll.

Winningly personal, insightful, and even life-changing, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that not talent or luck makes all the difference.]]> 277 Angela Duckworth 1443442313 Andrew 5 4.07 2016 Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
author: Angela Duckworth
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Power: Why Some People Have it and Others Don't]]> 8562119 288 Jeffrey Pfeffer 0061789089 Andrew 5 3.85 2010 Power: Why Some People Have it and Others Don't
author: Jeffrey Pfeffer
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty]]> 12158480 Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?

Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are?

Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence?

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.

Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including:

ĚýĚý - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed andĚýoverwhelm the West?
ĚýĚý - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority?
ĚýĚý - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More
philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions?

Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.]]> 529 Daron Acemoğlu 0307719219 Andrew 5 4.06 2012 Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
author: Daron AcemoÄźlu
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are - The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology]]> 681941 496 Robert Wright 0679763996 Andrew 5 4.08 1994 The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are - The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
author: Robert Wright
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals]]> 230733 Straw Dogs is a work of philosophy, which sets out to challenge our most cherished assumptions about what it means to be human. From Plato to Christianity, from the Enlightenment to Nietzsche, the Western tradition has been based on arrogant and erroneous beliefs about human beings and their place in the world. Philosophies such as liberalism and Marxism think of humankind as a species whose destiny is to transcend natural limits and conquer the Earth. Even in the present day, despite Darwin's discoveries, nearly all schools of thought take as their starting point the belief that humans are radically different from other animals. John Gray argues that this humanist belief is an illusion. The aim of Straw Dogs is to explore how the world and human life look once humanism has been finally abandoned.
Straw Dogs explores philosophical issues such as the nature of the self, free will, morality, progress and the value of truth. Drawing his inspiration from art, poetry, and the frontiers of science as well as philosophy itself, John Gray presents a post-humanist view of the world and of human life. Straw Dogs is an exhilarating, sometimes disturbing book that leads the reader to question their deepest beliefs.]]> 246 John Gray 1862075964 Andrew 5 3.94 2002 Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
author: John Gray
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation]]> 44139381 From a rising star at The New Yorker , a deeply immersive chronicle of how the optimistic entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley set out to create a free and democratic internet—and how the cynical propagandists of the alt-right exploited that freedom to propel the extreme into the mainstream.

For several years, Andrew Marantz, a New Yorker staff writer, has been embedded in two worlds. The first is the world of social-media entrepreneurs, who, acting out of naïvete and reckless ambition, upended all traditional means of receiving and transmitting information. The second is the world of the people he calls "the gate crashers"—the conspiracists, white supremacists, and nihilist trolls who have become experts at using social media to advance their corrosive agenda. Antisocial ranges broadly—from the first mass-printed books to the trending hashtags of the present; from secret gatherings of neo-Fascists to the White House press briefing room—and traces how the unthinkable becomes thinkable, and then how it becomes reality. Combining the keen narrative detail of Bill Buford's Among the Thugs and the sweep of George Packer's The Unwinding, Antisocial reveals how the boundaries between technology, media, and politics have been erased, resulting in a deeply broken informational landscape—the landscape in which we all now live. Marantz shows how alienated young people are led down the rabbit hole of online radicalization, and how fringe ideas spread—from anonymous corners of social media to cable TV to the President's Twitter feed. Marantz also sits with the creators of social media as they start to reckon with the forces they've unleashed. Will they be able to solve the communication crisis they helped bring about, or are their interventions too little too late?]]> 400 Andrew Marantz 0525522263 Andrew 5 4.20 2019 Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation
author: Andrew Marantz
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature]]> 27486 The Mating Mind marks the arrival of a prescient and provocative new science writer. Psychologist Geoffrey Miller offers the most convincing-and radical-explanation for how and why the human mind evolved.

Consciousness, morality, creativity, language, and art: these are the traits that make us human. Scientists have traditionally explained these qualities as merely a side effect of surplus brain size, but Miller argues that they were sexual attractors, not side effects. He bases his argument on Darwin's theory of sexual selection, which until now has played second fiddle to Darwin's theory of natural selection, and draws on ideas and research from a wide range of fields, including psychology, economics, history, and pop culture. Witty, powerfully argued, and continually thought-provoking, The Mating Mind is a landmark in our understanding of our own species.]]> 528 Geoffrey Miller 038549517X Andrew 5 4.10 2000 The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature
author: Geoffrey Miller
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and The Public Should Expect]]> 151522
“What this book does better than any single book on media history, ethics, or practice is
weave . . . [together] why media audiences have fled and why new technology and megacorporate ownership are putting good journalism at risk.� —Rasmi Simhan, Boston Globe

“Kovach and Rosenstiel’s essays on each [element] are concise gems, filled with insights worthy of becoming axiomatic. . . . The book should become essential reading for journalism professionals and students and for the citizens they aim to serve.� —Carl Sessions Stepp, American Journalism Review

“If you think journalists have no idea what you want . . . here is a book that agrees with you. Better—it has solutions. The Elements of Journalism is written for journalists, but any citizen who wonders why the news seems trivial or uninspiring should read it.� —Marta Salij, Detroit Free Press


The elements of journalism
* Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.
* Its first loyalty is to citizens.
* Its essence is a discipline of verification.
* Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
* It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
* It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
* It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant.
* It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
* Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.]]> 208 Bill Kovach 0609806912 Andrew 5 3.83 2001 The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and The Public Should Expect
author: Bill Kovach
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism]]> 17288632
Information is the lifeblood of a healthy democracy. Public opinion and debate suffer when citizens are misinformed about current affairs, as is increasingly the case. Though the failures of today’s communication system cannot be blamed solely on the news media, they are part of the problem, and the best hope for something better.

Patterson proposes “knowledge-based journalism� as a corrective. Unless journalists are more deeply informed about the subjects they cover, they will continue to misinterpret them and to be vulnerable to manipulation by their sources. In this book, derived from a multi-year initiative of the Carnegie Corporation and the Knight Foundation, Patterson calls for nothing less than a major overhaul of journalism practice and education. The book speaks not only to journalists but to all who are concerned about the integrity of the information on which America’s democracy depends.]]> 252 Thomas E. Patterson 0345806603 Andrew 5 3.52 2013 Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism
author: Thomas E. Patterson
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy (Institutions of American Democracy)]]> 6718825 At a time of dazzling technological innovation, Jones says that what stands to be lost is the fact-based reporting that serves as a watchdog over government, holds the powerful accountable, and gives citizens what they need. In a tumultuous new media era, with cutthroat competition and panic over profits, the commitment of the traditional news media to serious news is fading. Indeed, as digital technology shatters the old economic model, the news media is making a painful passage that is taking a toll on journalistic values and standards. Journalistic objectivity and ethics are under assault, as is the bastion of the First Amendment. Jones characterizes himself not as a pessimist about news, but a realist. The breathtaking possibilities that the web offers are undeniable, but at what cost? Pundits and talk show hosts have persuaded Americans that the crisis in news is bias and partisanship. Not so, says Jones. The real crisis is the erosion of the iron core of news, something that
hurts Republicans and Democrats alike.
Losing the News depicts an unsettling situation in which the American birthright of fact-based, reported news is in danger. But it is also a call to arms to fight to keep the core of news intact.

Praise for the

"Thoughtful."
-- New York Times Book Review

"An impassioned call to action to preserve the best of traditional newspaper journalism."
-- The San Francisco Chronicle

"Must reading for all Americans who care about our country's present and future. Analysis, commentary, scholarship and excellent writing, with a strong, easy-to-follow narrative about why you should care, makes this a candidate for one of the best books of the year."
--Dan Rather]]> 256 Alex S. Jones 0195181239 Andrew 5 3.64 2009 Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy (Institutions of American Democracy)
author: Alex S. Jones
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before]]> 273520
Herself a member of Generation Me, Dr. Twenge uses findings from the largest intergenerational research study ever conducted -- with data from 1.3 million respondents spanning six decades—to reveal how profoundly different today's young adults are. Here are the often shocking truths about this generation, including dramatic differences in sexual behavior, as well as controversial predictions about what the future holds for them and society as a whole. Her often humorous, eyebrow-raising stories about real people vividly bring to life the hopes and dreams, disappointments and challenges of Generation Me.

GenMe has created a profound shift in the American character, changing what it means to be an individual in today's society. The collision of this generation's entitled self-focus and today's competitive marketplace will create one of the most daunting challenges of the new century. Engaging, controversial, prescriptive, funny, "Generation Me" will give Boomers new insight into their offspring, and help those in their teens, 20s, and 30s finally make sense of themselves and their goals and find their road to happiness.]]> 304 Jean M. Twenge 0743276981 Andrew 5 3.56 2006 Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before
author: Jean M. Twenge
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind]]> 23692271 512 Yuval Noah Harari Andrew 5 4.33 2011 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Warriors and Worriers: The Survival of the Sexes]]> 17847531
Scientists have published thousands of papers on the subject, with the general conclusion being that men and women are mostly the same, whatever differences exist have been socialized, and what differences exist have to do with women bearing children and men being physically stronger. In Warriors and Worriers , psychologist Joyce Benenson presents a new theory of sex differences, based on thirty years of research with young children and primates around the world. Her innovative theory focuses on how men and women stay alive. Benenson draws on a fascinating array of studies and stories that explore the ways boys and men deter their enemies, while girls and women find assistants to aid them in coping with vulnerable children and elders. This produces two social worlds for each sex which sets humans apart from most other primate species. Human males form cooperative groups that compete against out-groups, while human females exclude other females in their quest to find mates, female family
members to invest in their children, and keep their own hearts ticking. In the process, Benenson turns upside down the familiar wisdom that women are more sociable than men and that men are more competitive than women.]]> 288 Joyce F Benenson 0199972230 Andrew 5 4.07 2014 Warriors and Worriers: The Survival of the Sexes
author: Joyce F Benenson
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking]]> 8520610 The book that started the Quiet Revolution

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society.Ěý

In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.

Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content.]]> 333 Susan Cain 0307352145 Andrew 5 4.07 2012 Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
author: Susan Cain
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life]]> 22545857 A transformative, fascinating theory--based on robust and groundbreaking experimental research--reveals how our unconscious fear of death powers almost everything we do, shining a light on the hidden motives that drive human behavior
Ěý
More than one hundred years ago, the American philosopher William James dubbed the knowledge that we must die “the worm at the core� of the human condition. In 1974, cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer Prize for his book The Denial of Death, arguing that the terror of death has a pervasive effect on human affairs. Now authors Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski clarify with wide-ranging evidence the many ways the worm at the core guides our thoughts and actions, from the great art we create to the devastating wars we wage.
Ěý
The Worm at the Core is the product of twenty-five years of in-depth research. Drawing from innovative experiments conducted around the globe, Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski show conclusively that the fear of death and the desire to transcend it inspire us to buy expensive cars, crave fame, put our health at risk, and disguise our animal nature. The fear of death can also prompt judges to dole out harsher punishments, make children react negatively to people different from themselves, and inflame intolerance and violence.
Ěý
But the worm at the core need not consume us. Emerging from their research is a unique and compelling approach to these deeply existential issues: terror management theory. TMT proposes that human culture infuses our lives with order, stability, significance, and purpose, and these anchors enable us to function moment to moment without becoming overwhelmed by the knowledge of our ultimate fate.]]> 274 Sheldon Solomon 1400067472 Andrew 5 4.12 The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life
author: Sheldon Solomon
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire]]> 9551126 Two maverick neuroscientists use the world's largest psychology experiment-the Internet-to study the private activities of millions of men and women around the world, unveiling a revolutionary and shocking new vision of human desire that overturns conventional thinking.

For his groundbreaking sexual research, Alfred Kinsey and his team interviewed 18,000 people, relying on them to honestly report their most intimate experiences. Using the Internet, the neuroscientists Ogas and Gaddam quietly observed the raw sexual behaviors of half a billion people. By combining their observations with neuroscience and animal research, these two young neuroscientists finally answer the long-disputed question: what do people really like? Ogas and Gaddam's findings are transforming the way scientists and therapists think about sexual desire.

In their startling book, Ogas and Gaddam analyze a "billion wicked thoughts" on the Internet: a billion Web searches, a million individual search histories, a million erotic stories, a half-million erotic videos, a million Web sites, millions of online personal ads, and many other enormous sources of sexual data in order to understand the true differences between male and female desires, including:

?Men and women have hardwired sexual cues analogous to our hardwired tastes-there are sexual versions of sweet, sour, salty, savory, and bitter. But men and women are wired with different sets of cues.

?The male sexual brain resembles a reckless hunter, while the female sexual brain resembles a cautious detective agency.

?Men form their sexual interests during adolescence and rarely change. Women's sexual interests are plastic and change frequently.

?The male sexual brain is an "or gate": A single stimulus can arouse it. The female sexual brain is an "and gate": It requires many simultaneous stimuli to arouse it.

?When it comes to sexual arousal, men prefer overweight women to underweight women, and a significant number of men seek out erotic images of women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s.

?Women enjoy writing and sharing erotic stories with other women. The fastest growing genre of erotic stories for women are stories about two heterosexual men having sex.

?Though the male sexual brain is much more different from the female sexual brain than is commonly believed, the sexual brain of gay men is virtually identical to that of straight men.

Featuring cutting-edge, jaw-dropping science, this wildly entertaining and controversial book helps readers understand their partner's sexual desires with a depth of knowledge unavailable from any other source. Its fascinating and occasionally disturbing findings will rock our modern understanding of sexuality, just as Kinsey's reports did sixty years ago.]]> 416 Sai Gaddam 0525952098 Andrew 5 3.81 2011 A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire
author: Sai Gaddam
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are]]> 1127067
Written by Daniel Nettle--author of the popular book Happiness--this brief volume takes the reader on an exhilarating tour of what modern science can tell us about human personality. Revealing that our personalities stem from our biological makeup, Nettle looks at the latest findings from genetics and brain science, and considers the evolutionary origins and consequences of different personalities. The heart of the book sheds light on the "big five": Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientious, Agreeableness, and Openness. Using a stimulating blend of true-life stories and scientific research, Nettle explains why we have something deep and consistent within us that determines the choices we make and situations we bring about. He addresses such questions as why members of the same family differ so markedly in their natures? What is the best personality to have--a bold one or a shy one, an aggressive one or a meek one? And are you stuck with your personality, or can you change it? Life, Nettle concludes, is partly the business of finding a niche where your personality works for you. "It is a question of choosing the right pond," he notes, "and being mindful of the dangers." There is no ideal personality to have. Every disposition brings both advantages and disadvantages.

Full of human wisdom as well as scientific insight, this book illuminates the pluses and minuses of personality, offering practical advice about living with the nature you were born with. It even includes a questionnaire so that you can assess yourself.]]> 304 Daniel Nettle 0199211426 Andrew 5 3.88 2007 Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are
author: Daniel Nettle
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The H Factor of Personality: Why Some People Are Manipulative, Self-Entitled, Materialistic, and Exploitative and Why It Matters for Everyone]]> 15893116
This book, written by the discoverers of the H factor, explores the importance of this personality dimension in various aspects of people’s lives: their approaches to money, power, and sex; their inclination to commit crimes or obey the law; their attitudes about society, politics, and religion; and their choice of friends and spouse. Finally, the book provides ways of identifying people who are low in the H factor, as well as advice on how to raise one’s own level of H.]]> 212 Kibeom Lee 1554588340 Andrew 5 4.00 2012 The H Factor of Personality: Why Some People Are Manipulative, Self-Entitled, Materialistic, and Exploitative and Why It Matters for Everyone
author: Kibeom Lee
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be]]> 16043519
In The End of Power , award-winning columnist and former Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím illuminates the struggle between once-dominant megaplayers and the new micropowers challenging them in every field of human endeavor. Drawing on provocative, original research, Naím shows how the antiestablishment drive of micropowers can topple tyrants, dislodge monopolies, and open remarkable new opportunities, but it can also lead to chaos and paralysis. Naím deftly covers the seismic changes underway in business, religion, education, within families, and in all matters of war and peace. Examples abound in all walks of In 1977, eighty-nine countries were ruled by autocrats while today more than half the world's population lives in democracies. CEO's are more constrained and have shorter tenures than their predecessors. Modern tools of war, cheaper and more accessible, make it possible for groups like Hezbollah to afford their own drones. In the second half of 2010, the top ten hedge funds earned more than the world's largest six banks combined.

Those in power retain it by erecting powerful barriers to keep challengers at bay. Today, insurgent forces dismantle those barriers more quickly and easily than ever, only to find that they themselves become vulnerable in the process. Accessible and captivating, Naím offers a revolutionary look at the inevitable end of power—and how it will change your world.]]> 320 Moisés Naím 0465031560 Andrew 5 3.56 2013 The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be
author: Moisés Naím
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Dark Side Of Man (Helix Books)]]> 192787 The Dark Side of Man, Michael Ghiglieri, a biologist and protégé of Jane Goodall, takes on one of the most highly charged debates in modern science: the biological roots of bad behavior. Beginning with rape, and moving on to murder, war, and genocide, Ghiglieri offers the most up-to-date, comprehensive look at the male proclivity for violence. In a strong narrative voice, he draws on the latest research and his own personal experiences—both as a primatologist and as a soldier—to explain that male violence is largely innate, a product of millions of years of evolution. In the process, he debunks many of our most clung-to, “politically correct� notions: that the differences between men and women are strictly due to socialization, that rape is really about power—not sex—and that genocide is only possible with a single madman at the helm. Well-argued, evenhanded, yet never dull, this important book illuminates the darkest impulses of the male psyche, and suggests ways for modern society to curb them.]]> 336 Michael P. Ghiglieri 0738203157 Andrew 5 3.80 1999 The Dark Side Of Man (Helix Books)
author: Michael P. Ghiglieri
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Essential Difference: Male And Female Brains And The Truth About Autism]]> 23970 288 Simon Baron-Cohen 046500556X Andrew 5 3.60 2003 The Essential Difference: Male And Female Brains And The Truth About Autism
author: Simon Baron-Cohen
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty]]> 11044200
In The Science of Evil Simon Baron-Cohen, an award-winning British researcher who has investigated psychology and autism for decades, develops a new brain-based theory of human cruelty. A true psychologist, however, he examines social and environmental factors that can erode empathy, including neglect and abuse.

Based largely on Baron-Cohen's own research, The Science of Evil will change the way we understand and treat human cruelty.]]> 256 Simon Baron-Cohen Andrew 5 3.74 2011 The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty
author: Simon Baron-Cohen
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature]]> 5752 The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. He shows how many intellectuals have denied the existence of human nature by embracing three linked dogmas: the Blank Slate (the mind has no innate traits), the Noble Savage (people are born good and corrupted by society), and the Ghost in the Machine (each of us has a soul that makes choices free from biology). Each dogma carries a moral burden, so their defenders have engaged in desperate tactics to discredit the scientists who are now challenging them.

Pinker injects calm and rationality into these debates by showing that equality, progress, responsibility, and purpose have nothing to fear from discoveries about a rich human nature. He disarms even the most menacing threats with clear thinking, common sense, and pertinent facts from science and history.

Despite its popularity among intellectuals during much of the twentieth century, he argues, the doctrine of the Blank Slate may have done more harm than good. It denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces hardheaded analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of government, violence, parenting, and the arts.

Pinker shows that an acknowledgement of human nature that is grounded in science and common sense, far from being dangerous, can complement insights about the human condition made by millennia of artists and philosophers. All this is done in the style that earned his previous books many prizes and worldwide acclaim: wit, lucidity, and insight into matters great and small.]]> 560 Steven Pinker 0142003344 Andrew 5 4.08 2002 The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
author: Steven Pinker
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Closing of the American Mind]]> 75812 The Closing of the American Mind, a publishing phenomenon in hardcover, is now a paperback literary event. In this acclaimed number one national best-seller, one of our country's most distinguished political philosophers argues that the social/political crisis of 20th-century America is really an intellectual crisis. Allan Bloom's sweeping analysis is essential to understanding America today. It has fired the imagination of a public ripe for change.]]> 392 Allan Bloom 0671657151 Andrew 5 3.74 1987 The Closing of the American Mind
author: Allan Bloom
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure]]> 36556202
First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths are incompatible with basic psychological principles, as well as ancient wisdom from many cultures. They interfere with healthy development. Anyone who embraces these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—is less likely to become an autonomous adult able to navigate the bumpy road of life.

Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to produce these untruths. They situate the conflicts on campus in the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization, including a rise in hate crimes and off-campus provocation. They explore changes in childhood including the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade.

This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.]]> 352 Jonathan Haidt 0735224900 Andrew 5 4.23 2018 The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate]]> 13587028
Lukianoff walks readers through the life of a modern-day college student, from orientation to the end of freshman year. Through this lens, he describes startling violations of free speech rights: a student in Indiana punished for publicly reading a book, a student in Georgia expelled for a pro-environment collage he posted on Facebook, students at Yale banned from putting an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote on a t-shirt, and students across the country banished to tiny “free speech zones.� But Lukianoff goes further, demonstrating how this culture of censorship is bleeding into the larger society. As he explores public controversies involving Juan Williams, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, and Larry Summers, along with campus uproars in which Dave Barry and Jon Stewart's The Daily Show played a role, Lukianoff paints a stark picture of our ability as a nation to rationally discuss important issues. Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate reveals how the intolerance for dissent and debate on today’s campus threatens the freedom of every citizen—and makes us all just a little bit dumber.
]]> 336 Greg Lukianoff 1594036357 Andrew 5 4.18 2012 Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate
author: Greg Lukianoff
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class]]> 9300726
We all know that the very rich have gotten a lot richer these past few decades while most Americans haven’t. In fact, the exorbitantly paid have continued to thrive during the current economic crisis, even as the rest of Americans have continued to fall behind. Why do the “haveit- alls� have so much more? And how have they managed to restructure the economy to reap the lion’s share of the gains and shift the costs of their new economic playground downward, tearing new holes in the safety net and saddling all of us with increased debt and risk? Lots of so-called experts claim to have solved this great mystery, but no one has really gotten to the bottom of it—until now.

In their lively and provocative Winner-Take-All Politics, renowned political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson demonstrate convincingly that the usual suspects—foreign trade and financial globalization, technological changes in the workplace, increased education at the top—are largely innocent of the charges against them. Instead, they indict an unlikely suspect and take us on an entertaining tour of the mountain of evidence against the culprit. The guilty party is American politics. Runaway inequality and the present economic crisis reflect what government has done to aid the rich and what it has not done to safeguard the interests of the middle class. The winner-take-all economy is primarily a result of winner-take-all politics.

In an innovative historical departure, Hacker and Pierson trace the rise of the winner-take-all economy back to the late 1970s when, under a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, a major transformation of American politics occurred. With big business and conservative ideologues organizing themselves to undo the regulations and progressive tax policies that had helped ensure a fair distribution of economic rewards, deregulation got under way, taxes were cut for the wealthiest, and business decisively defeated labor in Washington. And this transformation continued under Reagan and the Bushes as well as under Clinton, with both parties catering to the interests of those at the very top. Hacker and Pierson’s gripping narration of the epic battles waged during President Obama’s first two years in office reveals an unpleasant but catalyzing truth: winner-take-all politics, while under challenge, is still very much with us.

Winner-Take-All Politics—part revelatory history, part political analysis, part intellectual journey� shows how a political system that traditionally has been responsive to the interests of the middle class has been hijacked by the superrich. In doing so, it not only changes how we think about American politics, but also points the way to rebuilding a democracy that serves the interests of the many rather than just those of the wealthy few.]]> 368 Jacob S. Hacker 1416593845 Andrew 5 4.03 2010 Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
author: Jacob S. Hacker
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life]]> 5116823 336 Dacher Keltner 039306512X Andrew 5 3.53 2009 Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life
author: Dacher Keltner
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things]]> 41231 210 Barry Glassner 0465014909 Andrew 5 3.69 1999 The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things
author: Barry Glassner
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus]]> 35167684

Accessible and open-minded, compassionate and honest, American Hookup explains where we are and how we got here, asking, “Where do we go from here?”]]> 304 Lisa Wade 0393355535 Andrew 5 3.99 2017 American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus
author: Lisa Wade
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain]]> 721609

Did you know you can beat stress, lift your mood, fight memory loss, sharpen your intellect, and function better than ever simply by elevating your heart rate and breaking a sweat? The evidence is incontrovertible: Aerobic exercise physically remodels our brains for peak performance.

In SPARK, John J. Ratey, M.D., embarks upon a fascinating and entertaining journey through the mind-body connection, presenting startling research to prove that exercise is truly our best defense against everything from depression to ADD to addiction to aggression to menopause to Alzheimer's. Filled with amazing case studies (such as the revolutionary fitness program in Naperville, Illinois, which has put this school district of 19,000 kids first in the world of science test scores), SPARK is the first book to explore comprehensively the connection between exercise and the brain. It will change forever the way you think about your morning run---or, for that matter, simply the way you think]]> 294 John J. Ratey 0316113506 Andrew 5 4.11 2008 Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
author: John J. Ratey
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes]]> 389530 256 Frans de Waal 0801863368 Andrew 5 4.28 1982 Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes
author: Frans de Waal
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1982
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society]]> 6525532 —Desmond Morris, author of The Naked Ape

Are we our brothers' keepers? Do we have an instinct for compassion? Or are we, as is often assumed, only on earth to serve our own survival and interests? In this thought-provoking book, the acclaimed author of Our Inner Ape examines how empathy comes naturally to a great variety of animals, including humans.

By studying social behaviors in animals, such as bonding, the herd instinct, the forming of trusting alliances, expressions of consolation, and conflict resolution, Frans de Waal demonstrates that animals–and humans–are "preprogrammed to reach out." He has found that chimpanzees care for mates that are wounded by leopards, elephants offer "reassuring rumbles" to youngsters in distress, and dolphins support sick companions near the water's surface to prevent them from drowning. From day one humans have innate sensitivities to faces, bodies, and voices; we've been designed to feel for one another.

De Waal's theory runs counter to the assumption that humans are inherently selfish, which can be seen in the fields of politics, law, and finance, and whichseems to be evidenced by the current greed-driven stock market collapse. But he cites the public's outrage at the U.S. government's lack of empathy in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as a significant shift in perspective–one that helped Barack Obama become elected and ushered in what may well become an Age of Empathy. Through a better understanding of empathy's survival value in evolution, de Waal suggests, we can work together toward a more just society based on a more generous and accurate view of human nature.

Written in layman's prose with a wealth of anecdotes, wry humor, and incisive intelligence, The Age of Empathy is essential reading for our embattled times.]]> 304 Frans de Waal 0307407764 Andrew 5 4.00 2009 The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society
author: Frans de Waal
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates]]> 4487598
For many years, de Waal has observed chimpanzees soothe distressed neighbors and bonobos share their food. Now he delivers fascinating fresh evidence for the seeds of ethical behavior in primate societies that further cements the case for the biological origins of human fairness. Interweaving vivid tales from the animal kingdom with thoughtful philosophical analysis, de Waal seeks a bottom-up explanation of morality that emphasizes our connection with animals. In doing so, de Waal explores for the first time the implications of his work for our understanding of modern religion. Whatever the role of religious moral imperatives, he sees it as a “Johnny-come-lately� role that emerged only as an addition to our natural instincts for cooperation and empathy.

But unlike the dogmatic neo-atheist of his book’s title, de Waal does not scorn religion per se. Instead, he draws on the long tradition of humanism exemplified by the painter Hieronymus Bosch and asks reflective readers to consider these issues from a positive perspective: What role, if any, does religion play for a well-functioning society today? And where can believers and nonbelievers alike find the inspiration to lead a good life?

Rich with cultural references and anecdotes of primate behavior, The Bonobo and the Atheist engagingly builds a unique argument grounded in evolutionary biology and moral philosophy. Ever a pioneering thinker, de Waal delivers a heartening and inclusive new perspective on human nature and our struggle to find purpose in our lives.]]> 289 Frans de Waal 0393073777 Andrew 5 4.13 2013 The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates
author: Frans de Waal
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are]]> 257106 312 Frans de Waal 1594481962 Andrew 5 4.17 2005 Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are
author: Frans de Waal
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> The Selfish Gene 61535 360 Richard Dawkins 0199291152 Andrew 5 4.15 1976 The Selfish Gene
author: Richard Dawkins
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1976
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Tragedy of Great Power Politics]]> 18378022 592 John J. Mearsheimer 0393349276 Andrew 5 4.10 2001 The Tragedy of Great Power Politics
author: John J. Mearsheimer
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> The Future of Power 10354409 The Future of Power examines what it means to be forceful and effective in a world in which the traditional ideas of state power have been upended by technology, and rogue actors. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., a longtime analyst of power and a hands-on practitioner in government, delivers a new power narrative that considers the shifts, innovations, bold technologies, and new relationships that are defining the twenty-first century. He shows how power resources are adapting to the digital age and how smart power strategies must include more than a country's military strength. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, unsurpassed in military strength and ownership of world resources, the United States was indisputably the most powerful nation in the world. Today, China, Russia, India, and others are increasing their share of world power resources. Information once reserved for the government is now available for mass consumption. The Internet has literally put power at the fingertips of nonstate agents, allowing them to launch cyberattacks from their homes. The cyberage has created a new power frontier among states, ripe with opportunity for developing countries. To remain at the pinnacle of world power, the United States must adopt a strategy that designed for a global information age.]]> 322 Joseph S. Nye Jr. Andrew 5 3.79 2010 The Future of Power
author: Joseph S. Nye Jr.
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Evolution Of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating]]> 27491 The Evolution of Desire is the first book to present a unified theory of human mating behavior.

Now in an updated edition with two new chapters by the author, The Evolution of Desire presents the latest research in the field, including starting new discoveries about the evolutionary advantages of infidelity, orgasm, and physical attractiveness.]]> 354 David M. Buss 046500802X Andrew 5 4.16 1994 The Evolution Of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating
author: David M. Buss
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty]]> 106860
InĚý Survival of the Prettiest , Nancy Etcoff, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a practicing psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, argues that beauty is neither a cultural construction, an invention of the fashion industry, nor a backlash against feminism—it’s in our biology.Ěý

Beauty, she explains, is an essential and ineradicable part of human nature that is revered and ferociously pursued in nearly every civilization—and for good reason. Those features to which we are most attracted are often signals of fertility and fecundity. When seen in the context of a Darwinian struggle for survival, our sometimes extreme attempts to attain beauty—both to become beautiful ourselves and to acquire an attractive partner—suddenly become much more understandable. Moreover, if we understand how the desire for beauty is innate, then we can begin to work in our own interests, and not just the interests of our genetic tendencies.]]> 336 Nancy L. Etcoff 0385479425 Andrew 5 3.78 1999 Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty
author: Nancy L. Etcoff
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics]]> 11612989 321 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita 161039044X Andrew 5 4.25 2011 The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics
author: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World]]> 2088799
Dario Maestripieri thinks it is high time we shelve that misperception, and with Macachiavellian Intelligence he gives rhesus macaques their rightful turn in the spotlight. The product of more than twenty years studying these fascinating creatures, Macachiavellian Intelligence caricatures a society that is as much human as monkey, with hierarchies and power struggles that would impress Machiavelli himself. High-status macaques, for instance, maintain their rank through deft uses of violence and manipulation, while altruism is almost unknown and relationships are perpetually subject to the cruel laws of the market. Throughout this eye-opening account, Maestripieri weds his thorough knowledge of macaque behavior to his abiding fascination with human society and motivations. The result is a book unlike any other, one that draws on economics as much as evolutionary biology, politics as much as primatology.

Rife with unexpected connections and peppered with fascinating anecdotes, Macachiavellian Intelligence has as much to teach us about humans as it does about macaques, presenting a wry, rational, and wholly surprising view of our humanity as seen through the monkey in the mirror.]]> 192 Dario Maestripieri 0226501175 Andrew 5 3.90 2007 Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World
author: Dario Maestripieri
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Games Primates Play: An Undercover Investigation of the Evolution and Economics of Human Relationships]]> 13237693 320 Dario Maestripieri 046502078X Andrew 5 3.86 2012 Games Primates Play: An Undercover Investigation of the Evolution and Economics of Human Relationships
author: Dario Maestripieri
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect]]> 17237217 384 Matthew D. Lieberman 0307889092 Andrew 5 4.05 2013 Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect
author: Matthew D. Lieberman
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection]]> 2753527 336 John T. Cacioppo 0393061701 Andrew 5 3.91 2008 Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection
author: John T. Cacioppo
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #4)]]> 13049569 The Passage of PowerĚýfollows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and the most triumphant periods of his careerâ€�1958 to1964. It is a time that would see him trade the extraordinary power he had created for himself as Senate Majority Leader for what became the wretched powerlessness of a Vice President in an administration that disdained and distrusted him. Yet it was, as well, the time in which the presidency, the goal he had always pursued, would be thrust upon him in the moment it took an assassin’s bullet to reach its mark.

By 1958, as Johnson began to maneuver for the presidency, he was known as one of the most brilliant politicians of his time, the greatest Senate Leader in our history. But the 1960 nomination would go to the young senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. Caro gives us an unparalleled account of the machinations behind both the nomination and Kennedy’s decision to offer Johnson the vice presidency, revealing the extent of Robert Kennedy’s efforts to force Johnson off the ticket. With the consummate skill of a master storyteller, he exposes the savage animosity between Johnson and Kennedy’s younger brother, portraying one of America’s great political feuds. Yet Robert Kennedy’s overt contempt for Johnson was only part of the burden of humiliation and isolation he bore as Vice President. With a singular understanding of Johnson’s heart and mind, Caro describes what it was like for this mighty politician to find himself altogether powerless in a world in which power is the crucial commodity.Ěý

For the first time, in Caro’s breathtakingly vivid narrative, we see the Kennedy assassination through Lyndon Johnson’s eyes. We watch Johnson step into the presidency, inheriting a staff fiercely loyal to his slain predecessor; a Congress determined to retain its power over the executive branch; and a nation in shock and mourning. We see how within weeks—grasping the reins of the presidency with supreme mastery—he propels through Congress essential legislation that at the time of Kennedy’s death seemed hopelessly logjammed and seizes on a dormant Kennedy program to create the revolutionary War on Poverty. Caro makes clear how the political genius with which Johnson had ruled the Senate now enabled him to make the presidency wholly his own. This was without doubt Johnson’s finest hour, before his aspirations and accomplishments were overshadowed and eroded by the trap of Vietnam.

In its exploration of this pivotal period in Johnson’s life—and in the life of the nationâ€�The Passage of PowerĚýis not only the story of how he surmounted unprecedented obstacles in order to fulfill the highest purpose of the presidency but is, as well, a revelation of both the pragmatic potential in the presidency and what can be accomplished when the chief executive has the vision and determination to move beyond the pragmatic and initiate programs designed to transform a nation.]]> 712 Robert A. Caro 0679405070 Andrew 5 4.36 2012 The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #4)
author: Robert A. Caro
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> Gone Girl 19288043 What have we done to each other?

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

So what did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?]]> 415 Gillian Flynn 0307588378 Andrew 5 4.22 2012 Gone Girl
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime]]> 6694937 Catch 22.� �The Financial Times

Ěý

“It transports you to a parallel universe in which everything in the National Enquirer is true�.More interesting is what we learn about the candidates themselves: their frailties, egos and almost super-human stamina.� �The Financial Times

Ěý

“I can’t put down this book!� —Stephen Colbert

Ěý

Game Change is the New York Times bestselling story of the 2008 presidential election, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the best political reporters in the country. In the spirit of Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes and Theodore H. White’s The Making of the President 1960, this classic campaign trail book tells the defining story of a new era in American politics, going deeper behind the scenes of the Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin campaigns than any other account of the historic 2008 election.]]> 448 John Heilemann 0061733636 Andrew 5 4.12 2010 Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime
author: John Heilemann
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> Lunar Park 4031 Lunar Park, is a writer whose first novel Less Than Zero catapulted him to international stardom while he was still in college. In the years that followed, he found himself adrift in a world of wealth, drugs, and fame, as well as dealing with the unexpected death of his abusive father. After a decade of decadence, a chance for salvation arrives; the chance to reconnect with an actress he was once involved with, and their son. But almost immediately his new life is threatened by a freak sequence of events and a bizarre series of murders that all seem to connect to Ellis’s past.

Reality, memoir, and fantasy combine to create not only a fascinating version of this most controversial writer but also a deeply moving novel about love and loss, parents and children, and ultimately forgiveness.]]> 404 Bret Easton Ellis 0375727272 Andrew 5 3.65 2005 Lunar Park
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> American Psycho 28676 American Psycho is a bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognize but do not wish to confront.]]> 399 Bret Easton Ellis 0679735771 Andrew 5 3.82 1991 American Psycho
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Mr. Paradise 141615 304 Elmore Leonard 014100987X Andrew 5 3.53 2004 Mr. Paradise
author: Elmore Leonard
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Out of Sight (Jack Foley, #1) 288962 Book #1 from the series: Jack Foley
Listening Length = 6 hours and 49 minutes

Before there was Raylan, there was Sisco... U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco is on the hunt for world-class gentleman felon Jack Foley in Out of Sight, New York Times bestselling author Elmore Leonard’s sexy thriller that moves from Miami to the Motor City.

Based on Miami, Florida's Gold Coast, U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco isn’t about to let a expert criminal like Jack Foley successfully bust out of Florida's Glades Prison. But there’s a major score waiting for him in Detroit, and a shotgun-wielding marshal isn’t going to stop Foley from getting it.

Neither counted on sharing a cramped car trunk—or on a sizzling chemistry that’s working overtime. As soon as Sisco escapes, Foley is already missing her.

Sisco can’t forget Foley either—and she isn’t about to let him go. Too bad the next time their paths cross, it’s going to be about business, not pleasure.]]> 358 Elmore Leonard 0060084103 Andrew 5 3.95 1996 Out of Sight (Jack Foley, #1)
author: Elmore Leonard
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Long Goodbye (Philip Marlowe, #6)]]> 2054 379 Raymond Chandler 0394757688 Andrew 5 4.19 1953 The Long Goodbye (Philip Marlowe, #6)
author: Raymond Chandler
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1953
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Double Indemnity 56616 Double Indemnity gives us an X-ray view of guilt, of duplicity, and of the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches. First published in 1935, this novel reaffirmed James M. Cain as a virtuoso of the roman noir.

Walter Huff was an insurance salesman with an unfailing instinct for clients who might be in trouble, and his instinct led him to Phyllis Nirdlinger. Phyllis wanted to buy an accident policy on her husband. Then she wanted her husband to have an accident. Walter wanted Phyllis. To get her, he would arrange the perfect murder and betray everything he had ever lived for.]]> 115 James M. Cain 0679723226 Andrew 5 4.07 1936 Double Indemnity
author: James M. Cain
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1936
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Red Harvest (The Continental Op #1)]]> 30005
The Op was in Personville, derogatory nickname aside, as the result of a letter to the Continental Detective Agency in San Francisco from Donald Willsson, publisher of the local paper, asking for an agent to visit. No other information. As soon as the OP arrives, the body count begins and it starts with his client!

'Red Harvest' is more than a superb crime novel; it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in America and one of the greats of 20th century literature.

Librarian's note #1: this entry relates to the novel 'Red Harvest.' Collections, and other Hammett stories can be found elsewhere on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ.

Librarian's note #2: the two serialized novels are: 1. The Cleansing of Poisonville (which later became Red Harvest), and 2. The Dain Curse.

Librarian's note #3: there are a total of 28 Continental Op short stories plus one incomplete; they can be found by searching GR for: 'a Continental Op Short Story.' They are: 1. Arson Plus, 2. Crooked Souls, 3. Slippery Fingers, 4. It, 5. Bodies Piled Up, 6. The Tenth Clew, 7. Night Shots, 8. Zigzags of Treachery, 9. One Hour, 10. The House on Turk Street, 11. The Girl with the Silver Eyes, 12. Women, Politics & Murder, 13. The Golden Horseshoe, 14. Who Killed Bob Teal? 15. Mike or Alec or Rufus, 16. The Whosis Kid, 17. The Scorched Face, 18. Corkscrew, 19. Dead Yellow Women, 20. The Gutting of Couffignal, 21. Creeping Siamese, 22. The Big Knock-Over, 23. $106,000 Blood Money, 24. The Main Death, 25. This King Business, 26. Fly Paper, 27. The Farewell Murder, 28. Death and Company and, 29. Three Dimes (unfinished).]]> 215 Dashiell Hammett 0752852612 Andrew 5 3.98 1929 Red Harvest (The Continental Op #1)
author: Dashiell Hammett
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1929
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Postman Always Rings Twice]]> 25807 The Stranger - is the fever-pitched tale of a drifter who stumbles into a job, into an erotic obsession, and into a murder.]]> 116 James M. Cain 0752861743 Andrew 5 3.79 1934 The Postman Always Rings Twice
author: James M. Cain
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1934
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Taipei 16041828
Taipei is an ode - or lament - to the way we live now. Following Paul from New York, where he comically navigates Manhattan's art and literary scenes, to Taipei, Taiwan, where he confronts his family's roots, we see one relationship fail, while another is born on the internet and blooms into an unexpected wedding in Las Vegas.

From one of this generation's most talked-about and enigmatic writers comes a deeply personal and uncompromising novel about memory, love, and what it means to be alive.]]> 248 Tao Lin 0307950174 Andrew 4 3.35 2013 Taipei
author: Tao Lin
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Innocents and Others 25814179
Meadow makes challenging documentaries; Carrie makes successful feature films with a feminist slant. The two friends have everything in common - except their views on sex, power, movie-making and morality. And yet their loyalty trumps their different approaches to film and to life.

Until, one day, a mysterious woman with a unique ability to cold-call and seduce powerful men over the phone - not through sex, but through listening - becomes the subject of one of Meadow's documentaries. Her downfall, and what makes her so extraordinarily moving, is that she pretends to be someone she is not.]]> 279 Dana Spiotta 150112272X Andrew 4 3.53 2016 Innocents and Others
author: Dana Spiotta
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Eat the Document 72599 Eat the Document shifts between the underground movement of the 1970s and the echoes and consequences of that movement in the 1990s. A National Book Award finalist, Eat the Document is a riveting portrait of two eras and one of the most provocative and compelling novels of recent years.]]> 290 Dana Spiotta 0743273001 Andrew 4 3.65 2006 Eat the Document
author: Dana Spiotta
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Love Me Back 20171005 From "5 Under 35" honoree and Rona Jaffe Award-winner comes an urgent, intensely visceral debut novel about a young waitress whose downward spiral is narrated in electric prose

Marie, a young single mother, lands a job at an upscale Dallas steakhouse. She is preternaturally attuned to the appetites of her patrons, but quickly learns to hide her private struggle behind an easy smile and a crisp white apron. In a world of long hours and late nights, where everything runs on a currency of favors, cash and cachet, Marie gives in to brutally self-destructive impulses. She loses herself in a tangle of bodies and the kind of coke that 'napalms your emotional synapses.' But obliteration—not pleasure—is her goal. Pulsing with fierce, almost feral energy, Love Me Back is an unapologetic portrait of a woman cutting a precarious path through early adulthood.]]> 224 Merritt Tierce 0385538073 Andrew 4 3.22 2014 Love Me Back
author: Merritt Tierce
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> The Marriage Plot 10964693
As Madeleine tries to understand why "it became laughable to read writers like Cheever and Updike, who wrote about the suburbia Madeleine and most of her friends had grown up in, in favor of reading the Marquis de Sade, who wrote about deflowering virgins in eighteenth century France," real life, in the form of two very different guys, intervenes. Leonard Bankhead - charismatic loner, college Darwinist, and lost Portland boy - suddenly turns up in a semiotics seminar, and soon Madeleine finds herself in a highly charged erotic and intellectual relationship with him. At the same time, her old "friend" Mitchell Grammaticus - who's been reading Christian mysticism and generally acting strange - resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is destined to be his mate.

Over the next year, as the members of the triangle in this amazing, spellbinding novel graduate from college and enter the real world, events force them to reevaluate everything they learned in school. Leonard and Madeleine move to a biology laboratory on Cape Cod, but can't escape the secret responsible for Leonard's seemingly inexhaustible energy and plunging moods. And Mitchell, traveling around the world to get Madeleine out of his mind, finds himself face-to-face with ultimate questions about the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the true nature of love.

Are the great love stories of the nineteenth century dead? Or can there be a new story, written for today and alive to the realities of feminism, sexual freedom, prenups, and divorce? With devastating wit and an abiding understanding of and affection for his characters, Jeffrey Eugenides revives the motivating energies of the Novel, while creating a story so contemporary and fresh that it reads like the intimate journal of our own lives.]]> 406 Jeffrey Eugenides 0374203059 Andrew 5 3.46 2011 The Marriage Plot
author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> The Elementary Particles 58314 The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel–part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporary existence.

Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties. Bruno, the older, has become a raucously promiscuous hedonist himself, while Michel is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is a brilliantly caustic and unpredictable tale.]]> 272 Michel Houellebecq 0375727019 Andrew 4 3.91 1998 The Elementary Particles
author: Michel Houellebecq
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Private Citizens 25817440 Private Citizens is a brainy, irreverent debut�This Side of Paradise for a new era.

Capturing the anxious, self-aware mood of young college grads in the aughts,ĚýPrivate CitizensĚýembraces the contradictions of our new century: call it a loving satire. A gleefully rude comedy of manners. MiddlemarchĚýfor Millennials. The novel's four whip-smart narrators—idealistic Cory, Internet-lurking Will, awkward Henrik, and vicious Linda—are torn between fixing the world and cannibalizing it. In boisterous prose that ricochets between humor and pain, the four estranged friendsĚýstagger through the Bay Area’s maze of tech startups, protestors, gentrifiers, karaoke bars, house parties, and cultish self-help seminars, washing up in each other’s lives once again.Ěý

A wise and searching depiction of a generation grappling with privilege and finding grace in failure, Private Citizens is as expansively intelligent as it is full of heart.]]> 372 Tony Tulathimutte 0062399101 Andrew 4 3.39 2016 Private Citizens
author: Tony Tulathimutte
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage]]> 41022133 AĚýNew York TimesĚý#1 Bestseller
A New York Times and Washington Post notable book, and one of theĚýFinancial Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch,ĚýSlate,ĚýMother Jones, The Daily Beast, and BookPage's best books of the year

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of PilgrimageĚýis the long-awaited new novel—a book that sold more than a million copies the first week it went on sale in Japan—from the award-winning, internationally best-selling author Haruki Murakami.

Here he gives us the remarkable story of Tsukuru Tazaki, a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences for the world around us; and of a journey into the past that is necessary to mend the present. It is a story of love, friendship, and heartbreak for the ages.]]> 308 Haruki Murakami 0385352115 Andrew 5 3.93 2013 Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[South of the Border, West of the Sun]]> 17799 Alternate cover edition here.

Growing up in the suburbs of post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to her father's record collection. But when his family moved away, the two lost touch. Now Hajime is in his thirties. After a decade of drifting he has found happiness with his loving wife and two daughters, and success running a jazz bar. Then Shimamoto reappears. She is beautiful, intense, enveloped in mystery. Hajime is catapulted into the past, putting at risk all he has in the present.]]> 190 Haruki Murakami 0099448572 Andrew 5 3.89 1992 South of the Border, West of the Sun
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Sputnik Sweetheart 9557 alternate cover can be found here

Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is glamorous and successful, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel.

Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile K wonders whether he should confess his own unrequited love for Sumire.

Then, a desperate Miu calls from a small Greek island: Sumire has mysteriously vanished...]]> 229 Haruki Murakami 0099448475 Andrew 5 3.85 1999 Sputnik Sweetheart
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Norwegian Wood 11297
A magnificent blending of the music, the mood, and the ethos that was the sixties with the story of one college student's romantic coming of age, Norwegian Wood brilliantly recaptures a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.]]> 296 Haruki Murakami 0375704027 Andrew 5 4.01 1987 Norwegian Wood
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at: 2018/11/11
date added: 2018/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Journey to the End of the Night]]> 12395 Journey to the End of the Night is a literary symphony of violence, cruelty and obscene nihilism. This book shocked most critics when it was first published in France in 1932, but quickly became a success with the reading public in Europe, and later in America where it was first published by New Directions in 1952. The story of the improbable yet convincingly described travels of the petit-bourgeois (and largely autobiographical) antihero, Bardamu, from the trenches of World War I, to the African jungle, to New York and Detroit, and finally to life as a failed doctor in Paris, takes the readers by the scruff and hurtles them toward the novel's inevitable, sad conclusion.]]> 453 Louis-Ferdinand CĂ©line 0811216543 Andrew 5 4.23 1932 Journey to the End of the Night
author: Louis-Ferdinand CĂ©line
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1932
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/01/25
shelves:
review:

]]> Play It As It Lays 428 Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil - literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul - it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis and stunning in the still-startling intensity of its prose.
]]> 231 Joan Didion 0374529949 Andrew 5 3.94 1970 Play It As It Lays
author: Joan Didion
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1970
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/09/29
shelves:
review:

]]> Glamorama 9913 “Impeccable . . . cold and pitiless and modern.� �The Village Voice

“Compelling and scary. A political thriller bursting with conspiracies, double agents and international terrorism. Glamorama is like a Semtex attack on our superficialities.� �The Face

The author of American Psycho continues to shock and haunt us with his incisive and brilliant dissection of the modern world. In his most ambitious and gripping book yet, Bret Easton Ellis delivers a gripping and brilliant dissection of our celebrity-obsessed culture.

Victor Ward, a twenty-something model in fashion- and celebrity-obsessed Manhattan, is gradually, imperceptibly drawn into a shadowy looking-glass of that society, there and in London and Paris, and then finds himself trapped on the other side, in a much darker place where fame and terrorism and family and politics are inextricably linked and sometimes indistinguishable. At once implicated and horror-stricken, his ways of escape blocked at every turn, he ultimately discovers—back on the other, familiar side—that there was no mirror, no escape, no world but this one in which hotels implode and planes fall from the sky.]]> 546 Bret Easton Ellis 0375703845 Andrew 5 3.55 1998 Glamorama
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/07/09
shelves:
review:

]]> Less Than Zero 9915
Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs, and into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.]]> 208 Bret Easton Ellis Andrew 5 3.62 1985 Less Than Zero
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/07/09
shelves:
review:

]]> A Farewell to Arms 10799 A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield - the weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote his ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right.]]> 293 Ernest Hemingway 0099910101 Andrew 5 3.83 1929 A Farewell to Arms
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1929
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/06/22
shelves:
review:

]]> For Whom the Bell Tolls 46170 For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.]]> 471 Ernest Hemingway Andrew 5 3.98 1940 For Whom the Bell Tolls
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1940
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/06/22
shelves:
review:

]]> ´ˇłľĂ©°ůľ±ł¦˛ą˛Ô˛ą 11765 Premier roman de l’écrivain reconnu qu’est aujourd’hui Don DeLillo, Americana apporte une nouvelle preuve que l’AmĂ©rique est encore et toujours Ă  dĂ©couvrir.]]> 454 Don DeLillo 2868698220 Andrew 5 3.44 1971 ´ˇłľĂ©°ůľ±ł¦˛ą˛Ô˛ą
author: Don DeLillo
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.44
book published: 1971
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/05/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Mao II 402 The New York Times), Don DeLillo presents an extraordinary new novel about words and images, novelists and terrorists, the mass mind and the arch-individualist. At the heart of the book is Bill Gray, a famous reclusive writer who escapes the failed novel he has been working on for many years and enters the world of political violence, a nightscape of Semtex explosives and hostages locked in basement rooms. Bill's dangerous passage leaves two people stranded: his brilliant, fixated assistant, Scott, and the strange young woman who is Scott's lover—and Bill's.]]> 241 Don DeLillo 0140152741 Andrew 5 3.69 1991 Mao II
author: Don DeLillo
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/04/20
shelves:
review:

]]> Slouching Towards Bethlehem 424 The first nonfiction work by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era, Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem remains, decades after its first publication, the essential portrait of America—particularly California—in the sixties.

It focuses on such subjects as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up a girl in California, ruminating on the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture.

It contains Didion's famous essay, "Goodbye to All That".]]> 238 Joan Didion Andrew 5 4.20 1968 Slouching Towards Bethlehem
author: Joan Didion
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1968
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/04/20
shelves:
review:

]]> Underworld 11761
Underworld opens with a breathlessly graceful prologue set during the final game of the Giants-Dodgers pennant race in 1951. Written in what DeLillo calls "super-omniscience" the sentences sweep from young Cotter Martin as he jumps the gate to the press box, soars over the radio waves, runs out to the diamond, slides in on a fast ball, pops into the stands where J. Edgar Hoover is sitting with a drunken Jackie Gleason and a splenetic Frank Sinatra, and learns of the Soviet Union's second detonation of a nuclear bomb. It's an absolutely thrilling literary moment. When Bobby Thomson hits Branca's pitch into the outstretched hand of Cotter—the "shot heard around the world"—and Jackie Gleason pukes on Sinatra's shoes, the events of the next few decades are set in motion, all threaded together by the baseball as it passes from hand to hand.

"It's all falling indelibly into the past," writes DeLillo, a past that he carefully recalls and reconstructs with acute grace. Jump from Giants Stadium to the Nevada desert in 1992, where Nick Shay, who now owns the baseball, reunites with the artist Kara Sax. They had been brief and unlikely lovers 40 years before, and it is largely through the events, spinoffs, and coincidental encounters of their pasts that DeLillo filters the Cold War experience. He believes that "global events may alter how we live in the smallest ways," and as the book steps back in time to 1951, over the following 800-odd pages, we see just how those events alter lives. This reverse narrative allows the author to strip away the detritus of history and pop culture until we get to the story's pure elements: the bomb, the baseball, and the Bronx. In an epilogue as breathless and stunning as the prologue, DeLillo fast-forwards to a near future in which ruthless capitalism, the Internet, and a new, hushed faith have replaced the Cold War's blend of dread and euphoria.

Through fragments and interlaced stories—including those of highway killers, artists, celebrities, conspiracists, gangsters, nuns, and sundry others—DeLillo creates a fragile web of connected experience, a communal Zeitgeist that encompasses the messy whole of five decades of American life, wonderfully distilled.]]> 827 Don DeLillo 0330369954 Andrew 5 3.95 1997 Underworld
author: Don DeLillo
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/04/20
shelves:
review:

]]> Point Omega 6595144
Don DeLillo has been "weirdly prophetic about twenty-first-century America" (The New York Times Book Review). In his earlier novels, he has written about conspiracy theory, the Cold War and global terrorism. Now, in Point Omega, he looks into the mind and heart of a "defense intellectual", one of the men involved in the management of the country's war machine.

Richard Elster was a scholar—an outsider—when he was called to a meeting with government war planners, asked to apply "ideas and principles to such matters as troop deployment and counterinsurgency".

We see Elster at the end of his service. He has retreated to the desert, "somewhere south of nowhere", in search of space and geologic time. There he is joined by a filmmaker, Jim Finley, intent on documenting his experience. Finley wants to persuade Elster to make a one-take film, Elster its single character�"Just a man and a wall."

Weeks later, Elster's daughter Jessica visits—an "otherworldly" woman from New York, who dramatically alters the dynamic of the story. The three of them talk, train their binoculars on the landscape, and build an odd, tender intimacy, something like a family. Then a devastating event throws everything into question.

In this compact and powerful novel, it is finally a lingering human mystery that haunts the landscape of desert and mind.]]> 117 Don DeLillo 1439169950 Andrew 5 3.46 2010 Point Omega
author: Don DeLillo
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/04/20
shelves:
review:

]]> Fat City 154869 Fat City is a novel about the indestructibility of of hope, the anguish and comedy of the human condition. It tells the story of two young boxers out of Stockton, California: Ernie Munger and Billy Tully, one in his late teens, the other just turning thirty, whose seemingly parallel lives intersect for a time. Set in an ambiance of glittering dreams and drab realities, it tells of the two fighters' struggles to escape the confinements of their existence, and of the men and women in their world. Fat City is a novel about the sporting life like no other ever written: without melodrama or false heroics, written with a truthfulness that is at once painful and beautiful.

Denis Johnson: "Between the ages of 19 and 25 I studied Leonard Gardner’s book so closely that I began to fear I’d never be able to write anything but imitations of it, so I swore it off(...)When I was about 34 (the same age Gardner was when he published his), my first novel came out. About a year later I borrowed Fat City from the library and read it. I could see immediately that ten years� exile hadn’t saved me from the influence of its perfection � I’d taught myself to write in Gardner’s style, though not as well. And now, many years later, it’s still true: Leonard Gardner has something to say in every word I write."

Joan Didion: "Leonard Gardner's Fat City affected me more than any new fiction I have read in a long while, and I do not think it affected me only because I come from Fat City, or somewhere near it. He has got it exactly right--the hanging around gas stations, the field dust, the relentless oppressiveness of the weather, the bleak liaisons sealed on the levees and Greyhound buses--but he has done more than just get it down, he has made it a metaphor for the joyless in heart."

David Wagoner: "The people he writes about are alive and three-dimensional, and have that meaty, sweaty immediacy I admire in novels and find so seldom. It's an odd, interesting world he explores here--as tense and vivid as the prose."

Ivan Gold: "Gardner writes with power, with an insider's knowledge, and with a vividness and love for his characters which redeem them even when they're lost and beaten."

Harry Mark Petrakis: "A man of real talent. He makes the savage world he writes of come alive to the point where the reader can smell the sweat, and feel the anguish of unremitting failure."

Ross Macdonald: "In his pity and art Gardner moves beyond race, beyond guilt and punishment, as Twain and Melville did, into a tragic forgiveness. I have seldom read a novel as beautiful and individual as this one."


Originally published in 1969, Fat City is an American classic whose stature has increased over the years. Made into an acclaimed film by John Huston, the book is set in and around Stockton, California.]]> 183 Leonard Gardner 0520206576 Andrew 5 4.00 1969 Fat City
author: Leonard Gardner
name: Andrew
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1969
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/04/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[There Will Never Be Another You]]> 71829
Accomplished author Carolyn See triumphantly returns to fiction–seven years after her last novel was published–with this provocative, vibrantly written new novel. Set in a security-obsessed world that eerily mirrors our own, There Will Never Be Another You captures the paranoia and propaganda of a volatile time and place in which humanity’s divisions run deep and society sits on edge–and one Southern California family faces profound crises from within and without.

It is a moment in the near future when the global threat of terror has cultivated rage, apathy, and panic across the country. People fear that “anybody could be armed, or have a bomb. Or a disease. Or all three.� For Phil, a dermatologist at the UCLA hospital, it is a time of unease and uncertainty, in stark contrast to the days when he coasted through life on his good looks, a modicum of charm, and only haphazard effort. Now Phil must deal with his mother, Edith, who’s been grieving over the death of her husband for several years and only recently has thought to reconnect with a family that seems to have other priorities. Phil’s energies are already divvied up among his belligerent children, his wayward wife, and his unreliable mistress.

Then Phil’s life takes a dramatic He is recruited for a top-secret team whose task is to act quickly in the event of a biological or chemical attack. The assignment just may provide him with a renewed sense of purpose. Yet dire circumstances force Phil to make profound decisions that will affect not just himself and his loved ones but the entire country. It is a chance for an ordinary man to rise from mediocrity to heroism–and at which failure would prove to be catastrophic.

Foreboding and all too plausible, There Will Never Be Another You is a cautionary novel of family and society, where a naĂŻve past is replaced by a menacing future in which distinguishing between reality and imagination proves to be more challenging than ever.]]> 256 Carolyn See 0679463178 Andrew 5 2.94 2006 There Will Never Be Another You
author: Carolyn See
name: Andrew
average rating: 2.94
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/04/20
shelves:
review:

]]> Revolutionary Road 48328 355 Richard Yates Andrew 5 3.92 1961 Revolutionary Road
author: Richard Yates
name: Andrew
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1961
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/04/20
shelves:
review:

]]>