Erika's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 02 Aug 2023 03:43:10 -0700 60 Erika's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Shipping News 77470
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
--back cover

Cover illustration by David Blackwood

]]>
337 Annie Proulx 0671510053 Erika 5 3.76 1993 The Shipping News
author: Annie Proulx
name: Erika
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/08/02
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Innocents Abroad, Or, the New Pilgrims' Progress]]> 2443 560 Mark Twain 0812967054 Erika 0 3.83 1869 The Innocents Abroad, Or, the New Pilgrims' Progress
author: Mark Twain
name: Erika
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1869
rating: 0
read at: 2018/03/13
date added: 2020/04/30
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia]]> 34713325
Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen’s understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own–as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings.

Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today’s terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.]]>
515 Masha Gessen 159463453X Erika 5 4.18 2017 The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
author: Masha Gessen
name: Erika
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The City in the Middle of the Night]]> 37534907
Humanity clings to life on January--a colonized planet divided between permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other.

Two cities, built long ago in the meager temperate zone, serve as the last bastions of civilization--but life inside them is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside.

Sophie, a young student from the wrong side of Xiosphant city, is exiled into the dark after being part of a failed revolution. But she survives--with the help of a mysterious savior from beneath the ice.

Burdened with a dangerous, painful secret, Sophie and her ragtag group of exiles face the ultimate challenge--and they are running out of time.

Welcome to the City in the Middle of the Night.]]>
366 Charlie Jane Anders 0765379961 Erika 5 3.46 2019 The City in the Middle of the Night
author: Charlie Jane Anders
name: Erika
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2019/02/16
date added: 2019/02/16
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov]]> 1204063 Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, or Ardor, and so many others, comes a magnificent collection of stories.

Written between the 1920s and 1950s, these sixty-five tales—eleven of which have been translated into English for the first time—display all the shades of Nabokov's imagination. They range from sprightly fables to bittersweet tales of loss, from claustrophobic exercises in horror to a connoisseur's samplings of the table of human folly. Read as a whole, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov offers an intoxicating draft of the master's genius, his devious wit, and his ability to turn language into an instrument of ecstasy.

The Wood-Sprite
Russian Spoken Here
Sounds
Wingstroke
Gods
A Matter of Chance
The Seaport
Revenge
Beneficence
Details of A Sunset
The Thunderstorm
La Veneziana
Bachmann
The Dragon
Christmas
A Letter That Never Reached Russia
The Fight
The Return of Chorb
A Guide to Berlin
A Nursery Tale
Terror
Razor
The Passenger
The Doorbell
An Affair of Honor
The Christmas Story
The Potato Elf
The Aurelian
A Dashing Fellow
A Bad Day
The Visit to the Museum
A Busy Man
Terra Incognita
The Reunion
Lips to Lips
Orache
Music
Perfection
The Admiralty Spire
The Leonardo
In Memory of L.I. Shigaev
The Circle
A Russian Beauty
Breaking the News
Torpid Smoke
Recruiting
A Slice of Life
Spring in Fialta
Cloud, Castle, Lake
Tyrants Destroyed
Lik
Mademoiselle O
Vasiliy Shishkov
Ultima Thule
Solus Rex
The Assistant Producer
That in Aleppo Once
A Forgotten Poet
Time and Ebb
Conversation Piece, 1945
Signs and Symbols
First Love
Scenes From the Life of A Double Monster
The Vane Sisters
Lance]]>
642 Vladimir Nabokov 0140132430 Erika 5 4.24 1995 The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Erika
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/08/25
shelves:
review:

]]>
Oil! 54847 Oil! Upton Sinclair fashioned a novel out of the oil scandals of the Harding administration, providing in the process a detailed picture of the development of the oil industry in Southern California. Bribery of public officials, class warfare, and international rivalry over oil production are the context for Sinclair's story of a genial independent oil developer and his son, whose sympathy with the oilfield workers and socialist organizers fuels a running debate with his father. Senators, small investors, oil magnates, a Hollywood film star, and a crusading evangelist people the pages of this lively novel.]]> 528 Upton Sinclair 0520207270 Erika 0 3.74 1926 Oil!
author: Upton Sinclair
name: Erika
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1926
rating: 0
read at: 2018/03/21
date added: 2018/03/21
shelves:
review:

]]>
Gravity’s Rainbow 415 776 Thomas Pynchon 0143039946 Erika 0 to-read 4.01 1973 Gravity’s Rainbow
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: Erika
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Ҳá貹Dz 9593 Ҳá貹Dz takes the reader back one million years, to A.D. 1986. A simple vacation cruise suddenly becomes an evolutionary journey. Thanks to an apocalypse, a small group of survivors stranded on the Ҳá貹Dz Islands are about to become the progenitors of a brave, new, and totally different human race. In this inimitable novel, America’s master satirist looks at our world and shows us all that is sadly, madly awry—and all that is worth saving.]]> 324 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385333870 Erika 0 currently-reading 3.89 1985 Ҳá貹Dz
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Erika
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/03/13
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]>
The Architecture of Happiness 23418
And yet a concern for architecture and design is too often described as frivolous, even self-indulgent. The Architecture of Happiness starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be, and it argues that it is architecture's task to stand as an eloquent reminder of our full potential.

Whereas many architects are wary of openly discussing the word beauty, this book has at its center the large and naïve question: What is a beautiful building? It is a tour through the philosophy and psychology of architecture that aims to change the way we think about our homes, our streets and ourselves.]]>
288 Alain de Botton 0375424431 Erika 0 3.85 2006 The Architecture of Happiness
author: Alain de Botton
name: Erika
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2018/03/13
date added: 2018/03/13
shelves:
review:

]]>
Conversational Design 38393096 130 Erika Hall 1937557677 Erika 0 4.13 Conversational Design
author: Erika Hall
name: Erika
average rating: 4.13
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/03/08
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst]]> 31170723 Why do we do the things we do?

More than a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy.

And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. A behavior occurs—whether an example of humans at our best, worst, or somewhere in between. What went on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happened? Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones acted hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli that triggered the nervous system? By now he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened.

Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that person's adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than one individual. How did culture shape that individual's group, what ecological factors millennia old formed that culture? And on and on, back to evolutionary factors millions of years old.

The result is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do ... for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right.]]>
790 Robert M. Sapolsky 1594205078 Erika 5 4.39 2017 Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
author: Robert M. Sapolsky
name: Erika
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/05/30
shelves:
review:

]]>
I Hate the Internet 27071393
Set in the San Francisco of 2013, I Hate the Internet offers a hilarious and obscene portrayal of life amongst the victims of the digital boom. As billions of tweets fuel the city’s gentrification and the human wreckage piles up, a group of friends suffers the consequences of being useless in a new world that despises the pointless and unprofitable.

In this, his first full-length novel, Jarett Kobek tackles the pressing questions of our moment. Why do we applaud the enrichment of CEOs at the expense of the weak and the powerless? Why are we giving away our intellectual property? Why is activism in the 21st Century nothing more than a series of morality lectures typed into devices built by slaves?

Here, at last, comes an explanation of the Internet in the crudest possible terms.]]>
288 Jarett Kobek 0996421807 Erika 5 3.70 2016 I Hate the Internet
author: Jarett Kobek
name: Erika
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/11/28
shelves:
review:

]]>
Священная книга оборотня 18468967 384 Victor Pelevin Erika 0 to-read 3.96 2004 Священная книга оборотня
author: Victor Pelevin
name: Erika
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/11/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Discipline of Organizing (Mit Press)]]> 16718275 560 Robert J. Glushko 0262518503 Erika 0 to-read 3.36 2013 The Discipline of Organizing (Mit Press)
author: Robert J. Glushko
name: Erika
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/11/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Just Enough Research 17236175
Good research is about asking more and better questions, and thinking critically about the answers. It’s something every member of your team can and should do, and which everyone can learn, quickly. And done well, it will save you time by reducing unknowns and making sure you're building the right thing, in the best possible way.

In Just Enough Research, co-founder of Mule Design Erika Hall distills her experience into a brief cookbook of research methods. Learn how to discover your competitive advantages, spot your own blind spots and biases, identify small changes with huge potential impact, and why you should never, ever hold a focus group. You'll be on the path to good research in less time than you can plan your next pitch.]]>
154 Erika Hall 1937557103 Erika 0 4.19 2013 Just Enough Research
author: Erika Hall
name: Erika
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/09/14
shelves:
review:
Actually, I never want to read this again. But I totally think you should!
]]>
<![CDATA[World Made by Hand (World Made by Hand #1)]]> 1689657
A captivating, utterly realistic novel, World Made by Hand takes speculative fiction beyond the apocalypse and shows what happens when life gets extremely local.]]>
317 James Howard Kunstler 0871139782 Erika 0 Sexist bullshit. 3.65 2007 World Made by Hand (World Made by Hand #1)
author: James Howard Kunstler
name: Erika
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2009/05/10
date added: 2012/05/10
shelves:
review:
Sexist bullshit.
]]>
Design Is a Job 13574985
If you are interested in using design as a tool for good, building a more sustainable and equitable society, creating workplaces where everyone is treated with respect, and doing all of these things while still making a living, this book is for you.]]>
135 Mike Monteiro 1937557049 Erika 5 4.22 2012 Design Is a Job
author: Mike Monteiro
name: Erika
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/04/19
shelves:
review:

]]>
One Hundred Years of Solitude 320 417 Gabriel García Márquez Erika 5 4.10 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Erika
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/08/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
Bears: A Brief History 6002384
The book uncovers new and little-known stories and facts about bears in European, North American, Japanese, Russian, and South and Southeast Asian cultures. Taken together, these perspectives show us new things about the animals we thought we knew so well. Quirky and bizarre anecdotes, scientific information on bears threatened with extinction in some areas, a discussion of the phenomenon of “bearanoia,� and more than one hundred historical illustrations contribute to this unique account of the shared history between bears and humans and the continuing presence of bears in our personal and collective dreams.]]>
272 Bernd Brunner 0300143125 Erika 5 3.65 2005 Bears: A Brief History
author: Bernd Brunner
name: Erika
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/05/07
shelves:
review:

]]>
Night Train to Lisbon 1528410 438 Pascal Mercier 0802118585 Erika 0 3.71 2004 Night Train to Lisbon
author: Pascal Mercier
name: Erika
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2009/06/23
shelves:
review:

]]>
Heart of Darkness 4900
A reflection on corruptive European colonialism and a journey into the nightmare psyche of one of the corrupted, Heart of Darkness is considered one of the most influential works ever written.]]>
188 Joseph Conrad 1892295490 Erika 5 3.43 1899 Heart of Darkness
author: Joseph Conrad
name: Erika
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1899
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/02/16
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[501 Russian Verbs Barron's (English and Russian Edition)]]> 164666 592 Thomas R. Beyer Jr. 0764113496 Erika 4 4.20 1992 501 Russian Verbs Barron's (English and Russian Edition)
author: Thomas R. Beyer Jr.
name: Erika
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2009/02/16
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Madhur Jaffrey's Quick And Easy Indian Cooking]]> 75387 144 Madhur Jaffrey 0811811832 Erika 5
Must love hot food and be willing to purchase 17 additional spice jars.]]>
4.13 1994 Madhur Jaffrey's Quick And Easy Indian Cooking
author: Madhur Jaffrey
name: Erika
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/01/01
shelves:
review:
Love to cook, was always a little daunted by the complexity of Indian. These recipes are, as advertised, fast, simple, and totally delicious.

Must love hot food and be willing to purchase 17 additional spice jars.
]]>
<![CDATA[Baking Illustrated: A Best Recipe Classic]]> 32158 515 Cook's Illustrated 0936184752 Erika 5
Along the way, many byways and pitfalls threaten. There are instructive example to curb those who would stray. You will meet—and recoil in heartsick horror from—the ugly pie, the misshapen biscuit, and the soggy pizza. I'll refrain from detailing the rough fate of wayward muffins to spare the reader's delicate sensibilities.

Ultimately, if you follow the given instructions to the letter, having begun with the best and most pure ingredients, your efforts will stand their test in the torrid darkness to emerge transformed. ]]>
4.23 2004 Baking Illustrated: A Best Recipe Classic
author: Cook's Illustrated
name: Erika
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/12/21
shelves:
review:
This is an inspirational tale of triumph, a pilgrim's progress of common ingredients—eggs, butter, sugar, and flour—from their humble origins to the sweet Empyrean of baked delights.

Along the way, many byways and pitfalls threaten. There are instructive example to curb those who would stray. You will meet—and recoil in heartsick horror from—the ugly pie, the misshapen biscuit, and the soggy pizza. I'll refrain from detailing the rough fate of wayward muffins to spare the reader's delicate sensibilities.

Ultimately, if you follow the given instructions to the letter, having begun with the best and most pure ingredients, your efforts will stand their test in the torrid darkness to emerge transformed.
]]>
<![CDATA[Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems]]> 9006 Whether David Rakoff's contrasting the elegance of one of the last flights of the supersonic Concorde with the good-times-and-chicken-wings populism of Hooters Air; working as a cabana boy at a South Beach hotel; or traveling to a private island off the coast of Belize to watch a soft-core video shoot where he is provided with his very own personal manservant rarely have greed, vanity, selfishness, and vapidity been so mercilessly skewered. Somewhere along the line, our healthy self-regard has exploded into obliterating narcissism; our manic getting and spending have now become celebrated as moral virtues. Simultaneously a Wildean satire and a plea for a little human decency, Don t Get Too Comfortable shows that far from being bobos in paradise, we are in a special circle of gilded-age hell.]]> 222 David Rakoff 0767916034 Erika 4 3.73 2005 Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems
author: David Rakoff
name: Erika
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/12/21
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour]]> 288448
Through a mixture of anthropological analysis and her own unorthodox experiments (using herself as a reluctant guinea-pig), Kate Fox discovers what these unwritten behaviour codes tell us about Englishness.]]>
424 Kate Fox 0340752122 Erika 5 3.91 2004 Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour
author: Kate Fox
name: Erika
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]>
MY DATE WITH SATAN: Stories 235717
The beauty treatment --
An island of boyfriends --
Goal --
Sally's story --
The first men --
The ocean --
Rats eat cats --
Rules for being human --
Prom night --
My date with Satan --
A groupie, a rock star --
Goodnight --
A prodigy of longing]]>
224 Stacey Richter 0684857022 Erika 5 3.83 1999 MY DATE WITH SATAN: Stories
author: Stacey Richter
name: Erika
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Left Hand of Darkness 18423 The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants spend most of their time without a gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.]]>
304 Ursula K. Le Guin Erika 4 4.11 1969 The Left Hand of Darkness
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Erika
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History (Maus, #1)]]> 15196
A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma.]]>
159 Art Spiegelman 0394541553 Erika 5 4.39 1986 Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History (Maus, #1)
author: Art Spiegelman
name: Erika
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Post-American World 2120783
Following on the success of his best-selling The Future of Freedom, Zakaria describes with equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world.

The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.]]>
292 Fareed Zakaria 039306235X Erika 0 to-read 3.86 2008 The Post-American World
author: Fareed Zakaria
name: Erika
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Nureyev: The Life 224665 Nureyev: The Life, Julie Kavanagh shows how his intense drive and passion for dance propelled him from a poor, Tatar-peasant background to the most sophisticated circles of London, Paris, and New York. His dramatic defection to the West in l961 created a Cold War crisis and made him an instant celebrity, but this was just the beginning. Nureyev spent the rest of his life breaking barriers: reinventing male technique, “crashing the gates� of modern dance, iconoclastically updating the most hallowed classics, and making dance history by partnering England� s prima ballerina assoluta, Margot Fonteyn--a woman twice his age. He danced for almost all the major choreographers--Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Kenneth MacMillan, Jerome Robbins, Maurice Béjart, Roland Petit--his main motive, he claimed, for having left the Kirov. But Nureyev also made it his mission to stage Russia’s full-length masterpieces in the West. His highly personal productions of Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Raymonda, Romeo and Juliet, and La Bayadère are the mainstays of the Paris Opéra Ballet repertory to this day. An inspirational director and teacher, Nureyev was a Diaghilev-like mentor to young protégés across the globe--from Karen Kain and Monica Mason (now directors themselves), to Sylvie Guillem, Elisabeth Platel, Laurent Hilaire and Kenneth Greve.

Sex, as much as dance, was a driving force for Nureyev. From his first secret liaison in Russia to his tempestuous relationship with the great Danish dancer Erik Bruhn, we see not only Nureyev’s notorious homosexual history unfold, but also learn of his profound effect on women--whether a Sixties wild child or Jackie Kennedy and Lee Radziwill or the aging Marlene Dietrich. Among the first victims of AIDS, Nureyev was diagnosed HIV positive in 1984 but defied the disease for nearly a decade, dancing, directing the Paris Opéra Ballet, choreographing, and even beginning a new career as a conductor. Still making plans for the future, Nureyev finally succumbed and died in January 1993.

Drawing on previously undisclosed letters, diaries, home-movie footage, interviews with Nureyev’s inner circle, and her own dance background, Julie Kavanagh gives the most intimate, revealing, and dramatic picture we have ever had of this dazzling, complex figure.]]>
800 Julie Kavanagh 0375405135 Erika 0 4.09 2007 Nureyev: The Life
author: Julie Kavanagh
name: Erika
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions]]> 1713426
Why does recalling the Ten Commandments reduce our tendency to lie, even when we couldn't possibly be caught?

Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup?

Why do we go back for second helpings at the unlimited buffet, even when our stomachs are already full?

And how did we ever start spending $4.15 on a cup of coffee when, just a few years ago, we used to pay less than a dollar?

When it comes to making decisions in our lives, we think we're in control. We think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we?

In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.

Not only do we make astonishingly simple mistakes every day, but we make the same "types" of mistakes, Ariely discovers. We consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. We fail to understand the profound effects of our emotions on what we want, and we overvalue what we already own. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable--making us "predictably" irrational.

From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, Ariely explains how to break through these systematic patterns of thought to make better decisions. "Predictably Irrational" will change the way we interact with the world--one small decision at a time.]]>
247 Dan Ariely Erika 0 to-read 4.12 2008 Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
author: Dan Ariely
name: Erika
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists]]> 2737476 Moral Clarity, steering us clear of political dogma to offer instead a framework for forming clear opinions and taking responsible action on today’s urgent political and social questions. Neiman reaches back to the classic virtues—happiness, reason, reverence, and hope—that were held high by every Enlightenment thinker and draws on literature, evolutionary theory, and contemporary research to show that the pursuit of moral clarity is open to all who are committed to these ideals, believers and nonbelievers alike.]]> 480 Susan Neiman 0151011974 Erika 0 to-read 3.74 2008 Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists
author: Susan Neiman
name: Erika
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
How Fiction Works 1355465 Aspects of the Novel and Milan Kundera's The Art of the Novel, How Fiction Works is a scintillating study of the magic of fiction--an analysis of its main elements and a celebration of its lasting power. Here one of the most prominent and stylish critics of our time looks into the machinery of storytelling to ask some fundamental questions: What do we mean when we say we "know" a fictional character? What constitutes a telling detail? When is a metaphor successful? Is Realism realistic? Why do some literary conventions become dated while others stay fresh?

James Wood ranges widely, from Homer to Make Way for Ducklings, from the Bible to John le Carré, and his book is both a study of the techniques of fiction-making and an alternative history of the novel. Playful and profound, How Fiction Works will be enlightening to writers, readers, and anyone else interested in what happens on the page.]]>
265 James Wood 0374173400 Erika 0 to-read 4.00 2008 How Fiction Works
author: James Wood
name: Erika
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East]]> 718814 464 Robin Wright 1594201110 Erika 0 to-read 3.92 2008 Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East
author: Robin Wright
name: Erika
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason]]> 2788874 Discourse on the Method, this small, vain, vindictive, peripatetic, ambitious Frenchman destroyed 2000 years of received wisdom & laid the foundations of the modern world. At the root of Descartes� method was skepticism: "What can I know for certain?" Like-minded thinkers around Europe passionately embraced the book--the method was applied to medicine, nature, politics & society. The notion that one could find truth in facts that could be proved, & not in reliance on tradition & the Church's teachings, would become a turning point in human history. In an age of faith, what Descartes was proposing seemed like heresy. Yet Descartes himself was a good Catholic, who was spurred to write his incendiary book for the most personal of reasons: He'd devoted himself to medicine & the study of nature, but when his beloved daughter died aged 5, he took his ideas deeper. To understand the natural world one needed to question everything. Thus the scientific method was created & religion overthrown. If the natural world could be understood, knowledge could be advanced, & others might not suffer as his child did. The great controversy Descartes ignited continues to our era: where Islamic terrorists spurn the modern world & pine for a culture based on unquestioning faith; where scientists write bestsellers that passionately make the case for atheism; where others struggle to find a balance between faith & reason. Descartes� Bonesis a historical detective story about the creation of the modern mind, with twists & turns leading up to the present day—to the science museum in Paris where the philosopher’s skull now resides & to the church a few kilometers away where, not long ago, a philosopher-priest said a mass for his bones.]]> 319 Russell Shorto 038551753X Erika 0 to-read 3.74 2008 Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason
author: Russell Shorto
name: Erika
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House]]> 3147367 The definitive biography of a larger-than-life president who defied norms, divided a nation, and changed Washington forever

Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson's election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad. To tell the saga of Jackson's presidency, acclaimed author Jon Meacham goes inside the Jackson White House. Drawing on newly discovered family letters and papers, he details the human drama-the family, the women, and the inner circle of advisers- that shaped Jackson's private world through years of storm and victory.

One of our most significant yet dimly recalled presidents, Jackson was a battle-hardened warrior, the founder of the Democratic Party, and the architect of the presidency as we know it. His story is one of violence, sex, courage, and tragedy. With his powerful persona, his evident bravery, and his mystical connection to the people, Jackson moved the White House from the periphery of government to the center of national action, articulating a vision of change that challenged entrenched interests to heed the popular will- or face his formidable wrath. The greatest of the presidents who have followed Jackson in the White House-from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt to FDR to Truman-have found inspiration in his example, and virtue in his vision.

Jackson was the most contradictory of men. The architect of the removal of Indians from their native lands, he was warmly sentimental and risked everything to give more power to ordinary citizens. He was, in short, a lot like his country: alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind; and a man who fought a lifelong war to keep the republic safe-no matter what it took.]]>
483 Jon Meacham 1400063256 Erika 0 to-read 3.85 2008 American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
author: Jon Meacham
name: Erika
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
A Mercy 3009435 This is Florens, who can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Rejected by her mother, Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, and later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives.
A Mercy reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and a daughter - a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.]]>
167 Toni Morrison 0307264238 Erika 0 to-read 3.76 2008 A Mercy
author: Toni Morrison
name: Erika
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Wishful Drinking 4961048 Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher tells the true and intoxicating story of her life with inimitable wit. Born to celebrity parents, she was picked to play a princess in a little movie called Star Wars when only 19 years old. "But it isn't all sweetness and light sabres." Alas, aside from a demanding career and her role as a single mother (not to mention the hyperspace hairdo), Carrie also spends her free time battling addiction, weathering the wild ride of manic depression and lounging around various mental institutions. It's an incredible tale—from having Elizabeth Taylor as a stepmother, to marrying (and divorcing) Paul Simon, from having the father of her daughter leave her for a man, to ultimately waking up one morning and finding a friend dead beside her in bed.]]> 163 Carrie Fisher 1439102252 Erika 5
That George Lucas is a bastard.

]]>
3.80 2008 Wishful Drinking
author: Carrie Fisher
name: Erika
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/11/29
shelves:
review:
Short but funny. This memoir explains what having celebrity parents and being made to recite absurd dialog in a metal bikini can do to a person.

That George Lucas is a bastard.


]]>
Ubik 22590
Esta mordaz comedia metafísica de muerte y salvación (que podrá llevar un cómodo envase) es un tour de force de amenaza paranoica y comedia absurda, en la cual los muertos ofrecen consejos comerciales, compran su siguiente reencarnación y corren el riesgo continuo de volver a morir.]]>
288 Philip K. Dick 8498000831 Erika 4 4.11 1969 Ubik
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Erika
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/11/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
I Capture the Castle 31122 408 Dodie Smith 0312181108 Erika 0 to-read 3.99 1948 I Capture the Castle
author: Dodie Smith
name: Erika
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1948
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/21
shelves: to-read
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 Erika 0 to-read 4.01 1987 Norwegian Wood
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Erika
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World]]> 10374 Lord Jim.

Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following. Tracking one man's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy.]]>
400 Haruki Murakami Erika 0 to-read 4.14 1985 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Erika
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/11/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Phantom Tollbooth 378 Librarian's Note: For an alternate cover edition of the same ISBN, click here.

This beloved story -first published more than fifty years ago- introduces readers to Milo and his adventures in the Lands Beyond.

For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he’s got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the Island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a ticking watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason! Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it’s exciting beyond his wildest dreams. . . .]]>
248 Norton Juster 0394820371 Erika 5 4.19 1961 The Phantom Tollbooth
author: Norton Juster
name: Erika
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1961
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/11/21
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Unbearable Lightness of Being]]> 9717 The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places, brilliant and playful reflections, and a variety of styles, to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world’s truly great writers.]]> 314 Milan Kundera 0571224385 Erika 5 4.12 1984 The Unbearable Lightness of Being
author: Milan Kundera
name: Erika
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1984
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/11/21
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Age of American Unreason 1822711
Jacoby offers an unsparing indictment of the American addiction to infotainment—from television to the Web—and cites this toxic dependency as the major element distinguishing our current age of unreason from earlier outbreaks of American anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism. With reading on the decline and scientific and historical illiteracy on the rise, an increasingly ignorant public square is dominated by debased media-driven language and received opinion.

At this critical political juncture, nothing could be more important than recognizing the "overarching crisis of memory and knowledge" described in this impassioned, tough-minded book, which challenges Americans to face the painful truth about what the flights from reason has cost us as individuals and as a nation.]]>
384 Susan Jacoby 0375423745 Erika 0 3.82 2008 The Age of American Unreason
author: Susan Jacoby
name: Erika
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/10/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Master and Margarita 117833 The first complete, annotated English Translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's comic masterpiece.

An audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, The Master and Margarita is recognized as one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature. The novel's vision of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during its author's lifetime and appeared only in a censored edition in the 1960s. Its truths are so enduring that its language has become part of the common Russian speech.

One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, a work whose nuances emerge for the first time in Diana Burgin's and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's splendid English version.]]>
372 Mikhail Bulgakov 0679760806 Erika 4 4.31 1967 The Master and Margarita
author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: Erika
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1967
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
We 76171 The exhilarating dystopian novel that inspired George Orwell's 1984 and foreshadowed the worst excesses of Soviet Russia

Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand. In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, We is the classic dystopian novel and was the forerunner of works such as George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It was suppressed for many years in Russia and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom, yet is also a powerful, exciting and vivid work of science fiction. Clarence Brown's brilliant translation is based on the corrected text of the novel, first published in Russia in 1988 after more than sixty years' suppression.]]>
256 Yevgeny Zamyatin 0140185852 Erika 4 3.91 1924 We
author: Yevgeny Zamyatin
name: Erika
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1924
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:
Inspired great British artists such as George Orwell, and the Pet Shop Boys.
]]>
A Passage to India 45195 A Passage to India compellingly depicts the fate of individuals caught between the great political and cultural conflicts of the modern world.

In his introduction, Pankaj Mishra outlines Forster's complex engagement with Indian society and culture. This edition reproduces the Abinger text and notes, and also includes four of Forster's essays on India, a chronology and further reading.]]>
376 E.M. Forster 014144116X Erika 4 3.69 1924 A Passage to India
author: E.M. Forster
name: Erika
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1924
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
A Room with a View 3087
Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her, until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George.

Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart?]]>
119 E.M. Forster 1420925431 Erika 4 3.91 1908 A Room with a View
author: E.M. Forster
name: Erika
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1908
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
Maurice 3103
Forster understood that his homage to same-sex love, if published when he completed it in 1914, would probably end his career. Thus, Maurice languished in a drawer for fifty-seven years, the author requesting it be published only after his death (along with his stories about homosexuality later collected in The Life to Come).

Since its release in 1971, Maurice has been widely read and praised. It has been, and continues to be, adapted for major stage productions, including the 1987 Oscar-nominated film adaptation starring Hugh Grant and James Wilby.]]>
256 E.M. Forster 0393310329 Erika 4 4.07 1971 Maurice
author: E.M. Forster
name: Erika
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1971
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco]]> 883815
Disco may be the most universally derided musical form to come about in the past forty years. Yet, like its pop cultural peers punk and hip hop, it was born of a period of profound social and economic upheaval. In Turn the Beat Around , critic and journalist Peter Shapiro traces the history of disco music and culture. From the outset, disco was essentially a shotgun marriage between a newly out and proud gay sexuality and the first generation of post-civil rights African Americans, all to the serenade of the recently developed synthesizer. Shapiro maps out these converging influences, as well as disco's cultural antecedents in Europe, looks at the history of DJing, explores the mainstream disco craze at it's apex, and details the long shadow cast by disco's performers and devotees on today's musical landscape.

One part cultural study, one part urban history, and one part glitter-pop confection, Turn the Beat Around is the most comprehensive study of the Me Generation to date.]]>
384 Peter Shapiro 0571211941 Erika 5 3.99 2005 Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco
author: Peter Shapiro
name: Erika
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
Collected Fictions 17961 Alternate cover edition of ISBN-13: 978-0140286809, ISBN-10/ASIN: 0140286802

For the first time in English, all the fiction by the writer who has been called “the greatest Spanish-language writer of our century� collected in a single volume

A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with flaps and deckle-edged paper

For some fifty years, in intriguing and ingenious fictions that reimagined the very form of the short story—from his 1935 debut with A Universal History of Iniquity through his immensely influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, the enigmatic prose poems of The Maker, up to his final work in the 1980s, Shakespeare’s Memory—Jorge Luis Borges returned again and again to his celebrated themes: dreams, duels, labyrinths, mirrors, infinite libraries, the manipulations of chance, gauchos, knife fighters, tigers, and the elusive nature of identity itself. Playfully experimenting with ostensibly subliterary genres, he took the detective story and turned it into metaphysics; he took fantasy writing and made it, with its questioning and reinventing of everyday reality, central to the craft of fiction; he took the literary essay and put it to use reviewing wholly imaginary books.

Bringing together for the first time in English all of Borges’s magical stories, and all of them newly rendered into English in brilliant translations by Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions is the perfect one-volume compendium for all who have long loved Borges, and a superb introduction to the master’s work for all who have yet to discover this singular genius.]]>
565 Jorge Luis Borges Erika 5 4.57 1998 Collected Fictions
author: Jorge Luis Borges
name: Erika
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings]]> 17717
Labyrinths is a representative selection of Borges' writing, some forty pieces drawn from various books of his published over the years. The translations are by Harriet de Onis, Anthony Kerrigan, and others, including the editors, who have provided a biographical and critical introduction, as well as an extensive bibliography.]]>
260 Jorge Luis Borges 0811200124 Erika 5 4.48 1962 Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings
author: Jorge Luis Borges
name: Erika
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition]]> 59925 480 Umberto Eco 015601159X Erika 4 3.84 1997 Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition
author: Umberto Eco
name: Erika
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Serendipities: Language and Lunacy]]> 507248 144 Umberto Eco 0156007517 Erika 4 3.84 1998 Serendipities: Language and Lunacy
author: Umberto Eco
name: Erika
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Travels In Hyperreality (Harvest Book)]]> 10514 324 Umberto Eco 0156913216 Erika 4 3.92 1967 Travels In Hyperreality (Harvest Book)
author: Umberto Eco
name: Erika
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1967
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Name of the Rose 119073 552 Umberto Eco 0156001314 Erika 4 4.13 1980 The Name of the Rose
author: Umberto Eco
name: Erika
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[What I Talk About When I Talk About Running]]> 2195464
Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and takes us to places ranging from Tokyo’s Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston among young women who outpace him. Through this marvelous lens of sport emerges a panorama of memories and insights: the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer, his greatest triumphs and disappointments, his passion for vintage LPs, and the experience, after fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back.

By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is rich and revelatory, both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in running.]]>
188 Haruki Murakami Erika 5 3.87 2007 What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Erika
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2008/10/18
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
Memoirs of a Geisha 930
In "Memoirs of a Geisha," we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction - at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful - and completely unforgettable.]]>
434 Arthur Golden 0739326228 Erika 3 4.07 1997 Memoirs of a Geisha
author: Arthur Golden
name: Erika
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
Of Mice and Men 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.�

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]>
107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 Erika 5 3.88 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Erika
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Hobbit, or There and Back Again]]> 5907 Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).]]> 366 J.R.R. Tolkien Erika 5 4.29 1937 The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Erika
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
Animal Farm 7613
The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.

One night, all the animals at Mr. Jones' Manor Farm assemble in a barn to hear old Major, a pig, describe a dream he had about a world where all animals live free from the tyranny of their human masters. Old Major dies soon after the meeting, but the animals � inspired by his philosophy of Animalism � plot a rebellion against Jones.

Two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, prove themselves important figures and planners of this dangerous enterprise. When Jones forgets to feed the animals, the revolution occurs, and Jones and his men are chased off the farm. Manor Farm is renamed Animal Farm, and the Seven Commandments of Animalism are painted on the barn wall...]]>
129 George Orwell Erika 4 3.90 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Erika
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1945
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius]]> 4953 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read for decades to come.]]>
530 Dave Eggers 0375725784 Erika 4 3.70 2000 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
author: Dave Eggers
name: Erika
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
Snow Crash 830 Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous� you'll recognize it immediately.]]> 438 Neal Stephenson 0553380958 Erika 5 4.02 1992 Snow Crash
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Erika
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
Lolita 7604 Librarian's note: Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141182537.

Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Dolores Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.]]>
368 Vladimir Nabokov 0679723161 Erika 5 3.87 1955 Lolita
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Erika
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1955
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Interface Culture: How the Digital Medium--from Windows to the Web--Changes the way We Write, Speak]]> 36088 272 Steven Johnson 0062514822 Erika 4 3.74 1997 Interface Culture: How the Digital Medium--from Windows to the Web--Changes the way We Write, Speak
author: Steven Johnson
name: Erika
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Innocent 6868 226 Ian McEwan Erika 5
He is a phenomenal writer in terms of style, plot, and characterization. Apparently The Innocent was made into a mediocre movie with a great cast. You know, like Atonement.

OK, Atonement wasn't actually mediocre, more annoyingly flawed.

Really, as an excuse for Keira Knightley to wear that dress, it could have gotten some sort of special Oscar. ]]>
3.70 1990 The Innocent
author: Ian McEwan
name: Erika
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/10/18
shelves:
review:
Every Ian McEwan book I've read so far turns on one significant, and disastrous, sexual incident. Lives go irretrievably off course. You want to yell at the characters just as you do in a horror film.

He is a phenomenal writer in terms of style, plot, and characterization. Apparently The Innocent was made into a mediocre movie with a great cast. You know, like Atonement.

OK, Atonement wasn't actually mediocre, more annoyingly flawed.

Really, as an excuse for Keira Knightley to wear that dress, it could have gotten some sort of special Oscar.
]]>
The Last Panda 1427474
"No scientist is better at letting the rest of us in on just how the natural world works; no poet sees the world with greater clarity or writes about it with more grace. . . . Anyone who genuinely cares for wildlife cannot help being grateful to Schaller—both for his efforts to understand the panda and for the candor with which he reports what has gone so badly wrong in the struggle to save it from extinction."—Geoffrey C. Ward, New York Times Book Review


"Schaller's book is a unique mix of natural history and the politics of conservation, and it makes for compelling reading. . . . Having been in giant panda country myself, I found some of the descriptions of the animals and habitats breathtaking. Schaller describes the daily routines and personalities of the giant pandas he studied (as well as their fates thereafter) as though they were his blood relatives. . . . Schaller's brilliant presentation of the complexities of conservation makes his book a milestone for the conservation movement."—Devra G. Kleiman, Washington Post Book World


"George Schaller's most soulful work, written in journal style with many asides about a creature who evolved only two to three million years ago (about the same time as humans). . . . Here, conservation biology confronts an evil that grinds against hope and shatters the planet's diversity. Written with hope."� Whole Earth Catalog


"A nicely crafted blend of wildlife observation and political-cultural analysis. . . . The Last Panda is a sad chronicle of our failure, so far, to stem the decline of the animal that may be the most beloved on the planet."—Donald Dale Jackson, Smithsonian]]>
312 George B. Schaller 0226736296 Erika 4 3.99 1993 The Last Panda
author: George B. Schaller
name: Erika
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone]]> 22121
The Washington Post ’s former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes us with him into the into a bubble, cut off from wartime realities, where the task of reconstructing a devastated nation competed with the distractions of a Little America—a half-dozen bars stocked with cold beer, a disco where women showed up in hot pants, a movie theater that screened shoot-’em-up films, an all-you-could-eat buffet piled high with pork, a shopping mall that sold pornographic movies, a parking lot filled with shiny new SUVs, and a snappy dry-cleaning service—much of it run by Halliburton. Most Iraqis were barred from entering the Emerald City for fear they would blow it up.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews and internal documents, Chandrasekaran tells the story of the people and ideas that inhabited the Green Zone during the occupation, from the imperial viceroy L. Paul Bremer III to the fleet of twentysomethings hired to implement the idea that Americans could build a Jeffersonian democracy in an embattled Middle Eastern country.

In the vacuum of postwar planning, Bremer ignores what Iraqis tell him they want or need and instead pursues irrelevant neoconservative solutions—a flat tax, a sell-off of Iraqi government assets, and an end to food rationing. His underlings spend their days drawing up pie-in-the-sky policies, among them a new traffic code and a law protecting microchip designs, instead of rebuilding looted buildings and restoring electricity production. His almost comic initiatives anger the locals and help fuel the insurgency.

Chandrasekaran details Bernard Kerik’s ludicrous attempt to train the Iraqi police and brings to light lesser known but typical the case of the twenty-four-year-old who had never worked in finance put in charge of reestablishing Baghdad’s stock exchange; a contractor with no previous experience paid millions to guard a closed airport; a State Department employee forced to bribe Americans to enlist their help in preventing Iraqi weapons scientists from defecting to Iran; Americans willing to serve in Iraq screened by White House officials for their views on Roe v. Wade; people with prior expertise in the Middle East excluded in favor of lesser-qualified Republican Party loyalists. Finally, he describes Bremer’s ignominious departure in 2004, fleeing secretly in a helicopter two days ahead of schedule.

This is a startling portrait of an Oz-like place where a vital aspect of our government’s folly in Iraq played out. It is a book certain to be talked about for years to come.]]>
320 Rajiv Chandrasekaran 1400044871 Erika 4 4.05 2006 Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone
author: Rajiv Chandrasekaran
name: Erika
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Undercover Economist 70420
New to this edition : This revised edition, newly updated to consider the banking crisis and economic turbulence of the last four years, is essential for anyone who has wondered why the gap between rich and poor nations is so great, or why they can't seem to find a decent second-hand car, or how to outwit Starbucks. Senior columnist for the Financial Times Tim Harford brings his experience and insight as he ranges from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States to reveal how supermarkets, airlines, and coffee chains--to name just a few--are vacuuming money from our wallets. Harford punctures the myths surrounding some of today's biggest controversies, including the high cost of health-care; he reveals why certain environmental laws can put a smile on a landlord's face; and he explains why some industries can have high profits for innocent reasons, while in other industries something sinister is going on.

Covering an array of economic concepts including scarce resources, market power, efficiency, price gouging, market failure, inside information, and game theory, Harford sheds light on how these forces shape our day-to-day lives, often without our knowing it. Showing us the world through the eyes of an economist, Tim Harford reveals that everyday events are intricate games of negotiations, contests of strength, and battles of wits. Written with a light touch and sly wit, The Undercover Economist turns "the dismal science" into a true delight.]]>
288 Tim Harford 0195189779 Erika 4 3.81 2005 The Undercover Economist
author: Tim Harford
name: Erika
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
Atonement 6867
On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses the flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony's incomplete grasp of adult motives—together with her precocious literary gifts—brings about a crime that will change all their lives.

As it follows that crime's repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece.]]>
351 Ian McEwan 038572179X Erika 4 3.94 2001 Atonement
author: Ian McEwan
name: Erika
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation]]> 25351
In Shutting Out the Sun , Michael Zielenziger argues that Japan’s rigid, tradition-steeped society, its aversion to change, and its distrust of individuality and the expression of self are stifling economic revival, political reform, and social evolution. Giving a human face to the country’s malaise, Zielenziger explains how these constraints have driven intelligent, creative young men to become modern-day hermits. At the same time, young women, better educated than their mothers and earning high salaries, are rejecting the traditional path to marriage and motherhood, preferring to spend their money on luxury goods and travel.

Smart, unconventional, and politically controversial, Shutting Out the Sun is a bold explanation of Japan’s stagnation and its implications for the rest of the world.]]>
352 Michael Zielenziger 0385513038 Erika 4 3.61 2006 Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation
author: Michael Zielenziger
name: Erika
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche]]> 229173 Librarian note: This a previously-published edition of ISBN 9780375725807.

It was a clear spring day, Monday, March 20, 1995, when five members of the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo conducted chemical warfare on the Tokyo subway system using sarin, a poison gas twenty-six times as deadly as cyanide. The unthinkable had happened, a major urban transit system had become the target of a terrorist attack.

In an attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakami, internationally acclaimed author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and arguably Japan’s most important contemporary novelist, talked to the people who lived through the catastrophe—from a Subway Authority employee with survivor guilt, to a fashion salesman with more venom for the media than for the perpetrators, to a young cult member who vehemently condemns the attack though he has not quit Aum. Through these and many other voices, Murakami exposes intriguing aspects of the Japanese psyche. And as he discerns the fundamental issues leading to the attack, we achieve a clear vision of an event that could occur anytime, anywhere. Hauntingly compelling and inescapably important, Underground is a powerful work of journalistic literature from one of the world’s most perceptive writers.]]>
366 Haruki Murakami Erika 5 3.87 1997 Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Erika
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
Theodore Rex 40923
President McKinley's assassination brought the 43-year-old TR a challenging presidency, one to which Morris is a clearsighted guide. At home, TR had to persuade Congress to curb competition-stifling corporate trusts, monopolistic transcontinental railroads, and unhygienic food industries that saw consumers as sheep. He also faced labor and racial strife. Abroad, the American presence in Cuba and the Philippines brought criticism, the Russo-Japanese conflict threatened major power shifts in the Far East and Europe, and a politically and financially fraught decision on the Central American canal route - Panama or Nicaragua? - had to be made. TR rose to every challenge. Despite the demands of family and social life, he read, wrote, and traveled extensively. Not least, TR put national parks and conservation of natural resources on the legislative agenda.

All TR's notable contemporaries - including historian Henry Adams, naturalists John Burroughs and John Muir, robber barons E. H. Harriman and James J. Hill, poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, financier J. P. Morgan, fellow politician William Howard Taft, civil rights leader Booker T. Washington, and novelist Owen Wister - appear onstage, their clear voices projecting the excitement of the day.

Morris is blessed with the imagination and skills to write gripping popular history. He doesn't dilute but illuminates events in presenting an account that immediately sparks interest and captures the mind. Readers will note that American interventionism abroad (today's major issue) was much debated during TR's presidency, when major interventional imperatives challenged the new superpower's tradition of relative restraint in foreign affairs.

Theodore Rex is the long-awaited second volume of the TR saga. Morris delivered the first volume, , in 1979. It won a Pulitzer Prize; Theodore Rex is a solid bet for another.
(Peter Skinner)]]>
772 Edmund Morris 0812966007 Erika 5 4.18 2001 Theodore Rex
author: Edmund Morris
name: Erika
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
In Cold Blood 168642
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.]]>
343 Truman Capote 0679745580 Erika 5 4.08 1966 In Cold Blood
author: Truman Capote
name: Erika
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1966
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Faithless: Tales of Transgression]]> 249363 386 Joyce Carol Oates 0060933577 Erika 5 3.73 2001 Faithless: Tales of Transgression
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: Erika
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
Blonde 15975 1110 Joyce Carol Oates 2253152854 Erika 4 3.94 2000 Blonde
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: Erika
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Guided Tours of Hell: Novellas]]> 188422 256 Francine Prose 006008085X Erika 4 3.55 1997 Guided Tours of Hell: Novellas
author: Francine Prose
name: Erika
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts]]> 28636 176 Milan Kundera 0060841869 Erika 5 4.01 2005 The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts
author: Milan Kundera
name: Erika
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
A Moveable Feast 46169 A Moveable Feast captures what it meant to be young and poor and writing in Paris during the 1920s. A correspondent for the Toronto Star, Hemingway arrived in Paris in 1921, three years after the trauma of the Great War and at the beginning of the transformation of Europe's cultural landscape: Braque and Picasso were experimenting with cubist form; James Joyce, long living in self-imposed exile from his native Dublin, had just completed Ulysses; Gertrude Stein held court at 27 Rue de Fleurus, and deemed young Ernest a member of une gneration perdue; and T.S. Eliot was a bank clerk in London. It was during these years that the as-of-yet unpublished young writer gathered the material for his first novel The Sun Also Rises, and the subsequent masterpieces that followed.

Among these small, reflective sketches are unforgettable encounters with the members of Hemingway's slightly rag-tag circle of artists and writers, some also fated to achieve fame and glory, others to fall into obscurity. Here, too, is an evocation of the Paris that Hemingway knew as a young man - a map drawn in his distinct prose of the streets and cafes and bookshops that comprised the city in which he, as a young writer, sometimes struggling against the cold and hunger of near poverty, honed the skills of his craft.

A Moveable Feast is at once an elegy to the remarkable group for expatriates that gathered in Paris during the twenties and a testament to the risks and rewards of the writerly life.

]]>
211 Ernest Hemingway 068482499X Erika 5 4.06 1964 A Moveable Feast
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Erika
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1964
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
On Chesil Beach 815309
It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come. Edward, eager for rapture, frets over Florence’s response to his advances and nurses a private fear of failure, while Florence’s anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by sheer disgust at the idea of physical contact, but dreads disappointing her husband when they finally lie down together in the honeymoon suite.

Ian McEwan has caught with understanding and compassion the innocence of Edward and Florence at a time when marriage was presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and independence. On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from McEwan—a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.]]>
166 Ian McEwan 0224081187 Erika 5 3.61 2007 On Chesil Beach
author: Ian McEwan
name: Erika
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad]]> 2447 295 Fareed Zakaria 0393324877 Erika 5 4.02 2003 The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad
author: Fareed Zakaria
name: Erika
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature]]> 373969 New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence that enables him to provide lucid explanations of deep and powerful ideas. His previous books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Blank Slate, have catapulted him into the limelight as one of today's most important and popular science writers.

Now, in The Stuff of Thought, Pinker marries two of the subjects he knows best: language and human nature. The result is a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. What does swearing reveal about our emotions? Why does innuendo disclose something about relationships? Pinker reveals how our use of prepositions and tenses taps into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and how our nouns and verbs speak to our notions of matter. Even the names we give our babies have important things to say about our relations to our children and to society.

With his signature wit and style, Pinker takes on scientific questions like whether language affects thought, as well as forays into everyday life: why is bulk e-mail called spam and how do romantic comedies get such mileage out of the ambiguities of dating? The Stuff of Thought is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable work that will appeal to fans of readers of everything from The Selfish Gene and Blink to Eats, Shoots & Leaves.]]>
499 Steven Pinker 0670063274 Erika 5 3.91 2007 The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature
author: Steven Pinker
name: Erika
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
Jane Eyre 10210 Alternate editions can be found here and here.

A gothic masterpiece of tempestuous passions and dark secrets, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis in Penguin Classics.

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.]]>
532 Charlotte Brontë 0142437204 Erika 5 4.14 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Erika
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1847
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability]]> 3368 "I thought usability was the enemy of design until I read the first edition of this book. Don't Make Me Think! showed me how to put myself in the position of the person who uses my site. After reading it over a couple of hours and putting its ideas to work for the past five years, I can say it has done more to improve my abilities as a Web designer than any other book.

In this second edition, Steve Krug adds essential ammunition for those whose bosses, clients, stakeholders, and marketing managers insist on doing the wrong thing. If you design, write, program, own, or manage Web sites, you must read this book." -- Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing with Web Standards]]>
201 Steve Krug 0321344758 Erika 4 4.22 2000 Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
author: Steve Krug
name: Erika
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Mule 2294480
Juan Castro Pérez is a simple muleteer caught in the brutal Spanish Civil War. Never far from his closest companion—a stray mule named Valentina whom he is determined to keep for himself after the war—Juan engages in the low-brow drinking escapades, long shots at love, and an otherwise droning existence shared by his compatriots.

As he lies, cheats, and steals to protect Valentina during his improbable odyssey home, Juan unwittingly “fights� for both sides—and becomes a reluctant and unlikely hero of the people, exploited by opportunistic journalists desperately trying to convince the Spanish public that the war is under control, when it is anything but�.]]>
304 Juan Eslava Galán 0553385089 Erika 4 3.42 2003 The Mule
author: Juan Eslava Galán
name: Erika
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Cave 2531 The Cave, a novel of ideas, shaded with suspense. Spare and pensive, The Cave follows the fortunes of an aging potter, Cipriano Algor, beginning with his weekly delivery of plates to the Center, a high-walled, windowless shopping complex, residential community, and nerve center that dominates the region. What sells at the Center will sell everywhere else, and what the Center rejects can barely be given away in the surrounding towns and villages. The news for Cipriano that morning isn't good. Half of his regular pottery shipment is rejected, and he is told that the consumers now prefer plastic tableware. Over the next week, he and his grown daughter Marta grieve for their lost craft, but they gradually open their eyes to the strange bounty of their new condition: a stray dog adopts them, and a lovely widow enters Cipriano's life. When they are invited to live at the Center, it seems ungracious to refuse, but there are some strange developments under the complex, and a troubling increase in security, and Cipriano changes all their fates by deciding to investigate. In Saramago's able hands, what might have become a dry social allegory is a delicately elaborated story of individualism and unexpected love. --Regina Marler]]> 307 José Saramago Erika 4 3.85 2000 The Cave
author: José Saramago
name: Erika
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
Middlesex 2187 Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.]]> 529 Jeffrey Eugenides 0312422156 Erika 5 4.03 2002 Middlesex
author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: Erika
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay]]> 3985 639 Michael Chabon 0312282990 Erika 5 4.18 2000 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
author: Michael Chabon
name: Erika
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/29
shelves:
review:

]]>