Caleb's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 23 Apr 2025 19:45:06 -0700 60 Caleb's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Kettlebell Simple & Sinister 48637798 You know our motto: "We never let well enough alone."

This is Kettlebell Simple & Sinister: Revised & Updated Edition or simply S&S 2.0.

Learn how to use the extreme hand-held gym from the man who started the kettlebell revolution.

Simple & Sinister will physically prepare you for almost anything life could throw at you, from carrying a piano upstairs or holding your own in a street fight.
Simple & Sinister will forge a fighter's physique because the form must follow the function.
- Simple & Sinister will give you the strength, the stamina, and the suppleness to play any sport recreationally and play it well.
- If you are a serious athlete, Simple & Sinister will serve as a perfect foundation for your sport-specific training.
- If you are a serious lifter, Simple & Sinister will build your strength, rather than interfere with it.

Simple & Sinister will achieve all of the above while leaving you plenty of time and energy to do your duty, your job, practice your sport, and have a life.

Russian kettlebell power to you!

]]> 248 Pavel Tsatsouline Caleb 5 4.49 2013 Kettlebell Simple & Sinister
author: Pavel Tsatsouline
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/23
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]]> Daniels' Running Formula 19181585 Get in the best shape of your running career with the scientifically based training in Daniels� Running Formula. In the book that Runner’s World magazine called “the best training book,� premier running coach Jack Daniels provides you with his proven VDOT formula to guide you through training at exactly the right intensity to become a faster, stronger runner.

Choose from the red, white, blue, and gold programs to get into shape, target a race program, or regain conditioning after a layoff or injury. Race competitively with programs for 800 meters, 1500 meters to 3000 meters, cross country races, 5K to 15K, and half-marathon up to the marathon. Each program incorporates the right mix of the five training intensities to help you build endurance, strength, and speed, and Daniels� intensity point system makes it easy to track the time you spend at each level.

The formula can be customized to your current fitness level and the number of weeks you have available for training, and it provides the perfect solution for short training seasons. Get the results you’re seeking every time you lace up your shoes for a training run or race with the workouts and programs detailed in Daniels� Running Formula.

]]> 304 Jack Daniels 0736081836 Caleb 0 currently-reading 4.25 1998 Daniels' Running Formula
author: Jack Daniels
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself]]> 15825138 Finding Ultra is Rich Roll’s incredible-but-true account of achieving one of the most awe-inspiring midlife physical transformations ever.

One cool evening in October 2006, the night before he was to turn forty, Rich experienced a chilling glimpse of his future. Nearly fifty pounds overweight at the time and unable to climb the stairs without stopping, he could see where his current sedentary lifestyle was taking him.

Most of us, when granted such a moment of clarity, look the other way—but not Rich.

Plunging into a new way of eating that made processed foods off-limits and that prioritized plant nutrition, and vowing to train daily, Rich morphed—in a matter of mere months—from out-of-shape midlifer to endurance machine. When one morning ninety days into his physical overhaul, Rich left the house to embark on a light jog and found himself running a near marathon, he knew he had to scale up his goals.

How many of us take up a sport at age forty and compete for the title of the world’s best within two years? Finding Ultra recounts Rich’s remarkable journey to the starting line of the elite Ultraman competition, which pits the world’s fittest humans against each other in a 320-mile ordeal of swimming, biking, and running. And following that test, Rich conquered an even greater the Epic5—five Ironman-distance triathlons, each on a different Hawaiian island, all completed in less than a week.

But Finding Ultra is much more than an edge-of-the-seat look at a series of jaw-dropping athletic feats—and much more than a practical training manual for those who would attempt a similar transformation. Yes, Rich’s account rivets—and, yes, it instructs, providing information that will be invaluable to anyone who wants to change their physique. But this book is most notable as a powerful testament to human resiliency, for as we learn early on, Rich’s childhood posed numerous physical and social challenges, and his early adulthood featured a fierce battle with alcoholism.

Ultimately, Finding Ultra is a beautifully written portrait of what willpower can accomplish. It challenges all of us to rethink what we’re capable of and urges us, implicitly and explicitly, to “go for it.”]]> 272 Rich Roll 0307952215 Caleb 0 currently-reading 4.22 2012 Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself
author: Rich Roll
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Permanent Record 51801760 Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins

Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government’s system of mass surveillance, reveals for the first time the story of his life, including how he helped to build that system and what motivated him to try to bring it down.

In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it.

Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the extraordinary account of a bright young man who grew up online—a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet’s conscience. Written with wit, grace, passion, and an unflinching candor, Permanent Record is a crucial memoir of our digital age and destined to be a classic.]]> Edward Snowden Caleb 0 currently-reading 4.37 2019 Permanent Record
author: Edward Snowden
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tactical Barbell: Green Protocol]]> 61091101 "Tactical Barbell has provided me with an incredible amount of variety and forward momentum in a very demanding career. The program is truly a one-stop shop for all of my fitness goals; I look forward to using the programming for the rest of my life!"
-PW, Special Forces Team Sergeant

‘I am a strength & conditioning coach and have a master’s degree in sports medicine. I’m also a firefighter. This (Tactical Barbell) is the top of the food chain for the tactical athlete.�
-DF

"As a former Marine and a police officer for 15 years, being as fit as possible has always been the goal. Balancing all the different aspects of tactical fitness was incredibly difficult for me at first until I discovered the Tactical Barbell system in 2016. Tactical Barbell is simple, reliable, and highly effective - it gets the job done every time and helps me stay mission ready at all times."
- D, (Municipal) Police Lieutenant

Green Protocol is a comprehensive strength & conditioning system for a specific type of military the combat arms soldier. The term ‘combat arms� refers to troops that engage in direct ground the infantry, special operations, recce, like that. The combat arms soldier is the ultimate hybrid athlete. At the elite end of the spectrum, he needs the endurance of an ultra runner coupled with the strength and structural integrity of a cyborg. These qualities have to coexist to some degree for any combat arms role on the spectrum.

Green Protocol isn’t restricted to the military - it’s for anyone with a similar fitness tactical law enforcement, smoke jumpers, SAR, etc. If you have a need for advanced strength and endurance, you’re in the right place.

This book isn’t a collection of random workouts. Green Protocol is a structured approach with a methodical progression model applied to the key domains of combat fitness. Concurrent periodization is incorporated throughout. This is a modular system designed for every part of your journey. It’ll prepare you for entry level selection/schools, for the job itself, and for detours as your goals change and evolve. Training year-round like you’re preparing for selection is unsustainable and undesirable. Training like an established team member isn’t always focused enough for selection or schools.
At Tactical Barbell our mantra is ‘results speak�. Our bestselling programs are relied upon by thousands of military, law enforcement professionals, and first responders around the world. Come see why.]]> 196 K. Black Caleb 5 4.64 Tactical Barbell: Green Protocol
author: K. Black
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.64
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tactical Barbell II: Conditioning]]> 26125009 179 K. Black Caleb 5 4.58 2015 Tactical Barbell II: Conditioning
author: K. Black
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tactical Barbell: Definitive Strength Training for the Operational Athlete]]> 30292872
As a SWAT operator, combat-arms soldier, or first responder, you have to be a Jack of All Trades. Let’s take that a step further. You have to achieve some degree of mastery. You have to be strong, have incredible levels of endurance, and be capable of sustained bursts of intense activity. All while tired, hungry, cold, or worse. You can’t train like a bodybuilder. You can't be sore for a week after 'leg' day. And unfortunately, you can’t afford to specialise like a powerlifter. You have other abilities you need to develop, things like cardiovascular training, work capacity, and occupational skills. Anyone that’s operational knows it’s a constant juggling act trying to become (and stay) superhuman.

Maximal-strength is a foundational physical attribute for the tactical athlete. In English, this means it’s very important and contributes to the development of other attributes. If you’ve spent time in a combat arms military unit, you won’t ever deny the benefits maximal-strength provides in terms of resiliency, load bearing capability, and injury prevention.

The most efficient way to increase maximal-strength is through the use of barbells, due to the ease of incremental loading and the amount of weight that can be safely handled.

The best barbell programs that currently exist aren’t designed with the tactical athlete in mind. Most of the good ones were developed by people that are powerlifters, pure strength athletes & coaches. These programs are excellent, but rarely compatible with an operational lifestyle.

Most existing ‘tactical� fitness programs give progressive barbell work lip service only. You’ll get an occasional front squat or push-press or some other ‘tactical� lift mixed in with box jumps and burpees. But no sustained and calculated progression model. The tactical community still tends to equate anything barbell related with bodybuilding.

TB fills that gap. It is a barbell strength program designed specifically for tactical athletes using correct principles and best practices to increase maximal-strength and strength-endurance while taking into account the need to simultaneously train other fitness attributes.

You will receive strength programming designed to fit in with your training and lifestyle. Periodization based, with a simple progression model that allows for a great degree of customization. You won’t find cables, balance boards or medicine balls in this program. What you will get is a reliable, repeatable cutting edge system to increase your strength dramatically. In a manner that leaves you time and energy to train all those other things you need to be good at. No fluff. No frills.

If you’re in the tactical arena, you know talk is cheap. There is a built in strength testing component in this program. You will know whether or not your strength has increased, and by how much. Simple.
]]> 140 K. Black Caleb 5 4.58 2014 Tactical Barbell: Definitive Strength Training for the Operational Athlete
author: K. Black
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves:
review:
This is the training book I’ve been looking for my whole life.
]]> Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) 209668781 Discover the instant #1 New York Times bestseller! TV series now in development at MGM Amazon Studios with Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society.

Accolades for Fourth Wing
Amazon Best Books of the Year, #4 � Apple Best Books of the Year 2023 � Barnes & Noble Best Fantasy Book of 2023 � NPR "Books We Love" 2023 � Audible Best Books of 2023 � Hudson Book of the Year � Google Play Best Books of 2023 � Indigo Best Books of 2023 � Waterstones Book of the Year finalist � ŷ Choice Award Winner � Newsweek Staffers� Favorite Books of 2023 � Paste Magazine’s Best Books of 2023 � TikTok Book Awards UK and Ireland Book of the Year (International) 2024

After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty.

Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust.

Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything.

They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth.

But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.

The Empyrean series is best enjoyed in order.
Reading Order:
Book #1 Fourth Wing
Book #2 Iron Flame
Book #3 Onyx Storm]]> 758 Rebecca Yarros 1649376944 Caleb 0 currently-reading 4.42 2025 Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Elantris (Elantris, #1) 30290910 This is an alternate cover edition for B003G93YLY

Elantris was the capital of Arelon: gigantic, beautiful, literally radiant, filled with benevolent beings who used their powerful magical abilities for the benefit of all. Yet each of these demigods was once an ordinary person until touched by the mysterious transforming power of the Shaod. Ten years ago, without warning, the magic failed. Elantrians became wizened, leper-like, powerless creatures, and Elantris itself dark, filthy, and crumbling.

Arelon's new capital, Kae, crouches in the shadow of Elantris. Princess Sarene of Teod arrives for a marriage of state with Crown Prince Raoden, hoping -- based on their correspondence -- to also find love. She finds instead that Raoden has died and she is considered his widow. Both Teod and Arelon are under threat as the last remaining holdouts against the imperial ambitions of the ruthless religious fanatics of Fjordell. So Sarene decides to use her new status to counter the machinations of Hrathen, a Fjordell high priest who has come to Kae to convert Arelon and claim it for his emperor and his god.

But neither Sarene nor Hrathen suspect the truth about Prince Raoden. Stricken by the same curse that ruined Elantris, Raoden was secretly exiled by his father to the dark city. His struggle to help the wretches trapped there begins a series of events that will bring hope to Arelon, and perhaps reveal the secret of Elantris itself.]]> 657 Brandon Sanderson Caleb 4 4.34 2005 Elantris (Elantris, #1)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
review:

]]> We Used to Live Here 199898250
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

As soon as the strangers enter their home, inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?

This unputdownable and spine-tingling novel “is like quicksand: the further you delve into its pages, the more immobilized you become by a spiral of terror. We Used to Live Here will haunt you even after you have finished it� (Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender Is the Flesh).]]> 320 Marcus Kliewer Caleb 3 3.77 2024 We Used to Live Here
author: Marcus Kliewer
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915]]> 57820873 A penetrating, character-filled history “in the manner of David McCullough� (WSJ), revealing the deep roots of our tormented present-day politics.

Democracy was broken. Or that was what many Americans believed in the decades after the Civil War. Shaken by economic and technological disruption, they sought safety in aggressive, tribal partisanship. The results were the loudest, closest, most violent elections in U.S. history, driven by vibrant campaigns that drew our highest-ever voter turnouts. At the century's end, reformers finally restrained this wild system, trading away participation for civility in the process. They built a calmer, cleaner democracy, but also a more distant one. Americans' voting rates crashed and never fully recovered.

This is the origin story of the “normal� politics of the 20th century. Only by exploring where that civility and restraint came from can we understand what is happening to our democracy today.

The Age of Acrimony charts the rise and fall of 19th-century America's unruly politics through the lives of a remarkable father-daughter dynasty. The radical congressman William “Pig Iron� Kelley and his fiery, Progressive daughter Florence Kelley led lives packed with drama, intimately tied to their nation's politics. Through their friendships and feuds, campaigns and crusades, Will and Florie trace the narrative of a democracy in crisis. In telling the tale of what it cost to cool our republic, historian Jon Grinspan reveals our divisive political system's enduring capacity to reinvent itself.]]> 376 Jon Grinspan 1635574633 Caleb 0 currently-reading 4.17 The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915
author: Jon Grinspan
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.17
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> House of Leaves 337907
Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.]]> 709 Mark Z. Danielewski Caleb 0 to-read 4.03 2000 House of Leaves
author: Mark Z. Danielewski
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection]]> 29958044 Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection, the first book of short fiction by #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson.

The collection will include nine works in all. The first eight are:

“The Hope of Elantris� (Elantris)
“The Eleventh Metal� (Mistborn)
“The Emperor's Soul� (Elantris)
“Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes 28 through 30� (Mistborn)
“White Sand" (excerpt; Taldain)
"Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell� (Threnody)
“Sixth of Dusk� (First of the Sun)
“Mistborn: Secret History� (Mistborn)

These wonderful works, originally published on Tor.com and elsewhere individually, convey the expanse of the Cosmere and tell exciting tales of adventure Sanderson fans have come to expect, including the Hugo Award-winning novella, “The Emperor's Soul� and an excerpt from the graphic novel "White Sand."

Arcanum Unbounded will also contain the Stormlight Archive novella "Edgedancer," which will appear in this book for the first time anywhere.

Finally, this collection includes essays and illustrations for the various planetary systems in which the stories are set.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 587 Brandon Sanderson 0765391171 Caleb 0 currently-reading 4.53 2016 Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3)]]> 123224266 Who is the Hero of Ages?

To end the Final Empire and restore freedom, Vin killed the Lord Ruler. But as a result, the Deepness—the lethal form of the ubiquitous mists—is back, along with increasingly heavy ashfalls and ever more powerful earthquakes. Humanity appears to be doomed.

Having escaped death at the climax of The Well of Ascension only by becoming a Mistborn himself, Emperor Elend Venture hopes to find clues left behind by the Lord Ruler that will allow him to save the world. Vin is consumed with guilt at having been tricked into releasing the mystic force known as Ruin from the Well. Ruin wants to end the world, and its near omniscience and ability to warp reality make stopping it seem impossible. Vin can't even discuss it with Elend lest Ruin learn their plans!]]> 586 Brandon Sanderson Caleb 5 buy 4.71 2008 The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.71
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: buy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2)]]> 123224262 624 Brandon Sanderson Caleb 4 buy 4.51 2007 The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: buy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1)]]> 123224254
Kelsier recruited the underworld's elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Only then does he reveal his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot.

But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel's plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she's a half-Skaa orphan, but she's lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets, and gotten it. She will have to learn to trust, if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.

This saga dares to ask a simple question: What if the hero of prophecy fails?]]> 558 Brandon Sanderson Caleb 4 owned 4.58 2006 Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: owned
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine]]> 49788058
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

The only way to survive is to open your heart.]]> 331 Gail Honeyman Caleb 4 4.35 2017 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
author: Gail Honeyman
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves:
review:

]]> In the Lives of Puppets 60784549
The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,� he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

Inspired by Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, and like Swiss Family Robinson meets Wall-E, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful stand-alone fantasy adventure from the beloved author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.]]> 432 T.J. Klune 125021744X Caleb 0 to-read 3.90 2023 In the Lives of Puppets
author: T.J. Klune
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Gai-Jin (Asian Saga, #3) 58128812
As Malcolm Struan, the son of Culum and Tess Struan, and a small band of Westerners travel down the Tōkaidō road, they are attacked by two Satsuma samurai, who mortally wound John Canterbury and seriously injure Malcolm, who then finds reprieve in the merchant village of Yokohama after a narrow escape facilitated by the unscathed Angelique.

Angelique Richaud, Malcolm’s penniless but beautiful French companion, is thrown into a world of political intrigue, fierce devotion, unstable family dynamics, blackmail, and secrets as the trading houses battle for supremacy.

With a cast of dynamic and fully recognized characters, Gai-Jin spins a tale of passionate love affairs, devastating loss, intense power struggles, and the fight to survive and thrive in a hostile new land that will leave listeners longing for another foray into Clavell’s extraordinary Asian Saga.]]> 51 James Clavell Caleb 4 owned 3.17 1993 Gai-Jin (Asian Saga, #3)
author: James Clavell
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.17
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/05
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: owned
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lost Stars (Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens)]]> 25654388 349 Claudia Gray 1484725026 Caleb 4 4.34 2015 Lost Stars (Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens)
author: Claudia Gray
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves:
review:

]]> The Life Impossible 198281740
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…�

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.]]> 324 Matt Haig 0593489276 Caleb 4 3.45 2024 The Life Impossible
author: Matt Haig
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)]]> 55225045
When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .

Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.]]> 545 R.F. Kuang Caleb 3 owned 4.16 2018 The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: owned
review:

]]> The Berry Pickers 123036004 A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.]]> 307 Amanda Peters 1646221958 Caleb 4 4.04 2023 The Berry Pickers
author: Amanda Peters
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/20
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> Noble House (Asian Saga, #5) 390711 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN13: 9780440164845.

The tai-pan, Ian Dunross, struggles to rescue Struan's from the precarious financial position left by his predecessor. To do this, he seeks partnership with an American millionaire, while trying to ward off his arch-rival Quillan Gornt, who seeks to destroy Struan's once and for all. Meanwhile, Chinese communists, Taiwanese nationalists, and Soviet spies illegally vie for influence in Hong Kong while the British government seeks to prevent this. And nobody, it seems, can get anything done without enlisting the aid of Hong Kong's criminal underworld. Other obstacles include water shortages, landslides, bank runs and stock market crashes.

Nov. 1987 Dell jumbo mass market paperback, 21st printing. James Clavell.]]> 1376 James Clavell Caleb 5 4.26 1981 Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)
author: James Clavell
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
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review:

]]> Whirlwind (Asian Saga, #6) 42932 1231 James Clavell 0340766182 Caleb 4 3.84 1986 Whirlwind (Asian Saga, #6)
author: James Clavell
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
review:

]]> Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2) 34019110 Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell.

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex� Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies� most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.]]> 484 Leigh Bardugo 1250313112 Caleb 3 owned 4.20 2023 Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2)
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: owned
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Year One (Chronicles of the One, #1)]]> 34311458
The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed—and more than half of the world’s population was decimated.

And as the power of science and technology receded, magic rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practicing in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river—or in the ones you know and love the most. As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travelers are heading west too, into a new frontier.

In a world of survivors where every stranger encountered could be either a savage or a savior, none of them knows exactly where they are heading, or why. But a purpose awaits them that will shape their lives and the lives of all those who remain.

The end has come. The beginning comes next.]]> 419 Nora Roberts 1250122988 Caleb 3 owned 4.31 2017 Year One (Chronicles of the One, #1)
author: Nora Roberts
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: owned
review:

]]> Running on Empty 10557318 117 marathons, 52 days, 32 pairs of shoes, 57 years A fascinating glimpse inside the mind of an ultramarathon runner and the inspirational saga of his phenomenal journey running across America. The ultimate endurance athlete, Marshall Ulrich has run more than 100 foot races averaging over 100 miles each, completed 12 expedition-length adventure races, and ascended the Seven Summits - including Mount Everest - all on his first attempt. Yet his run from California to New York- the equivalent of running two marathons and a 10K every day for nearly two months straight - proved to be his most challenging effort yet. Featured in the recent documentary film, Running America, Ulrich clocked the 3rd fastest transcontinental crossing to date and set new records in multiple divisions. In Running on Empty, he shares the gritty backstory, including brushes with death, run-ins with the police, and the excruciating punishments he endured at the mercy of his maxed-out body. Ulrich also reached back nearly 30 years to when the death of the woman he loved drove him to begin running - and his dawning realization that he felt truly alive only when pushed to the limits. Filled with mind-blowing stories from the road and his sensational career, Ulrich's memoir imbues an incredible read with a universal message for athletes and nonathletes face the toughest challenges, overcome debilitating setbacks, and find deep fulfillment in something greater than achievementWatch a Video]]> 337 Marshall Ulrich 1101513853 Caleb 4 3.75 2011 Running on Empty
author: Marshall Ulrich
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ajax Penumbra 1969 (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, #0.5)]]> 18715978 56 Robin Sloan 0374711844 Caleb 4 4.10 2012 Ajax Penumbra 1969 (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, #0.5)
author: Robin Sloan
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2013/10/24
date added: 2024/09/12
shelves:
review:

]]> Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1) 43301737 The mesmerizing adult debut from #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo

Galaxy “Alex� Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs� are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.]]> 476 Leigh Bardugo 1250313082 Caleb 4 buy 4.13 2019 Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1)
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/10
date added: 2024/07/10
shelves: buy
review:

]]> Dreadful 191729070 A sharp-witted, high fantasy farce featuring killer moat squid, toxic masculinity, evil wizards and a garlic festival - all at once. Perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, K. J. Parker and Travis Baldree.

It’s bad enough waking up in a half-destroyed evil wizard’s workshop with no eyebrows, no memories, and no idea how long you have before the Dread Lord Whomever shows up to murder you horribly and then turn your skull into a goblet or something.
It’s a lot worse when you realize that Dread Lord Whomever is� you.
Gav isn’t really sure how he ended up with a castle full of goblins, or why he has a princess locked in a cell. All he can do is play along with his own evil plan in hopes of getting his memories back before he gets himself killed.
But as he realizes that nothing � from the incredibly tasteless cloak adorned with flames to the aforementioned princess � is quite what it seems, Gav must face up to all the things the Dread Lord Gavrax has done. And he’ll have to answer the hardest question of all � who does he want to be?
Dread Lord Gavrax has had better weeks.]]> 368 Caitlin Rozakis Caleb 4 3.87 2024 Dreadful
author: Caitlin Rozakis
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/04
date added: 2024/07/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)]]> 63219094 Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from #1 New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Yarros.

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile� humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.]]> 665 Rebecca Yarros Caleb 3 buy 4.74 2023 Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.74
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/16
date added: 2024/06/30
shelves: buy
review:

]]> Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2) 192581482
Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College, Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders� capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.

But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year.

Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College, and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.]]> 639 Rebecca Yarros 0349437041 Caleb 3 buy 4.50 2023 Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/30
date added: 2024/06/30
shelves: buy
review:

]]> King Rat (Asian Saga, #4) 34404730 James Clavell Caleb 3 3.89 1962 King Rat (Asian Saga, #4)
author: James Clavell
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1962
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/20
date added: 2024/06/20
shelves:
review:

]]> The Price You Pay 38724992 In this audacious, lightning-paced thriller, a smart-mouthed, white-collar drug dealer--a hilariously irreverent antihero--seeks revenge when an unknown enemy takes out a contract on him.

All is good in the life of Jack Price. His drug operation is the Amazon of cocaine trafficking, and no one can breach his complex security system. But then: His downstairs neighbor is professionally executed. That the murder is a sign for Jack becomes perfectly clear a few days later when he arrives home and is beaten to a bloody pulp by a squad of enforcers. Now revenge is on his mind, and he reaches out to his ex-Soviet associate. Unfortunately, she's just taken a gig with the Seven Demons, the most feared underground assassination squad in the world--and Jack is their next target. Anyone else would disappear as soon as they learned they were being targeted by the Seven Demons. But Jack Price cannot abide a betrayal. With the help of his contacts in a deep web network called Poltergeist, he fakes a getaway and begins scouting the Demons. He intends to take them out one by one...]]> 272 Aidan Truhen 1524733385 Caleb 4 4.06 2018 The Price You Pay
author: Aidan Truhen
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/08
date added: 2024/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying (Dark Lord Davi, #1)]]> 198493860
Davi has done this all before. She’s tried to be the hero and take down the all-powerful Dark Lord. A hundred times she’s rallied humanity and made the final charge. But the time loop always gets her in the end. Sometimes she’s killed quickly. Sometimes it takes a while. But she’s been defeated every time.

This time? She’s done being the hero and done being stuck in this endless time loop. If the Dark Lord always wins, then maybe that’s who she needs to be. It’s Davi’s turn to play on the winning side.

Burningblade & Silvereye
Ashes of the Sun
Blood of the Chosen
Emperor of Ruin]]> 392 Django Wexler 0316392200 Caleb 4 3.67 2024 How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying (Dark Lord Davi, #1)
author: Django Wexler
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/06
date added: 2024/06/06
shelves:
review:

]]> Dark Matter 27833670 A mindbending, relentlessly surprising thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy.

Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.

"Are you happy with your life?"

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend."

In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that's the dream?

And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could've imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human--a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of.]]> 342 Blake Crouch 1101904224 Caleb 4 4.13 2016 Dark Matter
author: Blake Crouch
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/03
date added: 2024/06/03
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]]> 2054: A Novel 177178570 From the acclaimed authors of the runaway New York Times bestseller 2034 comes another explosive work of speculative fiction set twenty years further in the future, at a moment when a radical leap forward in artificial intelligence combines with America’s violent partisan divide to create an existential threat to the country, and the world

It is twenty years after the catastrophic war between the United States and China that brought down the old American political order. A new party has emerged in the US, one that’s held power for over a decade. Efforts to cement its grip have resulted in mounting violent resistance. The American president has control of the media, but he is beginning to lose control of the streets. Many fear he’ll stop at nothing to remain in the White House. Suddenly, he collapses in the middle of an address to the nation. After an initial flurry of misinformation, the administration reluctantly announces his death. A cover-up ensues, conspiracy theories abound, and the country descends into a new type of civil war.

A handful of elite actors from the worlds of computer science, intelligence, and business have a fairly good idea what happened. All signs point to a profound breakthrough in AI, of which the remote assassination of an American president is hardly the most game-changing ramification. The trail leads to an outpost in the Amazon rainforest, the last known whereabouts of the tech visionary who predicted this breakthrough. As some of the world’s great powers, old and new, state and nonstate alike, struggle to outmaneuver one another in this new Great Game of scientific discovery, the outcome becomes entangled with the fate of American democracy.

Combining a deep understanding of AI, biotech, and the possibility of a coming Singularity, along with their signature geopolitical sophistication, Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis have once again written a visionary work. 2054 is a novel that reads like a thriller even as it demands that we consider the trajectory of our society and its potentially calamitous destination.]]> 301 Elliot Ackerman 059348987X Caleb 3 3.79 2024 2054: A Novel
author: Elliot Ackerman
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/31
date added: 2024/05/31
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]]> <![CDATA[2034: A Novel of the Next World War]]> 54211065

By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt's destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. Iran and China have clearly coordinated their moves, which involve the use of powerful new forms of cyber weaponry that render US ships and planes defenseless. In a single day, America's faith in its military's strategic pre-eminence is in tatters. A new, terrifying era is at hand.

So begins a disturbingly plausible work of speculative fiction, co-authored by an award-winning novelist and decorated Marine veteran and the former commander of NATO, a legendary admiral who has spent much of his career strategically out maneuvering America's most tenacious adversaries.

Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophistication and literary, human empathy, 2034 takes us inside the minds of a global cast of characters--Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Indians--as a series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm. In the end, China and the United States will have paid a staggering cost, one that forever alters the global balance of power.

Everything in 2034 is an imaginative extrapolation from present-day facts on the ground combined with the authors' years working at the highest and most classified levels of national security. Sometimes it takes a brilliant work of fiction to illuminate the most dire of warnings: 2034 is all too close at hand, and this cautionary tale presents the reader a dark yet possible future that we must do all we can to avoid.

]]> 320 Elliot Ackerman 1984881256 Caleb 3 3.67 2021 2034: A Novel of the Next World War
author: Elliot Ackerman
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/20
date added: 2024/02/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Children of God (The Sparrow, #2)]]> 5972852 In Children of God,Mary Doria Russell further establishes herself as one of the most innovative, entertaining and philosophically provocative novelists writing today.The only member of the original mission to the planet Rakhat to return to Earth, Father Emilio Sandoz has barely begun to recover from his ordeal when the So-ciety of Jesus calls upon him for help in preparing for another mission to Alpha Centauri. Despite his objections and fear, he cannot escape his past or the future.Old friends, new discoveries and difficult questions await Emilio as he struggles for inner peace and understanding in a moral universe whose boundaries now extend beyond the solar system and whose future lies with children born in a faraway place.Strikingly original, richly plotted, replete with memorable characters and filled with humanity and humor, Children of God is an unforgettable and uplifting novel that is a potent successor to The Sparrow and a startlingly imaginative adventure for newcomers to Mary Doria Russell’s special literary magic.]]> 466 Mary Doria Russell Caleb 4 owned 4.28 1998 Children of God (The Sparrow, #2)
author: Mary Doria Russell
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/12
date added: 2024/02/12
shelves: owned
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wisdom of Crowds (The Age of Madness #3)]]> 56621190
The Great Change is upon us . . .

Some say that to change the world you must first burn it down. Now that belief will be tested in the crucible of revolution: the Breakers and Burners have seized the levers of power, the smoke of riots has replaced the smog of industry, and all must submit to the wisdom of crowds.

With nothing left to lose, Citizen Brock is determined to become a new hero for the new age, while Citizeness Savine must turn her talents from profit to survival before she can claw her way to redemption. Orso will find that when the world is turned upside down, no one is lower than a monarch. And in the bloody North, Rikke and her fragile Protectorate are running out of allies . . . while Black Calder gathers his forces and plots his vengeance.

The banks have fallen, the sun of the Union has been torn down, and in the darkness behind the scenes, the threads of the Weaver’s ruthless plan are slowly being drawn together . . .”]]> 529 Joe Abercrombie 0316341916 Caleb 5 owned 4.64 2021 The Wisdom of Crowds (The Age of Madness #3)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/19
date added: 2024/01/19
shelves: owned
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness, #2)]]> 51789182 A fragile peace gives way to conspiracy, betrayal, and rebellion in this sequel to the New York Times bestselling A Little Hatred from epic fantasy master Joe Abercrombie.

Peace is just another kind of battlefield . . .

Savine dan Glokta, once Adua's most powerful investor, finds her judgement, fortune and reputation in tatters. But she still has all her ambitions, and no scruple will be permitted to stand in her way.
For heroes like Leo dan Brock and Stour Nightfall, only happy with swords drawn, peace is an ordeal to end as soon as possible. But grievances must be nursed, power seized, and allies gathered first, while Rikke must master the power of the Long Eye . . . before it kills her.
Unrest worms into every layer of society. The Breakers still lurk in the shadows, plotting to free the common man from his shackles, while noblemen bicker for their own advantage. Orso struggles to find a safe path through the maze of knives that is politics, only for his enemies, and his debts, to multiply.
The old ways are swept aside, and the old leaders with them, but those who would seize the reins of power will find no alliance, no friendship, and no peace lasts forever.

For more from Joe Abercrombie, check out:
The Age of Madness A Little Hatred The Trouble With Peace
The First Law Trilogy The Blade Itself Before They Are Hanged Last Argument of Kings Best Served Cold The Heroes Red Country
The Shattered Sea Trilogy Half a King Half a World Half a War]]> 513 Joe Abercrombie 0316341894 Caleb 5 owned 4.62 2020 The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness, #2)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/06
date added: 2024/01/06
shelves: owned
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives In World War II]]> 44589742 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � “A band of brothers in an American tank . . . Makos drops the reader back into the Pershing’s turret and dials up a battle scene to rival the peak moments of Fury.”�The Wall Street Journal

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel—and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.

When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner’s seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He’s a natural-born shooter.

At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division—“Spearhead”—thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit.

After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art “super tank,� one of twenty in the European theater.

But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That’s how Clarence, the corporal from coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle of the European war, the fight for Cologne, the “Fortress City� of Germany.

Battling through the ruins, Clarence will engage the fearsome Panther in a duel immortalized by an army cameraman. And he will square off with Gustav Schaefer, a teenager behind the trigger in a Panzer IV tank, whose crew has been sent on a suicide mission to stop the Americans.

As Clarence and Gustav trade fire down a long boulevard, they are taken by surprise by a tragic mistake of war. What happens next will haunt Clarence to the modern day, drawing him back to Cologne to do the unthinkable: to face his enemy, one last time.

Praise for Spearhead

“A band of brothers in an American tank . . . Makos drops the reader back into the Pershing’s turret and dials up a battle scene to rival the peak moments of Fury . . . a thoroughly enjoyable battle story,and a tribute to the every man warrior.� —The Wall Street Journal

“A detailed, gripping account...the remarkable story of two tank crewmen, from opposite sides of the conflict, who endure the grisly nature of tank warfare.� —USA Today (four out of four stars)

“A compelling, exciting adventure . . . An in-the-moment re-creation of the Allied breakthrough of the West Wall into Nazi Germany by a remarkable cadre of tank crewmen of the 3rd Armored Division.� —Kirkus Reviews

“An engaging story of blood, sweat and tears . . . a wonderful homage to the Greatest Generation.� —Providence Journal

“The tension, death, and courage that were every day experiences for American tankers fill the pages of Makos’s book. This moving story of bravery and comradeship is an important contribution to WWII history that will inform and fascinate both the general reader and the military historian.� —Publishers Weekly (starred review) ]]> Adam Makos Caleb 4 4.41 2019 Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives In World War II
author: Adam Makos
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/02
date added: 2024/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness, #1)]]> 43539308
On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield, and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help from the crown. But King Jezal's son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specializes in disappointments.

Savine dan Glokta � socialite, investor, and daughter of the most feared man in the Union � plans to claw her way to the top of the slag-heap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control.

The age of the machine dawns, but the age of magic refuses to die. With the help of the mad hillwoman Isern-i-Phail, Rikke struggles to control the blessing, or the curse, of the Long Eye. Glimpsing the future is one thing, but with the guiding hand of the First of the Magi still pulling the strings, changing it will be quite another . . .]]> 481 Joe Abercrombie 031634186X Caleb 4 owned 4.47 2019 A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness, #1)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/30
date added: 2023/12/30
shelves: owned
review:

]]> Holly 60537791
When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.

Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.]]> 464 Stephen King 1668014955 Caleb 4 4.27 2023 Holly
author: Stephen King
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/22
date added: 2023/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> Sharp Ends 26030742 Sharp Ends is the ultimate collection of award winning tales and exclusive new short stories from the master of grimdark fantasy, Joe Abercrombie.

Violence explodes, treachery abounds, and the words are as deadly as the weapons in this rogue's gallery of side-shows, back-stories, and sharp endings from the world of the First Law.

The Union army may be full of bastards, but there's only one who thinks he can save the day single-handed when the Gurkish come calling: the incomparable Colonel Sand dan Glokta.

Curnden Craw and his dozen are out to recover a mysterious item from beyond the Crinna. Only one small problem: no one seems to know what the item is.

Shevedieh, the self-styled best thief in Styria, lurches from disaster to catastrophe alongside her best friend and greatest enemy, Javre, Lioness of Hoskopp.

And after years of bloodshed, the idealistic chieftain Bethod is desperate to bring peace to the North. There's only one obstacle left -- his own lunatic champion, the most feared man in the North: the Bloody-Nine . . .]]> 304 Joe Abercrombie 031639081X Caleb 3 4.12 2016 Sharp Ends
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/19
date added: 2023/12/19
shelves:
review:

]]> Babel 59729042 A novel that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.

Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide�

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 560 R.F. Kuang Caleb 4 4.14 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/19
date added: 2023/12/19
shelves:
review:

]]> The Candy House 58437521 From one of the most dazzling and iconic writers of our time and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity, privacy, and meaning in a world where our memories are no longer our own—featuring characters from A Visit from the Goon Squad.

It’s 2010. Staggeringly successful and brilliant tech entrepreneur Bix Bouton is desperate for a new idea. He’s forty, with four kids, and restless when he stumbles into a conversation with mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing� memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, Own Your Unconscious—that allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes. But not everyone.

In spellbinding linked narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Egan introduces these characters in an astonishing array of styles—from omniscient to first person plural to a duet of voices, an epistolary chapter, and a chapter of tweets. In the world of Egan’s spectacular imagination, there are “counters� who track and exploit desires and there are “eluders,� those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House.

Intellectually dazzling and extraordinarily moving, The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away. With a focus on social media, gaming, and alternate worlds, you can almost experience moving among dimensions in a role-playing game.� Egan delivers a fierce and exhilarating testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy and redemption.]]> 352 Jennifer Egan 1476716765 Caleb 2 3.61 2022 The Candy House
author: Jennifer Egan
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/12/11
shelves:
review:
A good book ruined by two gimmicky chapters.
]]> <![CDATA[A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought, #2)]]> 226004 A Fire Upon The Deep, this is the story of Pham Nuwen, a small cog in the interstellar trading fleet of the Queng Ho. The Queng Ho and the Emergents are orbiting the dormant planet Arachna, which is about to wake up to technology, but the Emergents' plans are sinister.]]> 775 Vernor Vinge 0812536355 Caleb 2 2018-reading-challenge 4.31 1999 A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought, #2)
author: Vernor Vinge
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1999
rating: 2
read at: 2018/06/04
date added: 2023/11/01
shelves: 2018-reading-challenge
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Game: Inside the Secret World of Major League Baseball's Power Brokers]]> 25482835 The incredible inside story of power, money, and baseball's last twenty years. In the fall of 1992, America's National Pastime is in crisis and already on the path to the cancelling a World Series for the first time in history. The owners are at war with each other, their decades-long battle with the players has turned America against both sides, and the players' growing addiction to steroids will threaten the game's very foundation. It is a tipping point for baseball, a crucial moment in the game's history that catalyzes a struggle for power by three strong-willed Commissioner Bud Selig, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, and union leader Don Fehr. It's their uneasy alliance at the end of decades of struggle that pulls the game back from the brink and turns it into a money-making powerhouse that enriches them all. This is the real story of baseball, played out against a tableau of stunning athletic feats, high-stakes public battles, and backroom political deals -- with a supporting cast that includes Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, Joe Torre and Derek Jeter, George Bush and George Mitchell, and many more. Drawing from hundreds of extensive, exclusive interviews throughout baseball, The Game is a stunning a rigorously reported book and the must-read, fly-on-the-wall, definitive account of how an enormous struggle for power turns disaster into baseball's Golden Age.]]> 627 Jon Pessah 0316242217 Caleb 4 4.22 2015 The Game: Inside the Secret World of Major League Baseball's Power Brokers
author: Jon Pessah
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/27
date added: 2023/10/27
shelves:
review:

]]> The Revenant 22836957
Rocky Mountains, 1823. The trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Hugh Glass is one of the most respected men in the company, an experienced frontiersman and an expert tracker.But when a scouting mission puts Glass face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive. Two men from the company are ordered to remain with him until his inevitable death. But, fearing an imminent attack, they abandon Glass, stripping him of his prized rifle and hatchet.

As Glass watches the men flee, he is driven to survive by one all-consuming desire: revenge. With shocking grit and determination, he sets out on a three-thousand-mile journey across the harsh American frontier, to seek revenge on the men who betrayed him.

The Revenant is a remarkable tale of obsession and the lengths that one man will go to for retribution.

The novel that inspired the epic new movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. ]]> 262 Michael Punke 125006662X Caleb 4 3.94 2002 The Revenant
author: Michael Punke
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/23
date added: 2023/10/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Turning Feral: A Modern Journey of Hunting, Trapping, and Living Intentionally in the Wilderness]]> 63032961 Zachary Hanson lived on cruise control. He had a thriving career, designer clothes, and a jet-setting lifestyle. He practiced high-level jiu-jitsu, ran ultramarathons, and pursued academic interests, but nothing gave him what he craved: the antidote to suburban sedation.

Hanson knew his life lacked balance. It served no purpose. It held no meaning. In an effort to connect with something true and real, he turned to the wilderness. Leaving the big-city office behind, he learned to hunt, trap, and live in harmony with the land deep in the backwoods of North America. There he discovered new significance and purpose while ultimately growing his career.

Turning Feral is for everyone who pines for real, unfiltered, authentic experiences. Whether you are trying to break free from the trappings of the modern rat race, shed the dead skin of failed relationships, or escape the clutches of technological dependency, you too can experience a wild and wonderful life on your own terms.]]> 226 Zachary Craig Hanson 154453518X Caleb 4 4.17 Turning Feral: A Modern Journey of Hunting, Trapping, and Living Intentionally in the Wilderness
author: Zachary Craig Hanson
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.17
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/20
date added: 2023/10/20
shelves:
review:

]]> Red Country 13521459 They stole her brother and sister.
But vengeance is following.

Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she'll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she's not a woman to flinch from what needs doing. She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old step father Lamb for company. But it turns out Lamb's buried a bloody past of his own. And out in the lawless Far Country the past never stays buried.

Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts. Even worse, it will force them into an alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust . . .
RED COUNTRY takes place in the same world as the First Law trilogy, Best Served Cold, and The Heroes. This novel also sees the return of one of Abercrombie's most beloved characters.]]> 469 Joe Abercrombie 0316214442 Caleb 4 4.31 2012 Red Country
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/14
date added: 2023/09/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Heroes (First Law World #5)]]> 10394042
Bremer dan Gorst, disgraced master swordsman, has sworn to reclaim his stolen honour on the battlefield. Obsessed with redemption and addicted to violence, he’s far past caring how much blood gets spilled in the attempt. Even if it’s his own.

Prince Calder isn’t interested in honour, and still less in getting himself killed. All he wants is power, and he’ll tell any lie, use any trick, and betray any friend to get it. Just as long as he doesn’t have to fight for it himself.

Curnden Craw, the last honest man in the North, has gained nothing from a life of warfare but swollen knees and frayed nerves. He hardly even cares who wins any more, he just wants to do the right thing. But can he even tell what that is with the world burning down around him?

Over three bloody days of battle, the fate of the North will be decided. But with both sides riddled by intrigues, follies, feuds and petty jealousies, it is unlikely to be the noblest hearts, or even the strongest arms that prevail�

Three men. One battle. No Heroes.]]> 581 Joe Abercrombie Caleb 5 4.39 2011 The Heroes (First Law World #5)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/04
date added: 2023/09/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dance Hall of the Dead (Leaphorn & Chee, #2)]]> 425100 255 Tony Hillerman 0061000027 Caleb 3 3.98 1973 Dance Hall of the Dead (Leaphorn & Chee, #2)
author: Tony Hillerman
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1973
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/02
date added: 2023/09/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Best Served Cold 2315892
There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white. While armies march, heads roll and cities burn, behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king.

War may be hell, but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso's employ, it's a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular - a shade too popular for her employer's taste. Betrayed, thrown down a mountain and left for dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.

Her allies include Styria's least reliable drunkard, Styria's most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a Barbarian who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started...

Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.]]> 534 Joe Abercrombie 0575082453 Caleb 5 4.24 2009 Best Served Cold
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/16
date added: 2023/08/16
shelves:
review:

]]> The Blessing Way 43884224 The Blessing Way follows Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn down a path of murder and mysticism as he tries to solve the homicide of a young boy whose only suspect is an elusive Wolf-Witch. Set against the rugged expanse of New Mexico's deserts, this mystery has thrilled and enthralled readers of crime fiction for nearly forty years.
]]> 274 Tony Hillerman 0062955594 Caleb 3 3.50 1970 The Blessing Way
author: Tony Hillerman
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1970
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/04
date added: 2023/08/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Last Argument of Kings (The First Law, #3)]]> 75567865 The final novel in the First Law Trilogy by New York Times bestseller Joe Abercrombie.

Logen Ninefingers might only have one more fight in him -- but it's going to be a big one. Battle rages across the North, the king of the Northmen still stands firm, and there's only one man who can stop him. His oldest friend, and his oldest enemy: it's time for the Bloody-Nine to come home.

With too many masters and too little time, Superior Glokta is fighting a different kind of war. A secret struggle in which no one is safe, and no one can be trusted. As his days with a sword are far behind him, it's fortunate that he's deadly with his remaining weapons: blackmail, threats, and torture.

Jezal dan Luthar has decided that winning glory is too painful an undertaking and turned his back on soldiering for a simple life with the woman he loves. But love can be painful too -- and glory has a nasty habit of creeping up on a man when he least expects it.

The king of the Union lies on his deathbed, the peasants revolt, and the nobles scramble to steal his crown. No one believes that the shadow of war is about to fall across the heart of the Union. Only the First of the Magi can save the world, but there are risks. There is no risk more terrible, than to break the First Law...

First Law Trilogy
The Blade Itself
Before They Are Hanged
Last Argument of Kings

For more from Joe Abercrombie, check out:

Novels in the First Law world
Best Served Cold
The Heroes
Red Country]]> 642 Joe Abercrombie Caleb 5 2021-reading-challenge 4.45 2008 Last Argument of Kings (The First Law, #3)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/02
date added: 2023/08/02
shelves: 2021-reading-challenge
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Before They Are Hanged (The First Law, #2)]]> 26248534 The second novel in the wildly popular First Law Trilogy from New York Times bestseller Joe Abercrombie.

Superior Glokta has a problem. How do you defend a city surrounded by enemies and riddled with traitors, when your allies can by no means be trusted, and your predecessor vanished without a trace? It's enough to make a torturer want to run -- if he could even walk without a stick.

Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are spreading fire and death across the frozen country. Crown Prince Ladisla is poised to drive them back and win undying glory. There is only one problem -- he commands the worst-armed, worst-trained, worst-led army in the world.

And Bayaz, the First of the Magi, is leading a party of bold adventurers on a perilous mission through the ruins of the past. The most hated woman in the South, the most feared man in the North, and the most selfish boy in the Union make a strange alliance, but a deadly one. They might even stand a chance of saving mankind from the Eaters -- if they didn't hate each other quite so much.

Ancient secrets will be uncovered. Bloody battles will be won and lost. Bitter enemies will be forgiven -- but not before they are hanged.


First Law Trilogy
The Blade Itself
Before They Are Hanged
Last Argument of Kings


For more from Joe Abercrombie, check out:

Novels in the First Law world
Best Served Cold
The Heroes
Red Country]]> 549 Joe Abercrombie Caleb 5 2017-reading-challenge 4.43 2007 Before They Are Hanged (The First Law, #2)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/22
date added: 2023/07/22
shelves: 2017-reading-challenge
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1)]]> 26019071 The first novel in the First Law Trilogy and debut novel from New York Times bestseller, Joe Abercrombie.

Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he's on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian -- leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies.

Nobleman, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, Captain Jezal dan Luthar has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.

Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it.

Enter the wizard, Bayaz. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Logen, Jezal, and Glokta a whole lot more difficult.

Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood.

Unpredictable, compelling, wickedly funny, and packed with unforgettable characters, The Blade Itself is noir fantasy with a real cutting edge.

First Law Trilogy
The Blade Itself
Before They Are Hanged
Last Argument of Kings


For more from Joe Abercrombie, check

Novels in the First Law world
Best Served Cold
The Heroes
Red Country
]]> 544 Joe Abercrombie Caleb 4 4.22 2006 The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/15
date added: 2023/07/14
shelves:
review:

]]> How to Stop Time 45152372 "She smiled a soft, troubled smile and I felt the whole world slipping away, and I wanted to slip with it, to go wherever she was going... I had existed whole years without her, but that was all it had been. An existence. A book with no words."

Tom Hazard has just moved back to London, his old home, to settle down and become a high school history teacher. And on his first day at school, he meets a captivating French teacher at his school who seems fascinated by him. But Tom has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history--performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.

Unfortunately for Tom, the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society's watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present.

How to Stop Time tells a love story across the ages--and for the ages--about a man lost in time, the woman who could save him, and the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live. It is a bighearted, wildly original novel about losing and finding yourself, the inevitability of change, and how with enough time to learn, we just might find happiness.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch.]]> 339 Matt Haig 0525522891 Caleb 3 3.78 2018 How to Stop Time
author: Matt Haig
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/28
date added: 2023/03/28
shelves:
review:

]]> The Lincoln Highway 57109107 The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.

Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.]]> 576 Amor Towles 0735222355 Caleb 4 4.18 2021 The Lincoln Highway
author: Amor Towles
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/16
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> Angela's Ashes 53631533 "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."
So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy-- exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling-- does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.
Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank's survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors--yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness.
Angela's Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.]]> 385 Frank McCourt Caleb 0 4.40 1996 Angela's Ashes
author: Frank McCourt
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at: 2023/02/02
date added: 2023/02/14
shelves:
review:

]]> She's Gone 60188470 A new page-turning thriller from USA Today bestselling author David Bell.

When a girl disappears, who do you suspect?

When 17-year-old Hunter Gifford wakes in the hospital on the night of homecoming, he's shocked to learn he and his girlfriend, Chloe Summers, have been in a terrible car accident. Hunter has no memory of the crash, and his shock turns to horror when he is told Chloe's blood has been found in the car―but she has disappeared.

Back at school, his fellow students taunt him, and his former best friend starts making a true-crime documentary about the case―one that points the finger directly at Hunter. And just when things can't get any worse, Chloe's mother stands in front of the entire town at a candlelight vigil and accuses Hunter of murder.

Under mounting pressure from the police, Hunter takes matters into his own hands by questioning anyone who might know the truth and posting videos to prove his innocence. When Hunter learns he and Chloe were seen arguing loudly outside the dance, he faces a sickening possibility. Was he angry enough to kill the person he loved?]]> 360 David Bell 1728254221 Caleb 3 3.87 2022 She's Gone
author: David Bell
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/12/27
date added: 2022/12/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780063251922.

"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver Caleb 4 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/23
date added: 2022/12/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Between Two Fires 13543121
Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.]]> 432 Christopher Buehlman 1937007863 Caleb 4 4.20 2012 Between Two Fires
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/11
date added: 2022/12/24
shelves:
review:

]]> Those Across the River 62634036 A man must confront a terrifying evil in this captivating horror novel that’s “as much F. Scott Fitzgerald as Dean Koontz.�

Haunted by memories of the Great War, failed academic Frank Nichols and his wife have arrived in the sleepy Georgia town of Whitbrow, where Frank hopes to write a history of his family’s old estate—the Savoyard Plantation—and the horrors that occurred there. At first their new life seems to be everything they wanted. But under the facade of summer socials and small-town charm, there is an unspoken dread that the townsfolk have lived with for generations. A presence that demands sacrifice.

It comes from the shadowy woods across the river, where the ruins of the Savoyard Plantation still stand. Where a long-smoldering debt of blood has never been forgotten.

Where it has been waiting for Frank Nichols....]]> 351 Christopher Buehlman Caleb 3 4.03 2011 Those Across the River
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2022/12/08
date added: 2022/12/08
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Lonesome Dove (Lonesome Dove, #1)]]> 8356205 The Pulitzer Prize­–winning American classic of the American West that follows two aging Texas Rangers embarking on one last adventure. An epic of the frontier, Lonesome Dove is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America.

Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic, beautifully written, always dramatic, Lonesome Dove is a book to make us laugh, weep, dream, and remember.]]> 864 Larry McMurtry 1451606532 Caleb 4 4.51 1985 Lonesome Dove (Lonesome Dove, #1)
author: Larry McMurtry
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.51
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/04
date added: 2022/12/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Dungeon Hacks: How NetHack, Angband, and Other Roguelikes Changed the Course of Video Games]]> 35647251

Defying authority, hackers seized control of monolithic mainframes to create a new breed of computer game: the roguelike, cryptic and tough-as-nails adventures drawn from text-based symbols instead of state-of-the-art 3D graphics.


Despite their visual simplicity, roguelike games captivate thousands of players around the world. From the author of the bestselling Stay Awhile and Listen series, Dungeon Hacks introduces you to the visionaries behind some of the most popular roguelikes of all time, and shows how their creations paved the way for the blockbuster video games of today—and beyond.]]> 6 David L. Craddock Caleb 3 3.64 2015 Dungeon Hacks: How NetHack, Angband, and Other Roguelikes Changed the Course of Video Games
author: David L. Craddock
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2022/11/25
date added: 2022/11/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West]]> 8812697 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION � From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road: an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America’s westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West.

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, Blood Meridian traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.]]> 368 Cormac McCarthy 0307762521 Caleb 2 3.77 1985 Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1985
rating: 2
read at: 2022/11/22
date added: 2022/11/22
shelves:
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]]> Bloodmoney 11510682 From the author of the best-selling Body of Lies and The Increment: in a tragedy of revenge, the CIA falls victim to its own daring operation in the Middle East.

Someone in Pakistan is killing the members of a new CIA intelligence unit that is trying to buy peace with America's enemies. It falls to Sophie Marx, a young CIA officer with a big chip on her shoulder, to figure out who's doing the killing and why. Her starting point is Alphabet Capital, the London hedge fund that has been providing cover for this secret operation, but the investigation soon widens to include the capitals of the Middle East and the cruel hills of South Waziristan.

Sophie thinks she has the backing of her hard-nosed boss, Jeffrey Gertz, and his genial mentor at headquarters, Cyril Hoffman. In addition, she gets help from the well-mannered lieutenant general heading Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. But the closer Sophie gets to her quarry, the more she realizes that nothing in this gallery of mirrors is quite what it seems. This is a theater of violence and retribution, in which the last act is one that Sophie could not have imagined.

David Ignatius has written a disturbing and compelling novel where the price of unchecked government is paid in blood, and peace can be bought only through betrayal.]]> 497 David Ignatius Caleb 4 4.14 1997 Bloodmoney
author: David Ignatius
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/17
date added: 2022/11/22
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]]> The Night Ship 60487260 Based on a real-life event, an epic historical novel from the award-winning author of Things in Jars that illuminates the lives of two characters: a girl shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia and, three hundred years later, a boy finding a home with his grandfather on the very same island.

1629: A newly orphaned young girl named Mayken is bound for the Dutch East Indies on the Batavia, one of the greatest ships of the Dutch Golden Age. Curious and mischievous, Mayken spends the long journey going on misadventures above and below the deck, searching for a mythical monster. But the true monsters might be closer than she thinks.

1989: A lonely boy named Gil is sent to live off the coast of Western Australia among the seasonal fishing community where his late mother once resided. There, on the tiny reef-shrouded island, he discovers the story of an infamous shipwreck…�

With her trademark “thrilling, mysterious, twisted, but more than anything, beautifully written� (Graham Norton, New York Times bestselling author) storytelling, Jess Kidd weaves a unputdownable and charming tale of friendship and sacrifice, brutality and forgiveness.]]> 400 Jess Kidd Caleb 3 3.77 2022 The Night Ship
author: Jess Kidd
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/11/10
date added: 2022/11/10
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]]> Sea of Tranquility 58601245 The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon three hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s bestselling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 226 Emily St. John Mandel Caleb 4 4.19 2022 Sea of Tranquility
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/02
date added: 2022/11/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Passenger (The Passenger #1)]]> 60581087
Traversing the American South, from the garrulous barrooms of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness.]]> 385 Cormac McCarthy 0593535227 Caleb 4 3.58 2022 The Passenger (The Passenger #1)
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/01
date added: 2022/11/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Chronicles of Malus Darkblade: Volume One (Warhammer Chronicles)]]> 58889897 A Darkblade Anthology

The dark elves are feared throughout the Old World for their evil ways, yet one member of this despicable race stands out for his treachery and cunning � Malus Darkblade. Having been possessed by an ancient daemon, the dark elf is faced with a stark choice - recover five items of unimaginable power or forfeit his soul forever!

Read it because
Murderer, betrayer, warrior beyond compare. Explore the story of Malus Darkblade in this great value omnibus!

Description
This volume tells of Malus� quest to find the first three artefacts, pitting him against monsters, magic and even his own kin in these magnificent tales of dark fantasy.

This anthology includes three novels and one short story.

Contents
The Blood Price
The Daemon's Curse
Bloodstorm
Reaper of Souls]]> 702 Dan Abnett 1789996694 Caleb 3 4.37 The Chronicles of Malus Darkblade: Volume One (Warhammer Chronicles)
author: Dan Abnett
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.37
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2022/10/29
date added: 2022/10/29
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]]> Fairy Tale 60188762
Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes deep into the well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for their world or ours.

Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house at the top of a big hill. In the backyard is a locked shed from which strange sounds emerge, as if some creature is trying to escape. When Mr. Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie the house, a massive amount of gold, a cassette tape telling a story that is impossible to believe, and a responsibility far too massive for a boy to shoulder.

Because within the shed is a portal to another world—one whose denizens are in peril and whose monstrous leaders may destroy their own world, and ours. In this parallel universe, where two moons race across the sky, and the grand towers of a sprawling palace pierce the clouds, there are exiled princesses and princes who suffer horrific punishments; there are dungeons; there are games in which men and women must fight each other to the death for the amusement of the “Fair One.� And there is a magic sundial that can turn back time.

A story as old as myth, and as startling and iconic as the rest of King’s work, Fairy Tale is about an ordinary guy forced into the hero’s role by circumstance, and it is both spectacularly suspenseful and satisfying.]]> 607 Stephen King Caleb 5 4.38 2022 Fairy Tale
author: Stephen King
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/27
date added: 2022/10/27
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]]> The Shining Girls 17931878
The future is not as loud as war, but it is relentless. It has a terrible fury all its own."

Harper Curtis is a killer who stepped out of the past. Kirby Mazrachi is the girl who was never meant to have a future.

Kirby is the last shining girl, one of the bright young women, burning with potential, whose lives Harper is destined to snuff out after he stumbles on a House in Depression-era Chicago that opens on to other times.

At the urging of the House, Harper inserts himself into the lives of the shining girls, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He's the ultimate hunter, vanishing into another time after each murder, untraceable-until one of his victims survives.

Determined to bring her would-be killer to justice, Kirby joins the Chicago Sun-Times to work with the ex-homicide reporter, Dan Velasquez, who covered her case. Soon Kirby finds herself closing in on the impossible truth . . .

THE SHINING GIRLS is a masterful twist on the serial killer a violent quantum leap featuring a memorable and appealing heroine in pursuit of a deadly criminal.

]]> 401 Lauren Beukes 0316216844 Caleb 4 3.74 2013 The Shining Girls
author: Lauren Beukes
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/26
date added: 2022/09/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)]]> 60244128 An alternative cover edition for ASIN B0192CTMWS

As he climbs into the sidecar of Hagrid's motorbike and takes to the skies, leaving Privet Drive for the last time, Harry Potter knows that Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters are not far behind. The protective charm that has kept Harry safe until now is broken, but he cannot keep hiding. The Dark Lord is breathing fear into everything Harry loves and to stop him Harry will have to find and destroy the remaining Horcruxes. The final battle must begin - Harry must stand and face his enemy . . .]]> 316 J.K. Rowling Caleb 5 4.87 2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.87
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2022/04/15
date added: 2022/04/20
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]]> Till We Become Monsters 58232703 "With her debut novel, Till We Become Monsters, Amanda Headlee raises the genre to a chilling new level. I recommend reading this one with all the lights on." —Phil Giunta, author of Like Mother, Like Daughters

Monsters exist and Korin Perrin knew this as truth because his grandmother told him so. Korin, raised in the shadow of his older brother Davis, is an imaginative child who believes his brother is a monster. After the death of their grandmother, seven-year-old Korin, blaming Davis for her demise, tries to kill him. Sixteen years following the attempt on Davis' life, racked with guilt, Korin comes to terms with the fact that Davis may not be the one who is the monster after all.

Past wrongs needing to be righted, Korin agrees to a hunting trip with his brother and father. But they, along with two friends, never make it to their destination. An accident along the way separates the hunters in the dark forests of Minnesota during the threat of an oncoming blizzard. As the stranded hunters search for each other and safety, an ancient evil wakes.]]> 234 Amanda Headlee 1949116557 Caleb 1 3.44 Till We Become Monsters
author: Amanda Headlee
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.44
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2022/02/10
date added: 2022/02/10
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]]> Anthem 58208917 In the visionary new thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Before the Fall, something has been happening to young people all over the world—and a devastated population bands together to discover the cause.

Suddenly and without precedent or explanation, something awful has been happening to teenagers across the globe, forcing parents to face a lonely future without their children. At the site of each loss, there lies a cryptic message, A11, which may be the clue to solving the crisis.

Judge Margot Nadir is surprised and honored to find herself the next Supreme Court nominee from a President who has reached across the aisle to nominate her. Just as the President is about to announce his decision, her daughter inexplicably vanishes. Judge Nadir fears her daughter has become a victim of the global crisis. Margot and her husband, Remy, find themselves confronting every parent's worst nightmare, just as the whole world begins to scrutinize every choice they've ever made, are making, or may make in a future, which seems all the more uncertain with every passing second.

At the end of the road lies an enemy with seemingly unlimited resources who is waging a secret war against the very notion of childhood—and the future itself.]]> 449 Noah Hawley 1538711508 Caleb 4 2022-reading-challenge 3.78 2022 Anthem
author: Noah Hawley
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/20
date added: 2022/02/03
shelves: 2022-reading-challenge
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]]> <![CDATA[The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue]]> 51029834 This is an alternate cover edition of ASIN B084357H23.
----
A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

In the vein of The Time Traveler's Wife and Life After Life, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab's #1 New York Times Bestselling Author genre-defying tour de force.]]> 448 Victoria E. Schwab Caleb 4 4.29 2020 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/03
date added: 2022/02/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game]]> 6581525 Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. In a narrative full of characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis follows the low-budget Oakland A's visionary general manager Billy Beane, and the strange brotherhood of amateur baseball theorists. They are all in search of new baseball knowledge -- sights that will give the little guy who is willing to discard old wisdom the edge over big money.]]> 316 Michael Lewis Caleb 4 2021-reading-challenge 4.41 2003 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
author: Michael Lewis
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2021/10/31
date added: 2022/02/02
shelves: 2021-reading-challenge
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 Caleb 4 4.02 1992 Snow Crash
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2014/05/01
date added: 2022/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> The Once and Future Spy 173799 The Company, received rave reviews across the nation, The Once and Future Spy is finally back in print. This is Littell at the top of his form, constructing a tale of espionage and counterespionage that reveal the dirty tricks and dangerous secrets concerning the subjects he knows intimately-the CIA and American history, past and present. Littell proves beyond all doubt that he is a storyteller of inimitable caliber. As Stephen Coonts put it, "Eric Ambler invented the modern spy novel. Robert Littell perfected it. The Once and Future Spy is a classic spy story."

At the center of Littell's plot is an elite plan, so secret and so dangerous that its existence is known only to a tiny group of specialists within CIA headquarters. There is virtually no paper trail-but somehow, the plan has sprung a leak. The plotters must urgently trace it-or face deadly consequences. Meanwhile, at work elsewhere on another highly sensitive project for "the Company" is an operative known as "the Weeder"-a man obsessed with American history and one of its heroes. When the Weeder's and Washington's clandestine worlds collide, the present faces the past and disturbing moral choices are weighed against a shining patriotic dream. What is the truth? Whose truth should be believed?

Extraordinarily inventive, breathtakingly imaginative, and relentlessly gripping, The Once and Future Spy is easy to read, hard to put down.]]> 304 Robert Littell 0142004057 Caleb 4 3.60 1990 The Once and Future Spy
author: Robert Littell
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2014/12/01
date added: 2022/02/02
shelves:
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]]> Desperation 10584
There's a place along Interstate 50 that some call the loneliest place on Earth. It's known as Desperation, Nevada.
It's not a very nice place to live. It's an even worse place to die.
Let the battle against evil begin.
Welcome to ... Desperation]]> 547 Stephen King Caleb 3 3.86 1996 Desperation
author: Stephen King
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2015/01/01
date added: 2022/02/02
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging]]> 40940205 War and The Perfect Storm, takes a critical look at post-traumatic stress disorder and the many challenges today’s returning veterans face in modern society.

There are ancient tribal human behaviors-loyalty, inter-reliance, cooperation-that flare up in communities during times of turmoil and suffering. These are the very same behaviors that typify good soldiering and foster a sense of belonging among troops, whether they’re fighting on the front lines or engaged in non-combat activities away from the action. Drawing from history, psychology, and anthropology, bestselling author Sebastian Junger shows us just how at odds the structure of modern society is with our tribal instincts, arguing that the difficulties many veterans face upon returning home from war do not stem entirely from the trauma they’ve suffered, but also from the individualist societies they must reintegrate into.

A 2011 study by the Canadian Forces and Statistics Canada reveals that 78 percent of military suicides from 1972 to the end of 2006 involved veterans. Though these numbers present an implicit call to action, the government is only just taking steps now to address the problems veterans face when they return home. But can the government ever truly eliminate the challenges faced by returning veterans? Or is the problem deeper, woven into the very fabric of our modern existence? Perhaps our circumstances are not so bleak, and simply understanding that beneath our modern guises we all belong to one tribe or another would help us face not just the problems of our nation but of our individual lives as well.

Well-researched and compellingly written, this timely look at how veterans react to coming home will reconceive our approach to veteran’s affairs and help us to repair our current social dynamic.]]> 182 Sebastian Junger Caleb 3 2022-reading-challenge 4.00 2016 Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging
author: Sebastian Junger
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2022/02/01
date added: 2022/02/01
shelves: 2022-reading-challenge
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]]> Billy Summers 56883591
How about everything.

This spectacular can’t-put-it-down novel is part war story, part love letter to small town America and the people who live there, and it features one of the most compelling and surprising duos in King fiction, who set out to avenge the crimes of an extraordinarily evil man. It’s about love, luck, fate, and a complex hero with one last shot at redemption.

You won’t put this story down, and you won’t forget Billy.]]> 528 Stephen King 1982173637 Caleb 4 2022-reading-challenge 4.47 2021 Billy Summers
author: Stephen King
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/29
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves: 2022-reading-challenge
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)]]> 28139880 An alternative cover for this ASIN can be found here

"There it was, hanging in the sky above the school: the blazing green skull with a serpent tongue, the mark Death Eaters left behind whenever they had entered a building � wherever they had murdered �"

When Dumbledore arrives at Privet Drive one summer night to collect Harry Potter, his wand hand is blackened and shrivelled, but he does not reveal why. Secrets and suspicion are spreading through the wizarding world, and Hogwarts itself is not safe. Harry is convinced that Malfoy bears the Dark Mark: there is a Death Eater amongst them. Harry will need powerful magic and true friends as he explores Voldemort's darkest secrets, and Dumbledore prepares him to face his destiny ...]]> 691 J.K. Rowling Caleb 4 2022-reading-challenge 4.80 2005 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.80
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/16
date added: 2022/01/26
shelves: 2022-reading-challenge
review:

]]> The Ruin (Cormac Reilly, #1) 36588482
When Aisling Conroy's boyfriend Jack is found in the freezing black waters of the river Corrib, the police tell her it was suicide. A surgical resident, she throws herself into study and work, trying to forget - until Jack's sister Maude shows up. Maude suspects foul play, and she is determined to prove it.

DI Cormac Reilly is the detective assigned with the re-investigation of an 'accidental' overdose twenty years ago - of Jack and Maude's drug- and alcohol-addled mother. Cormac is under increasing pressure to charge Maude for murder when his colleague Danny uncovers a piece of evidence that will change everything...

This unsettling crime debut draws us deep into the dark heart of Ireland and asks who will protect you when the authorities can't - or won't. Perfect for fans of Tana French and Jane Casey.]]> 380 Dervla McTiernan 0143133128 Caleb 3 2022-reading-challenge 3.90 2018 The Ruin (Cormac Reilly, #1)
author: Dervla McTiernan
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/09
date added: 2022/01/26
shelves: 2022-reading-challenge
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)]]> 2
Harry has had enough. He is beginning to think he must do something, anything, to change his situation, when the summer holidays come to an end in a very dramatic fashion. What Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his world upside down...]]> 912 J.K. Rowling Caleb 4 2022-reading-challenge 4.50 2003 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/06
date added: 2022/01/26
shelves: 2022-reading-challenge
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)]]> 18775247
Months later, an ex-cop named Bill Hodges, still haunted by the unsolved crime, contemplates suicide. When he gets a crazed letter from "the perk," claiming credit for the murders, Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, fearing another even more diabolical attack and hell-bent on preventing it.

Brady Hartfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. He loved the feel of death under the wheels of the Mercedes, and he wants that rush again. Only Bill Hodges, with a couple of eccentric and mismatched allies, can apprehend the killer before he strikes again. And they have no time to lose, because Brady's next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim thousands.

Mr. Mercedes is a war between good and evil from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of this obsessed, insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.
--front flap]]> 437 Stephen King 1476754454 Caleb 3 2015-reading-challenge 4.01 2014 Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)
author: Stephen King
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2015/10/29
date added: 2022/01/25
shelves: 2015-reading-challenge
review:

]]> Pin Action 20729826 226 Gianmarc Manzione 1605986453 Caleb 2 2015-reading-challenge 3.35 2014 Pin Action
author: Gianmarc Manzione
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2015/12/13
date added: 2022/01/25
shelves: 2015-reading-challenge
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Girl with All the Gifts (The Girl With All the Gifts, #1)]]> 17235026
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

The Girl with All the Gifts is a sensational thriller, perfect for fans of Stephen King, Justin Cronin, and Neil Gaiman.]]> 461 M.R. Carey 0356500152 Caleb 4 2015-reading-challenge 3.94 2014 The Girl with All the Gifts (The Girl With All the Gifts, #1)
author: M.R. Carey
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2015/12/30
date added: 2022/01/25
shelves: 2015-reading-challenge
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside]]> 59415212 11 hrs and 43 mins

A humorous and rousing tour of America's nature spots as well as a mission statement about loving, protecting, and truly experiencing the outdoors, inspired by three journeys undertaken by actor, humorist, and New York Times bestselling author Nick Offerman

Nick Offerman has always felt a kinship to the Land of the Free--not just to the people and their purported ideals but to the actual land itself. The bedrock, the topsoil, and everything in between that generates the health of your local watershed. In his new book, Nick takes a humorous, inspiring, and elucidating trip to America's trails, farms, and frontier to celebrate the people, landscape, and stories, both historical and fresh, that have made it great.

The seeds of this book were planted in 2019, when Nick took two memorable journeys with friends--a hiking trip to Glacier National Park with his friends Jeff Tweedy and George Saunders, as well as an extended visit to his friend James Rebanks, the author of A Shepherd's Life and English Pastoral. He followed that up with an excursion that could only have come about in 2020--Nick and his wife, Megan Mullally, bought an Airstream trailer to drive across the US in late 2020. All three journeys inspired some "deep-ish thinking from Nick, about the history and philosophy of our relationship with nature in our national parks, in our farming, and in our wildlife; what we mean when we talk about conservation; the importance of outdoor recreation; and the healthy building of both local and national communities across party lines, all subjects very close to Nick's heart.

With witty, heartwarming stories, and a keen insight into the problems we all confront, this is both a ramble through and celebration of the land we all love.]]> Nick Offerman Caleb 4 2021-reading-challenge 3.82 2021 Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside
author: Nick Offerman
name: Caleb
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/12/31
date added: 2022/01/25
shelves: 2021-reading-challenge
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Mission, the Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander]]> 5900276 336 Pete Blaber 0425223728 Caleb 1 4.30 2008 The Mission, the Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander
author: Pete Blaber
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2008
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2022/01/16
shelves:
review:
Written at about a 7th grade level by an extreme braggart.
]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)]]> 3 309 J.K. Rowling 0439554934 Caleb 4 2015-reading-challenge 4.47 1997 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2015/07/19
date added: 2021/12/31
shelves: 2015-reading-challenge
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)]]> 13603662 357 J.K. Rowling Caleb 4 2015-reading-challenge 4.59 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.59
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2015/07/24
date added: 2021/12/31
shelves: 2015-reading-challenge
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)]]> 28137887 An alternative cover for this ASIN can be found here

"There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways � their magical prowess - their daring - their powers of deduction - and, of course, their ability to cope with danger."

The Triwizard Tournament is to be held at Hogwarts. Only wizards who are over seventeen are allowed to enter - but that doesn't stop Harry dreaming that he will win the competition. Then at Hallowe'en, when the Goblet of Fire makes its selection, Harry is amazed to find his name is one of those that the magical cup picks out. He will face death-defying tasks, dragons and Dark wizards, but with the help of his best friends, Ron and Hermione, he might just make it through - alive!]]> 301 J.K. Rowling Caleb 4 2021-reading-challenge 4.76 2000 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.76
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2021/12/24
date added: 2021/12/31
shelves: 2021-reading-challenge
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History]]> 26195972
Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

"A masterly synthesis of scientific research and personal observation." - Wall Street Journal

Legends don't come close to capturing the incredible story of the coyote. In the face of centuries of campaigns of annihilation employing gases, helicopters, and engineered epidemics, coyotes didn't just survive, they thrived, expanding across the continent from Alaska to New York. In the war between humans and coyotes, coyotes have won, hands-down. Coyote America is the illuminating five-million-year biography of this extraordinary animal, from its origins to its apotheosis. It is one of the great epics of our time.]]> 271 Dan Flores 0465052991 Caleb 5 2021-reading-challenge 4.08 2016 Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History
author: Dan Flores
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/20
date added: 2021/12/20
shelves: 2021-reading-challenge
review:

]]> Where the Crawdads Sing 36809135
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]> 384 Delia Owens 0735219117 Caleb 5 2021-reading-challenge 4.35 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
author: Delia Owens
name: Caleb
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/17
date added: 2021/12/20
shelves: 2021-reading-challenge
review:

]]>