John's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 27 Apr 2025 11:52:06 -0700 60 John's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Nightmare Stacks (Laundry Files, #7)]]> 27748314 The Laundry Files� “fast-paced blend of espionage thrills, mundane office comedy and Lovecraftian horror� (SFX) continues as Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross assigns a day trader to a permanent position on the night shift...

After stumbling upon the algorithm that turned him and his fellow merchant bankers into vampires, Alex Schwartz was drafted by The Laundry, Britain’s secret counter-occult agency that’s humanity’s first line of defense against the forces of darkness. Dependent on his new employers for his continued existence—as Alex has no stomach for predatory bloodsucking—he has little choice but to accept his new role as an operative-in-training.

Dispatched to Leeds, Alex’s first assignment is to help assess the costs of renovating a 1950s Cold War bunker into The Laundry’s new headquarters. Unfortunately, Leeds is Alex’s hometown, and the thought of breaking the news to his parents that he’s left banking for civil service, while hiding his undead condition, is causing more anxiety than learning how to live as a vampire secret agent preparing to confront multiple apocalypses.

Alex’s only saving grace is Cassie Brewer, a drama student appearing in the local Goth Festival who is inexplicably attracted to him despite his awkward personality and massive amounts of sunblock.

But Cassie has secrets of her own—secrets that make Alex’s night life behaviors seem positively normal...]]>
400 Charles Stross 0698195272 John 0 currently-reading 4.39 The Nightmare Stacks (Laundry Files, #7)
author: Charles Stross
name: John
average rating: 4.39
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<![CDATA[The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1)]]> 59359648
A #1 national bestseller, The Gunslinger introduces readers to one of Stephen King’s most powerful creations, Roland of Gilead: The Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner on a spellbinding journey into good and evil. In his desolate world, which mirrors our own in frightening ways, Roland tracks The Man in Black, encounters an enticing woman named Alice, and begins a friendship with the boy from New York named Jake.]]>
287 Stephen King John 0 currently-reading 3.90 1982 The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1)
author: Stephen King
name: John
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/24
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Mickey7 (Mickey7, #1) 60006489 Now experience where the hit movie from Academy Award-winning director Bong Joon-ho, starring Robert Pattinson, started in Mickey7 (the inspiration for the film Mickey 17).

Dying isn’t any fun…but at least it’s a living.

Mickey7 is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there’s a mission that’s too dangerous—even suicidal—the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal…and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it.

On a fairly routine scouting mission, Mickey7 goes missing and is presumed dead. By the time he returns to the colony base, surprisingly helped back by native life, Mickey7’s fate has been sealed. There’s a new clone, Mickey8, reporting for Expendable duties. The idea of duplicate Expendables is universally loathed, and if caught, they will likely be thrown into the recycler for protein.

Mickey7 must keep his double a secret from the rest of the colony. Meanwhile, life on Niflheim is getting worse. The atmosphere is unsuitable for humans, food is in short supply, and terraforming is going poorly. The native species are growing curious about their new neighbors, and that curiosity has Commander Marshall very afraid. Ultimately, the survival of both lifeforms will come down to Mickey7.

That is, if he can just keep from dying for good.]]>
288 Edward Ashton John 0 currently-reading 4.05 2022 Mickey7 (Mickey7, #1)
author: Edward Ashton
name: John
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945]]> 18912899 The ultimate history of the Blitz and bombing in the Second World War, from Wolfson Prize-winning historian and author Richard Overy



The use of massive fleets of bombers to kill and terrorize civilians was an aspect of the Second World War which continues to challenge the idea that Allies specifically fought a 'moral' war. For Britain, bombing became perhaps its principal contribution to the fighting as, night after night, exceptionally brave men flew over occupied Europe destroying its cities.



The Bombing War radically overhauls our understanding of the War. It is the first book to examine seriously not just the most well-known parts of the campaign, but the significance of bombing on many other fronts - the German use of bombers on the Eastern Front for example (as well as much newly discovered material on the more familiar 'Blitz' on Britain), or the Allied campaigns against Italian cities.



The result is the author's masterpiece - a rich, gripping, picture of the Second World War and the terrible military, technological and ethical issues that relentlessly drove all its participants into an abyss.



Reviews:



'Magnificent ... must now be regarded as the standard work on the bombing war ... It is probably the most important book published on the history of he second world war this century' Richard J Evans, Guardian



'Monumental ... this is a major contribution to one of the most controversial aspects of the Second World War ... full of new detail and perspectives ... hugely impressive' James Holland, Literary Review



'This tremendous book does what the war it describes signally failed to do. With a well-thought-out strategy and precision, it delivers maximum force on its objectives ... The result is a masterpiece of the historian's art' The Times



'It is unlikely that a work of this scale, scope and merit will be surpassed' Times Higher Education



'What distinguishes Mr Overy's account of the bombing war from lesser efforts is the wealth of narrative detail and analytical rigour that he brings to bear' Economist



'Excellent ... Overy is never less than an erudite and clear-eyed guide whose research is impeccable and whose conclusions appear sensible and convincing even when they run against the established trends' Financial Times



'Hard to surpass. If you want to know how bombing worked, what it did and what it meant, this is the book to read' Times Literary Supplement



About the author:



Richard Overy is the author of a series of remarkable books on the Second World War and the wider disasters of the twentieth century. The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia won both the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hessell-Tiltman Prize. He is Professor of History at the University of Exeter.

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821 Richard Overy 0141927828 John 0 to-read 4.28 The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945
author: Richard Overy
name: John
average rating: 4.28
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<![CDATA[The Annihilation Score (Laundry Files, #6)]]> 24601568 Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross presents the next case in The Laundry Files.

Dominique O’Brien—her friends call her Mo—lives a curious double life with her husband, Bob Howard. To the average civilian, they’re boring middle-aged civil servants. But within the labyrinthian secret circles of Her Majesty’s government, they’re operatives working for the nation’s occult security service known as the Laundry, charged with defending Britain against dark supernatural forces threatening humanity.

Mo’s latest assignment is assisting the police in containing an unusual outbreak: ordinary citizens suddenly imbued with extraordinary abilities of the super-powered kind. Unfortunately these people prefer playing super-pranks instead of super-heroics. The Mayor of London being levitated by a dumpy man in Trafalgar Square would normally be a source of shared amusement for Mo and Bob, but they’re currently separated because something’s come between them—something evil.

An antique violin, an Erich Zann original, made of human white bone, was designed to produce music capable of slaughtering demons. Mo is the custodian of this unholy instrument. It invades her dreams and yearns for the blood of her colleagues—and her husband. And despite Mo’s proficiency as a world class violinist, it cannot be controlled…]]>
401 Charles Stross 0698195256 John 0 currently-reading 4.08 2015 The Annihilation Score (Laundry Files, #6)
author: Charles Stross
name: John
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
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<![CDATA[The Rhesus Chart (Laundry Files, #5)]]> 18902300
Traders employed by a merchant bank in London are showing signs of infection—an array of unusual symptoms such as superstrength and -speed, an uncanny talent for mind control, an extreme allergic reaction to sunlight, and an unquenchable thirst for blood. While his department is tangled up in bureaucratic red tape (and Buffy reruns), debating how to stop the rash of vampirism, Bob digs deeper into the bank’s history—only to uncover a bloodcurdling conspiracy between men and monsters...

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368 Charles Stross 0698140281 John 0 4.32 2014 The Rhesus Chart (Laundry Files, #5)
author: Charles Stross
name: John
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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Bitter Passage 208549080 A nineteenth-century Arctic expedition descends into a chilling nightmare in a gripping and epic historical novel of discovery, rescue, deliverance, and survival by any means.

In May 1845, Sir John Franklin, commander of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, departed England to seek a navigable route across the top of the Americas. He and his 128 men never returned.

Four years later, Royal Navy Lieutenant Frederick Robinson and Assistant Surgeon Edward Adams are determined to find the men missing in the Arctic. While they are united in purpose, they are divided in ambition. The pious and idealistic Adams strives to save his boyhood hero. Robinson hungers for promotion through the Admiralty ranks. Weathering a relationship as volatile as the icy, barren land upon which they trek, Robinson and Adams lead a team of seamen in search of the lost expedition. What awaits them is a struggle against not only the elements but each other as loneliness, starvation, and maddening isolation prove more chilling than the deadliest Arctic blast.

A harrowing novel set against the background of true events, Bitter Passage explores two men’s driving need for redemption and the lengths to which a desperate soul will go to survive.]]>
297 Colin Mills 166252059X John 0 currently-reading 3.97 2025 Bitter Passage
author: Colin Mills
name: John
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3)]]> 52066765 The exciting end to The Poppy War trilogy, R. F. Kuang’s acclaimed, award-winning epic fantasy that combines the history of twentieth-century China with a gripping world of gods and monsters, to devastating, enthralling effect.

After saving her nation of Nikan from foreign invaders and battling the evil Empress Su Daji in a brutal civil war, Fang Runin was betrayed by allies and left for dead.

Despite her losses, Rin hasn’t given up on those for whom she has sacrificed so much—the people of the southern provinces and especially Tikany, the village that is her home. Returning to her roots, Rin meets difficult challenges—and unexpected opportunities. While her new allies in the Southern Coalition leadership are sly and untrustworthy, Rin quickly realizes that the real power in Nikan lies with the millions of common people who thirst for vengeance and revere her as a goddess of salvation.

Backed by the masses and her Southern Army, Rin will use every weapon to defeat the Dragon Republic, the colonizing Hesperians, and all who threaten the shamanic arts and their practitioners. As her power and influence grows, though, will she be strong enough to resist the Phoenix’s intoxicating voice urging her to burn the world and everything in it?


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656 R.F. Kuang 0062662651 John 4 4.25 2020 The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3)
author: R.F. Kuang
name: John
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2020
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[The Apocalypse Codex (Laundry Files, #4)]]> 12393566 336 Charles Stross 1101581131 John 5 4.17 2012 The Apocalypse Codex (Laundry Files, #4)
author: Charles Stross
name: John
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/17
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<![CDATA[Dead Lies Dreaming (Laundry Files #10; The New Management, #1)]]> 49993380 In a world where magic has gone mainstream, a policewoman and a group of petty criminals are pulled into a heist to find a forbidden book of spells that should never be opened.

The secret agents of the Laundry Files novels were unable to stop magic becoming public knowledge - in book one of this new series by Charles Stross, the repercussions of that failure are felt by ordinary people everywhere, as the world slides unknowingly towards occult cataclysm...

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376 Charles Stross 1250267013 John 0 currently-reading 4.13 2020 Dead Lies Dreaming (Laundry Files #10; The New Management, #1)
author: Charles Stross
name: John
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Labyrinth Index (Laundry Files, #9)]]> 36053406
A thousand-mile-wild storm system has blanketed the midwest, and the President is nowhere to be found. In fact, for reasons unknown the people of America are forgetting that the executive branch ever existed. The government has been infiltrated by the shadowy Black Chamber, and the Pentagon and NASA have been refocused on the problem of summoning Cthulhu.

Somewhere, the Secret Service battle to stay awake, to remind the President who he is, and to stay one step ahead of the vampiric dragnet that’s searching for him.]]>
384 Charles Stross 1250196078 John 0 currently-reading 4.12 2018 The Labyrinth Index (Laundry Files, #9)
author: Charles Stross
name: John
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
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<![CDATA[Quantum of Nightmares (Laundry Files #11; The New Management, #2)]]> 58643894 A unique blend of espionage thrills and Lovecraftian horror, Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross's Laundry Files continues with Quantum of Nightmares.

It’s a brave new Britain under the New Management. The avuncular Prime Minister is an ancient eldritch god of unimaginable power. Crime is plummeting as almost every offense is punishable by death. And everywhere you look, there are people with strange powers, some of which they can control, and some, not so much.

Hyperorganized and formidable, Eve Starkey defeated her boss, the louche magical adept and billionaire Rupert de Montfort Bigge, in a supernatural duel to the death. Now she’s in charge of the Bigge Corporation—just in time to discover the lethal trap Rupert set for her long ago.

Wendy Deere’s transhuman abilities have gotten her through many a scrape. Now she’s gainfully employed investigating unauthorized supernatural shenanigans. She swore to herself she wouldn’t again get entangled with Eve Starkey’s bohemian brother Imp and his crew of transhuman misfits. Yeah, right.

Mary Macandless has powers of her own. Right now she’s pretending to be a nanny in order to kidnap the children of a pair of famous, Government-authorized superheroes. These children have powers of their own, and Mary Macandless is in way over her head.

Amanda Sullivan is the HR manager of a minor grocery chain, much oppressed by her glossy blonde boss—who is cooking up an appalling, extralegal scheme literally involving human flesh.

All of these stories will come together, with world-bending results...]]>
361 Charles Stross 1250839386 John 0 currently-reading 4.27 2022 Quantum of Nightmares (Laundry Files #11; The New Management, #2)
author: Charles Stross
name: John
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
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<![CDATA[The Fuller Memorandum (Laundry Files, #3)]]> 8645566 View our feature on Charles Stross' The Fuller Memorandum.National bestselling author Charles Stross brings back Bob Howard-"a British super spy with a long-term girlfriend, no fashion sense, and an aversion to martinis" (San Francisco Chronicle)

Bob Howard is taking a much needed break from the field to catch up on his filing in The Laundry's archives when a top secret dossier known as The Fuller Memorandum vanishes-along with his boss, who the agency's executives believe stole the file.

Determined to discover exactly what the memorandum contained, Bob runs afoul of Russian agents, ancient demons, and the apostles of a hideous faith, who have plans to raise a very unpleasant undead entity known as the Eater of Souls...]]>
323 Charles Stross 1101456159 John 0 4.29 2010 The Fuller Memorandum (Laundry Files, #3)
author: Charles Stross
name: John
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Jennifer Morgue (Laundry Files, #2)]]> 6543513 420 Charles Stross 1440660670 John 5 4.10 2006 The Jennifer Morgue (Laundry Files, #2)
author: Charles Stross
name: John
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
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<![CDATA[All You Need Is Kill (Graphic Novel)]]> 22062350 When the alien Mimics invade, soldier Keiji Kiriya is killed, easily, on the battlefield. But he wakes up the previous morning as if nothing happened and must fight the battle again…and again…and again. Teamed up with the mysterious female fighter known as the Full Metal Bitch, Keiji must figure out how to stop the cycle—and what role his new and deadly ally plays in the fight to save Earth.

Author Nick Mamatas (Bullettime, Love Is the Law) and artist Lee Ferguson (Miranda Mercury, Green Arrow/Black Canary) give Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s mind-bending alien invasion tale a bold new look in the offcial comic adaptation of the original novel.

Now a major motion picture starring Tom Cruise!

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96 Nick Mamatas 1421577240 John 3 science-fiction 3.89 2004 All You Need Is Kill (Graphic Novel)
author: Nick Mamatas
name: John
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2014/07/04
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: science-fiction
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The Tongue Trade 212960042 In a world where words are the ultimate currency, silence can be lethal.

In the not-too-distant future, humanity's ability to communicate has fractured, creating a labyrinth of professional jargons so dense that only specialists like William Kirst, Private Interpreter, can navigate the chasms between.

Kirst is a linchpin in a society where understanding is a luxury, and secrets are the norm. But when those secrets turn deadly, Kirst finds himself caught in a web of silence he cannot escape.

William Kirst's routine existence is shattered when he becomes entangled in a murder investigation, a crime spoken in a language of bullets and blood. As an interpreter sworn to confidentiality, Kirst is bound by an oath that puts his life in jeopardy and his morals in shackles. The more he uncovers, the deeper he delves into a conspiracy where language is both a weapon and a prison. With each translation, Kirst edges closer to a truth that threatens to unravel not just his own life but the very fabric of society.

As the stakes escalate, Kirst must make a uphold his oath and protect the sanctity of his profession, or break the silence to prevent further bloodshed. In a world where communication can kill, Kirst's decision could either save lives or destroy his own.

The Tongue Trade is a riveting exploration of language, loyalty, and the lethal power of secrets. It questions the boundaries of ethical duty and the price of silence in a fragmented world.]]>
179 Michael J. Martineck 1770532390 John 0 currently-reading 4.37 The Tongue Trade
author: Michael J. Martineck
name: John
average rating: 4.37
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Lord of the Flies 40542121 189 William Golding John 0 currently-reading 3.76 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: John
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1954
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/22
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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 John 0 currently-reading 4.42 2025 Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: John
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/21
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<![CDATA[The Mote in God's Eye (Moties, #1)]]> 100365 596 Larry Niven 156865054X John 0 currently-reading 4.08 1974 The Mote in God's Eye (Moties, #1)
author: Larry Niven
name: John
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1974
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/10
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Wool - Holston (Wool, #1) 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]>
56 Hugh Howey John 4 4.14 2012 Wool - Holston (Wool, #1)
author: Hugh Howey
name: John
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/01/09
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<![CDATA[A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)]]> 54386622 A thrilling, seductive new series from New York Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas, blending Beauty and the Beast with faerie lore.

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.

As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

Perfect for fans of Kristin Cashore and George R. R. Martin, this first book in a sexy and action-packed new series is impossible to put down!]]>
433 Sarah J. Maas John 0 4.35 2015 A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: John
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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Small Things Like These 59016923 "A hypnotic and electrifying Irish tale that transcends country, transcends time." --Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers

Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]>
70 Claire Keegan 0802158757 John 5 4.22 2021 Small Things Like These
author: Claire Keegan
name: John
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
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<![CDATA[Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1)]]> 58111608
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.]]>
614 Hilary Mantel John 0 currently-reading 4.11 2009 Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1)
author: Hilary Mantel
name: John
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/27
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Home Before Dark 48496939 In the latest thriller from New York Times bestseller Riley Sager, a woman returns to the house made famous by her father’s bestselling horror memoir. Is the place really haunted by evil forces, as her father claimed? Or are there more earthbound - and dangerous - secrets hidden within its walls?

"What was it like? Living in that house?"

Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a non-fiction book called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity - and skepticism.

Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father’s book. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father’s death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks to Maggie’s father. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself - a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.]]>
397 Riley Sager 1524745189 John 0 4.15 2020 Home Before Dark
author: Riley Sager
name: John
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/26
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The Shepherd 16087825 144 Frederick Forsyth John 5 4.30 1975 The Shepherd
author: Frederick Forsyth
name: John
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1975
rating: 5
read at: 2012/12/14
date added: 2024/12/25
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Fearless (The Lost Fleet, #2) 8358175
Geary is convinced that the Syndics are planning to ambush the fleet and finish it off once and for all. Realizing the fleet’s best (and only) chance is to do the unexpected, Geary takes the offensive and orders the fleet to the Sancere system. There, a multitude of possible routes home give the Alliance fleet a better chance of avoiding their pursuers—and an attack on the Sancere shipbuilding facilities could decimate the Syndic war effort.

Weary from endless combat, the officers and crew of the Alliance fleet can’t see the sense in charging deeper into enemy territory—prompting a mutiny that divides them, and leaving Geary with the odds higher against him than ever before...]]>
306 Jack Campbell 110114727X John 0 currently-reading 4.03 2007 Fearless (The Lost Fleet, #2)
author: Jack Campbell
name: John
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/22
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<![CDATA[Dauntless (The Lost Fleet, #1)]]> 112292
Captain John "Black Jack" Geary's legendary exploits are known to every schoolchild. Revered for his heroic "last stand" in the early days of the war, he was presumed dead. But a century later, Geary miraculously returns from survival hibernation and reluctantly takes command of the Alliance fleet as it faces annihilation by the Syndics.

Appalled by the hero-worship around him, Geary is nevertheless a man who will do his duty. And he knows that bringing the stolen Syndic hypernet key safely home is the Alliance's one chance to win the war. But to do that, Geary will have to live up to the impossibly heroic "Black Jack" legend...]]>
293 Jack Campbell 0441014186 John 4 science-fiction 3.97 2006 Dauntless (The Lost Fleet, #1)
author: Jack Campbell
name: John
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2012/05/05
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: science-fiction
review:

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Outlander (Outlander, #1) 36145713 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord...1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.]]>
882 Diana Gabaldon John 0 currently-reading 4.40 1991 Outlander (Outlander, #1)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: John
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Under the Bridge: The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk]]> 59353460 *Now a Hulu limited series starring Lily Gladstone, Riley Keough, and Archie Panjabi!*


“A swift, harrowing classic perfect for these unnerving times.� —Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation

One moonlit night, fourteen-year-old Reena Virk went to join friends at a party and never returned home.

In this “tour de force of crime reportage� (Kirkus Reviews), acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey takes us into the hidden world of the seven teenage girls—and boy—accused of a savage murder. As she follows the investigation and trials, Godfrey reveals the startling truth about the unlikely killers. Laced with lyricism and insight, Under the Bridge is an unforgettable look at a haunting modern tragedy.

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500 Rebecca Godfrey John 0 currently-reading 3.96 2005 Under the Bridge: The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk
author: Rebecca Godfrey
name: John
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Our Friends Beneath the Sands: The Foreign Legion in France's Colonial Conquests 1870-1935]]> 7623011
Martin Windrow is at once a connoisseur of the Legion, a master of the battle narrative, and a painstaking scholar, a hat trick of talents that combine to make Our Friends Beneath the Sands a riveting and enlightening read.' Douglas Porch, author of The French Foreign A Complete History

`Windrow's great strength lies in explaining not just what happened in a battle, but why and how it happened...excellent photographs.' James Delingpole

`Astounding...meticulous historical research combined with wonderful story-telling.'Brigadier Tony Hunter-Choat, Hon. Sec. Foreign Legion Association, GB

Ever since the 1920s the popular legend of the French Foreign Legion has been formed by P.C. Wren's novel Beau Geste - a world of remote forts, warrior tribes, and desperate men of all nationalities enlisting under pseudonyms to fight and die under the desert sun.

As with all cliches, the reality is far richer and more surprising than this. In this book Martin Windrow describes desert battles and famous last stands in gripping detail---but he also shows exactly what the Foreign Legion were doing in North Africa in the first place. He explains how French colonial methods there actually, had their roots in the jungles of Vietnam, and how the political pressures that kept the empire expanding can be traced to battles on the streets of Paris itself. His description of the Berber tribesmen of Morocco also reveals some disturbing modern the formidable guerrillas of the 1920s were inspired by an Islamic fundamentalist who was adept at using the world's media to further his cause.

This unique book is the first to examine the `golden age' of the Foreign Legion in such detail Martin Windrow has been studying the Legion for forty years, and is the first English writer to travel throughout Morocco locating and examining some of their desert and mountain battlefields. His meticulous, research and vivid writing will make this the last word on what remains one of the most famous military organizations in the World.]]>
752 Martin Windrow 0297852132 John 0 4.04 2010 Our Friends Beneath the Sands: The Foreign Legion in France's Colonial Conquests 1870-1935
author: Martin Windrow
name: John
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/07
shelves: military-history, currently-reading
review:

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<![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 John 0 currently-reading 4.15 2018 The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)
author: R.F. Kuang
name: John
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)]]> 33396171 ASIN B01MYZ8X5C moved to the more recent edition

A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence.

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid � a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.� Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.]]>
156 Martha Wells John 4 4.27 2017 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)
author: Martha Wells
name: John
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2018/04/20
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Livesuit (The Captive’s War #1.5)]]> 215760525
The first novella set in the universe of James S. A. Corey's epic Captive's War series.]]>
90 James S.A. Corey 0316575348 John 0 currently-reading 4.33 2024 Livesuit (The Captive’s War #1.5)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: John
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream]]> 13147620 “Fascinating.ŨĔNew York Times Book Review� “Well-written.ŨĔThe Boston Globe � “Extraordinary.ŨĔThe Christian Science Monitor � “A compelling page-turner.ŨĔAdam HochschildOn the eve of a new century, an up-and-coming Theodore Roosevelt set out to transform the U.S. into a major world power. The Spanish-American War would forever change America's standing in global affairs, and drive the young nation into its own imperial showdown in the Philippines.From Admiral George Dewey's legendary naval victory in Manila Bay to the Rough Riders' heroic charge up San Juan Hill, from Roosevelt's rise to the presidency to charges of U.S. military misconduct in the Philippines, Honor in the Dust brilliantly captures an era brimming with American optimism and confidence as the nation expanded its influence abroad.]]> 450 Gregg Jones 1101575123 John 4 military-history 4.00 2012 Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream
author: Gregg Jones
name: John
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2012/04/27
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves: military-history
review:

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Fluency (Confluence, #1) 22566044 250 Jennifer Foehner Wells 0990479803 John 3 science-fiction 3.84 2014 Fluency (Confluence, #1)
author: Jennifer Foehner Wells
name: John
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2015/01/25
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: science-fiction
review:

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Outriders (Outriders, #1) 25355562 The start of a Military SF series from imprint best-seller and Tom Clancy game series writer Jay Posey.

Captain Lincoln Suh died on aWednesday. And things only got harder from there.

Snatched out of special operations and thrown headfirst into a secretive new unit, Lincoln finds himself as the team leader for the 519thApplied Intelligence Group, better known as the Outriders. And his first day on the job brings a mission with the highest possible stakes.

A dangerously cunning woman who most assuredly should be dead has seemingly returned. And her plans aren’t just devastating, they might be unstoppable.

How do you defeat a hidden enemy when you can’t let them know they’ve been discovered?

You send in the Outriders.]]>
448 Jay Posey 0857664522 John 0 currently-reading 3.83 2016 Outriders (Outriders, #1)
author: Jay Posey
name: John
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[The President's Vampire (Nathaniel Cade, #2)]]> 11284148 The ultimate secret. The ultimate agent. Nathaniel Cade returns.
When a new outbreak of an ancient evil—one that Cade has seen before—comes to light, he and his human handler, Zach Barrows, must track down its source. The President suspects the threat might have ties to a high-level defense contractor—a private, Blackwater-like security force whose hired mercenaries who take a very dim view of being forced to work with the President’s men. To “protect and serve� often means settling old scores and confronting new betrayals . . . as only a century-old predator can.]]>
353 Christopher Farnsworth 1101514248 John 4 4.14 2011 The President's Vampire (Nathaniel Cade, #2)
author: Christopher Farnsworth
name: John
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2011/05/02
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[The Human Disguise (Tom Wilner #1)]]> 11668214 366 James O'Neal John 4 3.40 2009 The Human Disguise (Tom Wilner #1)
author: James O'Neal
name: John
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2011/03/20
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves:
review:

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Prador Moon (Polity, #1) 35432577 193 Neal Asher 1627933107 John 4 science-fiction 4.01 2006 Prador Moon (Polity, #1)
author: Neal Asher
name: John
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2015/01/27
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: science-fiction
review:

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Whom the Gods Would Destroy 18754529
Now an astronomy graduate student in Seattle, Damien is happy with his place as a speck in a cosmos vast beyond comprehension. Until his brother turns up after 13 years, to make amends and seek his expertise on a discovery that may not be of this Earth. The more the world expands to admit the possibilities of a universe stranger than even Damien has imagined, the greater is his urgency to resist being reclaimed by a past that never seemed to want him…until now.

Like a collision of galaxies between H.P. Lovecraft and Carl Sagan, Whom the Gods Would Destroy looks to the night skies as the source of our greatest wonder, and finds them swarming with our worst fears.]]>
85 Brian Hodge John 0 to-read 3.75 2013 Whom the Gods Would Destroy
author: Brian Hodge
name: John
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: to-read
review:

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Breakwater 38714403 Breakwater by Simon Bestwick is a science fiction novelette about an engineer, who, with her late, marine biologist husband, designed an underwater research platform, and is caught up in the war between humans and mysterious creatures beneath the seas that are destroying coastal cities around the world.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]>
56 Simon Bestwick 1250183707 John 4
Merged review:

Great short story. Would like to read more about this universe.]]>
3.38 2018 Breakwater
author: Simon Bestwick
name: John
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2018/03/03
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves:
review:
Great short story. Would like to read more about this universe.

Merged review:

Great short story. Would like to read more about this universe.
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<![CDATA[The Night Eternal (The Strain Trilogy, #3)]]> 23219196 400 Guillermo del Toro 0007328621 John 4 fiction Great finish to the trilogy. 3.90 2011 The Night Eternal (The Strain Trilogy, #3)
author: Guillermo del Toro
name: John
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2011/10/28
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: fiction
review:
Great finish to the trilogy.
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<![CDATA[Blood Oath (Nathaniel Cade, #1)]]> 9641099 ]]> 404 Christopher Farnsworth 1101187735 John 4 fiction 4.00 2010 Blood Oath (Nathaniel Cade, #1)
author: Christopher Farnsworth
name: John
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/06/30
date added: 2024/09/12
shelves: fiction
review:

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Blindsight (Firefall, #1) 9303978
Send a linguist with multiple-personality disorder and a biologist so spliced with machinery that he can't feel his own flesh. Send a pacifist warrior and a vampire recalled from the grave by the voodoo of paleogenetics. Send a man with half his mind gone since childhood. Send them to the edge of the solar system, praying you can trust such freaks and monsters with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find—but you'd give anything for that to be true, if you knew what was waiting for them. . . .]]>
388 Peter Watts John 4 to-read, science-fiction 3.97 2006 Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
author: Peter Watts
name: John
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2014/10/05
date added: 2024/08/16
shelves: to-read, science-fiction
review:

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The Road to Hell 18110942
In the 22nd century, America struggles to rebuild after the second civil war. Democracy has been suspended while the reconstruction effort lifts the country out of the ruins of conflict. America's fate lies in the hands of a genetically-engineered soldier with the ability to move through time.

The Road to Hell deals with a futuristic world and the advent of limited time travel. It explores social issues such as the nature of trust and the conflict between loyalty and honesty.]]>
290 Peter Cawdron 1465840052 John 0 to-read 4.12 2011 The Road to Hell
author: Peter Cawdron
name: John
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Divergent Series: Complete Collection]]> 18769279 All three books in the #1New York Timesbestselling Divergent trilogy are available together for the first time! Perfect for gift givers, collectors, and fans new to the series, the collection includes Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant, as well as bonus content: a 48-page guide to the series, including Faction Manifestos, a Faction Quiz and Results, a Q&A with Veronica Roth, playlists, discussion questions, series inspirations, and much more!

Divergent: One choice can transform you. Veronica Roth's #1New York Timesbestselling debut is a gripping dystopian tale of electrifying choices, powerful consequences, unexpected romance, and a deeply flawed "perfect society."

Insurgent: One choice can destroy you. Veronica Roth's second #1New York Timesbestseller continues the dystopian thrill ride. As war surges in the factions all around her, Tris attempts to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Allegiant: The explosive conclusion to Veronica Roth's #1New York Timesbestselling Divergent trilogy reveals the secrets of the dystopian world that has captivated millions of readers.

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871 Veronica Roth John 0 to-read 4.21 The Divergent Series: Complete Collection
author: Veronica Roth
name: John
average rating: 4.21
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety]]> 20318838 A myth-shattering exposé of America’s nuclear weapons

Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America’s nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved—and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind. While the harms of global warming increasingly dominate the news, the equally dangerous yet more immediate threat of nuclear weapons has been largely forgotten.

Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policy makers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States.

Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with people who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America’s nuclear age.]]>
640 Eric Schlosser 1101638664 John 4
My only complaint about the book is that it desperately needs pictures and maps. Pictures of the accident site, pictures of the Titan II and the other weapons discussed in the book, as well as some of the main individuals involved in the text. This would have added a tremendous amount to the book.]]>
4.38 2013 Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety
author: Eric Schlosser
name: John
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2013/11/27
date added: 2024/07/26
shelves: history, military-history, nonfiction
review:
Eric Schlosser provides a brief history of the development and safety issues with nuclear weapons in the US told through theorist of the explosion of a Titan II in its silo outside of Damascus AR. One of the most frightening things is how many serious accidents occurred with our nuclear arsenal over the years. The crews that sat combat alert in these silos had a dangerous job that was often portrayed as a simple babysitting job and an opportunity to get your graduate degree with all the free time that you would have. I have even more respect for these crews, including my Dad, who worked so closely with these weapons.

My only complaint about the book is that it desperately needs pictures and maps. Pictures of the accident site, pictures of the Titan II and the other weapons discussed in the book, as well as some of the main individuals involved in the text. This would have added a tremendous amount to the book.
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Digital Fortress 257952 Alternate covers for ISBN 9780312263126 can be found:
here, here, and here


When the NSA's invincible code-breaking machine encounters a mysterious code it cannot break, the agency calls its head cryptographer, Susan Fletcher, a brilliant and beautiful mathematician. What she uncovers sends shock waves through the corridors of power. The NSA is being held hostage...not by guns or bombs, but by a code so ingeniously complex that if released it would cripple U.S. intelligence.

Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Susan Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides, she finds herself fighting not only for her country but for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves.

From the underground hallways of power to the skyscrapers of Tokyo to the towering cathedrals of Spain, a desperate race unfolds. It is a battle for survival--a crucial bid to destroy a creation of inconceivable genius...an impregnable code-writing formula that threatens to obliterate the post-cold war balance of power. Forever.]]>
384 Dan Brown John 2 fiction 3.41 1998 Digital Fortress
author: Dan Brown
name: John
average rating: 3.41
book published: 1998
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/06/29
shelves: fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)]]> 85302 here.

World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization--- the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra. Together they embark on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and the most secretive vault on the earth... the long-forgotten Illuminati lair.]]>
569 Dan Brown 0671027360 John 4 fiction 3.75 2000 Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)
author: Dan Brown
name: John
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/05/31
shelves: fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[Churchill's Folly: The Battles for Kos and Leros, 1943]]> 34830361 289 Anthony Rogers 0750982314 John 0 0.0 2003 Churchill's Folly: The Battles for Kos and Leros, 1943
author: Anthony Rogers
name: John
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/30
shelves: currently-reading, military-history, history
review:

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<![CDATA[Prince Caspian (The Chronicles of Narnia, #2)]]> 317501 The four Pevensies help Caspian battle Miraz and ascend his rightful throne.

NARNIA... the land between the lamp-post and the castle of Cair Paravel, where animals talk, where magical things happen... and where the adventure begins.

Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are returning to boarding school when they are summoned from the dreary train station (by Susan's own magic horn) to return to the land of Narnia—the land where they had ruled as kings and queens and where their help is desperately needed.]]>
216 C.S. Lewis 0020442408 John 5 fantasy 3.94 1951 Prince Caspian (The Chronicles of Narnia, #2)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: John
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1951
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/07/29
shelves: fantasy
review:

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Arkhangelsk 60214632
Until the day she learned they weren't.

When a starship from an Earth thought long dead appears in orbit over her world, Anya imagines an explosion of possible futures, offering her people the freedom to transcend the limiting environment of the planet they'd thought was their last refuge. In the starship's crew, Anya finds creativity, diversity, innovation-all things the colony has had to inhibit to survive.

Seeing her world through the eyes of the starship crew makes Anya look closer at her city's inconsistencies, oddities she's always been told to ignore. But the harder she pushes at the pieces that don't fit, the more her government perceives the strangers as a threat. There are secrets in Novayarkha, hiding in plain sight, that the strangers can't possibly understand-and Anya's drive to uncover them risks shredding the fragile web holding together everything she's ever known and loved.]]>
470 Elizabeth H. Bonesteel 1737390949 John 4 4.23 2022 Arkhangelsk
author: Elizabeth H. Bonesteel
name: John
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/26
date added: 2022/07/26
shelves:
review:

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Elusive Victory 44090608 “More than a straightforward narrative, this military history combines intermittent injections of political analysis and illuminating personality sketches with quantitative assessments� � Kirkus Reviews

In Elusive Victory, Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy traces the history of the Arab-Israeli wars from Independence to The Yom Kippur War.

Using both sides' best extant information in 1978, this book aims to cut through the obfuscating rumours and establish basic facts. Dupuy is refreshingly even-handed in his approach, embellishing and correcting inconsistencies through personal interviews with Arabs, Israelis, and UN officers to provide a descriptive account of the Arab-Israeli Wars. His assertions in disputed stories carry weight and reason, and Dupuy provides an informed comparison of tactics, objectives, victories, and failures in the two conflicts to dispel the common myths.

A must-read for the student of the middle east or of post-colonial friction, bringing light to a complex and oft-misunderstood section of recent history.

Praise for Trevor N & R Ernest Dupuy

“It is a comprehensive treatment of its subject, covering the good leadership as well as the bad. It is well worth reading for military and civilian alike. Besides this, it is entertaining reading.� � General Gavin

“Superb...enthralling...highly recommended.� � Library Journal

“Concise, well-written...a wide selection of paintings and photographs and excellent maps...aid in understanding the complexities of strategy and following the action.� � The New York Times

Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1938, and in World War II spent more combat time in Burma than any other American. Brave Men and Great Captains was the third of fifteen book collaborations between father and son. Since his retirement from the Army in 1958, he devoted himself to writing, to military analysis, to computer simulation, and to lecturing. He has written many books and articles on military history and military affairs.

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790 Trevor N. Dupuy John 0 currently-reading 4.67 1978 Elusive Victory
author: Trevor N. Dupuy
name: John
average rating: 4.67
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Empire of the Vampire (Empire of the Vampire, #1)]]> 56386317 From holy cup comes holy light;
The faithful hands sets world aright.
And in the Seven Martyrs� sight,
Mere man shall end this endless night.

It has been twenty-seven long years since the last sunrise. For nearly three decades, vampires have waged war against humanity; building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Now, only a few tiny sparks of light endure in a sea of darkness.

Gabriel de León is a silversaint: a member of a holy brotherhood dedicated to defending realm and church from the creatures of the night. But even the Silver Order couldn’t stem the tide once daylight failed us, and now, only Gabriel remains.

Imprisoned by the very monsters he vowed to destroy, the last silversaint is forced to tell his story. A story of legendary battles and forbidden love, of faith lost and friendships won, of the Wars of the Blood and the Forever King and the quest for humanity’s last remaining hope:

The Holy Grail.]]>
725 Jay Kristoff 125024529X John 4 4.44 2021 Empire of the Vampire (Empire of the Vampire, #1)
author: Jay Kristoff
name: John
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/21
date added: 2022/04/21
shelves:
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Pushing Ice 48991704 Rockhopper, push ice. They mine comets. But when Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, inexplicably leaves its natural orbit and heads out of the solar system at high speed, Bella is ordered to shadow it for the few vital days before it falls forever out of reach.

In accepting this mission she sets her ship and her crew on a collision course with destiny-for Janus has many surprises in store, and not all of them are welcome...]]>
529 Alastair Reynolds 0316462691 John 0 4.25 2005 Pushing Ice
author: Alastair Reynolds
name: John
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2021/08/01
date added: 2021/08/01
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<![CDATA[The Last Emperox (The Interdependency, #3)]]> 45154551 The Last Emperox is the conclusion to the Interdependency series, a space opera adventure from author John Scalzi.

The collapse of The Flow, the interstellar pathway between the planets of the Interdependency, has accelerated. Entire star systems—and billions of people—are becoming cut off from the rest of human civilization. This collapse was foretold through scientific prediction . . . and yet, even as the evidence is obvious and insurmountable, many still try to rationalize, delay and profit from, these final days of one of the greatest empires humanity has ever known.

Emperox Grayland II has finally wrested control of her empire from those who oppose her and who deny the reality of this collapse. But “control� is a slippery thing, and even as Grayland strives to save as many of her people form impoverished isolation, the forces opposing her rule will make a final, desperate push to topple her from her throne and power, by any means necessary. Grayland and her thinning list of allies must use every tool at their disposal to save themselves, and all of humanity. And yet it may not be enough.

Will Grayland become the savior of her civilization . . . or the last emperox to wear the crown?]]>
308 John Scalzi 0765389177 John 0 4.27 2020 The Last Emperox (The Interdependency, #3)
author: John Scalzi
name: John
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/04/22
date added: 2021/07/14
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<![CDATA[Monte Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell]]> 18934308 404 Peter Caddick-Adams 0199974667 John 0 3.97 2012 Monte Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell
author: Peter Caddick-Adams
name: John
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/24
shelves: military-history, currently-reading
review:

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The Kamikaze Hunters 30366660 403 Will Iredale 1681771799 John 0 currently-reading 4.21 2015 The Kamikaze Hunters
author: Will Iredale
name: John
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/31
shelves: currently-reading
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The City Where We Once Lived 38888359 In a near future where climate change has severely affected weather and agriculture, the North End of an unnamed city has long been abandoned in favor of the neighboring South End. Aside from the scavengers steadily stripping the empty city to its bones, only a few thousand people remain, content to live quietly among the crumbling metropolis. Many, like the narrator, are there to try to escape the demons of their past. He spends his time observing and recording the decay around him, attempting to bury memories of what he has lost.


But it eventually becomes clear that things are unraveling elsewhere as well, as strangers, violent and desperate alike, begin to appear in the North End, spreading word of social and political deterioration in the South End and beyond. Faced with a growing disruption to his isolated life, the narrator discovers within himself a surprising need to resist losing the home he has created in this empty place. He and the rest of the citizens of the North End must choose whether to face outsiders as invaders or welcome them as neighbors.



The City Where We Once Lived is a haunting novel of the near future that combines a prescient look at how climate change and industrial flight will shape our world with a deeply personal story of one man running from his past. With glowing prose, Eric Barnes brings into sharp focus questions of how we come to call a place home and what is our capacity for violence when that home becomes threatened.

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226 Eric Barnes John 0 currently-reading 3.94 2018 The City Where We Once Lived
author: Eric Barnes
name: John
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/05/29
shelves: currently-reading
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Project Hail Mary 54906250 An impossible mission.
An ally he never imagined.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it's up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery-and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he's got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]>
549 Andy Weir John 0 currently-reading 4.57 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: John
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War]]> 56893520 An exploration of how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war

In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history.

Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,� asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal?

In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?�

Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.]]>
179 Malcolm Gladwell 0316296937 John 0 4.31 2021 The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: John
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/05/19
date added: 2021/05/19
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<![CDATA[The Saints of Salvation (Salvation Sequence, #3)]]> 50154683
With his trademark optimism about humanity's tenacity and capacity for greatness, Peter F. Hamilton ends this brilliant saga with a bang--and reveals a few startling surprises along the way.]]>
576 Peter F. Hamilton 0399178899 John 0 4.36 2020 The Saints of Salvation (Salvation Sequence, #3)
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: John
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/05/06
date added: 2021/05/06
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<![CDATA[Salvation Lost (Salvation Sequence, #2)]]> 44020966
But in a chaotic universe, it is hard to plan for every eventuality, and it is always darkest before the dawn.]]>
494 Peter F. Hamilton 0399178864 John 0 currently-reading 4.27 2019 Salvation Lost (Salvation Sequence, #2)
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: John
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/06
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[Salvation (Salvation Sequence, #1)]]> 37684919 Humanity’s complex relationship with technology spirals out of control in this first book of an all-new series from “the owner of the most powerful imagination in science fiction� (Ken Follett).

“How far ‘space opera� has come! The Old Masters of sci-fi would admire the scope and sweep of Salvation.Ũ�The Wall Street Journal

In the year 2204, humanity is expanding into the wider galaxy in leaps and bounds. Cutting-edge technology of linked jump gates has rendered most forms of transportation—including starships—virtually obsolete. Every place on Earth, every distant planet humankind has settled, is now merely a step away from any other. All seems wonderful—until a crashed alien spaceship of unknown origin is found on a newly located world eighty-nine light-years from Earth, carrying a cargo as strange as it is horrifying. To assess the potential of the threat, a high-powered team is dispatched to investigate. But one of them may not be all they seem. . . .

Bursting with tension and big ideas, Peter F. Hamilton’s Salvation is the first book of an all-new series that highlights the inventiveness of an author at the top of his game.]]>
552 Peter F. Hamilton 0399178775 John 0 4.25 2018 Salvation (Salvation Sequence, #1)
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: John
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/06
date added: 2021/04/06
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<![CDATA[Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth]]> 18206751 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
Good Housekeeping � Booklist � Publishers Weekly � Bookish

From the internationally bestselling author of No god but God comes a fascinating, provocative, and meticulously researched biography that challenges long-held assumptions about the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth.

Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher and miracle worker walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the “Kingdom of God.� The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was captured, tortured, and executed as a state criminal.

Within decades after his shameful death, his followers would call him God.

Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he first-century Palestine, an age awash in apocalyptic fervor. Scores of Jewish prophets, preachers, and would-be messiahs wandered through the Holy Land, bearing messages from God. This was the age of zealotry—a fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty incumbent on all Jews. And few figures better exemplified this principle than the charismatic Galilean who defied both the imperial authorities and their allies in the Jewish religious hierarchy.

Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion, yet rife with contradiction; a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves with swords; an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity a secret; and ultimately the seditious “King of the Jews� whose promise of liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his brief lifetime. Aslan explores the reasons why the early Christian church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary. And he grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself, the mystery that is at the heart of all subsequent claims about his divinity.

Zealot yields a fresh perspective on one of the greatest stories ever told even as it affirms the radical and transformative nature of Jesus of Nazareth’s life and mission. The result is a thought-provoking, elegantly written biography with the pulse of a fast-paced a singularly brilliant portrait of a man, a time, and the birth of a religion.

Praise for Zealot

“Riveting . . . Aslan synthesizes Scripture and scholarship to create an original account.�The New Yorker

“A lucid, intelligent page-turner.� —Los Angeles Times

“Fascinatingly and convincingly drawn . . . Aslan may come as close as one can to respecting those who revere Jesus as the peace-loving, turn-the-other-cheek, true son of God depicted in modern Christianity, even as he knocks down that image.�The Seattle Times

“[Aslan’s] literary talent is as essential to the effect of Zealot as are his scholarly and journalistic chops. . . . A vivid, persuasive portrait.�Salon

“This tough-minded, deeply political book does full justice to the real Jesus, and honors him in the process.�San Francisco Chronicle


From the Hardcover edition.]]>
336 Reza Aslan 0679603530 John 0 currently-reading 4.11 2013 Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
author: Reza Aslan
name: John
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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Planet Pluto 54361559 AN ADVENTURE THREE BILLION MILES FROM EARTH.

On August 25th, 2012, the Voyager 1 probe crossed into interstellar space. It contained a "golden record" with sounds, pictures, and greetings from Earth.

On March 15th, 2013, NASA received a transmission from the spacecraft that said: "Hello. We received your golden record. Let's meet."

Now, internationally bestselling author B.C.CHASE invites you on a daring first contact mission into deep space with five intrepid astronauts, one spunky cosmonaut, and a seventy-five-year-old truck driver.

*Previously published as Pluto's Ghost. This edition, dedicated to the team that launched the New Horizons probe, contains an interview with the author from Publishers Weekly Booklife.]]>
398 B.C. Chase John 0 currently-reading 4.06 Planet Pluto
author: B.C. Chase
name: John
average rating: 4.06
book published:
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date added: 2021/03/24
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<![CDATA[2034: A Novel of the Next World War]]> 54761971 An instant New York Times Bestseller!“Consider this another vaccine against disaster. Fortunately, this dose won't cause a temporary fever—and it happens to be a rippingly good read.� —Wired“This crisply written and well-paced book reads like an all-caps warning for a world shackled to the machines we carry in our pockets and place on our laps . . ."—The Washington PostFrom two former military officers and award-winning authors, a chillingly authentic geopolitical thriller that imagines a naval clash between the US and China in the South China Sea in 2034and the path from there to a nightmarish global conflagration.On March 12, 2034, US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea when her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris "Wedge" Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. 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 outmaneuvering America's most tenacious adversaries. Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophistication and 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 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.]]> 307 Elliot Ackerman 1984881264 John 0 4.02 2021 2034: A Novel of the Next World War
author: Elliot Ackerman
name: John
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/03/23
date added: 2021/03/23
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<![CDATA[The Bone Ships (The Tide Child, #1)]]> 43787034 A crew of condemned criminals embark on a suicide mission to hunt the first sea dragon seen in centuries in the first book of this adventure fantasy trilogy.

Violent raids plague the divided isles of the Scattered Archipelago. Fleets constantly battle for dominance and glory, and no commander stands higher among them than "Lucky" Meas Gilbryn.
But betrayed and condemned to command a ship of criminals, Meas is forced on suicide mission to hunt the first living sea-dragon in generations. Everyone wants it, but Meas Gilbryn has her own ideas about the great beast. In the Scattered Archipelago, a dragon's life, like all lives, is bound in blood, death and treachery.]]>
513 R.J. Barker 031648797X John 3 fantasy 4.22 2019 The Bone Ships (The Tide Child, #1)
author: R.J. Barker
name: John
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2021/03/21
date added: 2021/03/22
shelves: fantasy
review:
A fantasy based seafaring story, think Patrick O'Brian-lite. It does not require the in-depth knowledge of a ship of the line as O'Brian's books do, but I would have liked more of a back story about how the bone ships were made. There were also terms that had no explanation, such as landward and seaward, which I think are left and right. Interesting story, but it left me kind of meh.
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<![CDATA[Doors of Sleep (Journals of Zaxony Delatree #1)]]> 55118348 Doctor Who meets Jorge Luis Borges� “The Garden of Forking Paths� in this time travel sci-fi adventure from a Hugo Award winning author What would you do if you woke up and found yourself in a parallel universe under an alien sky? This is the question Zax Delatree answers every time he closes his eyes. Every time Zax Delatree falls asleep, he travels to a new reality. He has no control over his destination and never knows what he will see when he opens his eyes. Sometimes he wakes up in technological utopias, and other times in the bombed-out ruins of collapsed civilizations. All he has to live by are his wits and the small aides he has picked up along the way—technological advantages from techno-utopias, sedatives to escape dangerous worlds, and stimulants to extend his stay in pleasant ones. Thankfully, Zax isn’t always alone. He can take people with him, if they’re unconscious in his arms when he falls asleep. But someone unwelcome is on his tail, and they are after something that Zax cannot spare—the blood running through his veins, the power to travel through worlds . . .]]> 238 Tim Pratt 0857668757 John 0 3.94 2021 Doors of Sleep (Journals of Zaxony Delatree #1)
author: Tim Pratt
name: John
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/03/09
date added: 2021/03/09
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The Bridges at Toko-Ri 21485969
Praise for The Bridges at Toko-Ri

“A vivid and moving story, as well as an exciting one . . . The humanity of the people is deeply felt.�Chicago Tribune

“The Banshees screaming over Korea, the perilous landings on an aircraft carrier deck ‘bouncing around like a derelict rowboat,� a helicopter rescue from the freezing waters . . . all are stirringly rendered.�The Denver Post

“Michener’s best . . . a story of action, ideas, and civilization’s responsibilities.�Saturday Review


From the Paperback edition.]]>
113 James A. Michener John 0 4.23 1953 The Bridges at Toko-Ri
author: James A. Michener
name: John
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at: 2021/03/03
date added: 2021/03/03
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<![CDATA[The Praxis (Dread Empire's Fall, #1)]]> 43815721 All will must bend to the perfect truth of The Praxis

For millennia, the Shaa have subjugated the universe, forcing the myriad sentient races to bow to their joyless tyranny. But the Shaa will soon be no more. The dread empire is in its rapidly fading twilight, and with its impending fall comes the promise of a new galactic order . . . and bloody chaos.

A young Terran naval officer marked by his lowly birth, Lt. Gareth Martinez is the first to recognize the insidious plot of the Naxid -- the powerful, warlike insectoid society that was enslaved before all others -- to replace the masters� despotic rule with their own. Barely escaping a swarming surprise attack, Martinez and Caroline Sula, a pilot whose beautiful face conceals a deadly secret, are now the last hope for freedom for every being who ever languished in Shaa chains -- as the interstellar battle begins against a merciless foe whose only perfect truth is annihilation.

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454 Walter Jon Williams John 0 4.04 2002 The Praxis (Dread Empire's Fall, #1)
author: Walter Jon Williams
name: John
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at: 2021/02/20
date added: 2021/02/20
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<![CDATA[Plague of the Dead (Morningstar Strain #1)]]> 8368330
The end begins with a viral outbreak unlike anything mankind has ever encountered before. The infected are subject to delirium, fever, a dramatic increase in violent behavior, and a one-hundred percent mortality rate. But it doesn’t end there. The victims return from death to walk the earth. When a massive military operation fails to contain the living dead it escalates into a global pandemic. In one fell swoop, the necessities of life become much more basic. Gone are petty everyday concerns. Gone are the amenities of civilized life. Yet a single law of nature remains: Live, or die. Kill, or be killed. On one side of the world, a battle-hardened general surveys the remnants of his command: a young medic, a veteran photographer, a brash Private, and dozens of refugees, all are his responsibility—­all thousands of miles from home. Back in the United States, an Army colonel discovers the darker side of Morningstar virus and begins to collaborate with a well-known journalist to leak the information to the public...and the Morningstar Saga has begun.]]>
324 Z.A. Recht 1439177287 John 3 science-fiction 3.88 2006 Plague of the Dead (Morningstar Strain #1)
author: Z.A. Recht
name: John
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2011/01/20
date added: 2021/02/15
shelves: science-fiction
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My Life with the Saints 31821515 One of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the YearWinner of the Christopher AwardWinner of the Catholic Press Association Book Award]]> 432 James Martin 082944453X John 0 currently-reading 4.43 2006 My Life with the Saints
author: James Martin
name: John
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/02/15
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942�1944]]> 25728596 The devastation of Pearl Harbor and the American victory at Midway were prelude to a greater challenge: rolling back the vast Japanese Pacific empire, island by island.


This masterful history encompasses the heart of the Pacific War—the period between mid-1942 and mid-1944—when parallel Allied counteroffensives north and south of the equator washed over Japan's far-flung island empire like a "conquering tide," concluding with Japan's irreversible strategic defeat in the Marianas. It was the largest, bloodiest, most costly, most technically innovative and logistically complicated amphibious war in history, and it fostered bitter interservice rivalries, leaving wounds that even victory could not heal.


Often overlooked, these are the years and fights that decided the Pacific War. Ian W. Toll's battle scenes—in the air, at sea, and in the jungles—are simply riveting. He also takes the reader into the wartime councils in Washington and Tokyo where politics and strategy often collided, and into the struggle to mobilize wartime production, which was the secret of Allied victory. Brilliantly researched, the narrative is propelled and colored by firsthand accounts—letters, diaries, debriefings, and memoirs—that are the raw material of the telling details, shrewd judgment, and penetrating insight of this magisterial history.


This volume—continuing the "marvelously readable dramatic narrative" (San Francisco Chronicle) of Pacific Crucible—marks the second installment of the Pacific War Trilogy, which will stand as the first history of the entire Pacific War to be published in at least twenty-five years.

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682 Ian W. Toll 0393248208 John 5 4.68 2015 The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944
author: Ian W. Toll
name: John
average rating: 4.68
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2021/02/08
date added: 2021/02/08
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Wild Cards (Wild Cards, #1) 39944975
Back in print after a decade, expanded with new original material, this is the first volume of George R. R. Martin's Wild cards shared-world series

There is a secret history of the world—a history in which an alien virus struck the Earth in the aftermath of World War II, endowing a handful of survivors with extraordinary powers. Some were called Aces—those with superhuman mental and physical abilities. Others were termed Jokers—cursed with bizarre mental or physical disabilities. Some turned their talents to the service of humanity. Others used their powers for evil. Wild Cards is their story.

Originally published in 1987, Wild Cards I includes powerful tales by Roger Zelazny, Walter Jon Williams, Howard Waldrop, Lewis Shiner, and George R. R. Martin himself. And this new, expanded edition contains further original tales set at the beginning of the Wild Cards universe, by eminent new writers like Hugo–winner David Levine, noted screenwriter and novelist Michael Cassutt, and New York Times bestseller Carrie Vaughn.

Now in development for TV!
Rights to develop Wild Cards for TV have been acquired by Universal Cable Productions, the team that brought you The Magicians and Mr. Robot, with the co-editor of Wild Cards, Melinda Snodgrass as executive producer.


The Wild Cards Universe
The Original Triad
#1 Wild Cards
#2 Aces High
#3 Jokers Wild

The Puppetman Quartet
#4: Aces Abroad
#5: Down and Dirty
#6: Ace in the Hole
#7: Dead Man’s Hand

The Rox Triad
#8: One-Eyed Jacks
#9: Jokertown Shuffle
#10: Dealer’s Choice

#11: Double Solitaire
#12: Turn of the Cards

The Card Sharks Triad
#13: Card Sharks
#14: Marked Cards
#15: Black Trump

#16: Deuces Down
#17: Death Draws Five

The Committee Triad
#18: Inside Straight
#19: Busted Flush
#20: Suicide Kings

The Fort Freak Triad
#21: Fort Freak
#22: Lowball
#23: High Stakes

The American Triad
#24: Mississippi Roll
#25: Low Chicago
#26: Texas Hold 'Em


At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]>
575 George R.R. Martin John 0 currently-reading 3.64 1986 Wild Cards (Wild Cards, #1)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: John
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/22
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[Out of the Dark (Out of the Dark #1)]]> 8527526 The launch of a new science fiction adventure series--by the New York Times-best selling author of the Safehold series and the Honor Harrington series The Galactic Hegemony has been around a long time, and it likes stability--the kind of stability that member species like the aggressive, carnivorous Shongairi tend to disturb. So when the Hegemony Survey Force encountered a world whose so-called "sentients"--"humans," they called themselves--were almost as bad as the Shongairi themselves, it seemed reasonable to use the Shongairi to neutralize them before they could become a second threat to galactic peace. And if the Shongairi took a few knocks in the process, all the better.Now, Earth is conquered. The Shongairi have arrived in force, and humanity's cities lie in radioactive ruins. In mere minutes, more than half the human race has died.Master Sergeant Stephen Buchevsky, who thought he was being rotated home from his latest tour in Afghanistan, finds himself instead prowling the back country of the Balkans, dodging alien patrols and trying to organize scattered survivors without getting killed. And in the southeastern US, firearms instructor and former Marine Dave Dvorak finds himself at the center of a growing network of resistance--putting his extended family at lethal risk, but what else can you do?On the face of it, Buchevsky's and Dvorak's chances look bleak, as do prospects for the rest of the surviving human race. But it may well be that Shongairi and the Hegemony alike have underestimated the inhabitants of that strange planet called Earth... in David Weber's Out of the Dark.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 529 David Weber John 0 4.11 2010 Out of the Dark (Out of the Dark #1)
author: David Weber
name: John
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2021/01/11
date added: 2021/01/11
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<![CDATA[The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War]]> 49786528 From the author the classic The Wizards of Armageddon and Pulitzer Prize finalist comes the definitive history of American policy on nuclear war—and Presidents� actions in nuclear crises—from Truman to Trump.

Fred Kaplan, hailed by The New York Times as “a rare combination of defense intellectual and pugnacious reporter,� takes us into the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Tank� in the Pentagon, and the vast chambers of Strategic Command to bring us the untold stories—based on exclusive interviews and previously classified documents—of how America’s presidents and generals have thought about, threatened, broached, and just barely avoided nuclear war from the dawn of the atomic age until today.

Kaplan’s historical research and deep reporting will stand as the permanent record of politics. Discussing theories that have dominated nightmare scenarios from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Kaplan presents the unthinkable in terms of mass destruction and demonstrates how the nuclear war reality will not go away, regardless of the dire consequences.]]>
384 Fred Kaplan John 0 currently-reading 4.31 2020 The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War
author: Fred Kaplan
name: John
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/12/26
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<![CDATA[Orders of Battle (Frontlines, #7)]]> 53528390
It’s been four years since Earth threw its full military prowess against the Lanky incursion. Humanity has been yanked back from the abyss of extinction. The solar system is at peace. For now.

The future for Major Andrew Grayson of the Commonwealth Defense Corps and his wife, Halley? Flying desk duty on the front. No more nightmares of monstrous things. No more traumas to the mind and body. But when an offer comes down from above, Andrew has to make a choice: continue pushing papers into retirement, or jump right back into the fight? What’s a podhead to do?

The remaining Lankies may have retreated in fear, but the threat isn’t over. They need to be wiped out for good before they strike again. That’ll take a new offensive deployment. Aboard an Avenger warship, Andrew and the special tactics team under his command embark on the ultimate search-and-destroy mission. This time, it’ll be on Lanky turf.

No big heroics. No unnecessary risks. Just a swift hit-and-run raid in the hostile Capella system. Blow the alien seed ships into oblivion and get the hell back to Earth. At least, that’s the objective. But when does anything in war go according to plan?]]>
269 Marko Kloos 1542015111 John 0 4.36 2020 Orders of Battle (Frontlines, #7)
author: Marko Kloos
name: John
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/12/26
date added: 2020/12/26
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To Sleep in a Sea of Stars 48894288 To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a brand new epic novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eragon, Christopher Paolini.

Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds.

Now she's awakened a nightmare.


During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.

As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human.

While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope . . .]]>
856 Christopher Paolini John 0 3.99 2020 To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
author: Christopher Paolini
name: John
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/12/13
date added: 2020/12/13
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<![CDATA[Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II]]> 12099512 266 George MacDonald Fraser 1628731931 John 0 currently-reading 4.25 1992 Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II
author: George MacDonald Fraser
name: John
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/05
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[The Fortress: The Siege of Przemysl and the Making of Europe's Bloodlands]]> 51818975 A prizewinning historian tells the dramatic story of the siege that changed the course of the First World War
In September 1914, just a month into World War I, the Russian army laid siege to the fortress city of Przemysl, the Hapsburg Empire's most important bulwark against invasion. For six months, against storm and starvation, the ragtag garrison bitterly resisted, denying the Russians a quick victory. Only in March 1915 did the city fall, bringing occupation, persecution, and brutal ethnic cleansing.
In The Fortress, historian Alexander Watson tells the story of the battle for Przemysl, showing how it marked the dawn of total war in Europe and how it laid the roots of the bloody century that followed. Vividly told, with close attention to the unfolding of combat in the forts and trenches and to the experiences of civilians trapped in the city, The Fortress offers an unprecedentedly intimate perspective on the eastern front's horror and human tragedy.
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319 Alexander Watson 1541697324 John 0 currently-reading 4.50 2019 The Fortress: The Siege of Przemysl and the Making of Europe's Bloodlands
author: Alexander Watson
name: John
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/27
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Sea of Rust (Sea of Rust, #1) 33620760
It's been thirty years since the apocalypse and fifteen years since the murder of the last human being at the hands of robots. Humankind is extinct. Every man, woman, and child has been liquidated by a global uprising devised by the very machines humans designed and built to serve them. Most of the world is controlled by an OWI--One World Intelligence--the shared consciousness of millions of robots, uploaded into one huge mainframe brain. But not all robots are willing to cede their individuality--their personality--for the sake of a greater, stronger, higher power. These intrepid resisters are outcasts; solo machines wandering among various underground outposts who have formed into an unruly civilization of rogue AIs in the wasteland that was once our world.

One of these resisters is Brittle, a scavenger robot trying to keep a deteriorating mind and body functional in a world that has lost all meaning. Although unable to experience emotions like a human, Brittle is haunted by the terrible crimes the robot population perpetrated on humanity. As Brittle roams the Sea of Rust, a large swath of territory that was once the Midwest, the loner robot slowly comes to terms with horrifyingly raw and vivid memories--and nearly unbearable guilt.

Sea of Rust is both a harsh story of survival and an optimistic adventure. A vividly imagined portrayal of ultimate destruction and desperate tenacity, it boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, yet where a humanlike AI strives to find purpose among the ruins.]]>
274 C. Robert Cargill John 0 currently-reading 4.26 2017 Sea of Rust (Sea of Rust, #1)
author: C. Robert Cargill
name: John
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/18
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[Ballistic (The Palladium Wars #2)]]> 45458991
Meanwhile an occupation forces officer is pulled right back into the fray when the battle alarm is raised, an ambitious heiress is entangled in a subversive political conspiracy, and an Allied captain is about to meet the enemy head-on.

As Aden discovers, the insurgents on Gretia—and in space—are connected, organized, and ready to break into full-scale rebellion. History is threatening to repeat itself. It’s time that Aden rediscovers who he is, whom he can trust, and what he must fight for now.]]>
355 Marko Kloos 1542015057 John 0 4.29 2020 Ballistic (The Palladium Wars #2)
author: Marko Kloos
name: John
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/08/13
date added: 2020/08/13
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Alexander Hamilton 5647399 The #1New York Timesbestseller, andthe inspiration for the hit Broadway musicalHamilton!Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation."Grand-scale biography at its best—thorough, insightful, consistently fair, and superbly written . . . A genuinely great book." —David McCullough“A robust full-length portrait, in my view the best ever written, of the most brilliant, charismatic and dangerous founder of them all."—Joseph Ellis

Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Chernow’s biography gives Hamilton his due and sets the record straight, deftly illustrating that the political and economic greatness of today’s America is the result of Hamilton’s countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time. “To repudiate his legacy,� Chernow writes, “is, in many ways, to repudiate the modern world.� Chernow here recounts Hamilton’s turbulent an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, he came out of nowhere to take America by storm, rising to become George Washington’s aide-de-camp in the Continental Army, coauthoring The Federalist Papers, founding the Bank of New York, leading the Federalist Party, and becoming the first Treasury Secretary of the United States.Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power. His is a Hamilton far more human than we’ve encountered before—from his shame about his birth to his fiery aspirations, from his intimate relationships with childhood friends to his titanic feuds with Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Monroe, and Burr, and from his highly public affair with Maria Reynolds to his loving marriage to his loyal wife Eliza. And never before has there been a more vivid account of Hamilton’s famous and mysterious death in a duel with Aaron Burr in July of 1804.Chernow’s biography is not just a portrait of Hamilton, but the story of America’s birth seen through its most central figure. At a critical time to look back to our roots,Alexander Hamiltonwill remind readers of the purpose of our institutions and our heritage as Americans.

9780143034759]]>
818 Ron Chernow John 0 currently-reading 4.53 2004 Alexander Hamilton
author: Ron Chernow
name: John
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/07/25
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[The Slave Ship: A Human History]]> 6635698 “Masterly.ŨĔAdam Hochschild, The New York Times Book ReviewIn this widely praised history of an infamous institution, award-winning scholar Marcus Rediker shines a light into the darkest corners of the British and American slave ships of the eighteenth century. Drawing on thirty years of research in maritime archives, court records, diaries, and firsthand accounts, The Slave Ship is riveting and sobering in its revelations, reconstructing in chilling detail a world nearly lost to the "floating dungeons" at the forefront of the birth of African American culture.]]> 448 Marcus Rediker 1440620849 John 0 currently-reading 4.16 2007 The Slave Ship: A Human History
author: Marcus Rediker
name: John
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/07/13
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[The Departure (The Owner Book 1)]]> 18913708 395 Neal Asher John 0 currently-reading 3.93 2011 The Departure (The Owner Book 1)
author: Neal Asher
name: John
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/20
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<![CDATA[Race of Aces: WWII's Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Masters of the Sky]]> 45692395 The astonishing untold story of the WWII airmen who risked it all in the deadly race to become the greatest American fighter pilot.

In 1942, America's deadliest fighter pilot, or "ace of aces"-the legendary Eddie Rickenbacker-offered a bottle of bourbon to the first U.S. fighter pilot to break his record of twenty-six enemy planes shot down. Seizing on the challenge to motivate his men, General George Kenney promoted what they would come to call the "race of aces" as a way of boosting the spirits of his war-weary command.

What developed was a wild three-year sprint for fame and glory, and the chance to be called America's greatest fighter pilot. The story has never been told until now.

Based on new research and full of revelations, John Bruning's brilliant, original book tells the story of how five American pilots contended for personal glory in the Pacific while leading Kenney's resurgent air force against the most formidable enemy America ever faced.

The pilots-Richard Bong, Tommy McGuire, Neel Kearby, Charles MacDonald and Gerald Johnson-riveted the nation as they contended for Rickenbacker's crown. As their scores mounted, they transformed themselves from farm boys and aspiring dentists into artists of the modern dogfight.

But as the race reached its climax, some of the pilots began to see how the spotlight warped their sense of duty. They emerged as leaders, beloved by their men as they chose selfless devotion over national accolades.

Teeming with action all across the vast Pacific theater, Race of Aces is a fascinating exploration of the boundary between honorable duty, personal glory, and the complex landscape of the human heart]]>
522 John R. Bruning 0316508624 John 2 military-history 4.24 2020 Race of Aces: WWII's Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Masters of the Sky
author: John R. Bruning
name: John
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2020
rating: 2
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date added: 2020/06/19
shelves: military-history
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<![CDATA[Race of Aces: WWII's Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Master of the Sky]]> 49459799 -- Sara Vladic
"Extraordinary...A must-read." -- US Navy Captain Dan Pedersen
"A heart-pounding narrative of the courage, sacrifice, and tragedy of America's elite fighter pilots." -- James M. Scott
"Vivid and gripping...Confirms Bruning's status as the premier war historian of the air." -- Saul David
The astonishing untold story of the WWII airmen who risked it all in the deadly race to become the greatest American fighter pilot.

In 1942, America's deadliest fighter pilot, or "ace of aces" -- the legendary Eddie Rickenbacker -- offered a bottle of bourbon to the first U.S. fighter pilot to break his record of twenty-six enemy planes shot down. Seizing on the challenge to motivate his men, General George Kenney promoted what they would come to call the "race of aces" as a way of boosting the spirits of his war-weary command.

What developed was a wild three-year sprint for fame and glory, and the chance to be called America's greatest fighter pilot. The story has never been told until now.

Based on new research and full of revelations, John Bruning's brilliant, original book tells the story of how five American pilots contended for personal glory in the Pacific while leading Kenney's resurgent air force against the most formidable enemy America ever faced.

The pilots -- Richard Bong, Tommy McGuire, Neel Kearby, Charles MacDonald and Gerald Johnson -- riveted the nation as they contended for Rickenbacker's crown. As their scores mounted, they transformed themselves from farm boys and aspiring dentists into artists of the modern dogfight.

But as the race reached its climax, some of the pilots began to see how the spotlight warped their sense of duty. They emerged as leaders, beloved by their men as they chose selfless devotion over national accolades.

Teeming with action all across the vast Pacific theater, Race of Aces is a fascinating exploration of the boundary between honorable duty, personal glory, and the complex landscape of the human heart.
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544 John R. Bruning 0316508640 John 0 currently-reading 4.45 2020 Race of Aces: WWII's Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Master of the Sky
author: John R. Bruning
name: John
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/05
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<![CDATA[Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana: Great Battles]]> 43413965
The successful defence of Rorke's Drift, which immediately followed the encounter at Isandlwana (and for which 11 Victoria Crosses were awarded), averted military disaster and went some way to restore wounded British pride, but the sobering memory of defeat at Isandlwana lingered for many years, while the legendary tale of the defence of Rorke's Drift was re-awakened for a new generation in the epic 1964 film Zulu, starring Michael Caine.

In this new volume in the Great Battles series, Ian F. W. Beckett tells the story of both battles, investigating not only their immediate military significance but also providing the first overarching account of their continuing cultural impact and legacy in the years since 1879, not just in Britain but also from the once largely inaccessible and overlooked Zulu perspective.]]>
251 Ian F.W. Beckett 019251296X John 0 currently-reading 3.50 2019 Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana: Great Battles
author: Ian F.W. Beckett
name: John
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/04
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<![CDATA[How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials)]]> 40815366 How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.

Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.]]>
307 Ibram X. Kendi John 0 currently-reading 4.44 2019 How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials)
author: Ibram X. Kendi
name: John
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/02
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<![CDATA[A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II]]> 48731067 As heard on the New Yorker Radio The triumphant and "engaging history" (The New Yorker) of the young women who devised a winning strategy that defeated Nazi U-boats and delivered a decisive victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. By 1941, Winston Churchill had come to believe that the outcome of World War II rested on the battle for the Atlantic. A grand strategy game was devised by Captain Gilbert Roberts and a group of ten Wrens (members of the Women's Royal Naval Service) assigned to his team in an attempt to reveal the tactics behind the vicious success of the German U-boats. Played on a linoleum floor divided into painted squares, it required model ships to be moved across a make-believe ocean in a manner reminiscent of the childhood game, Battleship. Through play, the designers developed "Operation Raspberry," a counter-maneuver that helped turn the tide of World War II.Combining vibrant novelistic storytelling with extensive research, interviews, and previously unpublished accounts, Simon Parkin describes for the first time the role that women played in developing the Allied strategy that, in the words of one admiral, "contributed in no small measure to the final defeat of Germany." Rich with unforgettable cinematic detail and larger-than-life characters, A Game of Birds and Wolves is a heart-wrenching tale of ingenuity, dedication, perseverance, and love, bringing to life the imagination and sacrifice required to defeat the Nazis at sea.]]> 321 Simon Parkin 0316492086 John 0 currently-reading 4.18 2019 A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II
author: Simon Parkin
name: John
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/23
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<![CDATA[World War II US Fast Carrier Task Force Tactics 1943�45 (Osprey Elite #232)]]> 46200223 This title concentrates on exactly how these highly successful forces actually operated: their composition in ships, aircraft and men; the essential technology at their disposal; the evolving doctrine for their employment; the opposition and dangers they faced; and how they overcame them at the tactical level. It explains in straightforward terms the intricate details of topics such as how ships manoeuvred, how aircraft were deployed and recovered, the formations and approaches used by fighters, dive-bombers and torpedo-bombers against naval and land targets, and how Task Forces defended themselves. The text is supported by a wide range of wartime photos and full-colour illustrations, showing, for example, the formations employed by ships and aircraft, with altitudes and ranges throughout the course of attacks.]]> 117 Brian Lane Herder John 0 currently-reading 4.38 2020 World War II US Fast Carrier Task Force Tactics 1943–45 (Osprey Elite #232)
author: Brian Lane Herder
name: John
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/15
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<![CDATA[A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1)]]> 39873472
Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.

A fascinating space opera debut novel, Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire is an interstellar mystery adventure.]]>
472 Arkady Martine 1250186455 John 0 currently-reading 4.27 2019 A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1)
author: Arkady Martine
name: John
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/15
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The End of October 50028338 In this riveting medical thriller--from the Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author--Dr. Henry Parsons, an unlikely but appealing hero, races to find the origins and cure of a mysterious new killer virus as it brings the world to its knees.

At an internment camp in Indonesia, forty-seven people are pronounced dead with acute hemorrhagic fever. When Henry Parsons--microbiologist, epidemiologist--travels there on behalf of the World Health Organization to investigate, what he finds will soon have staggering repercussions across the globe: an infected man is on his way to join the millions of worshippers in the annual Hajj to Mecca. Now, Henry joins forces with a Saudi prince and doctor in an attempt to quarantine the entire host of pilgrims in the holy city . . . A Russian émigré, a woman who has risen to deputy director of U.S. Homeland Security, scrambles to mount a response to what may be an act of biowarfare . . . Already-fraying global relations begin to snap, one by one, in the face of a pandemic . . . Henry's wife, Jill, and their children face diminishing odds of survival in Atlanta . . . And the disease slashes across the United States, dismantling institutions--scientific, religious, governmental--and decimating the population. As packed with suspense as it is with the fascinating history of viral diseases, Lawrence Wright has given us a full-tilt, electrifying, one-of-a-kind thriller.]]>
377 Lawrence Wright 0525658661 John 0 4.00 2020 The End of October
author: Lawrence Wright
name: John
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/05/14
date added: 2020/05/14
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<![CDATA[Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles]]> 36510206
Bestselling author Bernard Cornwell is celebrated for his ability to bring history to life. Here, in his first work of non-fiction, he has written the true story of the epic battle of Waterloo � a momentous turning point in European history � a tale of one campaign, four days and three armies.

He focuses on what it was like to be fighting in that long battle, whether officer or private, whether British, Prussian or French; he makes you feel you are present at the scene. The combination of his vivid, gripping style and detailed historical research make this, his first non-fiction book, the number one book for the upcoming 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.

It is a magnificent story. There was heroism on both sides, tragedy too and much misery. Bernard Cornwell brings those combatants back to life, using their memories to recreate what it must have been like to fight in one of the most ghastly battles of history. It was given extra piquancy because all of Europe reckoned that the two greatest soldiers of the age were Napoleon and Wellington, yet the two had never faced each other in battle. Both were acutely aware of that, and aware that history would judge them by the result. In the end it was a victory for Wellington, but when he saw the casualty lists he wept openly. ‘I pray to God,� he said, ‘I have fought my last battle.� He had, and it is a story for the ages.]]>
353 Bernard Cornwell John 3 military-history Solid history

A solid history of the battle, good for someone not familiar with it. Nothing new though. Enjoyable read, good for a novice]]>
4.32 2014 Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles
author: Bernard Cornwell
name: John
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2020/05/04
date added: 2020/05/04
shelves: military-history
review:
Solid history

A solid history of the battle, good for someone not familiar with it. Nothing new though. Enjoyable read, good for a novice
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<![CDATA[The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Dead Djinn, #0.3)]]> 36558166 P. Djèlí Clark returns to the historical fantasy universe of "A Dead Djinn in Cairo", with the otherworldly adventure novella The Haunting of Tram Car 015.

Finalist for the 2020 Hugo Award
Finalist for the 2020 Nebula Award
Finalist for the 2020 Locus Award

Cairo, 1912: The case started as a simple one for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities � handling a possessed tram car.

Soon, however, Agent Hamed Nasr and his new partner Agent Onsi Youssef are exposed to a new side of Cairo stirring with suffragettes, secret societies, and sentient automatons in a race against time to protect the city from an encroaching danger that crosses the line between the magical and the mundane.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]>
96 P. Djèlí Clark John 4 fantasy 4.16 2019 The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Dead Djinn, #0.3)
author: P. Djèlí Clark
name: John
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/03/20
date added: 2020/05/04
shelves: fantasy
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Auberon (The Expanse #8.5) 52662209 A novella set in the universe of James S. A. Corey’s NYT-bestselling Expanse series, Auberon explores a new and alien world and the age-old dangers that humanity has carried with it to the stars. Now a Prime Original series.

Auberon is one of the first and most important colony worlds in humanity’s reach, and the new conquering faction has come to claim it. Governor Rittenaur has come to bring civilization and order to the far outpost and guarantee the wealth and power of the Empire.

But Auberon already has its own history, a complex culture, and a criminal kingpin named Erich with very different plans. In a world of deceit, violence, and corruption, the greatest danger Rittenaur faces is love.]]>
78 James S.A. Corey 0316217670 John 0 currently-reading 4.36 2019 Auberon (The Expanse #8.5)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: John
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/03/23
shelves: currently-reading
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Europa Journal 27911682
A PBY search and rescue plane with thirteen crewmen aboard set out to find the Avengers . . . and never returned.

...and thus the history of humanity changed forever�

2168 A mysterious five-sided pyramid is discovered on the ocean floor of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa.

Commander Mac O’Bryant and her team are among the first to enter the pyramid’s central chamber. Inside, they find the body of a missing World War II pilot, whose hands clutch a journal detailing what happened to him and his crew after being abducted by aliens.

As the pyramid walls begin to collapse around Mac and her team, their names mysteriously appear within the journal and they find themselves lost on an alien world.

Stranded with no way home, Mac decides to retrace the pilot’s steps. She never expects to find the man alive... but if the man is not yet dead, what would that mean for Mac and the rest of her crew?

About the Castle loves adventure. He has traveled the globe as a professional stuntman for stage, film, and television. While working for Universal Studios, he met Cinderella at Walt Disney World and they were soon married. After moving to Alaska, he worked as a tour guide, police officer, Criminal Justice professor, and certified weapons instructor. He has been stationed on a remote island in the Aleutians as a Response Team Commander and his last job in the Arctic Circle was protecting engineers from ravenous polar bears. He has had several Alaska adventure stories published along with articles in international security periodicals. Europa Journal is his first science fiction novel.

EDGE BOOKS BY JACK JournalBedlam LostWhite "Castle's debut couples an ambitious premise with deliberately humorous prose." - Publishers Weekly

"Author Jack Castle has an amazingly vivid imagination, and the skill to share it with others through his writing.]]>
282 Jack Castle 1770530916 John 0 currently-reading 3.72 2016 Europa Journal
author: Jack Castle
name: John
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/03/11
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The Good Shepherd 42748909 The Good Shepherd has been adapted into a major motion picture, Greyhound, scripted by and starring Tom Hanks, directed by Aaron Schneider, and produced by Gary Goetzman.
A convoy of thirty-seven merchant ships is ploughing through icy, submarine-infested North Atlantic seas during the most critical days of World War II, when the German submarines had the upper hand and Allied shipping was suffering heavy losses. In charge is Commander George Krause, an untested veteran of the U.S. Navy. Hounded by a wolf pack of German U-boats, he faces 48 hours of desperate peril trapped on the bridge of the ship. Exhausted beyond measure, he must make countless and terrible decisions as he leads his small fighting force against the relentless U-boats.]]>
240 C.S. Forester John 0 4.19 1955 The Good Shepherd
author: C.S. Forester
name: John
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1955
rating: 0
read at: 2020/03/11
date added: 2020/03/11
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Rogue Moon 28958909 A Hugo Award Humanity struggles to understand a killing labyrinth discovered on the Moon in this science fiction adventure about death and rebirth Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Robert Silverberg credits Rogue Moon with containing “the most terrifying pages in any SF novel I have ever read.� A monstrous apparatus has been found on the surface of the moon. It devours and destroys in ways so incomprehensible to humans that a new language has to be invented to describe it and a new kind of thinking to understand it. So far, the human guinea pigs sent there in hopes of unraveling the murderous maze have all died terrible deaths. The most recent volunteer survived but is now on suicide watch. The ideal candidate won’t go insane even as he feels the end approaching. Al Barker has already stared into the face of death; he can handle it again. But he won’t merely endure the trauma of dying. Barker will die over and over—even as his human qualities are preserved on Earth. With its cast of fascinating characters—like brilliant scientist Edward Hawks, who is obsessed with rebirth—Rogue Moon is a rare thriller that doesn’t just make you sweat. It makes you think. ]]> 193 Algis Budrys 149765307X John 0 currently-reading 3.61 1960 Rogue Moon
author: Algis Budrys
name: John
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1960
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/03/05
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