en-US Fri, 17 Jan 2025 21:46:54 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 16054217 The #1 New York Times bestselling series finale and sequel to A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night

Bringing the magic and suspense of the All Souls Trilogy to a deeply satisfying conclusion, this highly anticipated finale went straight to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In The Book of Life, Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London to make a dramatic return to the present—facing new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home, Sept-Tours, they reunite with the beloved cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency.]]> 561 Deborah Harkness 0670025593 Katie 5 4.15 2014
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Katie
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2014/12/10
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: great-world-building, an-excellent-ending, contemporary, excellent-characters, excellent-side-characters, fun-to-read, loooovvveee, supernatural
review:

]]> 45032 488 Jane Austen Katie 4 3.86 1814
author: Jane Austen
name: Katie
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves:
review:

]]> 54479 252 Jules Verne 014044906X Katie 0 to-read 3.95 1872
author: Jules Verne
name: Katie
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1872
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 97381 The Queen of Spades has long been acknowledged as one of the world's greatest short stories, in which Pushkin explores the nature of obsession. The Tales of Belkin are witty parodies of sentimentalism, while Peter the Great's Blackamoor is an early experiment with recreating the past. The Captain's Daughter is a novel-length masterpiece which combines historical fiction in the manner of Sir Walter Scott with the devices of the Russian fairy-tale. The Introduction provides close readings of the stories and places them in their European literary context.]]> 336 Alexander Pushkin 0192839543 Katie 0 to-read 4.16 1841
author: Alexander Pushkin
name: Katie
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1841
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1058564
But she soon finds herself intrigued by Nina, a young mother on the beach, eventually striking up a conversation with her. After Nina confides a dark secret, one seemingly trivial occurrence leads to events that could destroy Nina’s family.]]> 140 Elena Ferrante 1933372427 Katie 0 to-read 3.70 2006
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Katie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 21817517
Viviane is both an engrossing murder mystery and a gripping exploration of madness, a narrative that tests the shifting boundaries of language and the self. For inspiration, Deck read the work of another Minuit star, Samuel Beckett, because, as she says, “he positions himself within chaos and gives it coherence.� This breakthrough novel, nominated for the Prix Femina, the Prix France Inter, and the Prix du Premier Roman, is sure to become a contemporary classic. Linda Coverdale, one of the most celebrated French translators working today, has created a faithful and propulsive English text that has been revised and approved by the author.]]> 160 Julia Deck 1595589716 Katie 0 to-read 3.39 2012
author: Julia Deck
name: Katie
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 83017 198 Dino Buzzati 1567923046 Katie 0 to-read 4.24 1940
author: Dino Buzzati
name: Katie
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1940
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 8130423 In this fourth installment of the blockbuster series, time is running out as war between the Olympians and the evil Titan lord Kronos draws near. Even the safe haven of Camp Half-Blood grows more vulnerable by the minute as Kronos's army prepares to invade its once impenetrable borders. To stop the invasion, Percy and his demigod friends must set out on a quest through the Labyrinth - a sprawling underground world with stunning surprises at every turn.]]> 361 Rick Riordan Katie 5 4.44 2008
author: Rick Riordan
name: Katie
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/10/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 254308 586 Ivan Goncharov 1933480092 Katie 0 to-read, mother-russia 4.09 1859
author: Ivan Goncharov
name: Katie
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1859
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/01
shelves: to-read, mother-russia
review:

]]> 6881762 368 Peter Bowerman 0967059879 Katie 4 inspiring, non-fiction 4.10 2000
author: Peter Bowerman
name: Katie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2015/07/31
date added: 2021/08/30
shelves: inspiring, non-fiction
review:

]]> 21792828 An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.]]> 354 Emily St. John Mandel Katie 0 to-read 4.13 2014
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Katie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 884394 The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing maps the progress of Jane Rosenal as she sets out on a personal and spirited expedition through the perilous terrain of sex, love, and relationships as well as the treacherous waters of the workplace. With an unforgettable comic touch, Melissa Bank skillfully teases out issues of the heart; puts a new spin on the mating dance; and captures what it's like to be a young woman coming of age in America today.]]> 274 Melissa Bank 0606194835 Katie 0 to-read 3.42 1998
author: Melissa Bank
name: Katie
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/01/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23131088 The graphic novel debut from rising star Noelle Stevenson, based on her beloved and critically acclaimed web comic, which Slate awarded its Cartoonist Studio Prize, calling it "a deadpan epic."

Nemeses! Dragons! Science! Symbolism! All these and more await in this brilliantly subversive, sharply irreverent epic from Noelle Stevenson. Featuring an exclusive epilogue not seen in the web comic, along with bonus conceptual sketches and revised pages throughout, this gorgeous full-color graphic novel is perfect for the legions of fans of the web comic and is sure to win Noelle many new ones.

Nimona is an impulsive young shapeshifter with a knack for villainy. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta. As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc. Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren't the heroes everyone thinks they are.

But as small acts of mischief escalate into a vicious battle, Lord Blackheart realizes that Nimona's powers are as murky and mysterious as her past. And her unpredictable wild side might be more dangerous than he is willing to admit.]]> 266 N.D. Stevenson 0062278231 Katie 0 to-read 4.32 2015
author: N.D. Stevenson
name: Katie
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/10/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 19166883 336 Volker Nolte Katie 0 to-read 3.68 2004
author: Volker Nolte
name: Katie
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/08/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 393129 272 Tim Parks 155970506X Katie 0 to-read 3.31 1997
author: Tim Parks
name: Katie
average rating: 3.31
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 12507799 With exclusive new interviews from the band, this is a captivating account of one of the most influential groups in rock history.

Brian Eno famously said “the first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band.� Perhaps no other musicians can claim such limited chart success and so enduring a musical legacy as The Velvet Underground. Artists including David Bowie, The Sex Pistols, Joy Division, Roxy Music, Nirvana, U2, R.E.M., and even dissident Czech playwright and eventual president Václav Havel have cited the Velvets as a major influence.
Seeing the Light presents the untold story of the band. Formed by the mercurial Lou Reed and classically trained Welshman John Cale in the mid-1960s, the band first gained notoriety after being adopted by Andy Warhol. Warhol’s patronage allowed the group to chart unexplored regions of rock ’n� roll, producing unforgettable and unsettling music that veered from droning, avant-garde experimentalism to folk-infused pop, offering taboo-busting tales of drug addiction, prostitution, and sexual deviance. Creative tensions and frustrated ambition eventually saw both Cale and Reed leave the band, to its ignominious end.
In the decades since, The Velvet Underground’s music has attained classic status, revered alongside The Beatles and The Beach Boys as one of the sources of modern pop. With exclusive new interviews from members Moe Tucker and Doug Yule, as well as the widow of their bandmate Sterling Morrison, journalist Rob Jovanovic peels back the mystique of one of the most important bands in rock history.]]> 320 Rob Jovanovic 1250000149 Katie 0 to-read 3.10 2012
author: Rob Jovanovic
name: Katie
average rating: 3.10
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/07/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 29973294 224 Michael Summers 1588345947 Katie 5 3.89 2017
author: Michael Summers
name: Katie
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2018/07/06
date added: 2018/07/06
shelves: fun-to-read, inspiring, loooovvveee, non-fiction, science, space, speculative, thought-provoking
review:

]]> 7015403 New York Times best seller, Dr. Brené Brown, a research professor and thought leader on vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame, shares ten guideposts on the power of Wholehearted living—a way of engaging with the world from a place of worthiness.]]> 137 Brené Brown 159285849X Katie 5 4.25 2010
author: Brené Brown
name: Katie
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2018/06/24
date added: 2018/06/24
shelves: fun-to-read, non-fiction, self-help-ish, spiritual, thought-provoking, inspiring
review:

]]> 34523152
By century's end, hundreds of millions of people will be retreating from the world's shores as our coasts become inundated and our landscapes transformed. From island nations to the world's major cities, coastal regions will disappear. Engineering projects to hold back the water are bold and may buy some time. Yet despite international efforts and tireless research, there is no permanent solution--no barriers to erect or walls to build--that will protect us in the end from the drowning of the world as we know it.

The Water Will Come is the definitive account of the coming water, why and how this will happen, and what it will all mean. As he travels across twelve countries and reports from the front lines, acclaimed journalist Jeff Goodell employs fact, science, and first-person, on-the-ground journalism to show vivid scenes from what already is becoming a water world.]]> 352 Jeff Goodell 031626024X Katie 0 to-read 4.14 2017
author: Jeff Goodell
name: Katie
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/06/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 26150785 "Looking to make a career change? Pivot is a book you will turn to again and again."

—Daniel Pink, author of To Sell is Human and Drive

Jenny Blake, author of Life After College and former career development program manager at Google, reveals how to methodically make your next career move by doubling down on what is already working.

This book is for anyone searching for an answer to the question, "What's next?" Whether you have hit a plateau in your perfect-on-paper job, are considering taking on a new role in your current job, are thinking about starting your own business, or you want to move into a new industry altogether, one thing remains clear: your career success depends on your ability to determine your next best move.

If change is the only constant, let’s get better at it.]]> 288 Jenny Blake 1591848202 Katie 0 currently-reading 3.74 2016
author: Jenny Blake
name: Katie
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/06/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 30211502 Deepak Chopra 1524723770 Katie 0 currently-reading 3.54 2017
author: Deepak Chopra
name: Katie
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/06/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 29570143
The waters rose, submerging New York City.

But the residents adapted and it remained the bustling, vibrant metropolis it had always been. Though changed forever.

Every street became a canal. Every skyscraper an island.

Through the eyes of the varied inhabitants of one building, Kim Stanley Robinson shows us how one of our great cities will change with the rising tides.

And how we too will change.]]> 624 Kim Stanley Robinson 031626234X Katie 0 3.57 2017
author: Kim Stanley Robinson
name: Katie
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2018/06/19
date added: 2018/06/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 297673
Diaz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss. A true literary triumph, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao confirms Junot Diaz as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time.]]> 335 Junot DĂ­az 1594489580 Katie 5 3.89 2007
author: Junot DĂ­az
name: Katie
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2017/05/28
date added: 2017/05/28
shelves: background-story, contemporary, disturbing, excellent-characters, excellent-side-characters, historical-fiction, literary-fiction, loooovvveee, love-the-writing, made-me-laugh, thought-provoking
review:

]]> 26031232
Without minimizing the challenges of the next century, Grinspoon suggests that our present moment is not only one of peril, but also great potential, especially when viewed from a 10,000-year perspective. Our species has surmounted the threat of extinction before, thanks to our innate ingenuity and ability to adapt, and there's every reason to believe we can do so again.

Our challenge now is to awaken to our role as a force of planetary change, and to grow into this task. We must become graceful planetary engineers, conscious shapers of our environment and caretakers of Earth's biosphere. This is a perspective that begs us to ask not just what future do we want to avoid, but what do we seek to build? What kind of world do we want? Are humans the worst thing or the best thing to ever happen to our planet? Today we stand at a pivotal juncture, and the answer will depend on the choices we make.]]> 544 David Grinspoon 1455589128 Katie 0 to-read 4.19 2016
author: David Grinspoon
name: Katie
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/05/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5907 Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).]]> 366 J.R.R. Tolkien Katie 5 4.29 1937
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Katie
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at: 2017/05/26
date added: 2017/05/26
shelves: great-world-building, background-story, classics, excellent-characters, excellent-side-characters, fantasy, fun-to-read, loooovvveee
review:

]]> 30688435
Exit West follows these characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.]]> 231 Mohsin Hamid 0735212171 Katie 5 3.74 2017
author: Mohsin Hamid
name: Katie
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2017/05/03
date added: 2017/05/03
shelves: contemporary, excellent-characters, excellent-side-characters, literary-fiction, thought-provoking
review:
I quite liked this book. It's so important to read books like these because there is a huge refugee crisis going on and the problems so many people face aren't problems that I have ever faced or probably ever will. Reading books by immigrants or people from vastly other backgrounds than me is really the only way I think I can reliably learn about other perspectives and in today's day and age, that is essential for being human.
]]> 61030
An electrifying memoir from the acclaimed Nicaraguan writer (“A wonderfully free and original talent”—Harold Pinter) and central figure in the Sandinista Revolution.

Until her early twenties, Gioconda Belli inhabited an upper-class cocoon: sheltered from the poverty in Managua in a world of country clubs and debutante balls; educated abroad; early marriage and motherhood. But in 1970, everything changed. Her growing dissatisfaction with domestic life, and a blossoming awareness of the social inequities in Nicaragua, led her to join the Sandinistas, then a burgeoning but still hidden organization. She would be involved with them over the next twenty years at the highest, and often most dangerous, levels.

Her memoir is both a revelatory insider’s account of the Revolution and a vivid, intensely felt story about coming of age under extraordinary circumstances. Belli writes with both striking lyricism and candor about her personal and political lives: about her family, her children, the men in her life; about her poetry; about the dichotomies between her birth-right and the life she chose for herself; about the failures and triumphs of the Revolution; about her current life, divided between California (with her American husband and their children) and Nicaragua; and about her sustained and sustaining passion for her country and its people.]]> 380 Gioconda Belli 1400032164 Katie 0 to-read 4.21 2001
author: Gioconda Belli
name: Katie
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17893439 You Should Have Known, a book in which she castigates women for not valuing their intuition and calls upon them to examine their first impressions of men for signs of serious trouble later on. But weeks before the book is published, a chasm opens in her own life: a violent death, a missing husband, and, in the place of a man Grace thought she knew, only a chain of terrible revelations. Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and herself.]]> 439 Jean Hanff Korelitz 1455599492 Katie 0 to-read 3.38 2014
author: Jean Hanff Korelitz
name: Katie
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/04/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30407998
A young woman has agreed with her faithless husband: it's time for them to separate. For the moment it's a private matter, a secret between the two of them. As she begins her new life, she gets word that Christopher has gone missing in a remote region in the rugged south of Greece; she reluctantly agrees to go and search for him, still keeping their split to herself. In her heart, she's not even sure if she wants to find him. Adrift in the wild landscape, she traces the disintegration of their relationship, and discovers she understands less than she thought about the man she used to love.

A story of intimacy and infidelity, A Separation is about the gulf that divides us from the lives of others and the narratives we create for ourselves. As the narrator reflects upon her love for a man who may never have been what he appeared, Kitamura propels us into the experience of a woman on the brink of catastrophe. A Separation is a riveting stylistic masterpiece of absence and presence that will leave the reader astonished, and transfixed.]]> 231 Katie Kitamura 039957610X Katie 0 to-read 3.00 2017
author: Katie Kitamura
name: Katie
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/04/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30763882
A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a rural hospital clinic. A boy named David sits beside her. She’s not his mother. He's not her child. Together, they tell a haunting story of broken souls, toxins, and the power and desperation of family.

Fever Dream is a nightmare come to life, a ghost story for the real world, a love story and a cautionary tale. One of the freshest new voices to come out of the Spanish language and translated into English for the first time, Samanta Schweblin creates an aura of strange psychological menace and otherworldly reality in this absorbing, unsettling, taut novel.]]> 183 Samanta Schweblin 0399184597 Katie 0 to-read 3.62 2014
author: Samanta Schweblin
name: Katie
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/04/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6792458
As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status--much like their grandparents before them.

In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community--and all of us--to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.]]> 290 Michelle Alexander Katie 0 to-read 4.52 2010
author: Michelle Alexander
name: Katie
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25817684
The development of artificial intelligence has been a source of fascination and anxiety ever since Alan Turing formalized the concept in 1950. Today, Stephen Hawking believes that AI “could spell the end of the human race.� At the very least, its development raises complicated moral issues with powerful real-world implications—for us and for our machines.

In this volume, recording artist Brian Eno proposes that we’re already part of an AI: global civilization, or what TED curator Chris Anderson elsewhere calls the hive mind. And author Pamela McCorduck considers what drives us to pursue AI in the first place.

On the existential threat posed by superintelligent machines, Steven Pinker questions the likelihood of a robot uprising. Douglas Coupland traces discomfort with human-programmed AI to deeper fears about what constitutes “humanness.� Martin Rees predicts the end of organic thinking, while Daniel C. Dennett explains why he believes the Singularity might be an urban legend.

Provocative, enriching, and accessible, What to Think About Machines That Think may just be a practical guide to the not-so-distant future.]]> 576 John Brockman 006242565X Katie 0 to-read 3.36 2015
author: John Brockman
name: Katie
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 27161156 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062300546.

Hillbilly Elegy recounts J.D. Vance's powerful origin story...

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio and the Republican Vice Presidential candidate for the 2024 election, an incisive account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class.

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.]]> 264 J.D. Vance Katie 5 3.81 2016
author: J.D. Vance
name: Katie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2017/04/02
date added: 2017/04/02
shelves: bleak, contemporary, disturbing, inspiring, loooovvveee, memoir, non-fiction, self-help-ish, thought-provoking
review:
I devoured this book and I really think everyone should read it. For me personally, his experiences reminded me starkly of many of my own growing up (though I am not from anywhere near Kentucky or Ohio) and gave me some insights into the most difficult parts of my life. A really fantastic read about modern America.
]]> 29874881 From the best-selling author of Why We Get Fat, a groundbreaking, eye-opening expose that makes the convincing case that sugar is the tobacco of the new millennium: backed by powerful lobbies, entrenched in our lives, and making us very sick.

Among Americans, diabetes is more prevalent today than ever; obesity is at epidemic proportions; nearly 10% of children are thought to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. And sugar is at the root of these, and other, critical society-wide, health-related problems. With his signature command of both science and straight talk, Gary Taubes delves into Americans' history with sugar: its uses as a preservative, as an additive in cigarettes, the contemporary overuse of high-fructose corn syrup. He explains what research has shown about our addiction to sweets. He clarifies the arguments against sugar, corrects misconceptions about the relationship between sugar and weight loss; and provides the perspective necessary to make informed decisions about sugar as individuals and as a society.]]> 384 Gary Taubes 1524709077 Katie 4 3.80 2016
author: Gary Taubes
name: Katie
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2017/03/30
date added: 2017/03/30
shelves: bleak, contemporary, disturbing, glad-i-stuck-this-one-out, history, inspiring, non-fiction, science, speculative, thought-provoking, medicine
review:
Dense and difficult at times, but overall a very important book to read.
]]> 13588356 Researcher and thought leader Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision that encourages us to dare greatly: to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly, and to courageously engage in our lives.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.� —Theodore Roosevelt

Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable, or to dare greatly. Whether the arena is a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation, we must find the courage to walk into vulnerability and engage with our whole hearts.

In Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability. Based on twelve years of research, she argues that vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our clearest path to courage, engagement, and meaningful connection. The book that Dr. Brown’s many fans have been waiting for, Daring Greatly will spark a new spirit of truth—and trust—in our organizations, families, schools, and communities.]]> 287 Brené Brown 1592407331 Katie 5 4.29 2012
author: Brené Brown
name: Katie
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2017/03/27
date added: 2017/03/27
shelves: loooovvveee, non-fiction, self-help-ish, thought-provoking
review:

]]> 30840370
This edition of Margot Lee Shetterly’s acclaimed book is perfect for young readers. It is the powerful story of four African-American female mathematicians at NASA who helped achieve some of the greatest moments in our space program. Now a major motion picture starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner.

Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers� used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

This book brings to life the stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, who lived through the Civil Rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the movement for gender equality, and whose work forever changed the face of NASA and the country.]]> 240 Margot Lee Shetterly 0062662376 Katie 4 3.79 2016
author: Margot Lee Shetterly
name: Katie
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2017/03/03
date added: 2017/03/23
shelves: biography, did-not-like-writing-style, excellent-characters, excellent-side-characters, fun-to-read, history, inspiring, loooovvveee, non-fiction, space, science, thought-provoking
review:
This was a really good piece of history and it did a great job putting the story in broader historical contexts with integration and the Soviet scare. Some of the writing felt a bit disjointed and the different characters got lost in the story a bit. Christine Darden especially was barely included at all. Still, I really enjoyed reading this book and found it super inspiring! The movie apparently got a lot of timelines wrong.
]]> 6252179
Feldman examines marital infidelity, little white lies, career-driven resumé lies, and how we teach children to lie. Along the way, he reveals-despite our beliefs to the contrary- how it is nearly impossible to spot a liar (studies have shown no relationship between nervousness, lack of eye contact, or a trembling voice, and acts of deception). He also provides startling evidence of just how integral lying is to our culture; indeed, his research shows that two people, meeting for the first time, will lie to each other an average of three times in the first ten minutes of a conversation.

Feldman uses this discussion of deception to explore ways we can cope with infidelity, betrayal, and mistrust, in our friends and family. He also describes the lies we tell Sometimes, the liar in your life is the person you see in the mirror. With incisive clarity and wry wit, Feldman has written a truthful book for anyone who whose life has been touched by deception.]]> 304 Robert S. Feldman 0446534935 Katie 0 dark, to-read 3.52 2009
author: Robert S. Feldman
name: Katie
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/03/16
shelves: dark, to-read
review:

]]> 8855321
Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.]]> 592 James S.A. Corey 1841499889 Katie 4 4.30 2011
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Katie
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2017/03/16
date added: 2017/03/16
shelves: great-world-building, conflicting-feelings-about-this-one, contemporary, fun-to-read, problematic-female-characters, sci-fi
review:
I loved the world building, I wasn't crazy about the characters, especially the female ones. They were portrayed as being bad ass and awesome, but I felt a lot of their purpose was to be love interests for the two main characters. I also had issues with the main characters, especially Holden. Everyone was always talking about how good and noble he was, so much so that it made him one dimensional. Miller also was a pretty stereotypical, hard-boiled, down-on-his-luck, jaded cop.But the world building was really cool! For example, people could tell where others came from because gravity had given Belters longer, leaner bodies because of the lower gravity in the Asteroid Belt. I'm hoping the TV show will be just fantastic though and I'll probably give the second book a go to see if things improve with the characters.
]]> 25744928 One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.

In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.]]> 296 Cal Newport 1455586692 Katie 5 4.16 2016
author: Cal Newport
name: Katie
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2017/02/25
date added: 2017/02/25
shelves: non-fiction, self-help-ish, thought-provoking
review:
Great techniques and ideas for going deep with work of all kinds!
]]> 22055262
Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.]]> 400 Victoria E. Schwab 0765376458 Katie 5 4.04 2015
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Katie
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2017/02/19
date added: 2017/02/19
shelves: great-world-building, excellent-characters, excellent-side-characters, fun-to-read, fantasy
review:
This book was thoroughly enjoyable and set up what I am sure is the beginning of a great series. Really loved the idea of magic in this book and I really liked both the main characters. I couldn't think of Kell looking like anyone else but Eddie Redmayne...Great read!
]]> 21976097
It sounds like science fiction, but Stephen Petranek considers it fact: Within twenty years, humans will live on Mars. We'll need to. In this sweeping, provocative book that mixes business, science, and human reporting, Petranek makes the case that living on Mars is an essential back-up plan for humanity and explains in fascinating detail just how it will happen.

The race is on. Private companies, driven by iconoclastic entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen, and Sir Richard Branson; Dutch reality show and space mission Mars One; NASA; and the Chinese government are among the many groups competing to plant the first stake on Mars and open the door for human habitation. Why go to Mars? Life on Mars has potential life-saving possibilities for everyone on earth. Depleting water supplies, overwhelming climate change, and a host of other disasters � from terrorist attacks to meteor strikes � all loom large. We must become a space-faring species to survive. We have the technology not only to get humans to Mars, but to convert Mars into another habitable planet. It will likely take 300 years to "terraform" Mars, as the jargon goes, but we can turn it into a veritable second Garden of Eden. And we can live there, in specially designed habitations, within the next twenty years.

In this exciting chronicle, Petranek introduces the circus of lively characters all engaged in a dramatic effort to be the first to settle the Red Planet. How We'll Live on Mars brings firsthand reporting, interviews with key participants, and extensive research to bear on the question of how we can expect to see life on Mars within the next twenty years.]]> 96 Stephen L. Petranek 1476784760 Katie 5 3.78 2014
author: Stephen L. Petranek
name: Katie
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2017/02/05
date added: 2017/02/05
shelves: fun-to-read, non-fiction, science, space, thought-provoking, inspiring
review:

]]> 8909
Inspiring films, radio dramas, comic-book adaptations, television series and sequels,The War of the Worlds is a prototypical work of science fiction which has influenced every alien story that has come since, and is unsurpassed in its ability to thrill, well over a century since it was first published.]]> 192 H.G. Wells 0375759239 Katie 0 to-read 3.84 1898
author: H.G. Wells
name: Katie
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1898
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40395 186 Edgar Rice Burroughs 0143104888 Katie 3 3.81 1912
author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
name: Katie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1912
rating: 3
read at: 2017/01/30
date added: 2017/01/30
shelves: awful-heroine, classics, conflicting-feelings-about-this-one, great-world-building, problematic-female-characters, not-my-cup-of-tea, sci-fi
review:
So....this book is super old and therefore, super sexist. Deja was not really a character, just the lust object and the damsel in distress for the hero to help. While the world building was kind of fun, none of the characters were really characters except for being good or evil and helping the hero be the hero. Also a lot of the action scenes were really rushed and therefore didn't have the emotional landing that they could have. Still, this was pulp fiction of a bygone era so what can you do. Despite my reservations, I might consider reading the sequel because it was old timey sci-fi fun...that was super sexist. Problems....
]]> 15839976 "I live for the dream that my children will be born free," she says. "That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them."

"I live for you," I say sadly.

Eo kisses my cheek. "Then you must live for more."

Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations.

Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.

But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.

Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity's overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society's ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies... even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.]]> 382 Pierce Brown 0345539788 Katie 0 to-read 4.26 2014
author: Pierce Brown
name: Katie
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/01/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 38180 On the Beach is a remarkably convincing portrait of how ordinary people might face the most unimaginable nightmare.]]> 296 Nevil Shute Katie 4 3.95 1957
author: Nevil Shute
name: Katie
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1957
rating: 4
read at: 2017/01/24
date added: 2017/01/24
shelves: bleak, did-not-like-writing-style, disturbing, glad-i-stuck-this-one-out, made-me-bawl-like-a-baby, thought-provoking, speculative
review:
So I had some issue with the writing style, given that it was written in the 50s and was very 'I'll take that bourbon neat', Mad-Men-y with antiquated female characters. BUT, the story itself really was powerful and given the current state of world politics, is a very important story to read. A poignant story about what will happen to every day people in the event of nuclear fall out that everyone should read.
]]> 25733990
Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved - the object's origins, architects, and purpose unknown.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top-secret team to crack the hand's code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the relic they seek. What's clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unravelling history's most perplexing discovery-and finally figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?]]> 320 Sylvain Neuvel 1101886692 Katie 2 3.82 2016
author: Sylvain Neuvel
name: Katie
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2017/01/12
date added: 2017/01/12
shelves: awful-heroine, conflicting-feelings-about-this-one, did-not-like-writing-style, not-my-cup-of-tea, problematic-female-characters, sci-fi, so-so, uggggghhhh
review:

]]> 23995249
In this illuminating biography, Andrea Wulf brings Humboldt’s extraordinary life back into focus: his prediction of human-induced climate change; his daring expeditions to the highest peaks of South America and to the anthrax-infected steppes of Siberia; his relationships with iconic figures, including Simón Bolívar and Thomas Jefferson; and the lasting influence of his writings on Darwin, Wordsworth, Goethe, Muir, Thoreau, and many others. Brilliantly researched and stunningly written, The Invention of Nature reveals the myriad ways in which Humboldt’s ideas form the foundation of modern environmentalism—and reminds us why they are as prescient and vital as ever.]]> 473 Andrea Wulf 038535066X Katie 5 4.28 2015
author: Andrea Wulf
name: Katie
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2017/01/06
date added: 2017/01/06
shelves: fun-to-read, history, inspiring, loooovvveee, non-fiction, science, thought-provoking
review:
What an excellent book! Andrea Wulf accomplished her goal of communicating the importance and beauty of Alexander von Humboldt's revolutionizing view of nature while grounding Alexander the man firmly within his epoch and as a person. He was a great influencer of many very important nature thinkers and the connections Andrea made between Humboldt and great movements that came out of the 19th century was where this book really shone. This book was riveting. Highly recommend that everyone with any interest at all in nature and science read this book.
]]> 21325 When Little Red Riding Hood suddenly walks through the gate between this world and the lost Fable Homelands, she's welcomed as a miraculous survivor by nearly everyone - everyone except her old nemesis, Bigby Wolf, who smells spying and subversion more than survival. But will he be able to prove his case before disaster strikes? And how will it all affect Prince Charming's upstart campaign to become the new mayor of Fabletown?

Collecting: Fables 19-21, 23-27, The Last Castle]]> 244 Bill Willingham 1401202225 Katie 0 to-read 4.29 2004
author: Bill Willingham
name: Katie
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 15704307
Collects: Saga #1-6.]]> 160 Brian K. Vaughan 1607066017 Katie 0 4.16 2012
author: Brian K. Vaughan
name: Katie
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2016/11/01
date added: 2017/01/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 472331 Watchmen, the groundbreaking series from award-winning author Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, presents a world where the mere presence of American superheroes changed history—the U.S. won the Vietnam War, Nixon is still president, and the Cold War is in full effect.

Considered the greatest graphic novel in the history of the medium, the Hugo Award-winning story chronicles the fall from grace of a group of superheroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the superhero is dissected as an unknown assassin stalks the erstwhile heroes.]]> 416 Alan Moore 0930289234 Katie 0 to-read 4.38 1987
author: Alan Moore
name: Katie
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25075729 528 Michel Faber 0553418866 Katie 0 to-read 3.59 2014
author: Michel Faber
name: Katie
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/05/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 19651804
Contributors: Davarian L. Baldwin, Tani E. Barlow, Timothy Burke, Liz Conor, Madeleine Yue Dong, Anne E. Gorsuch, Ruri Ito, Kathy Peiss, Uta G. Poiger, Priti Ramamurthy, Mary Louise Roberts, Barbara Sato, Miriam Silverberg, Lynn M. Thomas, Alys Eve Weinbaum]]> 448 Alys Eve Weinbaum Katie 0 to-read 5.00 2008
author: Alys Eve Weinbaum
name: Katie
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 21329
But that doesn't mean they don't have any room for romance—or the pain, betrayal and jealous rage that go along with it. In fact, love may be blooming between two of the most hard-bitten, no-nonsense Fables around. But are they destined for happiness� or a quick and untimely death?

Collecting: Fables 11-18]]> 192 Bill Willingham Katie 4 4.13 2004
author: Bill Willingham
name: Katie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2016/03/06
date added: 2016/03/06
shelves: great-world-building, comic, excellent-side-characters, fun-to-read, supernatural, graphic-novel
review:

]]> 17707684 368 Patty Chang Anker 1594486050 Katie 4 3.57 2013
author: Patty Chang Anker
name: Katie
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2016/03/06
date added: 2016/03/06
shelves: conflicting-feelings-about-this-one, contemporary, fun-to-read, inspiring, non-fiction, self-help-ish
review:

]]> 17465515 My Brilliant Friend introduced readers to the unforgettable Elena and Lila, whose lifelong friendship provides the backbone for the Neapolitan Novels. The Story of a New Name is the second book in this series. With these books, which the New Yorker's James Wood described as "large, captivating, amiably peopled ... a beautiful and delicate tale of confluence and reversal," Ferrante proves herself to be one of Italy's most accomplished storytellers. She writes vividly about a specific neighborhood of Naples from the late-1950s through to the current day and about two remarkable young women who are very much the products of that place and time. Yet in doing so she has created a world in which readers will recognize themselves and has drawn a marvelously nuanced portrait of friendship.

In The Story of a New Name, Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighborhood that she so often finds stifling. Love, jealousy, family, freedom, commitment, and above all friendship: these are signs under which both women live out this phase in their stories. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and is a source of strength in the face of life's challenges. In these Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante, the acclaimed author of The Days of Abandonment, gives readers a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging.]]> 471 Elena Ferrante Katie 0 to-read 4.47 2012
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Katie
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 131839
Have you ever felt that finding a man, falling in love, and living a joyous, adventurous, fulfilling life with him is completely out of your control? Is it possible to find a man who will be a friend and an equal, but who will also gratify your desires? If you’re already in a relationship, how can you get him to become the true man of your dreams?

Never fear, Mama Gena is here with practical tools for a relationship that starts out good and only gets better. In Mama Gena’s Owner’s and Operator’s Guide to Men , celebrated relationship expert Regena Thomashauer offers essential strategies for finding a man, getting him to help you make the life you want, having a great sex life, and dealing with resistance along the way. Mama trains you to be an expert man-trainer, so you can take the lead and get what you both want: a great relationship.]]> 256 Regena Thomashauer 0743249127 Katie 4 self-help-ish, fun-to-read 3.94 2003
author: Regena Thomashauer
name: Katie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2016/02/25
date added: 2016/02/25
shelves: self-help-ish, fun-to-read
review:

]]> 167010
Collecting the second story arc of creator and writer Bill Willingham's acclaimed series: Fables, Animal Farm features the stunning artwork of penciller Mark Buckingham and inker Steve Leialoha, and includes a special sketchbook section of preliminary artwork from Willingham, Buckingham, and cover artist James Jean.

Collecting: Fables 6-10]]> 127 Bill Willingham Katie 4 4.11 2003
author: Bill Willingham
name: Katie
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2016/02/08
date added: 2016/02/08
shelves: great-world-building, comic, excellent-side-characters, fun-to-read, graphic-novel
review:

]]> 62953 Ghost World is the story of Enid and Rebecca, teenage friends facing the unwelcome prospect of adulthood, and the uncertain future of their complicated relationship. Clowes conjures a balanced semblance, both tender and objective, of their fragile existence, capturing the mundane thrills and hourly tragedies of a waning adolescence, as he follows a tenuous narrative thread through the fragmented lives of these two fully realized young women.

Originally serialized in the pages of the seminal comic book Eightball throughout the mid-1990s, this is a quasi-autobiographical story (the name of one of the protagonists is famously an anagram of the author's name) about two best friends facing the prospect of growing up, and more importantly, apart.

]]> 80 Daniel Clowes 1560974273 Katie 3 comic, so-so, graphic-novel 3.83 1998
author: Daniel Clowes
name: Katie
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at: 2016/02/07
date added: 2016/02/07
shelves: comic, so-so, graphic-novel
review:

]]> 19536001
Collecting: Sex Criminals 1-5]]> 128 Matt Fraction 1607069466 Katie 2 3.91 2014
author: Matt Fraction
name: Katie
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2016/02/06
date added: 2016/02/06
shelves: comic, graphic-novel, problematic-female-characters
review:

]]> 9615347 Anya could really use a friend. But her new BFF isn't kidding about the "Forever" part.

Of all the things Anya expected to find at the bottom of an old well, a new friend was not one of them. Especially not a new friend who’s been dead for a century.

Falling down a well is bad enough, but Anya's normal life might actually be worse. She's embarrassed by her family, self-conscious about her body, and she's pretty much given up on fitting in at school. A new friend—even a ghost—is just what she needs.

Or so she thinks. Spooky, sardonic, and secretly sincere, Anya's Ghost is a wonderfully entertaining debut from author/artist Vera Brosgol.]]> 224 Vera Brosgol 1596437138 Katie 4 3.91 2011
author: Vera Brosgol
name: Katie
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2016/02/04
date added: 2016/02/04
shelves: comic, excellent-characters, graphic-novel, ya
review:
This was really cute and I loved the artstyle
]]> 21326
Collecting: Fables 1-5]]> 128 Bill Willingham 1563899426 Katie 4 3.98 2002
author: Bill Willingham
name: Katie
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2016/01/29
date added: 2016/01/29
shelves: comic, fun-to-read, graphic-novel, supernatural
review:

]]> 25489094
Thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie finds himself at the center of a mystery of his own and drawn into the consequences of Tomás’s quest.

Fifty years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in his ancestral village in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he arrives with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee. And there the century-old quest will come to an unexpected conclusion.

The High Mountains of Portugal—part quest, part ghost story, part contemporary fable—offers a haunting exploration of great love and great loss. Filled with tenderness, humor, and endless surprise, it takes the reader on a road trip through Portugal in the last century—and through the human soul.]]> 332 Yann Martel 0812997174 Katie 0 to-read 3.36 2016
author: Yann Martel
name: Katie
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23316486
Based on in-depth archival research in Japan and in the United States, Daughters of the Samurai is beautifully, cinematically written, a fascinating lens through which to view an extraordinary historical moment.]]> 336 Janice P. Nimura 0393077993 Katie 0 to-read 3.89 2015
author: Janice P. Nimura
name: Katie
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13356649
Did O.J. do it? How should you flip your mattress to get the maximum wear out of it? How does Google search the Internet? How many people should you date before settling down? Believe it or not, math plays a crucial role in answering all of these questions and more.

Math underpins everything in the cosmos, including us, yet too few of us understand this universal language well enough to revel in its wisdom, its beauty � and its joy. This deeply enlightening, vastly entertaining volume translates math in a way that is at once intelligible and thrilling. Each trenchant chapter of The Joy of x offers an “aha!� moment, starting with why numbers are so helpful, and progressing through the wondrous truths implicit in p, the Pythagorean theorem, irrational numbers, fat tails, even the rigors and surprising charms of calculus. Showing why he has won awards as a professor at Cornell and garnered extensive praise for his articles about math for the New York Times , Strogatz presumes of his readers only curiosity and common sense. And he rewards them with clear, ingenious, and often funny explanations of the most vital and exciting principles of his discipline.

Whether you aced integral calculus or aren’t sure what an integer is, you’ll find profound wisdom and persistent delight in The Joy of x .]]> 316 Steven H. Strogatz 0547517653 Katie 0 to-read 4.05 2012
author: Steven H. Strogatz
name: Katie
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13353667
Total
For 36 years, James Patterson has written unputdownable, pulse-racing novels. Now, he has written a book that surpasses all of them. ZOO is the thriller he was born to write.

World
All over the world, brutal attacks are crippling entire cities. Jackson Oz, a young biologist, watches the escalating events with an increasing sense of dread. When he witnesses a coordinated lion ambush in Africa, the enormity of the violence to come becomes terrifyingly clear.

Destruction
With the help of ecologist Chloe Tousignant, Oz races to warn world leaders before it's too late. The attacks are growing in ferocity, cunning, and planning, and soon there will be no place left for humans to hide.]]> 395 James Patterson 1846058295 Katie 0 to-read 3.48 2012
author: James Patterson
name: Katie
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 20665570
In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examining what makes human beings supremely different from all other species. Searching for meaning in what Nietzsche once called "the rainbow colors" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Wilson takes his readers on a journey, in the process bridging science and philosophy to create a twenty-first-century treatise on human existence—from our earliest inception to a provocative look at what the future of mankind portends.

Continuing his groundbreaking examination of our "Anthropocene Epoch," which he began with The Social Conquest of Earth, described by the New York Times as "a sweeping account of the human rise to domination of the biosphere," here Wilson posits that we, as a species, now know enough about the universe and ourselves that we can begin to approach questions about our place in the cosmos and the meaning of intelligent life in a systematic, indeed, in a testable way.

Once criticized for a purely mechanistic view of human life and an overreliance on genetic predetermination, Wilson presents in The Meaning of Human Existence his most expansive and advanced theories on the sovereignty of human life, recognizing that, even though the human and the spider evolved similarly, the poet's sonnet is wholly different from the spider's web. Whether attempting to explicate "The Riddle of the Human Species," "Free Will," or "Religion"; warning of "The Collapse of Biodiversity"; or even creating a plausible "Portrait of E.T.," Wilson does indeed believe that humanity holds a special position in the known universe.

The human epoch that began in biological evolution and passed into pre-, then recorded, history is now more than ever before in our hands. Yet alarmed that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson soberly concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham.]]> 207 Edward O. Wilson 0871401002 Katie 0 to-read 3.84 2014
author: Edward O. Wilson
name: Katie
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 9118135
As Dr. Marina Singh embarks upon an uncertain odyssey into the insect-infested Amazon, she will be forced to surrender herself to the lush but forbidding world that awaits within the jungle.

Charged with finding her former mentor Dr. Annick Swenson, a researcher who has disappeared while working on a valuable new drug, she will have to confront her own memories of tragedy and sacrifice as she journeys into the unforgiving heart of darkness.

Stirring and luminous, "State of Wonder" is a world unto itself, where unlikely beauty stands beside unimaginable loss beneath the rain forest's jeweled canopy.]]> 353 Ann Patchett 0062049801 Katie 0 to-read 3.88 2011
author: Ann Patchett
name: Katie
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13526165
When her daughter Bee claims a family trip to Antarctica as a reward for perfect grades, Bernadette, a fiercely intelligent shut-in, throws herself into preparations for the trip. But worn down by years of trying to live the Seattle life she never wanted, Ms. Fox is on the brink of a meltdown. And after a school fundraiser goes disastrously awry at her hands, she disappears, leaving her family to pick up the pieces--which is exactly what Bee does, weaving together an elaborate web of emails, invoices, and school memos that reveals a secret past Bernadette has been hiding for decades. Where'd You Go Bernadette is an ingenious and unabashedly entertaining novel about a family coming to terms with who they are and the power of a daughter's love for her mother.]]> 330 Maria Semple 0316204277 Katie 4 3.87 2012
author: Maria Semple
name: Katie
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2016/01/23
date added: 2016/01/23
shelves: conflicting-feelings-about-this-one, contemporary, excellent-characters, excellent-side-characters, fun-to-read, love-the-writing, made-me-laugh
review:

]]> 22557272
An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 336 Paula Hawkins 1594633665 Katie 4 mystery 3.97 2015
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Katie
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2016/01/17
date added: 2016/01/17
shelves: mystery
review:

]]> 18707909
Runtime: 6 hours, 20 minutes. Format: 6 audio CDs.]]> 7 Danielle LaPorte 1622032438 Katie 5 3.99 2012
author: Danielle LaPorte
name: Katie
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2014/11/12
date added: 2016/01/13
shelves: fun-to-read, inspiring, non-fiction, self-help-ish
review:

]]> 6931246 Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things.

In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.

As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens—human and otherwise—are adept in magic and murder.

There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity—and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC—the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit—a branch of London’s finest that fights sorcery with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city’s entrails. There is Grisamentum, London’s greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying—yet darkly charismatic—demonic duo.

All of them—and others—are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.]]> 509 China Miéville 034549749X Katie 0 to-read 3.62 2010
author: China Miéville
name: Katie
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25893668 •ĚýHow to get advice for new meditators (no weird positions or chants required)
•�3, 5, 7, and 10 minute meditations that bust cravings, break self-defeating habits, stress-proof the body, and reboot the brain
•ĚýWhat to eat—and the top 5 foods to consider avoiding
•ĚýHow to continue your success after your 21-day retreat
•ĚýĚ� 10 stress-relieving, cardio-revving yoga exercises to complement the plan
Ěý
Each day of the plan in Meditate Your Weight helps you explore and release what's weighing you down physically, emotionally, and mentally—the mental blocks, thoughts, habits, and behaviors that stand in your way—to make it easier to think more clearly, make better choices, and maximize metabolism.ĚýĚý As you lighten up on the inside, you’ll lighten up on the outside.
Ěý
Less stress=less belly fat.Ěý More calm + more balance = a healthier you.

- Well+Good “The 10 Most Exciting Healthy Books to Read in 2016”]]> 336 Tiffany Cruikshank LAc MAOM 0804187967 Katie 0 to-read 3.84 2016
author: Tiffany Cruikshank LAc MAOM
name: Katie
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17262203
Told with wit, dizzying imagination, and dark humour, Booker Prize-winning Margaret Atwood’s unpredictable, chilling and hilarious MaddAddam takes us further into a challenging dystopian world and holds up a skewed mirror to our own possible future.]]> 394 Margaret Atwood 0385528787 Katie 5 4.00 2013
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Katie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2016/01/05
date added: 2016/01/05
shelves: great-world-building, an-excellent-ending, excellent-characters, excellent-side-characters, fun-to-read, literary-fiction, loooovvveee, love-the-writing, speculative, thought-provoking
review:
Ahhh an excellent ending to an excellent series!!! Loved the different narration techniques used throughout the series and I really loved that the main character introduced in the first book was not the main character of the series. Margaret Atwood is such a great story teller and her vision for the future is both haunting and entirely plausible. Highly recommend this series and I'm sure I'll read it again someday.
]]> 285563 Native Tongue won wide critical praise and cult status, and has often been compared to the futurist fiction of Margaret Atwood. Set in the twenty-second century, the novel tells of a world where women are once again property, denied civil rights and banned from public life. Earth's wealth depends on interplanetary commerce with alien races, and linguists--a small, clannish group of families--have become the ruling elite by controlling all interplanetary communication. Their women are used to breed perfect translators for all the galaxies' languages.

Nazareth Chornyak, the most talented linguist of the family, is exhausted by her constant work translating for trade organizations, supervising the children's language education, running the compound, and caring for the elderly men. She longs to retire to the Barren House, where women past childbearing age knit, chat, and wait to die. What Nazareth comes to discover is that a slow revolution is going on in the Barren Houses: there, word by word, women are creating a language of their own to free them from men's control.]]> 327 Suzette Haden Elgin 1876756055 Katie 0 to-read 4.00 1984
author: Suzette Haden Elgin
name: Katie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 883195 207 Jeanette Winterson 0241143950 Katie 0 to-read 3.70 2007
author: Jeanette Winterson
name: Katie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 823134 Pilgrim is Timothy Findley’s latest masterwork, a finalist for the Giller Prize, and a national bestseller that has smashed the author’s own impressive sales records. Recently published in the US, Pilgrim is gathering rave reviews, and will be released in the UK this spring.

It is 1912 and Pilgrim has been admitted to the Burghölzli Psychiatric Clinic in Zürich, Switzerland, having failed—once again—to commit suicide. Over the next two years, it is up to Carl Jung, self-professed mystical scientist of the mind, to help Pilgrim unlock his unconsciousness, etched as it is with myriad sufferings and hopes of history. Is Pilgrim mad, or is he condemned to live forever, witness to the terrible tragedy and beauty of the human condition?

Both intimate and expansive in its scope, with an absorbing parade of characters—mythic, fictional and historical�Pilgrim is a fiercely original and powerful story from one of our most distinguished artists.]]> 538 Timothy Findley 0006485278 Katie 0 to-read 3.85 1999
author: Timothy Findley
name: Katie
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11249375
Following up on her first collection, Story Prize finalist Maureen F. McHugh explores the catastrophes, small and large, of twenty-first century life—and what follows after. What happens after the bird flu pandemic? Are our computers smarter than we are? What does the global economy mean for two young girls in China? Are we really who we say we are? And how will we survive the coming zombie apocalypse?]]> 188 Maureen F. McHugh 1931520291 Katie 0 to-read 3.59 2011
author: Maureen F. McHugh
name: Katie
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5997978
Then out of Labrador come tales of a new Ajax—Captain Commongold, the Youthful Hero of the Saguenay. The ordinary people follow his adventures in the popular press. The Army adores him. The President is…troubled. Especially when the dashing Captain turns out to be his nephew Julian, son of the falsely accused and executed Bryce.

Treachery and intrigue dog Julian’s footsteps. Hairsbreadth escapes and daring rescues fill his days. Stern resolve and tender sentiment dice for Julian’s soul, while his admiration for the works of the Secular Ancients, and his adherence to the evolutionary doctrines of the heretical Darwin, set him at fatal odds with the hierarchy of the Dominion. Plague and fire swirl around the Presidential palace when at last he arrives with the acclamation of the mob.

As told by Julian’s best friend and faithful companion, a rustic yet observant lad from the west, this tale of the 22nd Century asks� and answers—the age-old question: “Do you want to tell the truth, or do you want to tell a story?”]]> 413 Robert Charles Wilson 0765319713 Katie 0 to-read 3.58 2009
author: Robert Charles Wilson
name: Katie
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 4889214 Far North is a 2009 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.

My father had an expression for a thing that turned out bad. He'd say it had gone west. But going west always sounded pretty good to me. After all, westwards is the path of the sun. And through as much history as I know of, people have moved west to settle and find freedom. But our world had gone north, truly gone north, and just how far north I was beginning to learn.

Out on the frontier of a failed state, Makepeace—sheriff and perhaps last citizen—patrols a city's ruins, salvaging books but keeping the guns in good repair.

Into this cold land comes shocking evidence that life might be flourishing elsewhere: a refugee emerges from the vast emptiness of forest, whose existence inspires Makepeace to reconnect with human society and take to the road, armed with rough humor and an unlikely ration of optimism.

What Makepeace finds is a world unraveling: stockaded villages enforcing an uncertain justice and hidden work camps laboring to harness the little-understood technologies of a vanished civilization. But Makepeace's journey—rife with danger—also leads to an unexpected redemption.

Far North takes the reader on a quest through an unforgettable arctic landscape, from humanity's origins to its possible end. Haunting, spare, yet stubbornly hopeful, the novel is suffused with an ecstatic awareness of the world's fragility and beauty, and its ability to recover from our worst trespasses.]]> 288 Marcel Theroux 0571237770 Katie 0 to-read 3.79 2009
author: Marcel Theroux
name: Katie
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52397
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.

When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.]]> 345 Octavia E. Butler 0446675504 Katie 0 to-read 4.21 1993
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Katie
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6080337
Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers...

Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away...

By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.]]> 431 Margaret Atwood 0385528779 Katie 5 4.06 2009
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Katie
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2016/01/01
date added: 2016/01/01
shelves: great-world-building, background-story, contemporary, disturbing, excellent-characters, excellent-side-characters, fun-to-read, loooovvveee, love-the-writing, speculative
review:
I am so in love with this series. I love the interweaving stories and I love how this book ties in with Oryx and Crake. I loved the saints, who were explores and environmentalists all. There were so many moments in this book where things mentioned in the first book were elaborated on, making the world so much more complex and, because of it's complexity, so much more terrifying. With this second installment, the world Margaret Atwood envisions is haunting because it's a world that isn't too hard to imagine in our coming future. Really excellent read!
]]> 8935689
Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.]]> 467 Iain M. Banks 1857231384 Katie 0 to-read 3.86 1987
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Katie
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 14201
Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange.

Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very antithesis of Norrell. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms that between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.]]> 1006 Susanna Clarke Katie 0 to-read 3.84 2004
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Katie
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

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

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.]]> 304 Ursula K. Le Guin Katie 0 to-read 4.11 1969
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Katie
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1969
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6597651
Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.

What Happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers one of the most highly acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first century.]]> 359 Paolo Bacigalupi 1597801577 Katie 0 to-read 3.75 2009
author: Paolo Bacigalupi
name: Katie
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 910863
One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives.

The effect is worldwide. The sun is now a featureless disk--a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. Not only have the world's artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they'd been in space far longer than their known lifespans. As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up, space probe reveals a bizarre The barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts. Time is passing faster outside the barrier than inside--more than a hundred million years per day on Earth. At this rate, the death throes of the sun are only about forty years in our future.

Jason, now a promising young scientist, devotes his life to working against this slow-moving apocalypse. Diane throws herself into hedonism, marrying a sinister cult leader who's forged a new religion out of the fears of the masses.

Earth sends terraforming machines to Mars to let the onrush of time do its work, turning the planet green. Next they send humans...and immediately get back an emissary with thousands of years of stories to tell about the settling of Mars. Then Earth's probes reveal that an identical barrier has appeared around Mars. Jason, desperate, seeds near space with self-replicating machines that will scatter copies of themselves outward from the sun--and report back on what they find.

Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger.]]> 458 Robert Charles Wilson 076534825X Katie 0 to-read 4.02 2005
author: Robert Charles Wilson
name: Katie
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 218427
When prospector Robinette Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Rob Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he has become... in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!]]> 278 Frederik Pohl 0345475836 Katie 0 to-read 4.07 1977
author: Frederik Pohl
name: Katie
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 968868 950 Gene Wolfe 1568658079 Katie 0 to-read 4.23 1983
author: Gene Wolfe
name: Katie
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40445
]]> 526 Richard K. Morgan 0345457692 Katie 0 to-read 4.07 2002
author: Richard K. Morgan
name: Katie
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 51964
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.]]> 318 John Scalzi 0765348276 Katie 0 to-read 4.22 2005
author: John Scalzi
name: Katie
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 77711 Alternate Cover Edition can be found here.

A Fire upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale.

Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.

Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.]]> 613 Vernor Vinge 0812515285 Katie 0 to-read 4.14 1992
author: Vernor Vinge
name: Katie
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 830 Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous� you'll recognize it immediately.]]> 438 Neal Stephenson 0553380958 Katie 0 to-read 4.02 1992
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Katie
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 21611 278 Joe Haldeman Katie 0 to-read 4.14 1974
author: Joe Haldeman
name: Katie
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 77566 500 Dan Simmons 0553283685 Katie 0 to-read 4.26 1989
author: Dan Simmons
name: Katie
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 70535
So great are the implications of this discovery that for the first time men are sent out deep into our solar system.

But long before their destination is reached, things begin to go horribly, inexplicably wrong...

One of the greatest-selling science fiction novels of our time, this classic book will grip you to the very end.]]> 297 Arthur C. Clarke Katie 0 to-read 4.17 1968
author: Arthur C. Clarke
name: Katie
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1968
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 333867
The Stars My Destination is a classic of technological prophecy and timeless narrative enchantment by an acknowledged master of science fiction.]]> 258 Alfred Bester 0679767800 Katie 0 to-read 4.08 1956
author: Alfred Bester
name: Katie
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 17214
In one of Robert A. Heinlein’s most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe—and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind’s most alarming enemy.
]]> 264 Robert A. Heinlein Katie 0 to-read 4.01 1959
author: Robert A. Heinlein
name: Katie
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 23435294
A Canticle for Leibowitz is based on three short stories Miller contributed to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.[1][2] It is the only novel published by the author during his lifetime. Considered one of the classics of science fiction, it has never been out of print and has seen over 25 reprints and editions. Appealing to mainstream and genre critics and readers alike, it won the 1961 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel.

Inspired by the author's participation in the Allied bombing of the monastery at Monte Cassino during World War II, the novel is considered a masterpiece by literary critics. It has been compared favorably with the works of Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and Walker Percy, and its themes of religion, recurrence, and church versus state have generated a significant body of scholarly research. Miller's follow-up work, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, was published posthumously in 1997.]]> 320 Walter M. Miller Jr. Katie 0 to-read 3.78 1959
author: Walter M. Miller Jr.
name: Katie
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 16690 288 Robert A. Heinlein 0340837942 Katie 0 to-read 4.16 1966
author: Robert A. Heinlein
name: Katie
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 216363
This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.]]> 259 Philip K. Dick 0679740678 Katie 0 to-read 3.64 1962
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Katie
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

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