Charlene's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 06 May 2025 03:52:27 -0700 60 Charlene's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[God, Greed, and the (Prosperity) Gospel: How Truth Overwhelms a Life Built on Lies]]> 42771921 224 Costi W. Hinn 0310355273 Charlene 5 4.51 2019 God, Greed, and the (Prosperity) Gospel: How Truth Overwhelms a Life Built on Lies
author: Costi W. Hinn
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/06
date added: 2025/05/06
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<![CDATA[When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era]]> 74896610 LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD � A “vivid and frank� (NPR) account of the crack cocaine era and a community’s ultimate resilience, told through a cast of characters whose lives illuminate the dramatic rise and fall of the epidemic

“A master class in disrupting a stubborn narrative, a monumental feat for the fraught subject of addiction in Black communities.”�The Washington Post

“A poignant and compelling re-examination of a tragic era in America history . . . insightful . . . and deeply moving.”—Bryan Stevenson, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Just Mercy

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD � ONE OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY AND VULTURE’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
A BEST BOOK OF THE Time, The Washington Post, NPR, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, She Reads, Electric Lit, The Mary Sue


The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan’s war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey’s exacting analysis traces the path from the last triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement to the devastating realities we live with a racist criminal justice system, continued mass incarceration and gentrification, and increased police brutality.

When Crack Was King follows four individuals to give us a startling portrait of crack’s destruction and devastating Elgin Swift, an archetype of American industry and ambition and the son of a crack-addicted father who turned their home into a “crack house�; Lennie Woodley, a former crack addict and sex worker; Kurt Schmoke, the longtime mayor of Baltimore and an early advocate of decriminalization; and Shawn McCray, community activist, basketball prodigy, and a founding member of the Zoo Crew, Newark’s most legendary group of drug traffickers.

Weaving together riveting research with the voices of survivors, When Crack Was King is a crucial reevaluation of the era and a powerful argument for providing historically violated communities with the resources they deserve.]]>
416 Donovan X. Ramsey 0525511822 Charlene 5 4.34 2023 When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era
author: Donovan X. Ramsey
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/04
date added: 2025/05/04
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<![CDATA[Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic]]> 22529381
With the same dramatic drive of El Narco and Methland, Sam Quinones weaves together two classic tales of American capitalism: The stories of young men in Mexico, independent of the drug cartels, in search of their own American Dream via the fast and enormous profits of trafficking cheap black-tar heroin to America’s rural and suburban addicts; and that of Purdue Pharma in Stamford, Connecticut, determined to corner the market on pain with its new and expensive miracle drug, Oxycontin; extremely addictive in its own right. Quinones illuminates just how these two stories fit together as cause and effect: hooked on costly Oxycontin, American addicts were lured to much cheaper black tar heroin and its powerful and dangerous long-lasting high. Embroiled alongside the suppliers and buyers are DEA agents, local, small-town sheriffs, and the US attorney from eastern Virginia whose case against Purdue Pharma and Oxycontin made him an enemy of the Bush-era Justice Department, ultimately stalling and destroying his career in public service.

Dreamland is a scathing and incendiary account of drug culture and addiction spreading to every part of the American landscape.]]>
384 Sam Quinones 1620402505 Charlene 0 to-read 4.22 2015 Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic
author: Sam Quinones
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/01
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<![CDATA[Before You Climb Any Higher: Valley Wisdom for Mountain Dreams]]> 216052994 We long for mountaintop experiences, but they’re difficult to achieve and impossible to maintain without the rest, nourishment, and strength found in lush, life-giving valleys. GRAMMY Award winner Jonathan McReynolds shows us why having a valley mindset is not what you think—it’s about receiving God’s grace, love, and encouragement as His beloved child.

Life is full of mountains to ascend, driven by our dreams, ambitions, and callings. But it doesn’t take much for even the strongest climbers to grow weary or lose their way. It’s important to have a “mountain mindset� to help us establish goals, to make steady progress, to achieve success, to do big things for God. A great mission requires from us a little grind, a little hustle, a little competition. But also plenty of time in the valley.

Most people equate valley moments with difficulty and pain, but a “valley mentality� is different according to Jonathan McReynolds. He’s reached the mountaintop—GRAMMY Award, nationwide tours, millions of followers, and more—but he experienced more refreshment, rest, and encouragement from the Lord off the mountain. He writes, “The valley is not about finishing anything, studying anything, or doing anything, but simply being a child of God.� InBefore You Climb Any Higher, readers will

Taking breaks from climbing is necessary for your mental healthWays to find rest, renewal, and authentic community in the valleyIdentity should never be wrapped up in success and accoladesHow to prepare for the mountain climb with lessons learned in the valleyIt’s possible to live abundantly in the valley and on the mountain

We are more than our accomplishments, more than our mountaintop accomplishments. We are sons and daughters of God, who is calling us to rest in the valley, to replenish our souls, to be formed by the Spirit, to discover abundant life that is found only in Him.]]>
224 Jonathan McReynolds 1400338875 Charlene 0 currently-reading 4.44 Before You Climb Any Higher: Valley Wisdom for Mountain Dreams
author: Jonathan McReynolds
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.44
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The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]>
384 Alison Espach Charlene 0 currently-reading 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
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Someone Like Us 201102290
With Hannah and their two-year old son back in Paris, Mamush sets out on an unexpected journey across America in search of answers to questions he'd been told never to ask. As he does so, he begins to understand that perhaps the only chance he has of saving his family and making it back home is to confront not only the unresolved mystery around Samuel's life and death, but his own troubled memories, and the years spent masking them. Breath-taking, commanding, unforgettable work from one of America's most prodigiously gifted novelists.]]>
272 Dinaw Mengestu 0385350007 Charlene 0 3.53 2024 Someone Like Us
author: Dinaw Mengestu
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/26
date added: 2025/04/26
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Forever... 37743
It's the beginning of an intense and exclusive relationship, with a future all planned. Until Katherine's parents insist that she and Michael put their love to the test with a summer apart...

Forever is written for an older age group than Judy Blume's other novels for children. It caused a storm of controversy when it was first published because of its explicit sexual content.]]>
178 Judy Blume Charlene 0 3.63 1975 Forever...
author: Judy Blume
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1975
rating: 0
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Matriarch: A Memoir 217044909 A glorious chronicle of a life like none other—enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering—and a testament to the world-changing power of Black motherhood

"You are Celestine," she said. She squatted to push the hair off my face and pull leaves off my pajama legs. "Like my sister and my grandmother." And there under the pecan tree, as she did countless times, that day my mother told me stories of the mothers and daughters that went before me.

Tina Knowles, the mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Solange Knowles, and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland, is known the world over as a Matriarch with a capital M: a determined, self-possessed, self-aware, and wise woman who raised and inspired some of the great artists of our time. But this story is about so much more than that.

Matriarch begins with a precocious, if unruly, little girl growing up in 1950s Galveston, the youngest of seven. She is in love with her world, with extended family on every other porch and the sounds of Motown and the lapping beach always within earshot. But as the realities of race and the limitations of girlhood set in, she begins to dream of the world beyond. Her instincts and impulsive nature drive her far beyond the shores of Texas to discover the life awaiting her on the other side of childhood.

That life's journey—through grief and tragedy, creative and romantic risks and turmoil, the nurturing of superstar offspring and of her own special gifts—is the remarkable story she shares with readers here. This is a page-turning chronicle of family love and heartbreak, of loss and perseverance, and of the kind of creativity, audacity, and will it takes for a girl from Galveston to change the world. It's one brilliant woman's intimate and revealing story, and a multigenerational family saga that carries within it the story of America—and the wisdom that women pass on to each other, mothers to daughters, across generations.]]>
432 Tina Knowles 0593597400 Charlene 0 to-read 4.59 2025 Matriarch: A Memoir
author: Tina Knowles
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/23
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Bad Nature 211003884 Armed with a terminal diagnosis, a grudge, and a rental car, Hester sets out to fulfill her lifelong dream of killing her father in this brilliantly subversive and bleakly funny novel.

When Hester is diagnosed with terminal cancer on her fortieth birthday, she knows immediately what she must do: abandon her possessions and drive to California to kill her estranged father. With no friends or family tying her to the life she’s built in New York City, she quits her wildly lucrative job in corporate law and starts driving west. She hasn’t made it far when she runs into John, an environmental activist in need of a ride to different superfund sites across the United States. From five-star Midwestern hotels to cultish Southwestern compounds, the two slowly make their way across the country. But will the revelations they make along the way dissuade Hester from her goal?

Ragingly singular and surprisingly moving, Bad Nature is a story of stunning detours and twists until its final destination. Part road-trip novel, part revenge tale, part lament of our ongoing ecological crisis, it’s ultimately a deft examination of the indulgence of holding grudges, moral ambivalence, and the eternal possibility of redemption.]]>
304 Ariel Courage 1250360889 Charlene 0 to-read 3.71 2025 Bad Nature
author: Ariel Courage
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
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<![CDATA[Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned from All Three]]> 227828322
A three-time Olympic gold medalist, six-time WNBA All-Star, and the first person to win the Naismith College Player of the Year award as both a player and coach, Staley has shattered expectations at every level of the game. While her name resonates with both longtime WNBA fans and newcomers, she has kept her personal life private.

Uncommon Favor reveals the journey that led to Staley’s success, including the challenges she faced. From dealing with sexism on the court to feeling isolated in new environments, Staley honed her skills and learned valuable life lessons about mental fortitude and maturity that have grounded her throughout her career. Beginning with her humble origins on the North Philadelphia basketball court and her rise to national fame at the University of Virginia—where she led her team to three Final Fours—Staley recounts the key moments that shaped her winning mindset.

Staley’s iconic career in the WNBA and her groundbreaking coaching journey at the University of South Carolina highlight the milestones and turning points that have defined her success, both on and off the court. Fearless and authentic, Uncommon Favor shares the rewards of leading with conviction and the courage to redefine the limits of what is possible.]]>
256 Dawn Staley 1668023369 Charlene 0 to-read 5.00 Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned from All Three
author: Dawn Staley
name: Charlene
average rating: 5.00
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<![CDATA[Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama]]> 217388145 From a New Yorker staff writer and PEN Award winner, a blend of memoir, history, and reportage on one of the most complex and least understood states in America.

“In Alabama, we exist at the border of blessing and disaster�.�

Alexis Okeowo grew up in Montgomery, Alabama—the former seat of the Confederacy—as the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. Here, she weaves her family’s story with her state’s, from Alabama’s forced removal of the Creek Nation, making room for enslaved West Africans, to present-day legislative battles for “evolution disclaimers� in biology textbooks. She immerses us in a landscape today dominated not by cotton fields but by auto plants and Amazon warehouses. Defying stereotypes at every turn, Okeowo shows how people can love their home while still acknowledging its sins.

In this perspective-shifting work that is both an intimate memoir and a journalistic triumph, Okeowo investigates her life, other Alabamians� lives, and the state’s lesser-known histories, to examine why Alabama has been the stage for the most extreme results of the American experiment.]]>
272 Alexis Okeowo 1250206227 Charlene 0 to-read 4.46 Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama
author: Alexis Okeowo
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.46
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
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Theo of Golden 196693307 Who is he, and why is he here?
He arrives early one spring and by chance - or is it? - he visits a coffee shop where 92 framed pencil portraits are on display. Inspired, Theo sets out on a mission of purchasing all the portraits one at a time and quietly bestowing them on their 'rightful owners.'
Stories are told; friendships are born; and lives are changed.
Theo of Golden is a beautifully crafted story about the power of creative generosity, the importance of wonder to a purposeful life, and the far-reaching possibilities of anonymous kindness.]]>
399 Allen Levi Charlene 0 to-read 4.65 Theo of Golden
author: Allen Levi
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.65
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date added: 2025/04/19
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The House of Eve 61435577 From the award-winning author of Yellow Wife, a daring and redemptive novel set in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, that explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal.

1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising a daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright.

Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his par­ents don’t let just anyone into their fold. Eleanor hopes that a baby will make her finally feel at home in William’s family and grant her the life she’s been searching for. But having a baby—and fitting in—is easier said than done.

With their stories colliding in the most unexpected of ways, Ruby and Eleanor will both make decisions that shape the trajectory of their lives.]]>
372 Sadeqa Johnson Charlene 0 4.35 2023 The House of Eve
author: Sadeqa Johnson
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/18
date added: 2025/04/18
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<![CDATA[Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad]]> 57446130 The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, written by civil rights expert and Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont

Over one million Black men and women served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units and performing unheralded but vital support jobs, only to be denied housing and educational opportunities on their return home. Without their crucial contributions to the war effort, the United States could not have won the war. And yet the stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored, cast aside in favor of the myth of the “Good War� fought by the “Greatest Generation.�

Half American is American history as you’ve likely never read it before. In these pages are stories of Black heroes such as Thurgood Marshall, the chief lawyer for the NAACP, who investigated and publicized violence against Black troops and veterans; Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., leader of the Tuskegee Airmen, who was at the forefront of the years-long fight to open the Air Force to Black pilots; Ella Baker, the civil rights leader who advocated on the home front for Black soldiers, veterans, and their families; James Thompson, the 26-year-old whose letter to a newspaper laying bare the hypocrisy of fighting against fascism abroad when racism still reigned at home set in motion the Double Victory campaign; and poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a war correspondent for the Black press. Their bravery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing. In a time when the questions World War II raised regarding race and democracy in America remain troublingly relevant and still unanswered, this meticulously researched retelling makes for urgently necessary reading.]]>
400 Matthew F. Delmont 198488039X Charlene 5 4.50 2022 Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad
author: Matthew F. Delmont
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/18
date added: 2025/04/18
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<![CDATA[Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?]]> 61796683 REESE'S BOOK CLUB MAY 2023 PICK

BOOK OF THE MONTH MAY 2023 PICK

A multigenerational saga that traverses the glamour of old Hollywood and the seductive draw of modern-day showbiz

When Kitty Karr Tate, a White icon of the silver screen, dies and bequeaths her multimillion-dollar estate to the St. John sisters, three young, wealthy Black women, it prompts questions. Lots of questions.

A celebrity in her own right, Elise St. John would rather focus on sorting out Kitty’s affairs than deal with the press. But what she discovers in one of Kitty’s journals rocks her world harder than any other brewing scandal could—and between a cheating fiancé and the fallout from a controversial social media post, there are plenty.

The truth behind Kitty's ascent to stardom from her beginnings in the segregated South threatens to expose a web of unexpected family ties, debts owed, and debatable crimes that could, with one pull, unravel the all-American fabric of the St. John sisters and those closest to them.

As Elise digs deeper into Kitty's past, she must also turn the lens upon herself, confronting the gifts and burdens of her own choices and the power that the secrets of the dead hold over the living. Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? is a sprawling page-turner set against the backdrop of the Hollywood machine, an insightful and nuanced look at the inheritances of family, race, and gender—and the choices some women make to break free of them.]]>
416 Crystal Smith Paul 1250815304 Charlene 0 to-read 3.70 2023 Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
author: Crystal Smith Paul
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/17
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The Giver (The Giver, #1) 3636 208 Lois Lowry 0385732554 Charlene 5 4.12 1993 The Giver (The Giver, #1)
author: Lois Lowry
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/13
date added: 2025/04/13
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<![CDATA[Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive]]> 39218350
Maid explores the underbelly of upper-middle class America and the reality of what it’s like to be in service to them. “I’d become a nameless ghost,� Stephanie writes about her relationship with her clients, many of whom do not know her from any other cleaner, but who she learns plenty about. As she begins to discover more about her clients� lives-their sadness and love, too-she begins to find hope in her own path.

Her writing as a journalist gives voice to the "servant" worker, and those pursuing the American Dream from below the poverty line. Maid is Stephanie’s story, but it’s not her alone..

An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780316505116 can be found here.]]>
289 Stephanie Land Charlene 4 3.81 2019 Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive
author: Stephanie Land
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/12
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Enjoyable memoir. However, I couldn’t help wonder if this writing would be a bestseller and adapted into a movie if told by a minority.
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Night Watch 62951865
The omnipresent vagaries of war and race rise to the surface as we learn their their flight to the highest mountain ridges of western Virginia; the disappearance of ConaLee’s father, who left for the War and never returned. Meanwhile, in the asylum, they begin to find a new path. ConaLee pretends to be her mother’s maid; Eliza responds slowly to treatment. They get swept up in the life of the facility—the mysterious man they call the Night Watch; the orphan child called Weed; the fearsome woman who runs the kitchen; the remarkable doctor at the head of the institution.]]>
276 Jayne Anne Phillips 0451493338 Charlene 0 to-read 3.55 2023 Night Watch
author: Jayne Anne Phillips
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
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The Deep 43438782 Octavia E. Butler meets Marvel’s Black Panther in The Deep, a story rich with Afrofuturism, folklore, and the power of memory, inspired by the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep� from Daveed Diggs’s rap group clipping.

Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.

Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.

Yetu will learn more than she ever expected about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are.

The Deep is “a tour de force reorientation of the storytelling gaze…a superb, multilayered work,� (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and a vividly original and uniquely affecting story inspired by a song produced by the rap group clipping.]]>
175 Rivers Solomon Charlene 0

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3.81 2019 The Deep
author: Rivers Solomon
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/10
date added: 2025/04/10
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Great premise. Slavery, history, remembering. It placed me in the mind frame of my visit to the African American History Museum in Washington D.C. My sadness at reading the placards on the wall that states the number of slaves that didn’t survive the middle passage. Their bodies surely thrown into the ocean.



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<![CDATA[All Bleeding Stops: Life and Death in the Trauma Unit]]> 123977391
For all the awe-inspiring medical stories we might hear and the hospital dramas that dominate the ratings on television, most of us have no conception of the daily, Herculean efforts of trauma surgeons. A good trauma surgeon must be a conductor presiding over an orchestra of healthcare providers as their patients cling to life by a thread. They are also a steely quarterback who can’t be rattled when they throw an interception—lingering on a past failure would only ruin their ability to care for the next patient, and the next. They have an encyclopedic knowledge of medical science and are practiced in the art of instinctively reacting to whatever emergency comes flying at them on a stretcher, in addition to doing anything they can to comfort patients� distraught families and friends.
All Bleeding Stops gives readers an intimate look at what goes on inside a trauma center, highlighting injuries sustained in car crashes, shootings, and stabbings—basically anything bleeding, obstructed, or perforated. Having lived and breathed trauma for four decades, Dr. Cohn is an ideal guide to demystify the role of the trauma surgeon and their place in a hospital. He pulls back the curtain to clarify such questions His answers are infused with sobering tales from his career as a military surgeon and in trauma centers across the country as well as his descriptions of high-profile medical stories.]]>
256 Stephen M. Cohn Charlene 5 Praying to stay healthy and away from hospitals! ]]> 3.90 All Bleeding Stops: Life and Death in the Trauma Unit
author: Stephen M. Cohn
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.90
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
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Very informative!
Praying to stay healthy and away from hospitals!
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The Writing Life 59610593
In these short essays, Annie Dillard—the author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and An American Childhood—illuminates the dedication, absurdity, and daring that characterize the existence of a writer. A moving account of Dillard’s own experiences while writing her works, The Writing Life offers deep insight into one of the most mysterious professions.]]>
130 Annie Dillard Charlene 0 to-read 4.15 1989 The Writing Life
author: Annie Dillard
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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<![CDATA[Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head]]> 55835966 Poems of migration, womanhood, trauma, and resilience from the celebrated collaborator on Beyoncé's Lemonade and Black Is King, award-winning Somali British poet Warsan Shire.

Mama, I made it
out of your home,
alive, raised by the
voices in my head.

With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way towards womanhood. Drawing from her own life and the lives of loved ones, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women, and teenage girls. In Shire's hands, lives spring into fullness. This is noisy life: full of music and weeping and surahs and sirens and birds. This is fragrant life: full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense. This is polychrome life: full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl.

The long-awaited collection from one of our most exciting contemporary poets, this book is a blessing, an incantatory celebration of resilience and survival. Each reader will come away changed.]]>
86 Warsan Shire 0593134354 Charlene 0 4.21 2022 Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head
author: Warsan Shire
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
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Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose 50622419 One of America’s most celebrated poets challenges us with this powerful and deeply personal collection of verse that speaks to the injustices of society while illuminating the depths of her own heart.

For more than thirty years, Nikki Giovanni’s poetry has inspired, enlightened, and dazzled readers. As sharp and outspoken as ever, this artist long hailed as a healer and a sage returns with this profound book of poetry in which she continues to call attention to injustice and give readers an unfiltered look into the most private parts of herself.

In Make Me Rain, she celebrates her loved ones and unapologetically declares her pride in her black heritage, while exploring the enduring impact of the twin sins of racism and white nationalism. Giovanni reaffirms her place as a uniquely vibrant and relevant American voice with poems such as “I Come from Athletes� and “Rainy Days”—calling out segregation and Donald Trump; as well as “Unloved (for Aunt Cleota)� and “”When I Could No Longer”—her personal elegy for the relatives who saved her from an abusive home life.

Stirring, provocative, and resonant, the poems in Make Me Rain pierce the heart and nourish the soul.]]>
124 Nikki Giovanni 0062995286 Charlene 4
“I’m so glad I’m black…because we know salvation.� —Nikki Giovanni ]]>
4.21 2020 Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose
author: Nikki Giovanni
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves:
review:
Beautiful! Felt poetically autobiographical!

“I’m so glad I’m black…because we know salvation.� —Nikki Giovanni
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<![CDATA[Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth]]> 13376363 37 Warsan Shire 1905233299 Charlene 5 Beautiful and strong poems. 4.23 2011 Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
author: Warsan Shire
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/04
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves:
review:
Beautiful and strong poems.
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Love That Dog (Jack, #1) 53498 look like a poem
when you see it
typed up
like that."

Jack hates poetry. Only girls write it and every time he tries to, his brain feels empty. But his teacher, Ms. Stretchberry, won't stop giving her class poetry assignments—and Jack can't avoid them. But then something amazing happens. The more he writes, the more he learns he does have something to say.]]>
112 Sharon Creech 0064409597 Charlene 5 4.03 2001 Love That Dog (Jack, #1)
author: Sharon Creech
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:

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Inheritance: A Visual Poem 58733636 They tell me to "fix" my hair.

And by fix, they mean straighten, they mean whiten;

but how do you fix this shipwrecked

history of hair?

In her most famous spoken-word poem, author of the Pura Belpr-winning novel-in-verse The Poet X Elizabeth Acevedo embraces all the complexities of Black hair and Afro-Latinidad--the history, pain, pride, and powerful love of that inheritance.

Paired with full-color illustrations by artist Andrea Pippins in a format that will appeal to fans of Mahogany L. Browne's Black Girl Magic or Jason Reynolds's For Everyone, this poem can now be read in a vibrant package, making it the ideal gift, treasure, or inspiration for readers of any age.]]>
46 Elizabeth Acevedo 0062931946 Charlene 5 4.48 2022 Inheritance: A Visual Poem
author: Elizabeth Acevedo
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:
Beautiful book with gorgeous illustrations. And Beautiful audiobook. Felt like I was at a poetry slam!
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Grown 49397758 384 Tiffany D. Jackson 0062840355 Charlene 0 to-read 4.24 2020 Grown
author: Tiffany D. Jackson
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[American Psycho (Vintage Contemporaries)]]> 8545154 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER•In this modern classic, the acclaimed author of The Shards explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. "A seminal book.� �The Washington PostPatrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing.... An important book.� —Katherine Dunn, bestselling author of Geek LoveLook for Bret Easton Ellis’s latest novel, The Shards!]]> 382 Bret Easton Ellis Charlene 0 to-read 3.68 1991 American Psycho (Vintage Contemporaries)
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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Fallen Grace 205897124 New York Times bestselling author Sadeqa Johnson.

With a newborn in tow, Bubbles Jones escapes a brutal sanctuary for “wayward girls� to confront the hypocritical shame of her pastor father and the betrayal of a lover. But Bubbles is accompanied by a woman who offers her shelter and a dream. Forging an unpredictable path ahead, Bubbles will not yield and will not hide in her unwavering commitment to make a big life real in a world determined to keep her small.

Sadeqa Johnson’s Fallen Grace is part of Blaze, a collection of short stories about incendiary women across the decades who dare to defy convention. They can be read or listened to in one sitting.]]>
50 Sadeqa Johnson 1662520786 Charlene 0 4.22 2024 Fallen Grace
author: Sadeqa Johnson
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
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The Women 127305853
Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm's way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]>
471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Charlene 0 4.58 2024 The Women
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
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Solito 59900688 Trip. My parents started using that word about a year ago—“one day, you’ll
take a trip to be with us. Like an adventure.�

Javier Zamora’s adventure is a 3,000-mile journey from his small town in
El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border.
He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a
mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling
alone amid a group of strangers and a “coyote� hired to lead them to safety,
Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks.

At nine years old, all Javier can imagine is rushing into his parents� arms,
snuggling in bed between them, and living under the same roof again. He
cannot foresee the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns,
arrests and deceptions that await him; nor can he know that those two
weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside fellow migrants
who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.

A memoir as gripping as it is moving, Solito provides an immediate and
intimate account not only of a treacherous and near-impossible journey,
but also of the miraculous kindness and love delivered at the most
unexpected moments. Solito is Javier Zamora’s story, but it’s also the story
of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home.]]>
384 Javier Zamora 0593498062 Charlene 0 to-read 4.46 2022 Solito
author: Javier Zamora
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[The Sour Grape (The Food Group #6)]]> 60323120
Jory John and Pete Oswald serve up another heaping plate of laughs and lessons with this empowering, witty, and charming addition to their #1 New York Times bestselling series!]]>
40 Jory John 0063045419 Charlene 5 4.35 2022 The Sour Grape (The Food Group #6)
author: Jory John
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves:
review:
A book not only for kids, but one that can be gifted to the “Sour Grapes� in my life.
]]>
<![CDATA[The Smart Cookie (The Food Group #5)]]> 56922663 No entanto, uma pitada de criatividade e uma boa dose de confiança ajudam-na a perceber que aquilo que importa é descobrir e expressar as qualidades que nos tornam únicos. Afinal, o ingrediente principal para uma receita de sucesso é apenas este: confiar em nós.

Com doses iguais de humor e aprendizagem, a dupla N.° 1 do New York Times, Jory John e Pete Oswald, cria uma história maravilhosa, recordando-nos aquilo que é mais importante na vida.]]>
40 Jory John 0063045400 Charlene 5 Another cute Jory John book! 4.27 2021 The Smart Cookie (The Food Group #5)
author: Jory John
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves:
review:
Another cute Jory John book!
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<![CDATA[Home before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam]]> 379415 Lynda Van Devanter was the girl next door, the cheerleader who went to Catholic schools, enjoyed sports, and got along well with her four sisters and parents. After high school she attended nursing school and then did something that would shatter her secure world for the rest of her life: in 1969, she joined the army and was shipped to Vietnam. When she arrived in Vietnam her idealistic view of the war vanished quickly. She worked long and arduous hours in cramped, ill-equipped, understaffed operating rooms. She saw friends die. Witnessing a war close-up, operating on soldiers and civilians whose injuries were catastrophic, she found the very foundations of her thinking changing daily.

After one traumatic year, she came home, a Vietnam veteran. Coming home was nearly as devastating as the time she spent in Asia. Nothing was the same -- including Lynda herself. Viewed by many as a murderer instead of a healer, she felt isolated and angry. The anger turned to depression; like many other Vietnam veterans she suffered from delayed stress syndrome. Working in hospitals brought back chilling scenes of hopelessly wounded soldiers. A marriage ended in divorce. The war that was fought physically halfway around the world had become a personal, internal battle.

Home before Morning is the story of a woman whose courage, stamina, and personal history make this a compelling autobiography. It is also the saga of others who went to war to aid the wounded and came back wounded -- physically and emotionally -- themselves. And, it is the true story of one person's triumphs: her understanding of, and coming to terms with, her destiny.

]]>
336 Lynda Van Devanter 1558492984 Charlene 0 to-read 4.31 1983 Home before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam
author: Lynda Van Devanter
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Wild Life: Finding My Purpose in an Untamed World]]> 196859498 288 Rae Wynn-Grant 1638930406 Charlene 0 3.98 2024 Wild Life: Finding My Purpose in an Untamed World
author: Rae Wynn-Grant
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[The Big Cheese (The Food Group, #7)]]> 123163415 40 Jory John 0063329514 Charlene 5 Another cute book! 4.21 2023 The Big Cheese (The Food Group, #7)
author: Jory John
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/26
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves:
review:
Another cute book!
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<![CDATA[Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine]]> 66087028 Legacy is an illuminating and stirring journey of a book.� —Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times- bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist

The rousing, captivating story of a Black physician, her career in medicine, and the deep inequities that still exist in the U.S. healthcare system

Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, it never occurred to Uché Blackstock and her twin sister, Oni, that they would be anything but physicians. In the 1980s, their mother headed an organization of Black women physicians, and for years the girls watched these fiercely intelligent women in white coats tend to their patients and neighbors, host community health fairs, cure ills, and save lives.

What Dr. Uché Blackstock did not understand as a child—or learn about at Harvard Medical School, where she and her sister had followed in their mother’s footsteps, making them the first Black mother-daughter legacies from the school—were the profound and long-standing systemic inequities that mean just 2 percent of all U.S. physicians today are Black women; the racist practices and policies that ensure Black Americans have far worse health outcomes than any other group in the country; and the flawed system that endangers the well-being of communities like theirs. As an ER physician, and later as a professor in academic medicine, Dr. Blackstock became profoundly aware of the systemic barriers that Black patients and physicians continue to face.

Legacy is a journey through the critical intersection of racism and healthcare. At once a searing indictment of our healthcare system, a generational family memoir, and a call to action, Legacy is Dr. Blackstock’s odyssey from child to medical student to practicing physician—to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.]]>
304 Uché Blackstock 0593491289 Charlene 4 4.44 2024 Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine
author: Uché Blackstock
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
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The Vegetarian 25489025
Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.]]>
188 Han Kang 0553448188 Charlene 5 3.62 2007 The Vegetarian
author: Han Kang
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves:
review:
The Vegetarian is a beautifully written novel. The main character Yeong-hye becomes a vegetarian, against the wishes of her family. You can say that after that, all hell ensues. The reader is then taken son an allegorical journey, one that teaches us a lesson of women's rights, or lack of, in current day Korea. Very interesting read. FIVE STARS.
]]>
<![CDATA[The Cool Bean (The Food Group #3)]]> 45730161 sooooo cool.

And then there’s the uncool has-bean . . .

Always on the sidelines, one bean unsuccessfully tries everything he can to fit in with the crowd—until one day the cool beans show him how it’s done.]]>
33 Jory John 0062954520 Charlene 5 4.27 2019 The Cool Bean (The Food Group #3)
author: Jory John
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves:
review:
I’m so loving these books! What a great lesson about being cool, friendship, and kindness!
]]>
<![CDATA[The Couch Potato (The Food Group #4)]]> 51475358 40 Jory John 0062954539 Charlene 5
“There’s a great world out there…and I want to be a part of it. In person.�

Beautiful!

]]>
4.24 2020 The Couch Potato (The Food Group #4)
author: Jory John
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves:
review:
This book…oh so cute.

“There’s a great world out there…and I want to be a part of it. In person.�

Beautiful!


]]>
<![CDATA[The Good Egg (The Food Group #2)]]> 44055582
An Amazon Best Books of the Year 2019 selection!

From the bestselling creators of The Bad Seed, a timely story about not having to be Grade A perfect!

Meet the good egg. He’s averrrrrrygood egg indeed.

But trying to beso good is hard when everyone else is plain ol� rotten.

As the other eggs in the dozen behave badly, the good egg starts to crack from all the pressure of feeling like he has to be perfect.

So, he decides enough is enough! It’s time for him to make a change�

Dynamic duo Jory John and Pete Oswald hatch a funny and charming story that reminds us of the importance of balance, self-care, and accepting those we love (even if they are sometimes a bit rotten).

Perfect for reading aloud and shared story time!]]>
40 Jory John Charlene 5 4.50 2019 The Good Egg (The Food Group #2)
author: Jory John
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves:
review:
Second book I read from this group in 10 minutes and I’m laughing. How cute and lovely they are.
]]>
<![CDATA[The Bad Seed (The Food Group #1)]]> 39991777 Mas um dia decide que não quer mais ser malvada e escolhe ser feliz. Porém, não é fácil tornar-se melhor quando nos habituámos a ser maus. Mas ela resolve tentar, um dia de cada vez� O que será que acontece quando tentamos mudar a imagem que construímos de nós mesmos?
Este livro mostra-nos até onde nos levam as consequências das nossas escolhas e de como podemos mudar para melhor. É uma história divertida e comovente que nos relembra o poder notável e transformador da força de vontade e da aceitação de nós mesmos."]]>
40 Jory John Charlene 5
He’s not a Bad Seed! ]]>
4.37 2017 The Bad Seed (The Food Group #1)
author: Jory John
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves:
review:
This book is hilarious! And the illustrations are adorable! Reminds me of the Mo Willems books that I love.

He’s not a Bad Seed!
]]>
Yellow Wife 55033388 In the tradition of Wench and Twelve Years a Slave, this harrowing story follows an enslaved woman forced to barter love and freedom while living in the most infamous slave jail in Virginia.

Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Brown was promised her freedom on her eighteenth birthday. But when her birthday finally comes around, instead of the idyllic life she was hoping for with her true love, she finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half-Acre, a jail where slaves are broken, tortured, and sold every day. Forced to become the mistress of the brutal man who owns the jail, Pheby faces the ultimate sacrifice to protect her heart in this powerful, thrilling story of one slave’s fight for freedom.]]>
287 Sadeqa Johnson Charlene 5 4.52 2021 Yellow Wife
author: Sadeqa Johnson
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves:
review:
Once again, slavery novels are difficult for me. Yet, this novel kept me on the edge of my seat, with the vivid storytelling and descriptions. Beautifully written. I Loved every moment of it!
]]>
<![CDATA[Kingdom Single: Living Complete and Fully Free]]> 39920930
Kingdom Single will encourage you to see yourself as complete in Christ and free to serve Him. It will empower you to live as Kingdom men and women in a corrupt culture.

Tony Evans is a much-loved pastor and known for his sense of knowing when to encourage and when to lovingly admonish, to help people become who God calls them to be. If you are single and reading this book―or if you lead or pastor singles―your identity in Christ will be affirmed. Additionally, you will receive coaching for what to look for in a prospective spouse, and be challenged to live godly lives while pursuing Kingdom causes.]]>
240 Tony Evans 1589979516 Charlene 4 4.52 2018 Kingdom Single: Living Complete and Fully Free
author: Tony Evans
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Disability Visibility : First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century]]> 53283689
According to the last census, one in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some are visible, some are hidden—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together an urgent, galvanizing collection of personal essays by contemporary disabled writers. There is Harriet McBryde Johnson’s “Unspeakable Conversations,� which describes her famous debate with Princeton philosopher Peter Singer over her own personhood. There is columnist s. e. smith’s celebratory review of a work of theater by disabled performers. There are original pieces by up-and-coming authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma. There are blog posts, manifestos, eulogies, and testimonies to Congress. Taken together, this anthology gives a glimpse of the vast richness and complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own assumptions and understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and past with hope and love.]]>
240 Alice Wong 1984899430 Charlene 0 4.40 2020 Disability Visibility : First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century
author: Alice Wong
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness]]> 181250294 THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

From New York Times bestselling coauthor ofThe Coddling of the American Mind, an essential investigation into the collapse of youth mental health—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

“Erudite, engaging, combative, crusading.� �New York Times Book Review

“Words that chill the parental heart� thanks to Mr. Haidt, we can glimpse the true horror of what happened not only in the U.S. but also elsewhere in the English-speaking world� lucid, memorable� galvanizing.� �Wall Street Journal

"[An] important new book...The shift in kids� energy and attention from the physical world to the virtual one, Haidt shows, has been catastrophic, especially for girls."—Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood� began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood� in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood� has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems� that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.]]>
395 Jonathan Haidt 0593655044 Charlene 5 4.38 2024 The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves:
review:
A Book all parents should read prior to handing their child a cellphone.
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Martyr! 139401966 A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others.]]>
352 Kaveh Akbar 0593537629 Charlene 0 4.15 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves:
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Human Acts 30091914 A riveting, poetic, and fearless portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice by the acclaimed author of The Vegetarian.

In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed.

The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho’s best friend, who meets his own fateful end, to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, both suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother, their collective heartbreak and acts of hope tell the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice.

An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of a historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.]]>
218 Han Kang 1101906723 Charlene 5 4.26 2014 Human Acts
author: Han Kang
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/10
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves:
review:
One of those stories I’ll remember for a long time. Especially when someone mentions Korea.
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Perfect Peace 9419469
When the seventh child of the Peace family, named Perfect, turns eight, her mother Emma Jean tells her bewildered daughter, “You was born a boy. I made you a girl. But that ain’t what you was supposed to be. So, from now on, you gon� be a boy. It’ll be a little strange at first, but you’ll get used to it, and this’ll be over after while.�

From this point forward, Perfect’s life becomes a bizarre kaleidoscope of events—while the rest of his family is forced to question everything they thought they knew about gender, sexuality, unconditional love, and fulfillment.

“A morality tale of the consequences of letting our selfish needs trap the ones we love into roles they weren’t born to play. The characters here are as flawed, their sins numerous, as any living human being held under the lens, but the author brings a compassion and understanding to their plights.”—Mat Johnson, award-winning author of Invisible Things

“Part cautionary tale, part folk tale, part fable, Daniel Black’s Perfect Peace is a complete triumph…In Emma Jean Peace, Dr. Black has created a character as complex, equivocal and unforgettable as Scarlett O'Hara.”—Larry Duplechan, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Got ’Til It’s Gone]]>
352 Daniel Black Charlene 0 4.46 Perfect Peace
author: Daniel Black
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)]]> 60556912
Every day I clean the Winchesters� beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out� and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of�

An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put this down!]]>
329 Freida McFadden 1803144378 Charlene 4 I only decided to read it because of the hype—NYTIMES Bestseller and as of this review, two million ŷ reviews.
And honestly, it was a fast read and funny, until PART II, when I thought, “What is happening?? Definitely wasn’t expecting that ]]>
4.31 2022 The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)
author: Freida McFadden
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/26
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves:
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I’m at a loss of how I feel about this story.
I only decided to read it because of the hype—NYTIMES Bestseller and as of this review, two million ŷ reviews.
And honestly, it was a fast read and funny, until PART II, when I thought, “What is happening?? Definitely wasn’t expecting that
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<![CDATA[Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World]]> 32951877 When it comes to anxiety, depression, and stress-related illnesses, America is the frontrunner. Max Lucado, provides a roadmap for battling with and healing from anxiety.

Does the uncertainty and chaos of life keep you up at night? Is irrational worry your constant companion? Could you use some calm? If the answer is yes, you are not alone. According to one research program, anxiety-related issues are the number one mental health problem among women and are second only to alcohol and drug abuse among men. Stress-related ailments cost the nation $300 billion every year in medical bills and lost productivity. And use of sedative drugs like Xanax and Valium have skyrocketed in the last 15 years. Even students are feeling it. One psychologist reports that the average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s. Chances are, you or someone you know seriously struggles with anxiety.

Max writes, "The news about our anxiety is enough to make us anxious.� He knows what it feels like to be overcome by the worries and fear of life, which is why he is dedicated to helping millions of readers take back control of their minds and, as a result, their lives.

Anxious for Nothing invites readers to delve into Philippians 4:6-7. After all, it is the most highlighted passage of any book on the planet, according to Amazon:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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240 Max Lucado 0718096126 Charlene 0 to-read 4.14 2017 Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World
author: Max Lucado
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Trust: Knowing When to Give It, When to Withhold It, How to Earn It, and How to Fix It When It Gets Broken]]> 61833315 304 Henry Cloud 1546003371 Charlene 5
I knew this was going to be a five star read, as I read the author’s book on BOUNDARIES. This one on TRUST is beyond encouraging, so much so I had to purchase the book, midway through the audiobook. This is one I’ll be referring to for a very long time.

REQUIRED READING FOR SUCCESS IN TRUSTING PEOPLE ]]>
4.28 2023 Trust: Knowing When to Give It, When to Withhold It, How to Earn It, and How to Fix It When It Gets Broken
author: Henry Cloud
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
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FIVE STARS ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I knew this was going to be a five star read, as I read the author’s book on BOUNDARIES. This one on TRUST is beyond encouraging, so much so I had to purchase the book, midway through the audiobook. This is one I’ll be referring to for a very long time.

REQUIRED READING FOR SUCCESS IN TRUSTING PEOPLE
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The Blueprint 156007515 “A consuming debut . . . a provocative and worthy mash-up of historical and speculative fiction.� � Publishers Weekly
“Rashad pulls off a near-impossible feat . . . . Every sentence cuts as Rashad explores the intricacies of power and subjection.� � The Washington Post
The Blueprint is a harrowing novel set in an alternate United States—a world of injustice and bondage. Solenne Bonet, a young Black woman in Texas, lives in a society where an algorithm dictates her occupation, spouse, and residence. Seeking solace, she pens the biography of Henriette, her ancestor and an enslaved concubine. When Solenne becomes entangled with Bastien Martin, a high-ranking government official, she must decide, with Henriette's story as her guide, whether to escape the psychological bond that imprisons her.]]>
333 Rae Giana Rashad 0063330121 Charlene 5 Beautiful writing and story! 4.01 2024 The Blueprint
author: Rae Giana Rashad
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/24
date added: 2025/02/24
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Beautiful writing and story!
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Dear Vicky 203023089
Grocery store bag boy, Andrew, hates his job. No career growth, rude customers, and the forced customer appreciation greeting have taken a toll on his mental stability. Though his job gives him the flexibility to attend community college, he can find no other enjoyment there. That is until he met the woman that would change his life. During Andrew’s mundane day of grabbing and bagging, Victoria, a customer with an infectious smile and playful personality, gives him the attention that he’s been missing. Attention that now has Andrew believing that he and she are now in a committed relationship. Victoria has no idea that her friendly demeanor has landed her in the crosshairs of an unwell man. But she’ll soon learn that the old adage is You can’t be nice to everyone.

Get to know Andrew Patterson and discover how dangerous a delusion can be.]]>
70 Octavia Grant Charlene 0
Yeah no, NOT FOR ME!

This story reminds me of the story inside of one of my favorite books by Percival Everette’s book ERASURE. The movie adaptation is American Fiction. Out of frustration, of his literary work not being well received, The main character pens a plot with a stereotypical black character with violence, sex, etc. which is lauded by critics. When actually the book is awful. This is that story. Again, not for me.
Books are subjective. What is a 5 stars book to one person, can be one star for another. Respect to all views!]]>
4.05 Dear Vicky
author: Octavia Grant
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.05
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves:
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Read this on account of a ŷ friend.

Yeah no, NOT FOR ME!

This story reminds me of the story inside of one of my favorite books by Percival Everette’s book ERASURE. The movie adaptation is American Fiction. Out of frustration, of his literary work not being well received, The main character pens a plot with a stereotypical black character with violence, sex, etc. which is lauded by critics. When actually the book is awful. This is that story. Again, not for me.
Books are subjective. What is a 5 stars book to one person, can be one star for another. Respect to all views!
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The Twelve Tribes of Hattie 13320466
In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation.

Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream, Mathis’s first novel heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.]]>
243 Ayana Mathis 0385350287 Charlene 4 3.47 2012 The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
author: Ayana Mathis
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
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Sadly, Women like Hattie are common. A broken woman that breed broken children. Unfortunately, I’ve known a few. At times, difficult to read, but lovely writing.
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The Girl I Was 218171630 “If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.�

Alexis Spencer will use any inspirational quote to rationalize her failures and shortcomings. Her closest friends are a distant memory, and her college debt is still as high as the day she left—but that’s all fine and dandy, because “whatever will be, will be.� However, when Alexis loses her job and her relationship on the same day, there’s no quote strong enough to help her cope. In typical fashion, she blames the world for her problems, including her younger self, who should have tried harder. Feeling sorry for herself, Alexis finds a bottle of vodka from her college days and goes on a bender, blacking out in the process. Only this time she doesn’t wake up at home—or even in the right city. In fact, she isn’t even in the right year.]]>
304 Jeneva Rose 0778387488 Charlene 0 to-read 3.71 2021 The Girl I Was
author: Jeneva Rose
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/17
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<![CDATA[The Maid's Secret (Molly the Maid, #3)]]> 216351856 When a daring art heist takes place at the Regency Grand, Molly’s life is threatened. The question is who’s out to get her, and why? Long-buried secrets will be revealed in this intriguing and heartwarming novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest

A wedding. A heist. A secret.

Molly Gray’s life is about to change in ways she could never have imagined. As the esteemed Head Maid and recently promoted Special Events Manager of the Regency Grand Hotel, good things are just around the corner, including her marriage to her beloved fiancé, Juan Manuel, only two months away.

But Molly’s entire existence is upended when a film crew descends upon the hotel to shoot the hit reality TV show Hidden Treasures, starring popular art appraisers Brown and Beagle. On a whim, Molly brings in a shoebox containing a few of her gran’s old things for appraisal, and much to everyone's surprise, one item turns out to be a rare and priceless treasure. Instantly, Molly is both a multi-millionaire and a media sensation—the world’s rags-to-riches darling—until the priceless piece vanishes from the hotel in the boldest, brashest antiquities heist in recent memory.

The key to the mystery lies in the past, in a long-forgotten diary written by Molly’s gran. For the first time ever, Molly learns about Gran’s true-to-life fairytale, a young girl to the manor born, the only child of a wealthy magnate. But when Gran falls head over heels in love with a young man her parents deem below her station, her life is thrown into turmoil. As fate would have it, the greatest love of Gran’s life is someone Molly knows quite well�.

Together with her friends, Molly combs the past and the present to catch the thief before looming threats against her become real.

A spirited heist caper and an epic love story, The Maid’s Secret is a spellbinding whodunnit that will capture and warm your heart.]]>
336 Nita Prose 0593875419 Charlene 0 to-read 3.91 2025 The Maid's Secret (Molly the Maid, #3)
author: Nita Prose
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/17
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<![CDATA[The Mistletoe Mystery (Molly the Maid, #2.5)]]> 210064685 Molly the Maid has a whole new mystery to solve in this heartwarming novella from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest.

Molly Gray has always loved the holidays. When Molly was a child, her gran went to great lengths to make the season merry and bright, full of cherished traditions. The first few Christmases without Gran were hard on Molly, but this year, her beloved boyfriend and fellow festive spirit, Juan Manuel, is intent on making the season Molly’s mofinst joyful yet.

But when a Secret Santa gift exchange at the Regency Grand Hotel raises questions about who Molly can and cannot trust, she dives headfirst into solving her most consequential—and personal—mystery yet. Molly has a bad feeling about things, and she starts to wonder: has she yet again mistaken a frog for a prince?

A heartwarming, magical story about the true spirit of the season, The Mistletoe Mystery reminds us that love is the greatest mystery of all.]]>
Nita Prose 0593875451 Charlene 0 3.76 2024 The Mistletoe Mystery (Molly the Maid, #2.5)
author: Nita Prose
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
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Horse 59109077 A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.

New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.

Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse--one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.]]>
401 Geraldine Brooks 0399562966 Charlene 0 to-read 4.17 2022 Horse
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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The Island of Missing Trees 56587382 A rich, magical new book on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.

Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited -- her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.

A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.]]>
354 Elif Shafak 0241434998 Charlene 0 to-read 4.13 2021 The Island of Missing Trees
author: Elif Shafak
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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Looking for Jane 61273371
1971: As a teenager, Dr. Evelyn Taylor was sent to a home for “fallen� women where she was forced to give up her baby for adoption—a trauma she has never recovered from. Despite the constant threat of arrest, she joins the Jane Network as an abortion provider, determined to give other women the choice she never had.

1980: After discovering a shocking secret about her family, twenty-year-old Nancy Mitchell begins to question everything she has ever known. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she feels like she has no one to turn to for help. Grappling with her decision, she locates “Jane� and finds a place of her own alongside Dr. Taylor within the network’s ranks, but she can never escape the lies that haunt her.]]>
400 Heather Marshall 1668013681 Charlene 0 to-read 4.34 2022 Looking for Jane
author: Heather Marshall
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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Go as a River 63922274 A sweeping, heart-stopping epic of a young woman's journey to becoming, set against the harsh beauty of mid-century Colorado

On a cool autumn day in 1948, Victoria Nash delivers late-season peaches from her family's farm set amid the wild beauty of Colorado. As she heads into her village, a disheveled stranger stops to ask her the way. How she chooses to answer will unknowingly alter the course of both their young lives.

So begins the mesmerizing story of split-second choices and courageous acts that propel Victoria away from the only home she has ever known and towards a reckoning with loss, hope and her own untapped strength.

Gathering all the pieces of her small and extraordinary existence, spinning through the eddies of desire, heartbreak and betrayal, she will arrive at a single rocky decision that will change her life forever.

Go as a River is a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettable characters and a breathtaking natural setting, it is a sweeping story of survival and becoming, of the deepest mysteries of love, truth and fate.]]>
320 Shelley Read 1954118236 Charlene 0 to-read 4.20 2023 Go as a River
author: Shelley Read
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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Lady Tan’s Circle of Women 62919732
According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,� but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.

From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus , they tell from adversity beauty can bloom.

But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.

How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? A captivating story of women helping each other, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a triumphant reimagining of the life of one person who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.]]>
352 Lisa See 1982117087 Charlene 0 to-read 4.31 2023 Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
author: Lisa See
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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The Lion Women of Tehran 199798217 A heartfelt novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.�

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls� high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.]]>
327 Marjan Kamali 1668036584 Charlene 0 to-read 4.47 2024 The Lion Women of Tehran
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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Honor 58311385 THE JANUARY 2022 REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK “In the wayA Thousand Splendid Sunstold of Afghanistan’s women, Thrity Umrigar tells a story of India with the intimacy of one who knows the many facets of a land both modern and ancient, awash in contradictions.”—Lisa Wingate, #1New York Timesbestselling author ofBefore We Were Yours In this riveting and immersive novel, bestselling author Thrity Umrigar tells the story of two couples and the sometimes dangerous and heartbreaking challenges of love across a cultural divide. IndianAmerican journalistSmita has returned to India to cover a story, but long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena—a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man—Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment. But the dual love stories of Honor are as different as the cultures of Meena and Smita Smita realizes she has the freedom to enter into a casual affair, knowing she can decide later how much it means to her. In this tender and evocative novel about love, hope, familial devotion, betrayal, and sacrifice, Thrity Umrigar shows us two courageous women trying to navigate how to be true to their homelands and themselves at the same time. ]]> 333 Thrity Umrigar Charlene 5 4.49 2022 Honor
author: Thrity Umrigar
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
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Conclave 29397486
Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election.

They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals.

Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.]]>
288 Robert Harris Charlene 5 4.03 2016 Conclave
author: Robert Harris
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
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Breakfast at Tiffany's 58967290 Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online.

Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content.

The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary.

Breakfast at Tiffany's, a Level 4 Reader, is A2+ in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing more complex uses of present perfect simple, passives, phrasal verbs and simple relative clauses. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly.

Visit the Penguin Readers website
Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock online resources including a digital book, audio edition, lesson plans and answer keys.

An unnamed writer remembers living in New York City in the United States of America during World War II. He becomes friends with one of his neighbors, the beautiful yet strange, Holly Golightly.]]>
80 Truman Capote 0241542553 Charlene 0 3.61 1958 Breakfast at Tiffany's
author: Truman Capote
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1958
rating: 0
read at: 2020/04/19
date added: 2025/02/03
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<![CDATA[The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid, #2)]]> 157067546 When an acclaimed author dies at the Regency Grand Hotel, it's up to a fastidious maid to uncover the truth, no matter how dirty—in a standalone novel featuring Molly Gray, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid, a Good Morning America Book Club Pick.

Molly Gray is not like anyone else. With her flair for cleaning and proper etiquette, she has risen through the ranks of the glorious five-star Regency Grand Hotel to become the esteemed Head Maid. But just as her life reaches a pinnacle state of perfection, her world is turned upside down when J.D. Grimthorpe, the world-renowned mystery author, drops dead� very dead —on the hotel’s tea room floor.

When Detective Stark, Molly's old foe, investigates the author’s unexpected demise, it becomes clear that this death was murder most foul. Suspects abound, and everyone wants to who killed J.D. Grimthorpe? Was it Lily, the new Maid-in-Training? Or was it Serena, the author’s secretary? Could Mr. Preston, the hotel’s beloved doorman, be hiding something? And is Molly really as innocent as she seems?

As the case threatens the hotel’s pristine reputation, Molly knows she alone holds the key to unlocking the killer's identity. But that key is buried deep in her past—because long ago, she knew J.D. Grimthorpe. Molly begins to comb her memory for clues, revisiting her childhood and the mysterious Grimthorpe mansion where she and her dearly departed Gran once worked side by side. With the entire hotel under investigation, Molly must solve the mystery post-haste. If there's one thing Molly knows for sure, it's that dirty secrets don't stay buried forever...]]>
289 Nita Prose 0593356195 Charlene 5 4.04 2023 The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid, #2)
author: Nita Prose
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves:
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The Mystery Guest was a cute read. I like Molly from the first novel. It’s a fun read. Light and airy.
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Thinking, Fast and Slow 11468377 Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.

Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will transform the way you think about thinking.]]>
499 Daniel Kahneman 0374275637 Charlene 0 to-read 4.17 2011 Thinking, Fast and Slow
author: Daniel Kahneman
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/25
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Entitlement 209330212 A novel of money and morality from the New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind.

Brooke wants. She isn’t in need, but there are things she wants. A sense of purpose, for instance. She wants to make a difference in the world, to impress her mother along the way, to spend time with friends and secure her independence. Her job assisting an octogenarian billionaire in his quest to give away a vast fortune could help her achieve many of these goals. It may inspire new desires as well: proximity to wealth turns out to be nothing less than transformative. What is money, really, but a kind of belief?

Taut, unsettling, and alive to the seductive distortions of money, Entitlement is a riveting tale for our new gilded age, a story that confidently considers questions about need and worth, race and privilege, philanthropy and generosity, passion and obsession. It is a provocative, propulsive novel about the American imagination.]]>
284 Rumaan Alam 0593718488 Charlene 4 3.09 2024 Entitlement
author: Rumaan Alam
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.09
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves:
review:
Brooke is an interesting character. The audacity of her, I thought while reading! Sometimes I just want a character to get a better-deserve punishment!
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My Friends 219334833
The trick time plays is to lull us into the belief that everything lasts forever, and although nothing does, we continue, inside our dream.

One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio and has the sense that his life has been changed forever. Obsessed by the power of those words—and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zawa—Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh.

There, thrust into an open society that is light years away from the world he knew in Libya, Khaled begins to change. He attends a protest against the Qaddafi regime in London, only to watch it explode in tragedy. In a flash, Khaled finds himself injured, clinging to life, an exile, unable to leave England. To even tell his mother and father back home what he has done, on tapped phone lines, would mark them for death.

When a chance encounter in a hotel brings Khaled face to face with Hosam Zawa, the author of the fateful short story, he is subsumed into the deepest friendship of his life. It is a friendship that not only sustains him, but eventually forces him, as the Arab Spring erupts, to confront agonizing tensions between revolution and safety, family and exile, and how to define his own sense of self against those closest to him.

A devastating meditation on friendship and family, and the ways in which time tests—and frays—those bonds, My Friends is an achingly beautiful work of literature by an author working at the peak of his powers.]]>
416 Hisham Matar 0812985095 Charlene 0 to-read 4.14 2024 My Friends
author: Hisham Matar
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: to-read
review:

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Dream Count 219520778 A publishing event ten years in the makinga searing, exquisite new novel by the best-selling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists�the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires.

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until � betrayed and brokenhearted � she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America � but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.]]>
416 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 0593802721 Charlene 0 to-read 3.90 2025 Dream Count
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America]]> 13425592 Devil in the Groveis the winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.

Arguably the most important American lawyer of the twentieth century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court when he became embroiled in an explosive and deadly case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and cost him his life.

In 1949, Florida’s orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor. To maintain order and profits, they turned to Willis V. McCall, a violent sheriff who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve. When a white seventeen-year-old Groveland girl cried rape, McCall was fast on the trail of four young blacks who dared to envision a future for themselves beyond the citrus groves. By day’s end, the Ku Klux Klan had rolled into town, burning the homes of blacks to the ground and chasing hundreds into the swamps, hell-bent on lynching the young men who came to be known as “the Groveland Boys.�

And so began the chain of events that would bring Thurgood Marshall, the man known as “Mr. Civil Rights,� into the deadly fray. Associates thought it was suicidal for him to wade into the “Florida Terror� at a time when he was irreplaceable to the burgeoning civil rights movement, but the lawyer would not shrink from the fight—not after the Klan had murdered one of Marshall’s NAACP associates involved with the case and Marshall had endured continual threats that he would be next.

Drawing on a wealth of never-before-published material, including the FBI’s unredacted Groveland case files, as well as unprecedented access to the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund files, King shines new light on this remarkable civil rights crusader, setting his rich and driving narrative against the heroic backdrop of a case that U.S. Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson decried as “one of the best examples of one of the worst menaces to American justice.”]]>
434 Gilbert King 0062097717 Charlene 5 4.38 2012 Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
author: Gilbert King
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves:
review:
Nicely written and detailed! Some parts were difficult. Injustice and hate is always difficult to read!
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The Magnolia Story 29483100 This eBook includes the full text of the book plus an exclusive additional chapter from Chip and Joanna that is not found in the hardcover!

Are you ready to see your fixer upper?

These famous words are now synonymous with the dynamic husband-and-wife team Chip and Joanna Gaines, stars of HGTV’s Fixer Upper. As this question fills the airwaves with anticipation, their legions of fans continue to multiply and ask a different series of questions, like—Who are these people?What’s the secret to their success? And is Chip actually that funny in real life? By renovating homes in Waco, Texas, and changing lives in such a winsome and engaging way, Chip and Joanna have become more than just the stars of Fixer Upper, they have become America’s new best friends.

The Magnolia Story is the first book from Chip and Joanna, offering their fans a detailed look at their life together. From the very first renovation project they ever tackled together, to the project that nearly cost them everything; from the childhood memories that shaped them, to the twists and turns that led them to the life they share on the farm today.

They both attended Baylor University in Waco. However, their paths did not cross until Chip checked his car into the local Firestone tire shop where Joanna worked behind the counter. Even back then Chip was a serial entrepreneur who, among other things, ran a lawn care company, sold fireworks, and flipped houses. Soon they were married and living in their first fixer upper. Four children and countless renovations later, Joanna garners the attention of a television producer who notices her work on a blog one day.

In The Magnolia Story fans will finally get to join the Gaines behind the scenes and discover:

-The time Chip ran to the grocery store and forgot to take their new, sleeping baby
-Joanna’s agonizing decision to close her dream business to focus on raising their children
-When Chip buys a houseboat, sight-unseen, and it turns out to be a leaky wreck
-Joanna’s breakthrough moment of discovering the secret to creating a beautiful home
-Harrowing stories of the financial ups and downs as an entrepreneurial couple
-Memories and photos from Chip and Jo’s wedding
-The significance of the word magnolia and why it permeates everything they do
-The way the couple pays the popularity of Fixer Upper forward, sharing the success with others, and bolstering the city of Waco along the way

And yet there is still one lingering question for fans of the show: Is Chip really that funny? “Oh yeah,� says Joanna. “He was, and still is, my first fixer upper.”]]>
217 Chip Gaines Charlene 5 4.15 2016 The Magnolia Story
author: Chip Gaines
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves:
review:
I’m not sure why I didn’t read this earlier as I was an avid viewer of Fixer Upper and enjoyed Chip and Jo!I loved this book. I found them sincere and honest. Very inspiring and encouraging!
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The Third Gilmore Girl 207298106 Brought to you by Penguin.

Beloved award-winning actress Kelly Bishop, famous for playing the iconic Emily Gilmore in Gilmore Girls , finally tells the whole story of her six decades in show business.

Kelly Bishop’s storied career has been defined by landmark achievements, from winning a Tony Award for her turn in the original Broadway cast of A Chorus Line to her memorable performance as Jennifer Grey’s mother in Dirty Dancing, but it is probably her role as matriarch Emily in the modern classic Gilmore Girls that cemented her legacy.
Now, Bishop reflects on her remarkable life and looks towards the future, sharing some of her greatest stories and the life lessons she’s learned on her journey. From her early transition from dance to drama, to marrying young to a compulsive gambler, to the losses and achievements she experienced—among them marching for women’s rights and losing her second husband to cancer—Bishop offers a rich, genuine celebration of her life.
Full of witty insights, The Third Gilmore Girl is a warm, unapologetic, and powerful memoir from a woman who has left indelible impressions on her audiences for decades.

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256 Kelly Bishop 1668023776 Charlene 4 4.35 2024 The Third Gilmore Girl
author: Kelly Bishop
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves:
review:
I must say, I wasn't an original Gilmore Girl viewer, when it aired years ago. I came along during the time it was on Netflix. I found it a rather cute show. Something to binge watch on cold winter days in the Northeast. This memoir gave me plenty to know about the author and the television show. Satisfying memoir.
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<![CDATA[Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative]]> 207376026
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF FALL 2024: Bookshop, Apple Books, and more!!

Keke Palmer thought she knew who she was. What it means to be a good person and what it takes to be a success. It all seemed so simple, until she realized the challenges she would have to face to prove to herself who she wanted to be. From feeling alienated to having to restart her career after ten years in to becoming a single mother just months after her son was born—everything she worked for in life that she felt granted her what she wanted now also reminded her that “life is going to life� and throw curveballs regardless of what you deserve. She found herself asking, Where do I find my power? How do I master myself?

In her own raw and intimate words, Keke talks about everything from her struggles with boundaries to unconditional love, forgiveness, and worthiness. “Don’t block your blessings and potential opportunities by allowing the voices of other people to influence your actions,� she says. “How you’re choosing to set yourself up for success is between you and the person looking back at you in the mirror.�

Throughout the book, Keke also poses readers with the questions needed to get them through their own challenging times by sharing personal stories and lessons she’s learned along the way. She gets candid about the tools she’s developed to take the reins, harness her vulnerability, and recognize ownership in the narrative of her life—which allowed her to turn personal power into major power.

In this exhilarating, deeply poignant, and often laugh-out-loud book, Lauren Keyana Palmer gets real about life, work, love, and belief. These pages will encourage readers to empower themselves with the truth, leverage their currency, and find the keys to master themselves and the art of alchemy. Keke writes, “You are not on anyone else’s timeline, only your own.�

The result is a tour de force.

They said, “Jack of all Trades, Master of None.�
She said, “No, I am the Master. Of Me.”]]>
256 Keke Palmer 1250372518 Charlene 0 3.54 2024 Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative
author: Keke Palmer
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves:
review:
A few nice antidotes with inspirational messaging. Yet, at heart, not what I would define as a true memoir. But very helpful to some.
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<![CDATA[The Sequel (The Book Series, #2)]]> 203578763 The Afterword. After all, how hard can it really be to write a universally lauded bestseller?

But when Anna publishes her book and indulges in her own literary acclaim, she begins to receive excerpts of a novel she never expected to see again, a novel that should no longer exist. Something has gone wrong, and someone out there knows far too much about her late brother, her late husband, and possibly about Anna herself. What does this person want, and what are they prepared to do? She has come too far and worked too hard to lose what she values most: the sole and uncontested right to her own story—and she is, by any standard, a master storyteller.]]>
304 Jean Hanff Korelitz 1250875471 Charlene 0 3.59 2024 The Sequel (The Book Series, #2)
author: Jean Hanff Korelitz
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves:
review:
I'm not sure how to rate this. This main character is indestructible. I'm annoyed. Truly flabbergasted. However, I loved the writing. Something about a writer telling you about the literary world, that I enjoy!! Yet the character. I'm screaming now!!
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<![CDATA[Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems]]> 6499614 128 Nikki Giovanni Charlene 4 A few nice poems. 4.33 2002 Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems
author: Nikki Giovanni
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
review:
A few nice poems.
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<![CDATA[Take Care of Them Like My Own: Faith, Fortitude, and a Surgeon's Fight for Health Justice]]> 199897801 The founder of the Black Doctors Covid Consortium highlights the devastating racial injustices in our healthcare system in this inspirational memoir and empowering call to action. Dr. Ala Stanford knew she wanted to be a doctor by the time she was eight years old. But role models were few and far between in her working-class North Philly neighborhood. Her teachers were dismissive, and the realities of racism, sexism, and poverty threatened to derail her at every turn. Nevertheless, thanks to her faith, family, and the sheer strength of her will, today she is one of the vanishingly small number of Black women surgeons in America—and an unrelenting force in the fight for health justice. In Take Care of Them Like My Own, Dr. Stanford shares an unflinching account of her story, explaining how her experiences on both sides of the scalpel have informed her understanding of America’s racial health gap, an insidious and lethal form of inequality that exacts a devastating toll on Black communities across the country, affluent and underserved alike. When Covid-19 arrived in her hometown of Philadelphia, she knew it would disproportionately affect the Black population. As the city stood idly by, unwilling or unable to protect its most vulnerable citizens, Dr. Stanford took matters into her own hands. She bought a van, made some calls, and began administering tests in church parking lots. Soon, she found herself at the helm of a powerful grassroots campaign that successfully vaccinated tens of thousands of Philadelphians. She and her movement are living proof that by drawing on faith, community, and inner strength, everyday people can affect tremendous change. Part memoir, part manifesto for health equality and justice, Take Care of Them Like My Own offers urgent lessons about the power of communities working together to take care of one another and the importance of fighting for a healthcare system that truly fulfills its promise to all Americans.]]> 320 Ala Stanford 1668004089 Charlene 5
I knew of Dr. Stanford from her work around my city, yet I had no idea of her hard work in becoming a pediatric surgeon and all the bureaucratic nonsense she experienced during the pandemic.

The stories of her starting the Covid testing sight was televised on local news stations. As well as national morning shows. My family and friends forwarded the information of her testing and vaccination sites. It made me proud that a black woman physician was providing vital services in a global crises. However, what intrigued me was the back story! The congresspersons and city officials that refused to support her. The health department, the mayor, etc. Then they had the nerve to bypass her, a medical doctor, and award a grant to this young white 20-something year -old Drexel University Student, who wasn’t a doctor! And he misappropriated the funds. I recall that story on the news! It was appalling!
Dr. Stanford highlights the racial and economic disparities in the city of Philadelphia. For that reason she built a clinic and is seeking to open more to address the health equities in economically challenged neighborhoods.

Dr. Stanford is a living example of how to not complain about the problem, but to make a change!

FIVE STARS!!⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️]]>
4.48 Take Care of Them Like My Own: Faith, Fortitude, and a Surgeon's Fight for Health Justice
author: Ala Stanford
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.48
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
review:
Dr. Ala Stanford’s memoir is beautiful! I couldn’t put it down. Perhaps, it’s a Philly girl thing! One Philly girl to another!

I knew of Dr. Stanford from her work around my city, yet I had no idea of her hard work in becoming a pediatric surgeon and all the bureaucratic nonsense she experienced during the pandemic.

The stories of her starting the Covid testing sight was televised on local news stations. As well as national morning shows. My family and friends forwarded the information of her testing and vaccination sites. It made me proud that a black woman physician was providing vital services in a global crises. However, what intrigued me was the back story! The congresspersons and city officials that refused to support her. The health department, the mayor, etc. Then they had the nerve to bypass her, a medical doctor, and award a grant to this young white 20-something year -old Drexel University Student, who wasn’t a doctor! And he misappropriated the funds. I recall that story on the news! It was appalling!
Dr. Stanford highlights the racial and economic disparities in the city of Philadelphia. For that reason she built a clinic and is seeking to open more to address the health equities in economically challenged neighborhoods.

Dr. Stanford is a living example of how to not complain about the problem, but to make a change!

FIVE STARS!!⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Don't Call Us Dead: Poems 35422441 The highly anticipated second collection by Danez Smith Hallelujah is an understatement (Patricia Smith)

Award-winning poet Danez Smith is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. Don t Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood and a diagnosis of HIV positive. Some of us are killed / in pieces, Smith writes, some of us all at once. Don t Call Us Dead is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes America Dear White America where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.

"]]>
96 Danez Smith 1555979777 Charlene 0 4.42 2017 Don't Call Us Dead: Poems
author: Danez Smith
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
review:

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The Unboxing of a Black Girl 195861999
Finalist, 2025 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award

The Children's Book Review,Best Kids Nonfiction Books of 2024

The Chicago Public Library's Best Books of 2024, Teens Nonfiction

School Library Journal (SLJ), Best Poetry Books of 2024

"Shanté adeptly addresses racism, implicit bias, gender, sexuality, sexual violence, and mental health, encouraging readers to care for themselves, think, research, and act. VERDICT Strongly recommended for all young adult collections."
--SLJ, starred review

"[A]n intoxicating and lyrical celebration of the complexities of being a young Black woman in America."
--National Book Foundation

"By weaving her personal experiences with reflections and observations, the author provides a rich tapestry of perspectives on Black girlhood. [...] A highly creative way of providing insightful social commentary."
--Kirkus Reviews

Written as a collection of vignettes and poetry, The Unboxing of a Black Girl is a creative nonfiction reflection on Black girlhood. The debut YA title, by award-winning author Angela Shanté, is a love letter to Black girls set in New York City and serves as a personal and political critique of how the world raises Black girls.

As Shanté navigates the city through memory, she balances poetry with vignettes that explore the innocence and joy of childhood eroded by adultification. Through this book, she illuminates the places where Black girls are nurtured or exploited in stories and poems about personal and political boxes, love, loss, and sexual assault. Many entries are also studded with cultural footnotes designed to further understanding.]]>
160 Angela Shanté Charlene 5 4.36 2024 The Unboxing of a Black Girl
author: Angela Shanté
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves:
review:
Fairly enjoyed all the poems! It actually felt rather familiar. As if this work spoke into my childhood! Beautifully and Warmly Relatable!
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<![CDATA[Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved]]> 35133923 A divinity professor and young mother with a Stage IV cancer diagnosis explores the pain and joy of living without certainty.

Thirty-five-year-old Kate Bowler was a professor at the school of divinity at Duke, and had finally had a baby with her childhood sweetheart after years of trying, when she began to feel jabbing pains in her stomach. She lost thirty pounds, chugged antacid, and visited doctors for three months before she was finally diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer.

As she navigates the aftermath of her diagnosis, Kate pulls the reader deeply into her life, which is populated with a colorful, often hilarious collection of friends, pastors, parents, and doctors, and shares her laser-sharp reflections on faith, friendship, love, and death. She wonders why suffering makes her feel like a loser and explores the burden of positivity. Trying to relish the time she still has with her son and husband, she realizes she must change her habit of skipping to the end and planning the next move. A historian of the "American prosperity gospel"--the creed of the mega-churches that promises believers a cure for tragedy, if they just want it badly enough--Bowler finds that, in the wake of her diagnosis, she craves these same "outrageous certainties." She wants to know why it's so hard to surrender control over that which you have no control. She contends with the terrifying fact that, even for her husband and child, she is not the lynchpin of existence, and that even without her, life will go on.

On the page, Kate Bowler is warm, witty, and ruthless, and, like Paul Kalanithi, one of the talented, courageous few who can articulate the grief she feels as she contemplates her own mortality.]]>
178 Kate Bowler 0399592067 Charlene 0 I promised I’d be more careful in my book selections, but I was hoodwinked by the synopsis and reviews. This book was more about death than the prosperity gospel!

No more death books!
No more!
No!]]>
3.77 2018 Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved
author: Kate Bowler
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/24
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves:
review:
One day I’ll learn to stop reading books about people dying. They make me sad. This book by Kate Bowler, Everything Happens for a Reason gave me all the depressing feels as when I read, Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner and Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad.
I promised I’d be more careful in my book selections, but I was hoodwinked by the synopsis and reviews. This book was more about death than the prosperity gospel!

No more death books!
No more!
No!
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Colored Television 201102398 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593544372

A dark comedy about second acts, creative appropriation, and the racial identity–industrial complex

Jane has high hopes her life is about to turn around. After years of living precariously, she; her painter husband, Lenny; and their two kids have landed a stint as house sitters in a friend’s luxurious home in the hills above Los Angeles, a gig that coincides magically with Jane’s sabbatical. If she can just finish her latest novel, Nusu Nusu, the centuries-spanning epic Lenny refers to as her “mulatto War and Peace,� she’ll have tenure and some semblance of stability and success within her grasp.

But things don’t work out quite as hoped. In search of a plan B, like countless writers before her, Jane turns her desperate gaze to Hollywood. After she meets with a hot young producer to create “diverse content� for a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a “real writer.� She can create what he envisions as the greatest biracial comedy to ever hit the small screen. Things finally seem to be going right for Jane—until they go terribly wrong.]]>
277 Danzy Senna Charlene 5 The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz
And others. I even love how Stephen King incorporates writers into his novels. The Shining and Misery are my favorites.

So with that being said…�

Colored Television by Danzy Senna is about a writer, Jane. It was hilarious.
The writing was clever and funny. There were numerous parts where I laughed out loud. The Jane, Lenny, Ruby, and Finn characters were enjoyable. The
Hiram Cavendish character was so well written, I actually thought it was a real person. (I did a Google search). He’s fictional. Also, the way L.A. was written I felt I was there, in multicultural Mayberry!
At the end I was rooting for Jane, but sadly her ending is reality.
Good story.
]]>
3.53 2024 Colored Television
author: Danzy Senna
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves:
review:
First, let me say, I love novels about writers. I’m drawn into their life. From, the characters writing, agenting, rejection, publishing, and failure or success. Or stories about a stolen novel. Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz
And others. I even love how Stephen King incorporates writers into his novels. The Shining and Misery are my favorites.

So with that being said…�

Colored Television by Danzy Senna is about a writer, Jane. It was hilarious.
The writing was clever and funny. There were numerous parts where I laughed out loud. The Jane, Lenny, Ruby, and Finn characters were enjoyable. The
Hiram Cavendish character was so well written, I actually thought it was a real person. (I did a Google search). He’s fictional. Also, the way L.A. was written I felt I was there, in multicultural Mayberry!
At the end I was rooting for Jane, but sadly her ending is reality.
Good story.

]]>
Natural Selection 215950185
After a string of bad dates and no prospects, Sophia Othonos has finally hit the jackpot: an actual nice guy. When he suggests a romantic getaway, she’s sure they’re about to take the next step toward their future. A rustic cruise to the Galápagos Islands isn’t exactly her idea of a vacation, but Sophia is ready for anything…until her boyfriend has to cancel.

Now she’s all alone on a trip that was meant for two. Sophia finds herself at a crossroads about who she is, what she wants, and whether her relationship is really everything she thought. But if she’s going to suffer an identity crisis, at least she gets to do it amid the unexpected majesty of nature.

Eight days of wild, unobstructed beauty are enough to make anyone reevaluate their life. These islands are all about adapting to your surroundings—and change just might be what Sophia needs most of all.]]>
54 Elin Hilderbrand 1662521472 Charlene 5 3.62 2024 Natural Selection
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves:
review:

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The Answer Is No 219876684 In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?

Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.]]>
68 Fredrik Backman 1662526520 Charlene 3 3.94 2024 The Answer Is No
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves:
review:

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Lovely One: A Memoir 203164398 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � In her inspiring, intimate memoir, the first Black woman to ever be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States chronicles her extraordinary life story.

With this unflinching account, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson invites readers into her life and world, tracing her family’s ascent from segregation to her confirmation on America’s highest court within the span of one generation.

Named “Ketanji Onyika,� meaning “Lovely One,� based on a suggestion from her aunt, a Peace Corps worker stationed in West Africa, Justice Jackson learned from her educator parents to take pride in her heritage since birth. She describes her resolve as a young girl to honor this legacy and realize her dreams: from hearing stories of her grandparents and parents breaking barriers in the segregated South, to honing her voice in high school as an oratory champion and student body president, to graduating magna cum laude from Harvard, where she performed in musical theater and improv and participated in pivotal student organizations.

Here, Justice Jackson pulls back the curtain, marrying the public record of her life with what is less known. She reveals what it takes to advance in the legal profession when most people in power don’t look like you, and to reconcile a demanding career with the joys and sacrifices of marriage and motherhood.

Through trials and triumphs, Justice Jackson’s journey will resonate with dreamers everywhere, especially those who nourish outsized ambitions and refuse to be turned aside. This moving, open-hearted tale will spread hope for a more just world, for generations to come.]]>
432 Ketanji Brown Jackson 0593729900 Charlene 5 4.45 2024 Lovely One: A Memoir
author: Ketanji Brown Jackson
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves:
review:
Lovely One by Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson was absolutely lovely. It was wonderful learning her origin story and her ascent to becoming a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. I am aware of the critics who blasted President Biden’s choice. However, without a doubt this woman is qualified. I’m certain that if she didn’t have the experience and qualifications, her being a black woman would hold no weight. I’m happy to have read this and can now instruct the naysayers to read to see for themselves that our newest Justice has every right to be on the bench. Justice Brown-Jackson deserves her place in history.
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<![CDATA[Church Girl: A Gospel Vision to Encourage and Challenge Black Christian Women]]> 202468414 Reignite your purpose in Christ, restore your dignity, heal your pain, transform your rest, and learn how to flourish in today’s secular world as a Black Christian woman—from Bible teacher, speaker, and psychotherapist Dr. Sarita Lyons.

Black women are the hidden figures in the church. Despite at times being rendered invisible, uninvited, and unprotected in a racist and sexist world, they are valued image-bearers and influential instruments in God’s redemptive plan.

Church Girl invites you, as a Black woman, on a journey from the garden to the present day. Your unique story as a Black woman lies within the grand narrative of Scripture, and the message of the gospel is the light, lens, and love you need to help you see and live as God intends.

Church Girl helps answer some of your most internal pressing

� How do I understand my identity in light of Scripture?
� How should I think about my purpose?
� How can I thrive despite the opposition from racism and sexism?
� How are Black women hurt in the church and how can I heal?
� Why am I always exhausted from working and where can I find real peace and rest?
� How can I flourish in a secular world and live out my faith with conviction and integrity?

With compassion and wisdom, Dr. Sarita Lyons invites Black women to tackle the unique issues they face in the church with prophetic boldness, priestly compassion, a church leader’s wisdom, a counselor's insight, and a sister's relatability and love.]]>
240 Sarita T. Lyons 0593601165 Charlene 0 4.49 Church Girl: A Gospel Vision to Encourage and Challenge Black Christian Women
author: Sarita T. Lyons
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.49
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves:
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Growing Up Urkel 210999877 An incisive and insightful memoir by one of the most beloved icons of nineties television Jaleel White, the actor who portrayed Steve Urkel on the hit sitcom Family Matters.At the tender age of twelve, Jaleel White auditioned for the role of Steve Urkel, the socially inept genius, who was in love with his next-door neighbor, Laura. Though Steve Urkel was intended to be in only one episode, Jaleel’s indelible performance catapulted Urkel into the pantheon of American pop culture. But success can cost as much as it pays. After nine years on the popular sitcom Family Matters, Jaleel is twenty-one, a UCLA undergrad, and adjusting to a world and industry that sees him as the nasally nerd in high water pants, suspenders, and coke bottle glasses. In this wise and witty memoir, Growing Up Urkel takes you on a memorable journey through the peaks, valleys, and plateaus of fame and fortune.]]> 336 Jaleel White 1668068893 Charlene 4 3.39 Growing Up Urkel
author: Jaleel White
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.39
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/12
date added: 2024/12/12
shelves:
review:
After watching Jaleel White’s interview on The Breakfast Club, I decided to read his memoir. Although I wouldn’t consider myself a huge Family Matters fan, I did watch episodes occasionally. And I always appreciate a good origin story, along with insider information or experience with Hollywood. His telling of show business was insightful and on par with other celebrity memoirs I’ve read! This was a fairly enjoyable read!
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<![CDATA[Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years, #1)]]> 30241301 When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

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406 Gregory Maguire Charlene 3 3.51 1995 Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years, #1)
author: Gregory Maguire
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves:
review:

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Victim 177185976
Javier Perez is a hustler from a family of hustlers. He learns from an early age how to play the game to his own advantage, how his background—murdered drug dealer dad, single cash-strapped mom, best friend serving time for gang activity—can be a key to doors he didn’t even know existed. This kind of story, molded in the right way, is just what college admissions committees are looking for, and a full academic scholarship to a prestigious university brings Javi one step closer to his dream of becoming a famous writer.

As a college student, Javi embellishes his life story until there’s not even a kernel of truth left. The only real connection to his past is the occasional letter he trades with his childhood best friend, Gio, who doesn’t seem to care about Javi’s newfound awareness of white privilege or the school-to-prison pipeline. Soon after Javi graduates, a viral essay transforms him from a writer on the rise to a journalist at a legendary magazine where the editors applaud his “unique perspective.� But Gio more than anyone knows who Javi really is, and sees through his game. Once Gio’s released from prison and Javi offers to cut him in on the deal, will he play along with Javi’s charade, or will it all come crumbling down?

A satirical sendup of tear-jerking trauma plots with a tender portrait of friendship at its core, Victim asks what real diversity looks like and how far one man is willing to go to make his story hit the right notes.]]>
276 Andrew Boryga 0385549970 Charlene 0 to-read 3.82 2024 Victim
author: Andrew Boryga
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
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How to Resist Amazon and Why 48765375
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15 Danny Caine Charlene 4
To be honest, I’m in the so-called Amazon vortex. Not proud, but I am!

The edition of this book I listened, was about 2 hours. It was fairly good and persuasive. Yet, I’m not sure if that will translate into any solid resistance of AMAZON on my part. However, I will continue shopping local, as I do. Also, purchasing from independent bookstores. There are a few in my area!

So, perhaps the author persuaded me! ]]>
4.28 2019 How to Resist Amazon and Why
author: Danny Caine
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/05
date added: 2024/12/05
shelves:
review:
After watching BUY NOW on Netflix, which covered a small bit of Amazon. Mainly how the company is negatively impacting the environment, this audiobook was a good continuation for me.

To be honest, I’m in the so-called Amazon vortex. Not proud, but I am!

The edition of this book I listened, was about 2 hours. It was fairly good and persuasive. Yet, I’m not sure if that will translate into any solid resistance of AMAZON on my part. However, I will continue shopping local, as I do. Also, purchasing from independent bookstores. There are a few in my area!

So, perhaps the author persuaded me!
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Too Many Tamales 897296
This is the story of a treasure thought to be lost in a batch of tamales; of a desperate and funny attempt by Maria and her cousins to eat their way out of trouble; and the warm way a family pulls together to make it a perfect Christmas after all.]]>
32 Gary Soto 0698114124 Charlene 0 4.15 1993 Too Many Tamales
author: Gary Soto
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at: 2009/01/12
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves:
review:

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<![CDATA[Mixtape Potluck Cookbook: A Dinner Party for Friends, Their Recipes, and the Songs They Inspire]]> 50028762 What if Questlove threw a dinner party and everyone came?

Named one of fall's best cookbooks byLos Angeles Times,GrubStreet, andEater

“Even with its many flashy co-authors, Mixtape Potluck never wavers from its earnest stated intent: to help readers plan the best possible dinner party. With friends like his, Quest is one to trust.� -EATER

Questlove is best known for his achievements in the music world, but his interest in food runs a close second. He has hosted a series of renowned Food Salons and conversations with some of America’s most prominent chefs. Now he is turning his hand to creating a cookbook. In Mixtape Potluck Cookbook, Questlove imagines the ultimate potluck dinner party, inviting more than fifty chefs, entertainers, and musicians—such as Eric Ripert, Natalie Portman, and Q-Tip—and asking them to bring along their favorite recipes. He also pairs each cook with a song that he feels best captures their unique creative energy. The result is not only an accessible, entertaining cookbook, but also a collection of Questlove’s diverting musical commentaries as well as an illustration of the fascinating creative relationship between music and food. With Questlove’s unique style of hosting dinner parties and his love of music, food, and entertaining, this book will give readers unexpected insights into the relationship between culture and food.

Note: The cover material for this book is meant to mimic the texture and tactile qualityof tinfoil and is intentional.]]>
226 Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson 1683356756 Charlene 4 3.74 Mixtape Potluck Cookbook: A Dinner Party for Friends, Their Recipes, and the Songs They Inspire
author: Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.74
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/02
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves:
review:
Nice recipes! Fried Rabbit was interesting. Q-Tip’s Mac and Cheese was nice. First time adding Asiago cheese to my recipe.
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<![CDATA[Waiting Isn't a Waste: The Surprising Comfort of Trusting God in the Uncertainties of Life]]> 198663103 152 Mark Vroegop 1433590972 Charlene 5 4.49 Waiting Isn't a Waste: The Surprising Comfort of Trusting God in the Uncertainties of Life
author: Mark Vroegop
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.49
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves:
review:
Great reminder that waiting is biblical!!
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The Thing Around Your Neck 5587960
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, which critics hailed as "one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years" (Baltimore Sun), with "prose as lush as the Nigerian landscape that it powerfully evokes" (The Boston Globe); The Washington Post called her "the twenty-first-century daughter of Chinua Achebe." Her award-winning Half of a Yellow Sun became an instant classic upon its publication three years later, once again putting her tremendous gifts - graceful storytelling, knowing compassion, and fierce insight into her characters' hearts - on display. Now, in her most intimate and seamlessly crafted work to date, Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.

In "A Private Experience," a medical student hides from a violent riot with a poor Muslim woman whose dignity and faith force her to confront the realities and fears she's been pushing away. In "Tomorrow is Too Far," a woman unlocks the devastating secret that surrounds her brother's death. The young mother at the center of "Imitation" finds her comfortable life in Philadelphia threatened when she learns that her husband has moved his mistress into their Lagos home. And the title story depicts the choking loneliness of a Nigerian girl who moves to an America that turns out to be nothing like the country she expected; though falling in love brings her desires nearly within reach, a death in her homeland forces her to reexamine them.

Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with Adichie's signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them. The Thing Around Your Neck is a resounding confirmation of the prodigious literary powers of one of our most essential writers.]]>
218 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 0307271072 Charlene 5 Every short story is a gem!! 4.24 2008 The Thing Around Your Neck
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves:
review:
Every short story is a gem!!
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Scenes from My Life: A Memoir 60254856 A moving, unflinching memoir of hard-won success, struggles with addiction, and a lifelong mission to give back--from the late iconic actor beloved for his roles in The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, and Lovecraft Country

When Michael K. Williams died on September 6, 2021, he left behind a career as one of the most electrifying actors of his generation. From his star turn as Omar Little in The Wire to Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire to Emmy-nominated roles in HBO's The Night Of and Lovecraft Country, Williams inhabited a slew of indelible roles that he portrayed with a rawness and vulnerability that leapt off the screen. Beyond the nominations and acclaim, Williams played characters who connected, whose humanity couldn't be denied, whose stories were too often left out of the main narrative.

At the time of his death, Williams had nearly finished a memoir that tells the story of his past while looking to the future, a book that merges his life and his life's work. Mike, as his friends knew him, was so much more than an actor. In Scenes from My Life, he traces his life in whole, from his childhood in East Flatbush and his early years as a dancer to his battles with addiction and the bar fight that left his face with his distinguishing scar. He was a committed Brooklyn resident and activist who dedicated his life to working with social justice organizations and his community, especially in helping at-risk youth find their voice and carve out their future. Williams worked to keep the spotlight on those he fought for and with, whom he believed in with his whole heart.

Imbued with poignance and raw honesty, Scenes from My Life is the story of a performer who gave his all to everything he did--in his own voice, in his own words, as only he could.]]>
259 Michael K. Williams 0593240375 Charlene 5 4.47 2022 Scenes from My Life: A Memoir
author: Michael K. Williams
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves:
review:
Beautiful Memoir! Wish this man was still alive!
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All Fours 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]>
336 Miranda July 0593190262 Charlene 0 to-read 3.52 2024 All Fours
author: Miranda July
name: Charlene
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: to-read
review:

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Ghostroots: Stories 200196202 A debut collection of stories set in a hauntingly reimagined Lagos where characters vie for freedom from ancestral ties.

’Pemi Aguda opens her collection of twelve stories with the chilling tale of a woman who uncannily resembles her sinister, deceased grandmother. When the woman shows a capacity for deadly violence, she wonders—can evil be genetic, passed from generation to generation?

Set in Lagos, Nigeria, Aguda’s stories unfold against a spectral cityscape where the everyday business of living—the birth of a baby, a market visit, a conversation between mothers and daughters—is charged with an air of supernatural menace. In “Breastmilk� a new mother’s inability to lactate takes on preternatural overtones. In �24, Alhaji Williams Street� a mysterious disease wreaks havoc with frightening precision. In “The Hollow,� an architect stumbles on a vengeful house.

Evocative, strange, and yet familiar, “the speculative conceits of these stories are elegantly balanced with the gorgeous fullness of human emotion, all the hunger and longing and fear and delight of being a human in the world� (Lauren Groff).]]>
224 Pemi Aguda 1324065850 Charlene 0 to-read 4.04 2024 Ghostroots: Stories
author: Pemi Aguda
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[From Here to the Great Unknown]]> 204905217
A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved and grieved.

Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, laid in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about smashing golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About getting dragged screaming out of the bathroom as she ran towards his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with her mother, getting sent to school after school, always kicked out, always in trouble. About her singular, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about being married to Michael Jackson, what they shared in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present grief. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother’s wish to reveal these memories, incandescent and painful, to the world.

To make her mother known.

This extraordinary book is written in both Lisa Marie’s and Riley’s voices, a mother and daughter communicating—from this world to the one beyond—as they try to heal each other. Profoundly moving and deeply revealing, From Here to the Great Unknown is a book like no other—the last words of the only child of an American icon.]]>
304 Lisa Marie Presley 0593733878 Charlene 5
It was simply Lovely and heart-wrenching as well.

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4.26 2024 From Here to the Great Unknown
author: Lisa Marie Presley
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/19
date added: 2024/11/19
shelves:
review:
I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir. The audiobook was amazing. I didn’t expect to hear Julia Roberts and actual recordings of Lisa Marie Presley.

It was simply Lovely and heart-wrenching as well.


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<![CDATA[The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are]]> 125076660
From one of our generation’s most powerful artists and incisive storytellers comes a brilliantly crafted work about the art—and war—of becoming who we are.

upcycle verb
up·cy·cle ˈəp-ˌsī-kəl
: to recycle (something) in such a way that the resulting product is of a higher value than the original item
: to create an object of greater value from (a discarded object of lesser value)

Today Tariq Trotter—better known as Black Thought—is the platinum-selling, Grammy-winning co-founder of The Roots and one of the most exhilaratingly skillful and profound rappers our culture has ever produced. But his story begins with a as a child, Trotter burned down his family’s home. The years that follow are the story of a life snatched from the flames, forged in fire.

In The Upcycled Self, Trotter doesn’t only narrate a riveting and moving portrait of the artist as a young man, he gives readers a courageous model of what it means to live an examined life. In vivid vignettes, he tells the dramatic stories of the four powerful relationships that shaped him—with community, friends, art, and family—each a complex weave of love, discovery, trauma, and loss.

And beyond offering the compellingly poetic account of one artist’s creative and emotional origins, Trotter explores the vital questions we all have to confront about our formative How can we see the story of our own young lives clearly? How do we use that story to understand who we’ve become? How do we forgive the people who loved and hurt us? How do we rediscover and honor our first dreams? And, finally, what do we take forward, what do we pass on, what do we leave behind? This is the beautifully bluesy story of a boy genius’s coming-of-age that illuminates the redemptive power of the upcycle.]]>
163 Tariq Trotter 0593446933 Charlene 5 Another part that blessed me was his relationship with his grandmother Minnie, his mother, Cassie, who was tragically killed, and Questlove.
Great Memoir!]]>
4.19 2023 The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are
author: Tariq Trotter
name: Charlene
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/18
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves:
review:
The Up-Cycled Self, by Tariq “Black Thought� Trotter is a beautiful written book. It was poetic and visually stimulating. As a fellow Philadelphian, his descriptions had me captivated. Especially when he spoke of South Philly. It brought back memories of being a kid visiting my family in that part of the city. It is definitely diverse as he described.
Another part that blessed me was his relationship with his grandmother Minnie, his mother, Cassie, who was tragically killed, and Questlove.
Great Memoir!
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