Go-go's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 03 Jun 2025 11:24:45 -0700 60 Go-go's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Satan: An Autobiography 6261030 256 Yehuda Berg 1571896104 Go-go 0 to-read 4.12 2009 Satan: An Autobiography
author: Yehuda Berg
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/03
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]]> The War of Art 1319 168 Steven Pressfield 0446691437 Go-go 0 to-read 3.95 2002 The War of Art
author: Steven Pressfield
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/24
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]]> <![CDATA[You Didn't Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip]]> 212426504 A delightfully insightful exploration of our obsession with gossip that weaves together journalism, cultural criticism, and memoir, from the host of the massively popular Normal Gossip podcast.

Can you keep a secret? As the pandemic forced us to socialize at a distance, Kelsey McKinney was mourning the juicy updates, jaw-dropping stories, and idle chatter that she’d typically collect over drinks with friends.ĚýShe realized she wasn’t the only one missing these little morsels and her hunger for this aspect of normalcy took on a life of its ownĚýandĚýthe blockbuster Normal Gossip podcast was born.ĚýWith listenership in the millions and gossip quickly becoming her day job, Kelsey found herself with the urge to think more critically about gossip as a form, to better understand the role that it plays in our culture.

In YOU DIDN'T HEAR THIS FROM ME, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling. Why is gossip considered a sin and how can we better recognize when gossip is being weaponized against the oppressed? Why do we think we’re entitled to every detail of a celebrity’s personal life because they are a public figure? And how do we even define “gossip,â€� anyway? She dishes on the art of eavesdropping and dives deep into how pop culture has changed the way that we look at hearsay. But as much as the book aims to treat gossip as a subject worthy of rigor, it also hopes to capture the heart of how enchanting and fun it can be to lean over and whisper something a little salacious into your friend’s ear. With wit and honesty, McKinney unmasks what we're actually searching for when we demand to know the truth â€� and how much the truth really matters in the first place. Ěý]]> 288 Kelsey McKinney 1538757400 Go-go 0 to-read 3.79 2025 You Didn't Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip
author: Kelsey McKinney
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/23
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]]> House of Holes 10108469 House of Holes. Baker, the bestselling author of The Mezzanine, Vox, and The Fermata, who "writes like no one else in America" (Newsweek), returns to erotic territory with a gleefully over-the-top novel set in a pleasure resort, where normal rules don't apply. Visitors, pulled in via their drinking straws or the dryers in laundromats, can undergo crotchal transfers . . . make love to trees . . . visit the Groanrooms and the twelve-screen Porndecahedron . . . or pussy-surf the White Lake. It's very expensive, of course, but there are work-study programs. In charge of day-to-day operations is Lila, a former hospital administrator whose breast milk has unusual regenerative properties.

Brimful of good-nature, wit, and surreal sexual vocabulary, House of Holes is a modern-day Hieronymous Boschian bacchanal that is sure to surprise, amuse, and arouse.]]> 262 Nicholson Baker 143918951X Go-go 0 to-read 3.10 2011 House of Holes
author: Nicholson Baker
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.10
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/19
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]]> The Mezzanine 247000 The Mezzanine occurs on the escalator of an office building, where its narrator is returning to work after buying shoelaces, this startlingly inventive and witty novel takes us farther than most fiction written today. It lends to milk cartons the associative richness of Marcel Proust's madeleines. It names the eight most significant advances in a human life —beginning with shoe-tying. It asks whether the hot air blowers in bathrooms really are more sanitary than towels. And it casts a dazzling light on our relations with the objects and people we usually take for granted.]]> 135 Nicholson Baker 0679725768 Go-go 0 to-read 3.85 1988 The Mezzanine
author: Nicholson Baker
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Man Who Tasted Words: A Neurologist Explores the Strange and Startling World of Our Senses]]> 57693441 In The Man Who Tasted Words, neurologist Guy Leschziner leads readers through the five senses and how, through them, our brain understands or misunderstands the world around us.

Vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are what we rely on to perceive the reality of our world. Our five senses are the conduits that bring us the scent of a freshly brewed cup of coffee or the notes of a favorite song suddenly playing on the radio. But are they really that reliable? The Man Who Tasted Words shows that what we perceive to be absolute truths of the world around us is actually a complex internal reconstruction by our minds and nervous systems. The translation into experiences with conscious meaning―the pattern of light and dark on the retina that is transformed into the face of a loved one, for instance―is a process that is invisible, undetected by ourselves, and, in most cases, completely out of our control.

Leschziner explores how our nervous systems define our worlds and how we can, in fact, be victims of falsehoods perpetrated by our own brains. In his moving and lyrical chronicles of lives turned upside down by a disruption in one or more of their five senses, he introduces readers to extraordinary individuals, like one man who actually “tasted� words, and shows us how sensory disruptions like that have wreaked havoc, not only on their view of the world, but also on their relationships. The cases Leschziner shares are extreme, but they are also human, and they teach us that both our lives and what we perceive as reality are ultimately defined by the complexities of the nervous system.]]> 336 Guy Leschziner 125027236X Go-go 0 to-read 3.99 The Man Who Tasted Words: A Neurologist Explores the Strange and Startling World of Our Senses
author: Guy Leschziner
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.99
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]]> <![CDATA[The Nocturnal Brain: Nightmares, Neuroscience, and the Secret World of Sleep]]> 41150417
Then there are the extreme cases. A woman in a state of deep sleep who gets dressed, unlocks her car, and drives for several miles before returning to bed. The man who has spent decades cleaning out kitchens while "sleep-eating." The teenager prone to the serious, yet unfortunately nicknamed "Sleeping Beauty Syndrome" stuck in a cycle of excessive unconsciousness, binge eating, and uncharacteristic displays of aggression and hyper-sexuality while awake.

With compassionate stories of his patients and their conditions, Dr. Leschziner illustrates the neuroscience behind our sleeping minds, revealing the many biological and psychological factors necessary in getting the rest that will not only maintain our physical and mental health, but improve our cognitive abilities and overall happiness.]]> 368 Guy Leschziner 1250202701 Go-go 0 to-read 4.02 2019 The Nocturnal Brain: Nightmares, Neuroscience, and the Secret World of Sleep
author: Guy Leschziner
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments (Harvest Original)]]> 1449994
When Tusko the Elephant woke in his pen at the Lincoln Park Zoo on the morning of August 3, 1962, little did he know that he was about to become the test subject in an experiment to determine what happens to an elephant given a massive dose of LSD.

In Elephants on Acid, Boese details the results of this scientific trial, as well as answers to the Why can't people tickle themselves? Would the average dog summon help in an emergency? Will babies instinctually pick a well-balanced diet? Is it possible to restore life to the dead?

Read on to find out...]]> 290 Alex Boese 0156031353 Go-go 0 to-read 3.77 2007 Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments (Harvest Original)
author: Alex Boese
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2007
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]]> <![CDATA[Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: A Renowned Neurologist Explains the Mystery and Drama of Brain Disease]]> 19286537
� A figure skater whose body has become a ticking time-bomb
� A salesman who drives around and around a traffic rotary, unable to get off
� A college quarterback who can't stop calling the same play
� A child molester who, after falling on the ice, is left with a brain that is very much dead inside a body that is very much alive
� A mother of two young girls, diagnosed with ALS, who has to decide whether a life locked inside her own head is worth living

How does one begin to treat such cases, to counsel people whose lives may be changed forever? How does one train the next generation of clinicians to deal with the moral and medical aspects of brain disease? Dr. Ropper and his colleague answer these questions by taking the reader into a rarified world where lives and minds hang in the balance.]]> 272 Allan H. Ropper 1250034981 Go-go 0 to-read 3.88 2014 Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: A Renowned Neurologist Explains the Mystery and Drama of Brain Disease
author: Allan H. Ropper
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth]]> 58735007
Over the past twenty-five years, the directors of The Moth have worked with people from all walks of life—including astronauts, hairdressers, rock stars, a retired pickpocket, high school students, and Nobel Prize winners—to develop true personal stories that have moved and delighted live audiences and listeners of The Moth’s Peabody Award–winning radio hour and podcast. A leader in the modern storytelling movement, The Moth inspires thousands of people around the globe to share their stories each year.

Now, with How to Tell a Story, The Moth will help you learn how to uncover and craft your own unique stories, like Moth storytellers Mike Birbiglia, Rosanne Cash, Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Gilbert, Padma Lakshmi, Darryl “DMC� McDaniels, Hasan Minhaj, Tig Notaro, Boots Riley, Betty Reid Soskin, John Turturro, and more.

Whether your goal is to make it to the Moth stage, deliver the perfect wedding toast, wow clients at a business dinner, give a moving eulogy, ace a job interview, be a hit at parties, change the world, or simply connect more deeply to those around you, stories are essential. Sharing secrets of The Moth’s time-honed process and using examples from beloved storytellers, a team of Moth directors will show you how to

� mine your memories for your best stories
� explore structures that will boost the impact of your story
� deliver your stories with confidence
� tailor your stories for any occasion

Filled with empowering, easy-to-follow tips for crafting stories that forge lasting bonds with friends, family, and colleagues alike, this book will help you connect authentically with the world around you and unleash the power of story in your life.]]> 336 Meg Bowles 0593139003 Go-go 0 to-read 3.83 2022 How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth
author: Meg Bowles
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Spellbound: Modern Science, Ancient Magic, and the Hidden Potential of the Unconscious Mind]]> 61256538 Psychiatrist Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD, reveals how to join forces with your unconscious to make better decisions, find more meaning in everyday life, and develop a richer, more balanced way of living.

The conscious mind, the part of your mental life you experience directly, is responsible for only a tiny sliver of what science says is going on inside your brain. Most of what you experience, your moods, and the things you like or dislike—most of who you are—comes from a much more mysterious part of your mind: the unconscious.

And to really understand the influences of the unconscious, says psychiatrist Daniel Z. Liberman, coauthor of The Molecule of More, we need to look to something often considered science’s alter ego: magic. Drawing on the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, and with deep dives into what we can learn from ancient mystical traditions from alchemy to numerology to meditation, Spellbound weaves together ancient magical traditions, psychological research, and the latest neuroscientific discoveries, in order to bridge the gap between the conscious and unconscious mind.

Like it or not, your unconscious is currently the source of most of your choices. It’s the source of your passions, your energy, and your “gut instinct.� It can help you solve seemingly impossible problems with the gift of inspiration. But it’s not always working in your favor: The unconscious is wild and untamed, often leading us down self-destructive paths that leave us baffled by our own decisions. Spellbound helps you take a new path: one where you learn how to recognize the influences of the unconscious, and make it an ally in helping you become the person you were meant to be.

The human mind is perhaps the most mysterious thing in the universe. Science is only beginning to uncover its secrets, and some believe that we may never fully plumb its depths. But the ancient traditions of magic, traditions of understanding that have been built up over centuries, give us another window into the hidden facets of our humanity.

After all, as the visionary Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”]]> 0 Daniel Z. Lieberman 1978694490 Go-go 0 to-read 3.77 Spellbound: Modern Science, Ancient Magic, and the Hidden Potential of the Unconscious Mind
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]]> <![CDATA[The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction]]> 36300637
Meghan Cox Gurdon argues that this ancient practice is a fast-working antidote to the fractured attention spans, atomized families and unfulfilling ephemera of the tech era, helping to replenish what our devices are leaching away. For everyone, reading aloud engages the mind in complex narratives; for children, it’s an irreplaceable gift that builds vocabulary, fosters imagination, and kindles a lifelong appreciation of language, stories and pictures.

Bringing together the latest scientific research, practical tips, and reading recommendations, The Enchanted Hour will both charm and galvanize, inspiring readers to share this invaluable, life-altering tradition with the people they love most.]]> 264 Meghan Cox Gurdon 0062562835 Go-go 0 to-read 4.30 2019 The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction
author: Meghan Cox Gurdon
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> Mike Nichols: A Life 53479533 A magnificent biography of one of the most protean creative forces in American entertainment history, a life of dazzling highs and vertiginous plunges--some of the worst largely unknown until now--by the acclaimed author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back

Mike Nichols burst onto the scene as a wunderkind: while still in his twenties, he was half of a hit improv duo with Elaine May that was the talk of the country. Next he directed four consecutive hit plays, won back-to-back Tonys, ushered in a new era of Hollywood moviemaking with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and followed it with The Graduate, which won him an Oscar and became the third-highest-grossing movie ever. At thirty-five, he lived in a three-story Central Park West penthouse, drove a Rolls-Royce, collected Arabian horses, and counted Jacqueline Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, Leonard Bernstein, and Richard Avedon as friends.

Where he arrived is even more astonishing given where he had begun: born Igor Peschkowsky to a Jewish couple in Berlin in 1931, he and his younger brother were sent to America on a ship in 1939. The young immigrant boy caught very few breaks. He was bullied and ostracized--an allergic reaction had rendered him permanently hairless--and his father died when he was just twelve, leaving his mother alone and overwhelmed.

The gulf between these two sets of facts explains a great deal about Nichols's transformation from lonely outsider to the center of more than one cultural universe--the acute powers of observation that first made him famous; the nourishment he drew from his creative partnerships, most enduringly with May; his unquenchable drive; his hunger for security and status; and the depressions and self-medications that brought him to terrible lows. It would take decades for him to come to grips with his demons. In an incomparable portrait that follows Nichols from Berlin to New York to Chicago to Hollywood, Mark Harris explores, with brilliantly vivid detail and insight, the life, work, struggle, and passion of an artist and man in constant motion. Among the 250 people Harris interviewed: Elaine May, Meryl Streep, Stephen Sondheim, Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Tom Hanks, Candice Bergen, Emma Thompson, Annette Bening, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Lorne Michaels, and Gloria Steinem.

Mark Harris gives an intimate and evenhanded accounting of success and failure alike; the portrait is not always flattering, but its ultimate impact is to present the full story of one of the most richly interesting, complicated, and consequential figures the worlds of theater and motion pictures have ever seen. It is a triumph of the biographer's art.]]> 688 Mark Harris 0399562249 Go-go 0 to-read 4.47 2021 Mike Nichols: A Life
author: Mark Harris
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2021
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]]> <![CDATA[Consumptive Chic: A History of Beauty, Fashion, and Disease]]> 36361663
Through an exploration of contemporary social trends and medical advice revealed in medical writing, literature and personal papers, Consumptive Chic uncovers the intimate relationship between fashionable women's clothing, and medical understandings of the illness. Illustrated with over 40 full color fashion plates, caricatures, medical images, and photographs of original garments, this is a compelling story of the intimate relationship between the body, beauty, and disease - and the rise of 'tubercular chic'.]]> 186 Carolyn A. Day 1350009407 Go-go 0 to-read 3.60 Consumptive Chic: A History of Beauty, Fashion, and Disease
author: Carolyn A. Day
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.60
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date added: 2025/05/15
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]]> The Fault in Our Stars 25856606
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.]]> 313 John Green 0525478817 Go-go 0 to-read 4.00 2012 The Fault in Our Stars
author: John Green
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2012
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]]> <![CDATA[Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection]]> 220341389 John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 198 John Green 0525556575 Go-go 0 4.46 2025 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
author: John Green
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.46
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]]> <![CDATA[The Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis Shaped History]]> 58340993
The definitive social history of tuberculosis, from its origins as a haunting mystery to its modern reemergence that now threatens populations around the world.

It killed novelist George Orwell, Eleanor Roosevelt, and millions of others â€� rich and poor. Desmond Tutu, Amitabh Bachchan, and Nelson Mandela survived it, just.Ěý For centuries, tuberculosis has ravaged cities and plagued the human body.Ěý

InĚý Phantom Plague , Vidya Krishnan, traces the history of tuberculosis from the slums of 19th-century New York to modern Mumbai. In a narrative spanning century, Krishnan shows how superstition and folk-remedies, made way for scientific understanding of TB, such that it was controlled and cured in the West.Ěý

The cure was never available to black and brown nations. And the tuberculosis bacillus showed a remarkable ability to adapt � so that at the very moment it could have been extinguished as a threat to humanity, it found a way back, aided by authoritarian government, toxic kindness of philanthropists, science denialism and medical apartheid.

Krishnan’s original reporting paints a granular portrait of the post-antibiotic era as a new, aggressive, drug resistant strain of TB takes over. Phantom Plague is an urgent, riveting and fascinating narrative that deftly exposes the weakest links in our battle against this ancient foe.Ěý]]> 320 Vidya Krishnan 1541768469 Go-go 0 to-read 3.90 2022 The Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis Shaped History
author: Vidya Krishnan
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
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]]> A Visit from the Goon Squad 7331435
We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city’s demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own while staring at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life—divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house—and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco’s punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang—who thrived and who faltered—and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie’s catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou’s far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both—and escape the merciless progress of time—in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.]]> 274 Jennifer Egan 0307592839 Go-go 0 to-read 3.70 2010 A Visit from the Goon Squad
author: Jennifer Egan
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Abridged Classics: Brief Summaries of Books You Were Supposed to Read but Probably Didn't]]> 36220699 160 John Atkinson 0062747851 Go-go 0 to-read 4.04 2018 Abridged Classics: Brief Summaries of Books You Were Supposed to Read but Probably Didn't
author: John Atkinson
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Politics and the English Language]]> 6324725 20 George Orwell Go-go 0 to-read 4.30 1946 Politics and the English Language
author: George Orwell
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1946
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]]> <![CDATA[Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol]]> 1430688
For better or worse, alcohol has helped shape our civilization. Throughout history, it has been consumed not just to quench our thirsts or nourish our bodies but also for cultural reasons. It has been associated since antiquity with celebration, creativity, friendship, and danger, for every drinking culture has acknowledged it possesses a dark side.

In Drink, Iain Gately traces the course of humanity's 10,000 year old love affair with the substance which has been dubbed the cause of - and solution to - all of life's problems. Along the way he scrutinises the drinking habits of presidents, prophets, and barbarian hordes, and features drinkers as diverse as Homer, Hemmingway, Shakespeare, Al Capone, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. Covering matters as varied as bacchanals in Imperial Rome, the gin craze in 17th century London, the rise and fall of the temperance movement, and drunk driving, Drink details the benefits and burdens alcohol has conveyed to the societies in which it is consumed. Gately's lively and provocative style brings to life the controversies, past and present, that have raged over alcohol, and uses the authentic voices of drinkers and their detractors to explode myths and reveal truths about this most equivocal of fluids.

Drink further documents the contribution of alcohol to the birth and growth of the United States, taking in the war of Independence, the Pennsylvania Whiskey revolt, the slave trade, and the failed experiment of National Prohibition. Finally, it provides a history of the world's best loved drinks. Enthusiasts of craft brews and fine wines will discover the origins of their favorite tipples, and what they have in common with Greek philosophers and medieval princes every time they raise a glass.

A rollicking tour through humanity's love affair with alcohol, Drink is an intoxicating history of civilization]]> 560 Iain Gately 1592403034 Go-go 0 to-read 3.85 2008 Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol
author: Iain Gately
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[How To Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals]]> 37569338 National Book Award finalist Sy Montgomery reflects on the personalities and quirks of 13 animals--her friends--who have profoundly affected her in this stunning, poetic, and life-affirming memoir featuring illustrations by Rebecca Green.

Understanding someone who belongs to another species can be transformative. No one knows this better than author, naturalist, and adventurer Sy Montgomery. To research her books, Sy has traveled the world and encountered some of the planet's rarest and most beautiful animals. From tarantulas to tigers, Sy's life continually intersects with and is informed by the creatures she meets.

This restorative memoir reflects on the personalities and quirks of thirteen animals--Sy's friends--and the truths revealed by their grace. It also explores vast themes: the otherness and sameness of people and animals; the various ways we learn to love and become empathetic; how we find our passion; how we create our families; coping with loss and despair; gratitude; forgiveness; and most of all, how to be a good creature in the world.]]> 208 Sy Montgomery 0544938321 Go-go 0 to-read 4.04 2018 How To Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals
author: Sy Montgomery
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2018
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date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> The Things We Cannot Say 40899464
Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents� farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief.

Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative that weaves together two women’s stories into a tapestry of perseverance, loyalty, love and honor. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silenced…and how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it.]]> 448 Kelly Rimmer 1525831518 Go-go 0 to-read 4.51 2019 The Things We Cannot Say
author: Kelly Rimmer
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2019
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]]> Dictionary of Slang 833789 1316 Jonathon Green 0304351679 Go-go 0 to-read 4.31 1999 Dictionary of Slang
author: Jonathon Green
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1999
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]]> <![CDATA[Chasing the Sun: Dictionary-Makers and the Dictionaries They Made]]> 924268 Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
The first lexicographers & the first "dictionaries"
The middle ages: putting it in order
The move from Latin
Vulgar tongues
Slang: part 1
The seventeenth century: hard words
The seventeenth century: variations & themes
The early eighteenth century
Samuel Johnson: the pivotal moment
America: the years before Webster
America: Noah Webster & Joseph Worcester
The new philology
The New English Dictionary
Slang: part 2
The modern world
Notes
Bibliography
Index]]> 525 Jonathon Green 0805034668 Go-go 0 to-read 3.49 1996 Chasing the Sun: Dictionary-Makers and the Dictionaries They Made
author: Jonathon Green
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1996
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]]> Underground Airlines 32940838 As he works to infiltrate the local cell of a abolitionist movement called the Underground Airlines, tracking Jackdaw through the back rooms of churches, empty parking garages, hotels, and medical offices, Victor believes he's hot on the trail. But his strange, increasingly uncanny pursuit is complicated by a boss who won't reveal the extraordinary stakes of Jackdaw's case, as well as by a heartbreaking young woman and her child--who may be Victor's salvation.
Victor believes himself to be a good man doing bad work, unwilling to give up the freedom he has worked so hard to earn. But in pursuing Jackdaw, Victor discovers secrets at the core of the country's arrangement with the Hard Four, secrets the government will preserve at any cost.
Underground Airlines is a ground-breaking novel, a wickedly imaginative thriller, and a story of an America that is more like our own than we'd like to believe.]]> 336 Ben H. Winters 0316261254 Go-go 0 to-read 3.75 2016 Underground Airlines
author: Ben H. Winters
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
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]]> <![CDATA[Ben H. Winters Last Policeman Trilogy: The Last Policeman, Countdown City, World of Trouble]]> 33537579 What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die? Detective Hank Palace has asked this question ever since asteroid 2011L47J hovered into view. Several kilometers wide, it’s on a collision course with planet Earth, with just six precious months until impact. The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. Industry is grinding to a halt. Most people have abandoned their jobs. But not Hank Palace; he’s investigating the latest suicide in a city that’s full of suicides � only this one feels wrong. This one feels like homicide. And Palace is the only one who cares. COUNTDOWN CITY
There are just 77 days to go before a deadly asteroid collides with Earth, and Detective Hank Palace is out of a job. With the Concord police force operating under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, Hank’s days of solving crimes are over—until a woman from his past begs for help finding her missing husband. Brett Cavatone disappeared without a trace—an easy feat in a world with no phones, no cars, and no way to tell whether someone’s gone “bucket list� or just gone. With society falling to shambles, Hank pieces together what few clues he can, on a search that leads him from a college-campus-turned-anarchist-encampment to a crumbling coastal landscape where anti-immigrant militia fend off “impact zone� refugees.What do we as human beings owe to one another? And what does it mean to be civilized when civilization is collapsing all around you? WORLD OF TROUBLE
There are just 14 days until a deadly asteroid hits the planet, and America has fallen into chaos. Citizens have barricaded themselves inside basements, emergency shelters, and big-box retail stores. Cash is worthless; bottled water is valuable beyond measure. All over the world, everyone is bracing for the end. But Detective Hank Palace still has one last case to solve. His beloved sister Nico was last seen in the company of suspicious radicals, armed with heavy artillery and a plan to save humanity. Hank's search for Nico takes him from Massachusetts to Ohio, from abandoned zoos and fast food restaurants to a deserted police station where he uncovers evidence of a brutal crime. With time running out, Hank follows the clues to a series of earth-shattering revelations. How far would you go to protect a loved one? And how would you choose to spend your last days on Earth?]]> 0 Ben H. Winters 1536670685 Go-go 0 to-read 4.19 2017 Ben H. Winters Last Policeman Trilogy: The Last Policeman, Countdown City, World of Trouble
author: Ben H. Winters
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.19
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]]> Eastern Standard Tribe 29589 A comedy of loyalty, betrayal, sex, madness, and music-swapping

Art is an up-and-coming interface designer, working on the management of data flow along the Massachusetts Turnpike. He's doing the best work of his career and can guarantee that the system will be, without a question, the most counterintuitive, user-hostile piece of software ever pushed forth onto the world.

Why? Because Art is an industrial saboteur. He may live in London and work for an EU telecommunications megacorp, but Art's real home is the Eastern Standard Tribe.

Instant wireless communication puts everyone in touch with everyone else, twenty-four hours a day. But one thing hasn't changed: the need for sleep. The world is slowly splintering into Tribes held together by a common time zone, less than family and more than nations. Art is working to humiliate the Greenwich Mean Tribe to the benefit of his own people. But in a world without boundaries, nothing can be taken for granted-not happiness, not money, and most certainly not love.

Which might explain why Art finds himself stranded on the roof of an insane asylum outside Boston, debating whether to push a pencil into his brain....]]> 232 Cory Doctorow 0765310457 Go-go 0 to-read 3.48 2004 Eastern Standard Tribe
author: Cory Doctorow
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2004
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]]> <![CDATA[Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom]]> 29587 On The Skids In The Transhuman Future

Jules is a young man barely a century old. He's lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphonies...and to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World.

Disney World! The greatest artistic achievement of the long-ago twentieth century. Now in the keeping of a network of "ad-hocs" who keep the classic attractions running as they always have, enhanced with only the smallest high-tech touches.

Now, though, the "ad hocs" are under attack. A new group has taken over the Hall of the Presidents, and is replacing its venerable audioanimatronics with new, immersive direct-to-brain interfaces that give guests the illusion of being Washington, Lincoln, and all the others. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of Disney World itself.

Worse: it appears this new group has had Jules killed. This upsets him. (It's only his fourth death and revival, after all.) Now it's war....]]> 208 Cory Doctorow 076530953X Go-go 0 to-read 3.57 2003 Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
author: Cory Doctorow
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2003
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]]> The Android's Dream 7081
A sheep.

That's right, a sheep. And if you think that's the most surprising thing about this book, wait until you read Chapter One. Welcome to The Android's Dream.

For Harry Creek, it's quickly becoming a nightmare. All he wants is to do his uncomplicated mid-level diplomatic job with Earth's State Department. But his past training and skills get him tapped to save the planet--and to protect pet store owner Robin Baker, whose own past holds the key to the whereabouts of that lost sheep. Doing both will take him from lava-strewn battlefields to alien halls of power. All in a day's work. Maybe it's time for a raise.

Throw in two-timing freelance mercenaries, political lobbyists with megalomaniac tendencies, aliens on a religious quest, and an artificial intelligence with unusual backstory, and you've got more than just your usual science fiction adventure story. You've got The Android's Dream.]]> 396 John Scalzi 0765309416 Go-go 0 to-read 3.97 2006 The Android's Dream
author: John Scalzi
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2006
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]]> Redshirts 13055592 Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory.

Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that:
(1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces
(2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations
(3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues� understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.]]> 320 John Scalzi 0765316994 Go-go 0 to-read 3.85 2012 Redshirts
author: John Scalzi
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2012
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]]> <![CDATA[Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)]]> 36510196
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

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

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.]]> 318 John Scalzi Go-go 0 to-read 4.25 2005 Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)
author: John Scalzi
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.25
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]]> <![CDATA[The Big Sheep (The Big Sheep, #1)]]> 26114341
But while the erratic Keane and his more grounded partner, Blake Fowler, are on the trail of the lost sheep, they land an even bigger case. Beautiful television star Priya Mistry suspects that someone is trying to kill her - and she wants Keane to find out who. When Priya vanishes and then reappears with no memory of having hired them, Keane and Fowler realize something very strange is going on. As they unravel the threads of the mystery, it soon becomes clear that the two cases are connected - and both point to a sinister conspiracy involving the most powerful people in the city. Saving Priya and the sheep will take all of Keane's wits and Fowler's skills, but in the end, they may discover that some secrets are better left hidden.

Kroese's The Big Sheep is perfect for fans of Philip Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards!, and Scalzi's Old Man's War.]]> 320 Robert Kroese 1250088445 Go-go 0 to-read 3.64 2016 The Big Sheep (The Big Sheep, #1)
author: Robert Kroese
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2016
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]]> <![CDATA[Going Postal: Stage Adaptation]]> 18475981 128 Stephen Briggs 1472537068 Go-go 0 4.63 2013 Going Postal: Stage Adaptation
author: Stephen Briggs
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2013
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]]> <![CDATA[Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Dirk Gently, #1)]]> 365
Apparently not much; until Dirk Gently, self-styled private investigator, sets out to prove the fundamental interconnectedness of all things by solving a mysterious murder, assisting a mysterious professor, unravelling a mysterious mystery, and eating a lot of pizza � not to mention saving the entire human race from extinction along the way (at no extra charge).

To find out more, read this book (better still, buy it, then read it) â€� or contact Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. â€A thumping good detective-ghost-horror-whodunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy epic.â€� The author]]> 306 Douglas Adams Go-go 0 3.98 1987 Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Dirk Gently, #1)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way]]> 29
From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most-spoken tongue; its apparent simplicity to its deceptive complexity; its vibrant swearing to its uncertain spelling and pronunciation; Bryson covers all this as well as the many curious eccentricities that make it as maddening to learn as it is flexible to use.

Bill Bryson's classic Mother Tongue is a highly readable and hilarious tale of how English came to be the world's language.]]> 270 Bill Bryson 0380715430 Go-go 0 3.91 1990 The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
author: Bill Bryson
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1990
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]]> <![CDATA[Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation]]> 18693773 The author of Reading the OED presents a look at language “mistakes� and how they came to be accepted as correct—or not.

English is a glorious mess of a language, cobbled together from a wide variety of sources and syntaxes, and changing over time with popular usage. Many of the words and usages we embrace as standard and correct today were at first considered slang, impolite, or just plain wrong. Filled with historic and contemporary examples, the book chronicles the long and entertaining history of language mistakes, and features some of our most common words and phrases. This is a book that will settle arguments among word lovers—and it’s sure to start a few, too.]]> 272 Ammon Shea 0399165576 Go-go 0 to-read 3.64 2014 Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation
author: Ammon Shea
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2014
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]]> <![CDATA[Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages]]> 2300922
So reports Ammon Shea, the tireless, word-obsessed, and more than slightly masochistic author of Reading the OED, the word lover's Mount Everest, the OED has enthralled logophiles since its initial publication 80 years ago. Weighing in at 137 pounds, it is the dictionary to end all dictionaries. In 26 chapters filled with sharp wit, sheer delight, and a documentarian's keen eye, Shea shares his year inside the OED, delivering a hair-pulling, eye-crossing account of reading every word, and revealing the most obscure, hilarious, and wonderful gems he discovers along the way.]]> 223 Ammon Shea 0399533982 Go-go 0 3.73 2008 Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages
author: Ammon Shea
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2008
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]]> <![CDATA["Talking Proper": The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol]]> 9526974 still current peculiarities of English speech.]]> 362 Lynda Mugglestone 0198237065 Go-go 0 to-read 4.12 1995 "Talking Proper": The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol
author: Lynda Mugglestone
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1995
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]]> <![CDATA[Lost for Words: The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary]]> 331111 Oxford English Dictionary (OED) holds a cherished position in English literary culture. The story behind the creation of what is indisputably the greatest dictionary in the language has become a popular fascination. This book looks at the history of the great first edition of 1928, and at the men (and occasionally women) who distilled words and usages from centuries of English writing and “through an act of intellectual alchemy captured the spirit of a civilization.�
The task of the dictionary was to bear full and impartial witness to the language it recorded. But behind the immaculate typography of the finished text, the proofs tell a very different story. This vast archive, unexamined until now, reveals the arguments and controversies over meanings, definitions, and pronunciation, and which words and senses were acceptable—and which were not.
Lost for Words examines the hidden history by which the great dictionary came into being, tracing—through letters and archives—the personal battles involved in charting a constantly changing language. Then as now, lexicographers reveal themselves vulnerable to the prejudices of their own linguistic preferences and to the influence of contemporary social history.]]> 273 Lynda Mugglestone 0300106998 Go-go 0 to-read 3.93 2005 Lost for Words: The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary
author: Lynda Mugglestone
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2005
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]]> Anxious People 49127718 A poignant, charming novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined

Looking at real estate isn't usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can't fix up their own marriage. There's a wealthy banker who has been too busy making money to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can't seem to agree on anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment's only bathroom, and you've got the worst group of hostages in the world.

Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises, these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in a motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.

Humorous, compassionate, and wise, Anxious People is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious of times.

Includes short story - The Last Round of Golf]]> 336 Fredrik Backman 198216963X Go-go 0 4.17 2019 Anxious People
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Maths Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets]]> 45362835 A groundbreaking exploration of how the interplay of physics and mathematics has enriched our understanding of the universe - essential reading for anyone who wants to grasp how physicists are attempting, in Stephen Hawking's words, to 'know the mind of God'.

One of the great mysteries of science is that underlying all the complexities of the universe is a harmonious order, whose existence Einstein described as 'a miracle'. No less miraculous, the fundamental laws of the universe can be written in the language of advanced mathematics.

Searching for these laws, physicists have found themselves developing ambitious mathematical ideas without experiment as their guide. In The Universe Speaks in Numbers, Graham Farmelo demonstrates how today's greatest scientific minds are working in a tradition that dates back to Newton. He takes us on an adventure from the Enlightenment, through the breakthroughs of Einstein and Dirac, to the contemporary physicists and mathematicians who are shedding fascinating light on each other's disciplines. As Farmelo shows, this blossoming relationship between mathematics and physics is responsible for huge, redefining advances in our understanding of reality, space and time.

Always lively, vivid and authoritative, Farmelo guides the reader through the most thrilling and controversial developments in contemporary thought.

LISTEN TO THE ACCOMPANYING PODCAST featuring interviews with leading scientists at

'A superbly written, riveting book. In elegant prose, and using virtually no equations, Farmelo describes the ongoing quest of great thinkers to understand the bedrock nature of reality' Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge

'I am overcome with admiration for this book's range and profundity ... An amazing achievement' Michael Frayn, award-winning writer of Copenhagen

'Masterful ... a riveting account of one of the greatest stories of our time' Nima Arkani-Hamed, Professor at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton

]]> 349 Graham Farmelo Go-go 0 to-read 3.70 2019 The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Maths Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets
author: Graham Farmelo
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2019
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]]> <![CDATA[Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1)]]> 24983
But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin--barely of age herself--finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history's darkest hours.

Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of the human spirit.]]> 578 Connie Willis 0553562738 Go-go 0 to-read 4.02 1992 Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1)
author: Connie Willis
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[To Say Nothing of the Dog (Oxford Time Travel, #2)]]> 77773 From Connie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, comes a comedic romp through an unpredictable world of mystery, love, and time travel.

Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He’s been shuttling between the twenty-first century and the 1940s in search of a hideous Victorian vase called “the bishop’s bird stump� as part of a project to restore the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid.

But then Verity Kindle, a fellow time traveler, inadvertently brings back something from the past. Now Ned must jump to the Victorian era to help Verity put things right—not only to save the project but also to prevent altering history itself.]]> 493 Connie Willis 0553575384 Go-go 0 to-read 4.11 1997 To Say Nothing of the Dog (Oxford Time Travel, #2)
author: Connie Willis
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Light Fantastic (Discworld, #2; Rincewind, #2)]]> 34506 277 Terry Pratchett 0061020702 Go-go 0 to-read 3.98 1986 The Light Fantastic (Discworld, #2; Rincewind, #2)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/03
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]]> <![CDATA[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]]> 162898
Written in 1889, Mark 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' is one of literature's first genre mash-ups and one of the first works to feature time travel. It is one of the best known Twain stories, and also one of his most unique. Twain uses the work to launch a social commentary on contemporary society, a thinly veiled critique of the contemporary times despite the Old World setting.

While the dark pessimism that would fully blossom in Twain's later works can be discerned in 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, ' the novel will nevertheless be remembered primarily for its wild leaps of imagination, brilliant wit, and entertaining storytelling.]]> 480 Mark Twain Go-go 0 to-read 3.80 1889 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
author: Mark Twain
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1889
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wee Free Men (Discworld, #30; Tiffany Aching, #1)]]> 34494 Librarian's Note: For an alternate cover edition of the same ISBN, click here.

"Another world is colliding with this one," said the toad. "All the monsters are coming back."

"Why?" said Tiffany.

"There's no one to stop them."

There was silence for a moment.

Then Tiffany said, "There's me."

Armed only with a frying pan and her common sense, Tiffany Aching, a young witch-to-be, is all that stands between the monsters of Fairyland and the warm, green Chalk country that is her home. Forced into Fairyland to seek her kidnapped brother, Tiffany allies herself with the Chalk's local Nac Mac Feegle - aka the Wee Free Men - a clan of sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men who are as fierce as they are funny. Together they battle through an eerie and ever-shifting landscape, fighting brutal flying fairies, dream-spinning dromes, and grimhounds - black dogs with eyes of fire and teeth of razors - before ultimately confronting the Queen of the Elves, absolute ruler of a world in which reality intertwines with nightmare. And in the final showdown, Tiffany must face her cruel power alone...

In a riveting narrative that is equal parts suspense and humor, Carnegie Medalist Terry Pratchett returns to his internationally popular Discworld with a breathtaking tale certain to leave fans, new and old, enthralled.]]> 375 Terry Pratchett 0060012382 Go-go 0 to-read 4.29 2003 The Wee Free Men (Discworld, #30; Tiffany Aching, #1)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch, #1)]]> 64216 376 Terry Pratchett 0061020648 Go-go 0 to-read 4.33 1989 Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch, #1)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/03
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]]> Bell Hammers 48731251 Carpenters take on an oil company using practical jokes. Based on interviews with the author's grandfather.

"Schaubert recounts a mischievous man's eight decades in Illinois's Little Egypt region in his picaresque debut. Remmy's life of constant schemes and pranks and a lifelong feud with classmate Jim Johnstone and the local oil drilling company proves consequential. This is a hoot."
- Publisher's Weekly

PRANKS. OIL. PROTEST. JOKES BETWEEN NEWLYWEDS.

AND ONE HILARIOUS SIEGE OF A MAJOR CORPORATION.

Remmy grows up with Beth in Bellhammer, Illinois as oil and coal companies rob the land of everything that made it paradise. Under his Grandad, he learns how to properly prank his neighbors, friends, and foes. Beth tries to fix Remmy by taking him to church. Under his Daddy, Remmy starts the Bell Hammer Construction Company, which depends on contracts from Texarco Oil. And Beth argues with him about how to build a better business. Together, Remmy and Beth start to build a great neighborhood of "merry men" carpenters: a paradise of s’mores, porch furniture, newborn babies, and summer trips to Branson where their boys pop the tops off of the neighborhood’s two hundred soda bottles. Their witty banter builds a kind of castle among a growing nostalgia.

Then one of Jim Johnstone’s faulty Texarco oil derricks falls down on their house and poisons their neighborhood's well.

Poisoned wells escalate to torched dog houses. Torched dog houses escalate to stolen carpentry tools and cancelled contracts. Cancelled contracts escalate to eminent domain. Sick of the attacks from Texaco Oil on his neighborhood, Remmy assembles his merry men:

"We need the world's greatest prank. One grand glorious jest that'll bloody the nose of that tyrant. Besides, pranks and jokes don't got no consequences, right?"]]> 334 Lancelot Schaubert 1949547027 Go-go 0 to-read 4.19 2020 Bell Hammers
author: Lancelot Schaubert
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2020
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]]> <![CDATA[And Another Thing... (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #6)]]> 6359434 AN ENGLISHMAN'S CONTINUING SEARCH THROUGH SPACE AND TIME FOR A DECENT CUP OF TEA...

Arthur Dent's accidental association with that wholly remarkable book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has not been entirely without incident.

Arthur has traveled the length, breadth, and depth of known, and unknown, space. He has stumbled forward and backward through time. He has been blown up, reassembled, cruelly imprisoned, horribly released, and colorfully insulted more than is strictly necessary. And of course Arthur Dent has comprehensively failed to grasp the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

Arthur has finally made it home to Earth, but that does not mean he has escaped his fate.

Arthur's chances of getting his hands on a decent cuppa have evaporated rapidly, along with all the world's oceans. For no sooner has he touched down on the planet Earth than he finds out that it is about to be blown up...again.

And Another Thing...is the rather unexpected, but very welcome, sixth installment of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It features a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone's favorite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer, and at least one very large slab of cheese.]]> 275 Eoin Colfer 1401323588 Go-go 0 to-read 3.58 2009 And Another Thing... (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #6)
author: Eoin Colfer
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2009
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]]> <![CDATA[The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently, #2)]]> 357 307 Douglas Adams 0671742515 Go-go 0 to-read 4.05 1988 The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently, #2)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/03
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]]> Picture This 10712 A keenly satirical look at the world of art and museums by the author of the modern classic, Catch-22.]]> 351 Joseph Heller 0684868199 Go-go 0 to-read 3.73 1988 Picture This
author: Joseph Heller
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Naming of Names: The Search for Order in the World of Plants]]> 1511395
The Naming of Names traces the search for order in the natural world, a search that for hundreds of years occupied some of the most brilliant minds in Europe.

Redefining man's relationship with nature was a major pursuit during the Renaissance. But in a world full of poisons, there was also an urgent practical need to name and recognize different plants, because most medicines were made from plant extracts.

Anna Pavord takes us on a thrilling adventure into botanical history, traveling from Athens in the third century BC, through Constantinople, Venice, the medical school at Salerno to the universities of Pisa and Padua. The journey, traced here for the first time, involves the culture of Islam, the first expeditions to the Indies and the first settlers in the New World.

In Athens, Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus was the first man ever to write a book about plants. How can we name, sort, and order them? He asked. The debate continues still, two thousand years later. Sumptuously illustrated in full colour, The Naming of Names gives a compelling insight into a world full of intrigue and intensely competitive egos.]]> 480 Anna Pavord 1596910712 Go-go 0 to-read 4.12 2005 The Naming of Names: The Search for Order in the World of Plants
author: Anna Pavord
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Spice: The History of a Temptation]]> 210364
It was in search of the fabled Spice Islands and their cloves that Magellan charted the first circumnavigation of the globe. Vasco da Gama sailed the dangerous waters around Africa to India on a quest for Christians--and spices. Columbus sought gold and pepper but found the New World. By the time these fifteenth- and sixteenth-century explorers set sail, the aromas of these savory, seductive seeds and powders had tempted the palates and imaginations of Europe for centuries.

"Spice: The History of a Temptation "is a history of the spice trade told not in the conventional narrative of politics and economics, nor of conquest and colonization, but through the intimate human impulses that inspired and drove it. Here is an exploration of the centuries-old desire for spice in food, in medicine, in magic, in religion, and in sex--and of the allure of forbidden fruit lingering in the scents of cinnamon, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, mace, and clove.
We follow spices back through time, through history, myth, archaeology, and literature. We see spices in all their diversity, lauded as love potions and aphrodisiacs, as panaceas and defenses against the plague. We journey from religious rituals in which spices were employed to dispel demons and summon gods to prodigies of gluttony both fantastical and real. We see spices as a luxury for a medieval king's ostentation, as a mummy's deodorant, as the last word in haute cuisine.

Through examining the temptations of spice we follow in the trails of the spice seekers leading from the deserts of ancient Syria to thrill-seekers on the Internet. We discover howspice became one of the first and most enduring links between Asia and Europe. We see in the pepper we use so casually the relic of a tradition linking us to the appetites of Rome, Elizabethan England, and the pharaohs. And we capture the pleasure of spice not only at the table but in every part of life.

"Spice "is a delight to be savored.]]> 384 Jack Turner 0375707050 Go-go 0 to-read 3.63 2004 Spice: The History of a Temptation
author: Jack Turner
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Tears of the Cheetah: The Genetic Secrets of Our Animal Ancestors]]> 654855
In Tears of the Cheetah, medical geneticist and conservationist Stephen J. O'Brien narrates fast-moving science adventure stories that explore the mysteries of survival among the earth's most endangered and beloved wildlife. Here we uncover the secret histories of exotic species such as Indonesian orangutans, humpback whales, and the imperiled cheetah-the world's fastest animal which nonetheless cannot escape its own genetic weaknesses.

Among these genetic detective stories we also discover how the Serengeti lions have lived with FIV (the feline version of HIV), where giant pandas really come from, how bold genetic action pulled the Florida panther from the edge of extinction, how the survivors of the medieval Black Death passed on a genetic gift to their descendents, and how mapping the genome of the domestic cat solved a murder case in Canada.

With each riveting account of animal resilience and adaptation, a remarkable parallel in human medicine is drawn, adding yet another rationale for species conservation-mining their genomes for cures to our own fatal diseases. Tears of the Cheetah offers a fascinating glimpse of the insight gained when geneticists venutre into the wild.
]]> 287 Stephen J. O'Brien 0312339003 Go-go 0 to-read 4.15 2003 Tears of the Cheetah: The Genetic Secrets of Our Animal Ancestors
author: Stephen J. O'Brien
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Oh Honey 35716417 They hang up.
“Hello. My name is Joan. I am calling on behalf of—�
They hang up.
“Hello. My name’s Doreen.�

Jane is a telemarketer. She uses a different name each time, and soon it becomes clear that she is calling the same man again and again. Each call is a new battle between them, with him becoming angrier and more threatening. But Jane isn’t calling him at random; Jane has a purpose; Jane has a past which seems to change each time she tells it. The story is revealed through exchanges like ritual incantations.

As the story twists and turns in unexpected ways, it moves from amusing to terrifying—a transition that Austin also handles expertly. A well-crafted and engaging novel, even when the protagonist’s actions are hard to take. –Kirkus Reviews]]> 140 Emily R. Austin Go-go 0 to-read 3.90 2017 Oh Honey
author: Emily R. Austin
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/19
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]]> Love; A Curious History 89977011 From the author of the critically acclaimed The Phantom Atlas ˛ą˛Ô»ĺâ€�The Madman’s Libraryâ€�(Sunday Times Literature Book of the Year) comes a magnificent new illustrated work. From prehistoric carvings and ancient Egyptian statues, to medieval spell books and Victorian code-writing, this unique collection gathers a wealth of curious objects and surprising stories to trace the story of love through the ages.Ěý

Discover the royal marriage that crossed the boundary of death in 14th-century Portugal, the judicial duels between husbands and wives in Early Modern Europe, the love spells found in medieval manuscripts, and the romantic codes hidden in some of art’s greatest masterpieces. Meet the feared ancient Greek army regiment comprised entirely of male couples; the French pirate queen avenging her murdered husband; the first woman to sail around the world; and the quack sexologist who conned 18th-century London with his musical mechanical bed. Here are ancient gods, mythical monsters, the Elizabethan portraits of smiling men on fire and the erotic paintings hidden beneath the ash of Pompeii, as well as Nigerian wedding chains, Welsh love spoons, cryptic postcards and the centuries-old cartographic tradition of mapping the heart.Ěý

A curiosity cabinet of romantic treasure, A Curious History in 50 Objects draws on a wide range of sources to form a collection perfect for fans of beautiful illustrated works and curious history, while also forming the ideal romantic gift.Ěý]]> 240 Edward Brooke-Hitching 1398522724 Go-go 0 to-read 4.43 2023 Love; A Curious History
author: Edward Brooke-Hitching
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Fake History: 101 Things that Never Happened]]> 60049869
*Spoiler Alert* The answer to all those questions is no. From the famous quote 'Let them eat cake' - mistakenly attributed to Marie Antoinette - to the apocryphal horns that adorned Viking helmets, fake history continues to shape the story we tell about who we are and how we got here. With doctored photographs, AI-generated images and false claims about the past circulating in the news and on social media, separating fact from fiction seems harder than ever before.

Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse, better known as The Fake History Hunter , is on a one-woman mission to hunt down fake history and reclaim the truth for the rest of us. In this fascinating and illuminating book, Teeuwisse debunks 101 myths so you can correct your friends and family, and arm yourself with the tools to spot and debunk fake history wherever you encounter it.]]> 416 Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse 0753559676 Go-go 0 to-read 3.56 2023 Fake History: 101 Things that Never Happened
author: Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Consuming Habits: Drugs in History and Anthropology]]> 8170463
Psychoactive substances have been central to the formation of civilizations and the growth of the world economy. Consuming Habits describes how and why:


tea and coffee replaced beer on the breakfast tables of 18th century Europe
in Islamic emirates at the turn of the century kola nuts formed part of tax payments, and were given as gifts by so-called big men'
In 1902 opera singers had their doctors prescribe them cocaine to aid singing
the original version of coca-cola' was described as a brain tonic.'
This pioneering collection of original essays explores the rich analytical category of psychoactive substances from challenging historical and anthropological perspectives.]]> 260 Jordan Goodman 0415090393 Go-go 0 to-read 3.83 1995 Consuming Habits: Drugs in History and Anthropology
author: Jordan Goodman
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1995
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date added: 2024/10/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Bowie's Bookshelf: The Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie's Life]]> 43822671 Bowie’s Bookshelf is a collection of mini-essays exploring David Bowie’s list of 100 favorite books in the context of the artist’s life and work.

Imagine a beloved friend sharing their favorite books with you—the ones that shaped them, made them who they are, and inspired them to achieve their dreams. Now imagine that friend is David Bowie.

Three years before he died, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award-winning artist David Bowie shared a list of the hundred books that changed his life—a wide-ranging and eclectic selection that spans beloved classics like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and George Orwell’s 1984, to more esoteric gems like Fran Lebowitz’s Metropolitan Life and Hubert Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, and even cult comic strips like Beano and Raw.

Bowie’s Bookshelf celebrates each of Bowie’s favorite books with a dedicated mini-essay, exploring each work within the context of Bowie’s life and its role in shaping one of the most versatile, avant-garde, and cutting-edge musicians of the twentieth century. A fresh approach to celebrating the enduring legacy of David Bowie, Bowie’s Bookshelf is a resounding tribute to the power art has to change our lives for the better.]]> 320 John O'Connell 1982112549 Go-go 0 to-read 3.76 2019 Bowie's Bookshelf: The Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie's Life
author: John O'Connell
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2019
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date added: 2024/10/13
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]]> <![CDATA[The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity]]> 201102397 THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER
An International Bestseller
A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read Book
An Amazon Best Book

From New York Times bestselling author of The Mosquito, the incredible story of how the horse shaped human history

The Horse is an epic history unlike any other. Its story begins more than 5,500 years ago on the windswept grasslands of the Eurasian Steppe. When one human tamed one horse, an unbreakable bond was forged and the future of humanity was instantly rewritten, placing the reins of destiny firmly in human hands.

Since that pivotal day, the horse has carried the fate of civilizations on its powerful back. For millennia it was the primary mode of transportation, an essential farming machine, a steadfast companion, and a formidable weapon of war. Possessing a unique combination of size, speed, strength, and stamina, the horse dominated every facet of human life and shaped the very scope of human ambition. And we still live among its galloping shadows.

From the thundering cavalry charges of Alexander the Great to the streets of New York during the Great Manure Crisis of 1894 and beyond, horses have shaped both the grand arc of history and our everyday lives. Horses revolutionized the way we hunted, traded, traveled, farmed, fought, worshipped, and interacted. They fundamentally reshaped the human genome and the world's linguistic map. They determined international borders, molded cultures, fueled economies, and built global superpowers. They decided the destinies of conquerors and empires. They were vectors of lethal disease, and contributed to lifesaving medical innovations. Horses even inspired architecture, invention, furniture, and fashion.

Driven by fascinating revelations and fast-paced storytelling, The Horse is a riveting narrative of this noble animal's unrivaled and enduring reign across human history. To know the horse is to understand the world.]]> 544 Timothy C. Winegard 0593186087 Go-go 0 to-read 4.01 2024 The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity
author: Timothy C. Winegard
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
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date added: 2024/10/13
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]]> <![CDATA[The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality]]> 176443264 Cultish and host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, a delicious blend of cultural criticism and personal narrative that explores our cognitive biases and the power, disadvantages, and highlights of magical thinking.

Utilizing the linguistic insights of her “witty and brilliant� first book Wordslut and the sociological explorations of her breakout hit Cultish, Amanda Montell now turns her erudite eye to the inner workings of the human mind and its biases in her most personal and electrifying work yet.

“Magical thinking� can be broadly defined as the belief that one’s internal thoughts can affect unrelated events in the external Think of the conviction that one can manifest their way out of poverty, stave off cancer with positive vibes, thwart the apocalypse by learning to can their own peaches, or transform an unhealthy relationship to a glorious one with loyalty alone. In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but in The Age of Magical Overthinking, Montell argues that in the modern information age, our brain’s coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to an eleven.

In a series of razor sharp, deeply funny chapters, Montell delves into a cornucopia of the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, from how the “Halo effect� cultivates worship (and hatred) of larger than life celebrities, to how the “Sunk Cost Fallacy� can keep us in detrimental relationships long after we’ve realized they’re not serving us. As she illuminates these concepts with her signature brilliance and wit, Montell’s prevailing message is one of hope, empathy, and ultimately forgiveness for our anxiety-addled human selves. If you have all but lost faith in our ability to reason, Montell aims to make some sense of the senseless. To crack open a window in our minds, and let a warm breeze in. To help quiet the cacophony for a while, or even hear a melody in it.]]> 259 Amanda Montell 1668007975 Go-go 0 to-read 3.44 2024 The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality
author: Amanda Montell
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2024
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date added: 2024/10/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart, and Mind]]> 22571508
Johns Hopkins neuroscientist and bestselling author of The Compass of Pleasure ĚýDavid J. Linden presents an engaging and fascinating examination of how the interface between our sense of touch and our emotional responses affects our social interactions as well as our general health and development. Accessible in its wit and clarity, Touch explores scientific advances in the understanding of touch that help explain our sense of self and our experience of the world.

From skin to nerves to brain, the organization of the body’s touch circuits powerfully influences our lives—affecting everything from consumer choice to sexual intercourse, tool use to the origins of language, chronic pain to healing. Interpersonal touch is crucial to social bonding and individual development. Linden lucidly explains how sensory and emotional context work together to distinguish between perceptions of what feels good and what feels bad. Linking biology and behavioral science, Linden offers an entertaining and enlightening answer to how we feel in every sense of the word.]]> 272 David J. Linden 0670014877 Go-go 0 3.48 Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart, and Mind
author: David J. Linden
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.48
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date added: 2024/10/01
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]]> <![CDATA[On the Tip of My Tongue: The perfect word for every life moment]]> 60382801
Divided into sections spanning dating, personal development, show business, compliments, curses, complaining without being a Karen, and more, discover words and phrases Ěý Ěý With Tom’s wit and lifelong loveĚýofĚýwords by your side, you’ll never be lost for words again , whether you are trying to understand the many metaphors for sex or trying to tell your mother you love her. This is a delightful and hilarious etymological solutionĚýtoĚýtheĚýDear MaryĚýdilemmas and conundrumsĚýofĚýmodern life and a must-read for every budding vocabularian.]]> 176 Tom Read Wilson 0711276676 Go-go 0 3.79 On the Tip of My Tongue: The perfect word for every life moment
author: Tom Read Wilson
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.79
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date added: 2024/09/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope]]> 61613477 The bestselling author of How to Live and At the Existentialist Café explores seven hundred years of writers, thinkers, scientists, and artists, all trying to understand what it means to be truly human

Humanism is an expansive tradition of thought that places shared humanity, cultural vibrancy, and moral responsibility at the center of our lives. The humanistic worldview--as clear-eyed and enlightening as it is kaleidoscopic and richly ambiguous--has inspired people for centuries to make their choices by principles of freethinking, intellectual inquiry, fellow feeling, and optimism.

In this sweeping new history, Sarah Bakewell, herself a lifelong humanist, illuminates the very personal, individual, and, well, human matter of humanism and takes readers on a grand intellectual adventure.

Voyaging from the literary enthusiasts of the fourteenth century to the secular campaigners of our own time, from Erasmus to Esperanto, from anatomists to agnostics, from Christine de Pizan to Bertrand Russell, and from Voltaire to Zora Neale Hurston, Bakewell brings together extraordinary humanists across history. She explores their immense variety: some sought to promote scientific and rationalist ideas, others put more emphasis on moral living, and still others were concerned with the cultural and literary studies known as "the humanities." Humanly Possible asks not only what brings all these aspects of humanism together but why it has such enduring power, despite opposition from fanatics, mystics, and tyrants.

A singular examination of this vital tradition as well as a dazzling contribution to its literature, this is an intoxicating, joyful celebration of the human spirit from one of our most beloved writers. And at a moment when we are all too conscious of the world's divisions, Humanly Possible--brimming with ideas, experiments in living, and respect for the deepest ethical values--serves as a recentering, a call to care for one another, and a reminder that we are all, together, only human.]]> 464 Sarah Bakewell 0735223378 Go-go 0 to-read 3.95 2023 Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope
author: Sarah Bakewell
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality]]> 63946909
Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges was madly in love when his life was shattered by painful heartbreak. But the breakdown that followed illuminated an incontrovertible truth—that love is necessarily imbued with loss, that the one doesn’t exist without the other. German physicist Werner Heisenberg was fighting with the scientific establishment on the meaning of the quantum realm’s absurdity when he had his own epiphany—that there is no such thing as a complete, perfect description of reality. Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant pushed the assumptions of human reason to their mind-bending conclusions, but emerged with an idea that crowned a towering philosophical system—that the human mind has fundamental limits, and those limits undergird both our greatest achievements as well as our missteps.

Through fiction, science, and philosophy, the work of these three thinkers coalesced around the powerful, haunting fact that there is an irreconcilable difference between reality “out there� and reality as we experience it. Out of this profound truth comes a multitude of galvanizing the notion of selfhood, free will, and purpose in human life; the roots of morality, aesthetics, and reason; and the origins and nature of the cosmos itself.

As each of these thinkers shows, every one of us has a fundamentally incomplete picture of the world. But this is to be expected. Only as mortal, finite beings are we able to experience the world in all its richness and breathtaking majesty. We are stranded in a gulf of vast extremes, between the astronomical and the quantum, an abyss of freedom and absolute determinism, and it is in that center where we must make our home. A soaring and lucid reflection on the lives and work of Borges, Heisenberg, and Kant, The Rigor of Angels movingly demonstrates that the mysteries of our place in the world may always loom over us—not as a threat, but as a reminder of our humble humanity.]]> 368 William Egginton 0593316304 Go-go 0 4.22 2023 The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality
author: William Egginton
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Honeymoon Effect: The Science of Creating Heaven on Earth]]> 15814361 193 Bruce H. Lipton 1401923860 Go-go 0 to-read 3.92 2013 The Honeymoon Effect: The Science of Creating Heaven on Earth
author: Bruce H. Lipton
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Biology Of Belief: Unleashing The Power Of Consciousness, Matter And Miracles]]> 90556 205 Bruce H. Lipton 0975991477 Go-go 0 to-read 4.13 2005 The Biology Of Belief: Unleashing The Power Of Consciousness, Matter And Miracles
author: Bruce H. Lipton
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Philosophy of Existentialism]]> 154113 128 Gabriel Marcel 0806509015 Go-go 0 to-read 3.85 1956 The Philosophy of Existentialism
author: Gabriel Marcel
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1956
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (Library of Living Philosophers)]]> 1242864 Book by Gabriel Marcel 0875483690 Go-go 0 to-read 3.71 1984 The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (Library of Living Philosophers)
author: Gabriel Marcel
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/08
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]]> The Beauty 34356502 Nominated for the Shirley Jackson and Saboteur awards.

Somewhere away from the cities and towns, in the Valley of the Rocks, a society of men and boys gather around the fire each night to listen to their history recounted by Nate, the storyteller. Requested most often by the group is the tale of the death of all women.

They are the last generation.

One evening, Nate brings back new secrets from the woods; peculiar mushrooms are growing from the ground where the women’s bodies lie buried. These are the first signs of a strange and insidious presence unlike anything ever known before�

Discover the Beauty.
------------------

Titan editions include the short story Peace, Pipe.]]> 195 Aliya Whiteley Go-go 0 to-read 3.49 2014 The Beauty
author: Aliya Whiteley
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Postcards: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Social Network]]> 57402616 Ěý
Postcards are usually associated with banal holiday pleasantries, but they are made possible by sophisticated industries and institutions, from printers to postal services. When they were invented, postcards established what is now taken for granted in modern the ability to send and receive messages around the world easily and inexpensively. Fundamentally they are about creating personal connections—links between people, places, and beliefs. Lydia Pyne examines postcards on a global scale, to understand them as artifacts that are at the intersection of history, science, technology, art, and culture. In doing so, she shows how postcards were the first global social network and also, here in the twenty-first century, how postcards are not yet extinct.]]> 256 Lydia Pyne 1789144841 Go-go 0 to-read 3.78 Postcards: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Social Network
author: Lydia Pyne
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.78
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Genuine Fakes: How Phony Things Teach Us About Real Stuff (Bloomsbury Sigma)]]> 43263199 Is the distinction between “real� and “fake� as clear-cut as we think?

Does an authentic Andy Warhol painting need to be painted by Andy Warhol? Should we be outraged that some of those famous scenes in Blue Planet were filmed in a lab? Who are the scientists putting ever-more improbable flavors in our Jelly Belly beans? Welcome to the world of “genuine fakes�--the curious objects that fall in between things that are real and things that are not. Unsurprisingly, the world is full of genuine fakes that defy simple categorization. Whether or not we think that those things are authentic is a matter of perspective.

In Genuine Fakes, historian Lydia Pyne explores how the authenticity of eight genuine fakes depends on their unique combinations of history, science and culture. The stories of art forgeries, fake fossils, nature documentaries, synthetic flavors, museum exhibits, Maya codices and Paleolithic replicas shows that genuine fakes are complicated and change over time. Drawing from historical archives, interviews, museum exhibits, science fiction as well as her own research, Pyne brings each genuine fake to life through unexpected and often outrageous stories.

Can people move past assuming that a diamond grown in a lab is a fake? What happens when a forged painting or manuscript becomes more valuable than its original? Genuine Fakes will make readers think about all the unreal things that they encounter in their daily lives and why they invoke the reactions--surprise, wonder, understanding or annoyance--that they do.]]> 304 Lydia Pyne 147296182X Go-go 0 to-read 3.50 2019 Genuine Fakes: How Phony Things Teach Us About Real Stuff (Bloomsbury Sigma)
author: Lydia Pyne
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing]]> 22822855 Ěý
Life today feels more overwhelming and chaotic than ever. Whether it’s a confounding work problem or a faltering relationship or an unclear medical diagnosis, we face constant uncertainty. And we’re continually bombarded with information, much of it contradictory.
Ěý
Managing ambiguity—in our jobs, our relationships, and daily lives—is quickly becoming an essential skill. Yet most of us don’t know where to begin.
Ěý
As Jamie Holmes shows in Nonsense , being confused is unpleasant, so we tend to shutter our minds as we grasp for meaning and stability, especially in stressful circumstances. We’re hard-wired to resolve contradictions quickly and extinguish anomalies. This can be useful, of course. When a tiger is chasing you, you can’t be indecisive. But as Nonsense reveals, our need for closure has its own dangers. It makes us stick to our first answer, which is not always the best, and it makes us search for meaning in the wrong places. When we latch onto fast and easy truths, we lose a vital opportunity to learn something new, solve a hard problem, or see the world from another perspective.
Ěý
In other words, confusion—that uncomfortable mental place—has a hidden upside. We just need to know how to use it. This lively and original book points the way.

Over the last few years, new insights from social psychology and cognitive science have deepened our understanding of the role of ambiguity in our lives and Holmes brings this research together for the first time, showing how we can use uncertainty to our advantage. Filled with illuminating stories—from spy games and doomsday cults to Absolut Vodka’s ad campaign and the creation of Mad Libsâ€� Nonsense Ěýpromises to transform the way we conduct business, educate our children, and make decisions.
Ěý
In an increasingly unpredictable, complex world, it turns out that what matters most isn’t IQ, willpower, or confidence in what we know. It’s how we deal with what we don’t understand.]]> 336 Jamie Holmes 0385348371 Go-go 0 to-read 3.57 2015 Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing
author: Jamie Holmes
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/25
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]]> <![CDATA[The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman]]> 53288454 A triumphant and touching debut about the unlikeliest superstar you’ll ever meet.

Twelve-year-old Norman Foreman and his best friend, Jax, are a legendary comedic duo in waiting, with a plan to take their act all the way to the Edinburgh Fringe. But when Jax dies, Norman decides the only fitting tribute is to perform at the festival himself. The problem is, Norman’s not the funny one. Jax was.

There’s also another, far more colossal objective on Norman’s new plan that his single mom, Sadie, wasn’t ready for: he wants to find the father he’s never known. Determined to put a smile back on her boy’s face, Sadie resolves to face up to her own messy past, get Norman to the Fringe and help track down a man whose identity is a mystery, even to her.

Julietta Henderson’s delightfully charming, tender and uplifting debut takes us on a road trip with a mother and son who will live in the reader’s heart for a long time to come, and teaches us that—no matter the odds—we must always reach for the stars.]]> 400 Julietta Henderson 0778331954 Go-go 0 to-read 4.09 2021 The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman
author: Julietta Henderson
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/14
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]]> <![CDATA[St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of Americas Hippest Street]]> 28789718
St. Marks Place in New York City has spawned countless artistic and political movements. Here Frank O’Hara caroused, Emma Goldman plotted, and the Velvet Underground wailed. But every generation of miscreant denizens believes that their era, and no other, marked the street’s apex. This idiosyncratic work of reportage tells the many layered history of the street—from its beginnings as Colonial Dutch Director-General Peter Stuyvesant’s pear orchard to today’s hipster playground—organized around those pivotal moments when critics declared “St. Marks is dead.�

In a narrative enriched by hundreds of interviews and dozens of rare images, St. Marks native Ada Calhoun profiles iconic characters from W. H. Auden to Abbie Hoffman, from Keith Haring to the Beastie Boys, among many others. She argues that St. Marks has variously been an elite address, an immigrants� haven, a mafia warzone, a hippie paradise, and a backdrop to the film Kids—but it has always been a place that outsiders call home. This idiosyncratic work offers a bold new perspective on gentrification, urban nostalgia, and the evolution of a community.]]> 432 Ada Calhoun 0393353303 Go-go 0 to-read 4.08 2015 St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of Americas Hippest Street
author: Ada Calhoun
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/08
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]]> The Stranger 49552 The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."]]> 123 Albert Camus Go-go 0 to-read 4.04 1942 The Stranger
author: Albert Camus
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1942
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Dyeing for Entertainment: Dyeing, Painting, Breakdown, and Special Effects for Costumes]]> 163807108 296 Erin Carignan 0815352328 Go-go 0 to-read 5.00 Dyeing for Entertainment: Dyeing, Painting, Breakdown, and Special Effects for Costumes
author: Erin Carignan
name: Go-go
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries]]> 30781490 Brimming with intelligence and personality, a vastly entertaining account of how dictionaries are made a must read for word mavens.

While most of us might take dictionaries for granted, the process of writing them is in fact as lively and dynamic as language itself. With sharp wit and irreverence, Kory Stamper cracks open the complex, obsessive world of lexicography--from the agonizing decisions about what and how to define, to the knotty questions of usage in an ever-changing language. She explains why small words are the most difficult to define (have you ever tried to define is ?), how it can take nine months to define a single word, and how our biases about language and pronunciation can have tremendous social influence. Throughout, Stamper brings to life the hallowed halls (and highly idiosyncratic cubicles) of Merriam-Webster, a world inhabited by quirky, erudite individuals who quietly shape the way we communicate. A sure delight for all lovers of words, Word by Word might also quietly improve readers grasp and use of the English language."]]> 296 Kory Stamper 110187094X Go-go 0 4.18 2017 Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries
author: Kory Stamper
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language]]> 18579574
This short, opinionated book addresses the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which argues that the language we speak shapes the way we perceive the world. Linguist John McWhorter argues that while this idea is mesmerizing, it is plainly wrong. Cultural differences are quite real. However, the way languages' grammar world, and the random ways that their vocabularies happen to describe the world—whether time is expresses with vertical expressions instead of horizontal ones, whether a language happens to have a word for stick out or wipe—do not correspond to its speakers' experience of living. The fact that a language has only one word for eat, drink and smoke—as many do� doesn't mean its speakers don't process the differences between food and beverages as vividly as other people, and those who use the same word for blue and green perceive those two colors just as vividly as others do.

McWhorter shows not only how the idea of language as a lens fails but also why we want so badly to believe it: we're eager to celebrate diversity by acknowledging the intelligence of peoples who may not think like we do. Though well-intentioned, our belief in this idea poses an obstacle to a better understanding of human nature and even trivializes the people we seek to celebrate. The reality—that all humans think alike—provides another, better way for us to acknowledge the intelligence of all peoples.]]> 182 John McWhorter 0199361584 Go-go 0 to-read 3.71 2014 The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language
author: John McWhorter
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2014
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]]> <![CDATA[Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why]]> 51364
In this compelling and fascinating book, Ehrman shows where and why changes were made in our earliest surviving manuscripts, explaining for the first time how the many variations of our cherished biblical stories came to be, and why only certain versions of the stories qualify for publication in the Bibles we read today. Ehrman frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once ultra–conservative views of the Bible.]]> 272 Bart D. Ehrman 0060859512 Go-go 0 to-read 3.91 2005 Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
author: Bart D. Ehrman
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Don't Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth About Language]]> 45993328
There are languages that change when your mother-in-law is present.
The language you speak could make you more prone to accidents.
Swear words are produced in a special part of your brain.

Over the past few decades, we have reached new frontiers of linguistic knowledge. Linguists can now explain how and why language changes, describe its structures, and map its activity in the brain. But despite these advances, much of what people believe about language is based on folklore, instinct, or hearsay. We imagine a word’s origin is it’s “true� meaning, that foreign languages are full of “untranslatable� words, or that grammatical mistakes undermine English. In Don’t Believe A Word, linguist David Shariatmadari takes us on a mind-boggling journey through the science of language, urging us to abandon our prejudices in a bid to uncover the (far more interesting) truth about what we do with words.

Exploding nine widely held myths about language while introducing us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics, Shariatmadari is an energetic guide to the beauty and quirkiness of humanity’s greatest achievement.]]> 336 David Shariatmadari 1324004258 Go-go 0 3.72 2019 Don't Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth About Language
author: David Shariatmadari
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2019
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]]> Snow White, Blood Red 141024 Once upon a time, fairy tales were for children... But no longer.

You hold in your hands a volume of wonders -- magical tales of trolls and ogres, of bewitched princesses and kingdoms accursed, penned by some of the most acclaimed fantasists of our day. But these are not bedtime stories designed to usher an innocent child gently into a realm of dreams. These are stories that bite -- lush and erotic, often dark and disturbing mystical journeys through a phantasmagoric landscape of distinctly adult sensibilities... where there is no such thing as "happily ever after."

The "Snow White, Blood Red" Collection

#1. Snow White, Blood Red

#2. Black Thorn, White Rose

#3. Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears

#4. Black Swan, White Raven

#5. Silver Birch, Blood Moon

#6. Black Heart, Ivory Bones
]]> 414 Ellen Datlow 0380718758 Go-go 0 to-read 3.74 1993 Snow White, Blood Red
author: Ellen Datlow
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Weird Medieval Guys: How to Live, Laugh, Love (and Die) in Dark Times]]> 131151817 Live, laugh love and die in the Middle Ages with Weird Medieval Guys!

Explore what your medieval life would have been through a choose-your-own-adventure full of quizzes, how-to guides, diagrams and flow charts that takes you from your birth to your gruesome end, revealing your patron saint, the fate of your love life and the trials and tribulations you faced along the way.

Then, discover everything you need to know to survive the natural world, from stripping naked to survive a wolf attack, decoding the signficance of birds visiting your sickbed and brewing love potions all while learning about the magical gemstones found in the heads of toads, horrifying basilisks and saintly hounds - all illustrated with the very best ancient drawings of beasts, birds, fishes and serpents from all four corners of God's creation, drawn by people who definitely saw these creatures with their very own eyes and lived to tell the tale.

Chock full of hilarious, mad and bad advice for surviving and thriving on the mortal plane, this complete guide to life in the dark ages is guaranteed to make you laugh.]]> 203 Olivia Swarthout 1529908310 Go-go 0 to-read 3.73 2023 Weird Medieval Guys: How to Live, Laugh, Love (and Die) in Dark Times
author: Olivia Swarthout
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Encyclopedia of the Weird and Wonderful: Curious and Incredible Facts that Will Blow Your Mind]]> 125516055
Discover a plethora of intriguing and entertaining facts from archaeology and history—brought to life with the author’s signature wit and levity.

InĚý The Encyclopedia of the Weird and Wonderful, ĚýTikTok educator and Youtuber Milo Rossi presents an assortment ofĚý funny and detailed anecdotes Ěýof some of the more quotidian mysteries of life, such
Have you ever wondered what it was like to be a mother in the Mesolithic period as the climate shifted, the seas rose, and wild game migrated? Or what types of dogs paced the wide and narrow forest patches of North America as their masters constructed some of the largest earthen works in the world? Or what meals were eaten under the trees of the old- growth forests of ancient Europe, how China accidentally invented standardized testing by refining their government, or what fashion trends shook the mining camps during the California gold rush?

ĚýCoupled with engaging illustrations , The Encyclopedia of the Weird and WonderfulĚý takes the saying “you learn something new every dayâ€� to a new extreme!
Ěý]]> 256 Milo Rossi Go-go 0 to-read 4.15 2023 The Encyclopedia of the Weird and Wonderful: Curious and Incredible Facts that Will Blow Your Mind
author: Milo Rossi
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
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]]> <![CDATA[Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography]]> 78408
Many readers have questions about Lemony Snicket, author of the distressing serial concerning the trials of the charming but unlucky Baudelaire orphans, published under the collective title A Series of Unfortunate Events. Before purchasing, borrowing, or stealing this book, you should be aware that it contains the answers to some of those questions, such as the following:

1. Who is Lemony?

2. Is there a secret organization I should know about?

3. Why does Lemony Snicket spend his time researching and writing distressing books concerning the Baudelaire orphans?

4. Why do all of Lemony Snicket's books contain a sad dedication to a woman named Beatrice?

5. If there's nothing out there, what was that noise?

Our advice to you is that you find a book that answers less upsetting questions than this one. Perhaps your librarian, bookseller, or parole officer can recommend a book that answers the question, "Aren't ponies adorable?"]]> 218 Lemony Snicket 0060562250 Go-go 0 to-read 3.75 2002 Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography
author: Lemony Snicket
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/10
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]]> Bottle Grove 36711237 A razor-sharp tale of two couples, two marriages, a bar, and a San Francisco start-up from a best-selling, award-winning novelist.

This is a story about two marriages. Or is it? It begins with a wedding, held in the small San Francisco forest of Bottle Grove--bestowed by a wealthy patron for the public good, back when people did such things. Here is a cross section of lives, a stretch of urban green where ritzy guests, lustful teenagers, drunken revelers, and forest creatures all wait for the sun to go down. The girl in the corner slugging vodka from a cough-syrup bottle is Padgett--she's keeping something secreted in the woods. The couple at the altar are the Nickels--the bride is emphatic about changing her name, as there is plenty about her old life she is ready to forget.

Set in San Francisco as the techboom is exploding, Bottle Grove is a sexy, skewering dark comedy about two unions--one forged of love and the other of greed--and about the forces that can drive couples together, into dependence, and then into sinister, even supernatural realms. Add one ominous shape-shifter to the mix, and you get a delightful and strange spectacle: a story of scheming and yearning and foibles and love and what we end up doing for it--and everyone has a secret. Looming over it all is the income disparity between San Francisco's tech community and . . . everyone else.]]> 240 Daniel Handler 1632864274 Go-go 0 to-read 3.07 2019 Bottle Grove
author: Daniel Handler
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.07
book published: 2019
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]]> All the Dirty Parts 33590627
Cole is a boy in high school. He runs cross country, he sketches in a sketchbook, he jokes around with friends. But none of this quite matters, next to the allure of sex. Let me put it this way, he says, Draw a number line, with zero is, you never think about sex, and ten is, it's all you think about, and while you are drawing the line, I am thinking about sex. Cole fantasizes about whomever he's looking at. He consumes and shares pornography. And he sleeps with a lot of girls--girls who seem to enjoy it at the time and seem to feel bad about it afterwards. Cole is getting a reputation around school--a not quite savory one--which leaves him adrift and hanging out with his best friend. Which is when something startling begins to happen between them--another kind of adventure, unexpected and hot, that might be what he's been after all this time. And then he meets Grisaille.

A companion piece to Handler's Why We Broke Up, the bestselling Michael J. Printz Honor novel, All The Dirty Parts is an unblinking take on the varied and ribald world of teenage desire in a culture of unrelenting explicitness and shunted communication, where sex feels like love, but no one knows what love feels like. Structured in short chapters recalling Jenny Offill's Dept. of Speculation or Mary Robison's Why Did I Ever, the novel gives us a tender, brutal, funny, and always intoxicating portrait of an age in which the whole world is tilted through the lens of sex. "There are love stories galore," Cole tells us, "and we all know them. This isn't that. The story I'm typing is all the dirty parts."]]> 134 Daniel Handler 1632868040 Go-go 0 to-read 3.14 2017 All the Dirty Parts
author: Daniel Handler
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.14
book published: 2017
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]]> Adverbs 79129
"Adverbs" is a novel about love -- a bunch of different people, in and out of different kinds of love. At the start of the novel, Andrea is in love with David -- or maybe it's Joe -- who instead falls in love with Peter in a taxi. At the end of the novel, it's Joe who's in the taxi, falling in love with Andrea, although it might not be Andrea, or in any case it might not be the same Andrea, as Andrea is a very common name. So is Allison, who is married to Adrian in the middle of the novel, although in the middle of the ocean she considers a fling with Keith and also with Steve, whom she meets in an automobile, unless it's not the same Allison who meets the Snow Queen in a casino, or the same Steve who meets Eddie in the middle of the forest. . . .

It might sound confusing, but that's love, and as the author -- me -- says, "It is not the nouns. The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done." This novel is about people trying to find love in the ways it is done before the volcano erupts and the miracle ends. Yes, there's a volcano in the novel. In my opinion a volcano automatically makes a story more interesting.]]> 288 Daniel Handler 0060724412 Go-go 0 to-read 3.42 2006 Adverbs
author: Daniel Handler
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> The Basic Eight 10997 416 Daniel Handler 0060733861 Go-go 0 3.80 1999 The Basic Eight
author: Daniel Handler
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1999
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]]> <![CDATA[When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion]]> 198563695
The American department a palace of consumption that epitomized modern consumerism. Every wish could be met under one roof � afternoon tea, a stroll through the latest fashions, a wedding (or funeral) planned. It was a place where women, shopper and shopgirl alike, could stake out a newfound independence. Whether in New York or Chicago or on Main Street, USA, men owned the buildings, but inside, women ruled.

In this hothouse atmosphere, three women rose to the top. Hortense Odlum of Bonwit Teller, Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor, and Geraldine Stutz of Henri Bendel's took risks, innovated and competed as very different kinds of career women, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. In the 1930s, Hortense came to her husband's department store as a housewife tasked with attracting more shoppers like herself, and wound up running the company. Dorothy championed American designers during World War II--before which US fashions were almost exclusively Parisian copies--and beyond, becoming the first businesswoman to earn a salary of more than $1.5 million. And Geraldine re-invented the look of the modern department store in the 1960s, and had a preternatural sense for trends, inspiring a devoted following of ultra-chic shoppers as well as decades of copycats.

In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three American women who made twentieth-century department stores a mecca for women of every age, social class, and ambition. This stylish account, rich with personal drama and trade secrets, captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.]]> 295 Julie Satow 0385548753 Go-go 0 to-read 3.88 2024 When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion
author: Julie Satow
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/04
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]]> <![CDATA[And Then? And Then? What Else?]]> 200628690 A bold, candid, vulnerable, and entertaining memoir of the literary life of Daniel Handler, the writer otherwise known as Lemony Snicket

Part memoir, part inspiration for aspiring writers, And Then? And Then? What Else? traces Daniel Handler’s sometimes challenging and often amusing path toward one of the most spectacularly successful writing careers of the twenty-first century. Declaring his love of strange literature, Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil in particular, Handler reflects on the life experiences―some of them deeply personal and revealed for the first time―and the cultural influences that shaped his writing, both under his own name and under his pseudonym Lemony Snicket.]]> 240 Daniel Handler 132409060X Go-go 0 to-read 3.88 2024 And Then? And Then? What Else?
author: Daniel Handler
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World]]> 26698213 'In 1605 a crippled, greying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a book. That book, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the most widely read author in human history. Cervantes did more than just publish a bestseller, though. He invented a way of writing.'

In Cervantes' time, 'fiction' was synonymous with a lie. Books were either history, and true, or 'poetry' which might be invented, but had to conform to strict principles. Don Quixote tells the story of a poor nobleman, addled from reading too many books on chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off to put the world to rights. The book was hugely entertaining, broke the existing rules, devised a new set and, in the process, created a new, modern hybrid form we know today as the novel.

The Man Who Invented Fiction explores Cervantes's life and the world he lived in, showing how his life and influences converged in his work, and how his work - especially Don Quixote - radically changed the nature of literature and created a new way of viewing the world. Finally, it explains how that worldview went on to infiltrate art, politics and science, and how the world today would be unthinkable without it.]]> 272 William Egginton 1408843846 Go-go 0 to-read 3.65 2016 The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World
author: William Egginton
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2016
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date added: 2024/05/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Invention of Art: A Cultural History]]> 2140825 The Invention of Art, Larry Shiner challenges our conventional understandings of art and asks us to reconsider its history entirely, arguing that the category of fine art is a modern invention—that the lines drawn between art and craft resulted from key social transformations in Europe during the long eighteenth century.

"Shiner spent over a decade honing what he calls 'a brief history of the idea of art.' This carefully prepared and—given the extent and complexity of what he's discussing—admirably concise, well-organized book is the result. . . . Shiner's text is scholarly but accessible, and should appeal to readers with even a dabbler's interest in art theory."�Publishers Weekly

"The Invention of Art is enjoyable to read and provides a welcome addition to the history and philosophy of art."—Terrie L. Wilson, Art Documentation

"A lucid book . . . it should be a must-read for anyone active in the arts."—Marc Spiegler, Chicago Tribune Books]]> 352 Larry Shiner 0226753433 Go-go 0 to-read 4.19 2001 The Invention of Art: A Cultural History
author: Larry Shiner
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A History of the World in 100 Objects]]> 9553383 707 Neil MacGregor 1846144132 Go-go 0 to-read 4.17 2010 A History of the World in 100 Objects
author: Neil MacGregor
name: Go-go
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2010
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]]> <![CDATA[The Intimate Bond: How Animals Shaped Human History]]> 22529391
Through an in-depth analysis of six truly transformative human-animal relationships, Fagan shows how our habits and our very way of life were considerably and irreversibly altered by our intimate bond with animals. Among other stories, Fagan explores how herding changed human behavior; how the humble donkey helped launch the process of globalization; and how the horse carried a hearty band of nomads across the world and toppled the emperor of China.

With characteristic care and penetrating insight, Fagan reveals the profound influence that animals have exercised on human history and how, in fact, they often drove it.]]> 308 Brian M. Fagan 1620405725 Go-go 0 to-read 3.49 2015 The Intimate Bond: How Animals Shaped Human History
author: Brian M. Fagan
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/30
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]]> Moon Palace 447
Beginning during the summer that men first walked on the moon, and moving backward and forward in time to span three generations, Moon Palace is propelled by coincidence and memory, and illuminated by marvelous flights of lyricism and wit. Here is the most entertaining and moving novel yet from an author well known for his breathtaking imagination.]]> 320 Paul Auster 0140115854 Go-go 0 to-read 3.99 1989 Moon Palace
author: Paul Auster
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dress Diary: Secrets from a Victorian Woman's Wardrobe (Platinum Nonfiction)]]> 195263659 400 Kate Strasdin 1638089183 Go-go 0 to-read 3.75 2023 The Dress Diary: Secrets from a Victorian Woman's Wardrobe (Platinum Nonfiction)
author: Kate Strasdin
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (The Hundred-Year-Old Man, #1)]]> 36578942 The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared has charmed readers across the world.]]> 396 Jonas Jonasson Go-go 0 3.84 2009 The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (The Hundred-Year-Old Man, #1)
author: Jonas Jonasson
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The Seventh Function of Language]]> 36031246 From the prizewinning author of HHhH, “the most insolent novel of the year� (L’Express) comes a romp through the French intelligentsia of the twentieth century.

Paris, 1980. The literary critic Roland Barthes dies—struck by a laundry van—after lunch with the presidential candidate François Mitterand. The world of letters mourns a tragic accident. But what if it wasn’t an accident at all? What if Barthes was . . . murdered?

In The Seventh Function of Language, Laurent Binet spins a madcap secret history of the French intelligentsia, starring such luminaries as Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Julia Kristeva—as well as the hapless police detective Jacques Bayard, whose new case will plunge him into the depths of literary theory (starting with the French version of Roland Barthes for Dummies). Soon, Bayard finds himself in search of a lost manuscript by the linguist Roman Jakobson on the mysterious “seventh function of language.�

A brilliantly erudite comedy, The Seventh Function of Language takes us from the cafés of Saint-Germain to the corridors of Cornell University, and into the duels and orgies of the Logos Club, a secret philosophical society that dates to the Roman Empire. Binet has written both a send-up and a wildly exuberant celebration of the French intellectual tradition.]]> 359 Laurent Binet 1250181682 Go-go 0 3.79 2015 The Seventh Function of Language
author: Laurent Binet
name: Go-go
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/12
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]]>