Chris's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 29 May 2025 19:07:51 -0700 60 Chris's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Choice: Embrace the Possible]]> 35807243
Edith Eger was sixteen years old when the Nazis came to her hometown in Hungary and took her Jewish family to an interment center and then to Auschwitz. Her parents were sent to the gas chamber by Joseph Mengele soon after they arrived at the camp. Hours later Mengele demanded that Edie dance a waltz to “The Blue Danube� and rewarded her with a loaf of bread that she shared with her fellow prisoners. These women later helped save Edie’s life. Edie and her sister survived Auschwitz, were transferred to the Mauthausen and Gunskirchen camps in Austria, and managed to live until the American troops liberated the camps in 1945 and found Edie in a pile of dying bodies.

One of the few living Holocaust survivors to remember the horrors of the camps, Edie has chosen to forgive her captors and find joy in her life every day. Years after she was liberated from the concentration camps Edie went back to college to study psychology. She combines her clinical knowledge and her own experiences with trauma to help others who have experienced painful events large and small. Dr. Eger has counselled veterans suffering from PTSD, women who were abused, and many others who learned that they too, can choose to forgive, find resilience, and move forward. She lectures frequently on the power of love and healing.

The Choice weaves Eger’s personal story with case studies from her work as a psychologist. Her patients and their stories illustrate different phases of healing and show how people can choose to escape the prisons they construct in their minds and find freedom, regardless of circumstance. Eger’s story is an inspiration for everyone. And her message is powerful and important: “Your pain matters and is worth healing: you can choose to be joyful and free.� She is eighty-nine years old and still dancing.]]> 321 Edith Eger 1501130811 Chris 0 currently-reading 4.70 2017 The Choice: Embrace the Possible
author: Edith Eger
name: Chris
average rating: 4.70
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Don't Believe Everything You Think]]> 60726415
In this book, you'll discover the root cause of all psychological and emotional suffering and how to achieve freedom of mind to effortlessly create the life you've always wanted to live.

Although pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

This book offers a completely new paradigm and understanding of where our human experience comes from, allowing us to end our own suffering and create how we want to feel at any moment.

No matter what has happened to you, where you are from, or what you have done, you can still find total peace, unconditional love, complete fulfillment, and an abundance of joy in your life.

No person is an exception to this. Darkness only exists because of the light, which means even in our darkest hour, light must exist.

Within the pages of this book, contains timeless wisdom to empower you with the understanding of our mind’s infinite potential to create any experience of life that we want no matter the external circumstances.

Don’t Believe Everything You Think is not about rewiring your brain, rewriting your past, positive thinking or anything of the sort.

We cannot solve our problems with the same level of consciousness that created them. Tactics are temporary. An expansion of consciousness is permanent.

This book was written to help you go beyond your thinking and discover the truth of what you already intuitively know deep inside your soul.]]> 99 Joseph Nguyen Chris 0 to-read 3.80 2022 Don't Believe Everything You Think
author: Joseph Nguyen
name: Chris
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/09
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]]> Some Desperate Glory 58388343 While we live, the enemy shall fear us.

All her life Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of planet Earth. Raised in the bowels of Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she readies herself to face the Wisdom, the all-powerful, reality-shaping weapon that gave the Majoda their victory over humanity.

They are what’s left. They are what must survive. Kyr is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet. But when Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to the nursery to bear sons until she dies trying, she knows she must take humanity’s revenge into her own hands.

Alongside her brother’s brilliant but seditious friend and a lonely, captive alien, she escapes from everything she’s ever known into a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could have imagined.

A thrillingly told queer space opera about the wreckage of war, the family you find, and who you must become when every choice is stripped from you, Some Desperate Glory is award-winning author Emily Tesh’s highly anticipated debut novel.]]> 438 Emily Tesh 1250834988 Chris 0 to-read 4.00 2023 Some Desperate Glory
author: Emily Tesh
name: Chris
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/14
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]]> Orbital 123136728
A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.

Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction.

The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?]]> 207 Samantha Harvey 0802161545 Chris 0 to-read 3.54 2023 Orbital
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Chris
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/14
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]]> The God of the Woods 199700434 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide.

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances.

Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet, The God of the Woods is a story of inheritance and second chances, the tensions between a family and a community, and a history that will not let any of them go.]]> 478 Liz Moore 0593418913 Chris 0 to-read 4.08 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Chris
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
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]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

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

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

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Chris 0 to-read 4.10 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Chris
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon 11564
As night falls, Trisha has only her ingenuity as a defense against the elements, and only her courage and faith to withstand her mounting fears. For solace, she tunes her Walkman to broadcasts of Boston Red Sox baseball games and follows the gritty performances of her hero, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. And when her radio's reception begins to fade, Trisha imagines that Tom Gordon is with her - protecting her from an all-too-real enemy who has left a trail of slaughtered animals and mangled trees in the dense, dark woods...]]> 264 Stephen King 1416524290 Chris 0 to-read 3.65 1999 The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
author: Stephen King
name: Chris
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/14
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]]> <![CDATA[A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: A Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving Our Wild Times]]> 195834303 A common sense field guide to understanding, surviving, and thriving in our time of complex chaos and crises. Is this finally it? The end times?Because from COVID-19 to climate catastrophe to the looming AI revolution—not to mention the ever-growing background hum of rage, fear, and anxiety—it’s starting to feel like the party we call civilization is just about over. The good news? It’s always felt that way.

Drawing on evolutionary psychology, history, brain science, game theory, and more, cooperation theorist (and, coincidentally, zombie expert) Athena Aktipis reassuringly explains how we, as a species, are hardwired to survive big existential crises. And how we can do so again by leveraging our innate abilities to communicate and cooperate.

Pack a ukulele in your prep kit. Practice your risk-management skills. Enlist your crew into a survival team. And embrace the apocalypse. You might just enjoy it. Plus, it will help us build a better and more resilient future for all humankind.]]> 247 Athena Aktipis Chris 0 to-read 3.42 A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: A Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving Our Wild Times
author: Athena Aktipis
name: Chris
average rating: 3.42
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date added: 2025/03/03
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]]> A Good Hard Look 9949524
Crippled by lupus at twenty-five, celebrated author Flannery O'Connor was forced to leave New York City and return home to Andalusia, her family farm in Milledgeville, Georgia. Years later, as Flannery is finishing a novel and tending to her menagerie of peacocks, her mother drags her to the wedding of a family friend.

Cookie Himmel embodies every facet of Southern womanhood that Flannery lacks: she is revered for her beauty and grace; she is at the helm of every ladies' organization in town; and she has returned from her time in Manhattan with a rich fiancé, Melvin Whiteson. Melvin has come to Milledgeville to begin a new chapter in his life, but it is not until he meets Flannery that he starts to take a good hard look at the choices he has made. Despite the limitations of her disease, Flannery seems to be more alive than other people, and Melvin is drawn to her like a moth to a candle flame.

Melvin is not the only person in Milledgeville who starts to feel that life is passing him by. Lona Waters, the dutiful wife of a local policeman, is hired by Cookie to help create a perfect home. As Lona spends her days sewing curtains, she is given an opportunity to remember what it feels like to be truly alive, and she seizes it with both hands.

Heartbreakingly beautiful and inescapably human, these ordinary and extraordinary people chart their own courses through life. In the aftermath of one tragic afternoon, they are all forced to look at themselves and face up to Flannery's observation that "the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."]]> 326 Ann Napolitano 1594202923 Chris 0 to-read 3.87 2011 A Good Hard Look
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Chris
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World]]> 25744928 One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

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

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

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.]]> 296 Cal Newport 1455586692 Chris 0 to-read 4.16 2016 Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
author: Cal Newport
name: Chris
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> It Can't Happen Here 61334406 “The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump’s authoritarian appeal.”—Salon

It Can’t Happen Here is the only one of Sinclair Lewis’s later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America.

Written during the Great Depression, when the country was largely oblivious to Hitler’s aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press.

Called “a message to thinking Americans� by the Springfield Republican when it was published in 1935, It Can’t Happen Here is a shockingly prescient novel that remains as fresh and contemporary as today’s news.

Includes an Introduction by Michael Meyer
andĚýan Afterword by Gary Scharnhorst]]> 416 Sinclair Lewis Chris 0 currently-reading 4.08 1935 It Can't Happen Here
author: Sinclair Lewis
name: Chris
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1935
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> The 48 Laws of Power 1303 Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control � from the author of The Laws of Human Nature.

In the book that People magazine proclaimed “beguiling� and “fascinating,� Robert Greene and Joost Elffers have distilled three thousand years of the history of power into 48 essential laws by drawing from the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Carl Von Clausewitz and also from the lives of figures ranging from Henry Kissinger to P.T. Barnum.

Some laws teach the need for prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master�), others teach the value of confidence (“Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness�), and many recommend absolute self-preservation (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally�). Every law, though, has one thing in common: an interest in total domination. In a bold and arresting two-color package, The 48 Laws of Power is ideal whether your aim is conquest, self-defense, or simply to understand the rules of the game.]]> 452 Robert Greene 0140280197 Chris 0 to-read 4.11 1998 The 48 Laws of Power
author: Robert Greene
name: Chris
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes]]> 125116554
� Arthur C. Brooks, Professor, Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, and #1 New York Times bestselling author


From the author of the international blockbuster, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MONEY, a powerful new tool to unlock one of life’s most challenging puzzles.

Every investment plan under the sun is, at best,Ěýan informed speculation of what may happen in the future, based on a systematic extrapolation from the known past.

Same as Ever reverses the process, inviting us to identify the many things that never, ever change.

With his usual elan, Morgan Housel presents a master class on optimizing risk, seizing opportunity, and living your best life. Through a sequence of engaging stories and pithy examples, he shows how we can use our newfound grasp of the unchanging to see around corners, not by squinting harder through the uncertain landscape of the future, but by looking backwards, being more broad-sighted, and focusing instead on what is permanently true. ĚýĚý

By doing so, we may betterĚýanticipate the big stuff, andĚýachieve the greatest success, not merely financial comforts, but most importantly, a life well lived.]]> 240 Morgan Housel Chris 0 to-read 4.12 2023 Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes
author: Morgan Housel
name: Chris
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/22
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]]> The Children 715192 The Children is Halberstam's moving evocation of the early days of the civil rights movement, as seen thru the story of the young people--the Children--who met in the 60s & went on to lead the revolution. Magisterial in scope, with a strong you-are-there quality, The Children is a story one of America's preeminent journalists has waited years to write, a powerful book about one of the most dramatic movements in American history. They came together as part of Rev. James Lawson's workshops on nonviolence, eight idealistic black students whose families had sacrificed much so that they could go to college. They risked it all, & their lives besides, when they joined the growing civil rights movement. Halberstam shows how Martin Luther King Jr recruited Lawson to come to Nashville to train students in Gandhian techniques of nonviolence. We see the strength of the families the Children came from, moving portraits of several generations of the black experience in America. We feel Diane Nash's fear before the first sit-in to protest segregation of Nashville lunch counters. Then we see how Diane Nash & others--John Lewis, Gloria Johnson, Bernard Lafayette, Marion Barry, Curtis Murphy, James Bevel, Rodney Powell--persevered until they ultimately accomplished that goal. After the sit-ins, when the Freedom Rides to desegregate interstate buses were in danger of being stopped because of violence, it was these same young people who led the bitter battle into the Deep South. Halberstam takes us into those buses, lets us witness the violence the students encountered in Montgomery, Birmingham, Selma. He shows what has happened to the Children since the 60s, as they have gone on with their lives.]]> 785 David Halberstam 0449004392 Chris 0 to-read 4.50 1998 The Children
author: David Halberstam
name: Chris
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> Montaigne 849052 128 Stefan Zweig 3596127262 Chris 0 to-read 3.99 1941 Montaigne
author: Stefan Zweig
name: Chris
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1941
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout]]> 197773418 Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work, a groundbreaking philosophy for pursuing meaningful accomplishment while avoiding overload.

Our current definition of “productivity� is broken. It pushes us to treat busyness as a proxy for useful effort, leading to impossibly lengthy task lists and ceaseless meetings. We’re overwhelmed by all we have to do and on the edge of burnout, left to decide between giving into soul-sapping hustle culture or rejecting ambition altogether. But are these really our only choices?

Long before the arrival of pinging inboxes and clogged schedules, history’s most creative and impactful philosophers, scientists, artists, and writers mastered the art of producing valuable work with staying power. In this timely and provocative book, Cal Newport harnesses the wisdom of these traditional knowledge workers to radically transform our modern jobs. Drawing from deep research on the habits and mindsets of a varied cast of storied thinkers—from Galileo and Isaac Newton, to Jane Austen and Georgia O’Keefe—Newport lays out the key principles of “slow productivity,� a more sustainable alternative to the aimless overwhelm that defines our current moment. Combining cultural criticism with systematic pragmatism, Newport deconstructs the absurdities inherent in standard notions of productivity, and then provides step-by-step advice for workers to replace them with a slower, more humane alternative.

From the aggressive rethinking of workload management, to introducing seasonal variation, to shifting your performance toward long-term quality, Slow Productivity provides a roadmap for escaping overload and arriving instead at a more timeless approach to pursuing meaningful accomplishment. The world of work is due for a new revolution. Slow productivity is exactly what we need.]]> 244 Cal Newport 0593544854 Chris 0 to-read 3.64 2024 Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
author: Cal Newport
name: Chris
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/22
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]]> The Future 123177094
The Future is a few billionaires leading the world to destruction while safeguarding their own survival with secret lavish bunkers.

The Future is private weather, technological prophecy and highly deniable weapons.

The Future is a handful of friends—the daughter of a cult leader, a non-binary hacker, an ousted Silicon Valley visionary, the concerned wife of a dangerous CEO, and an internet-famous survivalist—hatching a daring plan. It could be the greatest heist ever. Or the cataclysmic end of civilization.

The Future is what you see if you don’t look behind you.

The Future is the only reason to do anything, the only object of desire.

The Future is here.]]> 432 Naomi Alderman 1668025701 Chris 0 currently-reading 4.07 2023 The Future
author: Naomi Alderman
name: Chris
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Mirrored Heavens (Between Earth and Sky #3)]]> 199077896
Even the sea cannot stay calm before the storm. —Teek saying

Serapio, avatar of the Crow God Reborn and the newly crowned Carrion King, rules Tova. But his enemies gather both on distant shores and within his own city as the matrons of the clans scheme to destroy him. And deep in the alleys of the Maw, a new prophecy is whispered, this one from the Coyote God. It promises Serapio certain doom if its terrible dictates are not fulfilled.

Meanwhile, Xiala is thrust back amongst her people as war comes first to the island of Teek. With their way of life and their magic under threat, she is their last best hope. But the sea won’t talk to her the way it used to, and doubts riddle her mind. She will have to sacrifice the things that matter most to unleash her powers and become the queen they were promised.

And in the far northern wastelands, Naranpa, avatar of the Sun God, seeks a way to save Tova from the visions of fire that engulf her dreams. But another presence has begun stalking her nightmares, and the Jaguar God is on the hunt.

Nominated for the Nebula, Lambda, Locus, and Hugo Awards, winner of the Alex Award from the American Library Association and the Ignyte Award from Fiyah magazine, the Between Earth and Sky trilogy is amongst our most lauded modern fantasy series from New York Times , Los Angeles Times , and USA TODAY bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse.]]> 604 Rebecca Roanhorse 153443772X Chris 5 4.42 2024 Mirrored Heavens (Between Earth and Sky #3)
author: Rebecca Roanhorse
name: Chris
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> Station Eleven 20170404 An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

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

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.]]> 333 Emily St. John Mandel 0385353308 Chris 0 to-read 4.05 2014 Station Eleven
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Chris
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/10
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]]> Sea of Tranquility 58446227 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

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

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

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

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 259 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321448 Chris 4 4.04 2022 Sea of Tranquility
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Chris
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
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]]> The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Chris 5 4.16 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Chris
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2017/06/18
date added: 2024/12/02
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]]> The War of Art 18624273 194 Steven Pressfield Chris 0 currently-reading 4.22 2002 The War of Art
author: Steven Pressfield
name: Chris
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/13
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> The Auctioneer 923832
Published to wide acclaim in 1976, but almost neglected since then, The Auctioneer is a bona fide classic of American literature. The story of John Moore, his wife Mim, and his mother, it is a gripping tale of greed in a small town being quietly overrun by auctioneer Perly Dunsmore. Acclaimed by writers including Stephen King, and an influence on King’s Needful Things, The Auctioneer is here reprinted for the first time in thirty years.]]> 260 Joan Samson 1933618191 Chris 0 to-read 3.71 1976 The Auctioneer
author: Joan Samson
name: Chris
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1976
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/13
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]]> Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) 6088007 Neuromancer is a cyberpunk, science fiction masterpiece—a classic that ranks with 1984 and Brave New World as one of the twentieth century’s most potent visions of the future.

The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus-hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace...

Henry Dorsett Case was the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

The winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer was the first fully-realized glimpse of humankind’s digital future—a shocking vision that has challenged our assumptions about our technology and ourselves, reinvented the way we speak and think, and forever altered the landscape of our imaginations.]]> 288 William Gibson Chris 0 to-read 3.94 1984 Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)
author: William Gibson
name: Chris
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Lost Books of The Odyssey 9793184 A BRILLIANT AND BEGUILING REIMAGINING OF ONE OF OUR GREATEST MYTHS BY A GIFTED YOUNG WRITERZachary Mason's brilliant and beguiling debut novel, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, reimagines Homer's classic story of the hero Odysseus and his long journey home after the fall of Troy. With brilliant prose, terrific imagination, and dazzling literary skill, Mason creates alternative episodes, fragments, and revisions of Homer's original that taken together open up this classic Greek myth to endless reverberating interpretations. The Lost Books of the Odyssey is punctuated with great wit, beauty, and playfulness; it is a daring literary page-turner that marks the emergence of an extraordinary new talent.]]> 238 Zachary Mason Chris 0 currently-reading 4.02 2007 The Lost Books of The Odyssey
author: Zachary Mason
name: Chris
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Void Star 33236412 A riveting, beautifully written, fugue-like novel of AIs, memory, violence, and mortality

Not far in the future the seas have risen and the central latitudes are emptying, but it’s still a good time to be rich in San Francisco, where weapons drones patrol the skies to keep out the multitudinous poor. Irina isn’t rich, not quite, but she does have an artificial memory that gives her perfect recall and lets her act as a medium between her various employers and their AIs, which are complex to the point of opacity. It’s a good gig, paying enough for the annual visits to the Mayo Clinic that keep her from aging.

Kern has no such access; he’s one of the many refugees in the sprawling drone-built favelas on the city’s periphery, where he lives like a monk, training relentlessly in martial arts, scraping by as a thief and an enforcer. Thales is from a different world entirely—the mathematically inclined scion of a Brazilian political clan, he’s fled to L.A. after the attack that left him crippled and his father dead.

A ragged stranger accosts Thales and demands to know how much he can remember. Kern flees for his life after robbing the wrong mark. Irina finds a secret in the reflection of a laptop’s screen in her employer’s eyeglasses. None are safe as they’re pushed together by subtle forces that stay just out of sight.

Vivid, tumultuous, and propulsive, Void Star is Zachary Mason’s mind-bending follow-up to his bestselling debut, The Lost Books of the Odyssey.]]> 400 Zachary Mason 0374709823 Chris 5 3.91 2017 Void Star
author: Zachary Mason
name: Chris
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/15
date added: 2024/10/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit]]> 30687200 Many people dream of escaping modern life, but most will never act on it. This is the remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality--not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own.

In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life--why did he leave? what did he learn?--as well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.]]> 5 Michael Finkel 1101924926 Chris 0 to-read 3.87 2017 The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
author: Michael Finkel
name: Chris
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[SEO 2014: Learn Search Engine Optimization with Smart Internet Marketing Strategies]]> 23300328
Most of the search engine optimization advice on the Internet is just plain wrong!

If you've sifted through the torrents of search engine optimization advice online, you may have noticed two things:
- Most of the knowledge on SEO is either completely outdated or just dead-wrong.

- Google's constant updates have rendered many well known SEO strategies completely useless.

Why is this so? Google are constantly evolving, making it extremely difficult to know what currently works. Some recent changes:
1. August, 2014 - Google announced sites secured with SSL certificates will get an advantage in search engines.

2. July, 2014 - Google released a big update dramatically affecting how often the local business listings appear in the search results.

3. May, 2014 - Google announced a game changing update, punishing sites with poor quality content and user experience.


SEO 2014 walks you through the above updates and more. This book also reveals industry secrets about Google's algorithm, so you can learn SEO from a fundamental level, achieve top rankings in Google, and generate hundreds, or even thousands of new customers to your site.

Sidestep the feared 2014 Google updates

Contrary to Internet marketing chatter, problems caused by Google updates are hardly irrecoverable or unavoidable—but you need the right knowledge. This book reveals in granular detail:
- Recent Google updates—Panda 4.0, Pigeon, Hummingbird and beyond.

- Steps required to recover from a Google penalty.

- How to avoid being penalised in 2014 and beyond.


Discover powerful link building techniques experts use to get top rankings and generate massive traffic

Link building is simply the strongest factor for ranking high in Google. Unfortunately, most widely-used methods just plain suck! This chapter walkers you through the most powerful techniques that work wonders and won't get you in hot-water with Google.

You will also discover:
1. How to leverage social media to skyrocket traffic to your site.

2. How to find "money" keywords that will send customers to your site.

3. The dirty secret about link-building.

4. Sneaky tricks to get local businesses ranking high with local search engine optimization.

5. How to get expert SEO or internet marketing advice, completely free.

6. The new meta technology search engines love, schema.org, and how to use it to get more traffic.

You will also learn the little-known search engine optimization tools top internet marketing experts use

The SEO tools chapter lists 20+ of the powerful tools top internet marketing experts are using to automate their search engine optimization, saving weeks of time, and creating bigger results... and most of the tools are free!

And read the very special bonus chapter on pay-per-click advertising

In this special bonus chapter, learn how to quickly and effectively setup a pay-per-click advertising campaign with Google AdWords, and send more traffic and customers to your website overnight.

As one of the most advanced and comprehensive SEO books ever published, SEO 2014 contains everything you need to learn SEO and dominate search engines in 2014. Purchase from Amazon and get started right away!]]> 240 Adam Clarke Chris 0 4.25 2014 SEO 2014: Learn Search Engine Optimization with Smart Internet Marketing Strategies
author: Adam Clarke
name: Chris
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/10
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves:
review:

]]> Stuck? Diagrams Help. 61959945
There are obvious tools for when we are physically jaws of life, life rings, tug boats, and tow trucks, just to name a few. But what tool do we turn to when we feel this kind of emotionally stuck?

Diagrams are visual representations that help. Especially when we feel stuck. Like emotional tow trucks, diagrams have been helping people for hundreds of years across industries, fields, and cultures when they feel this kind of stuck. Their labels are as diverse as the contexts they charts, infographics, schemas, models, workflows, information visualizations, canvases, maps, figures, etc. but at their center diagrams are just shapes, lines and labels arranged to be helpful to someone. Even if that someone is the maker.

The doodle to work out a point you want to make in a meeting? Diagram. The simple map used to highlight where the birthday party will be next weekend? Diagram. The instruction manual used to put together that new who-see-ma-bob? Diagram. The visual your team used to get to that big goal? That’s right, it’s a diagram.

But wait!? If diagrams relate to that many paths, when are we actually taught how to diagram? And are we ever taught what it takes to make a diagram be good? For too many people, the answer is never and no. And I want to change that.

This book teaches you how to diagram. There are plenty of books cataloging and analyzing beautiful diagrams that helped someone or a group of someone’s who were stuck. And many books provide diagram templates or visualization methods that help in certain contexts and on specific types of problems. But there is a surprising lack of education on diagramming. Like where do you start? How do you know what to do first, next and last? And how do you know if what you are doing is working? This book aims to fix that.]]> 352 Abby Covert Chris 0 currently-reading 3.98 Stuck? Diagrams Help.
author: Abby Covert
name: Chris
average rating: 3.98
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/10
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Long Day’s Journey into Night 12083
The play is autobiographical, and O'Neill draws his drug-addicted mother, his close-fisted father, his drunken and degenerate elder brother, and his tormented self, with terrifying veracity.]]> 179 Eugene O'Neill 0300093055 Chris 0 to-read 4.05 1956 Long Day’s Journey into Night
author: Eugene O'Neill
name: Chris
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1956
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> Sorrow and Bliss 56050608
Because there’s something wrong with Martha, and has been for a long time. When she was seventeen, a little bomb went off in her brain and she was never the same. But countless doctors, endless therapy, every kind of drug later, she still doesn’t know what’s wrong, why she spends days unable to get out of bed or alienates both strangers and her loved ones with casually cruel remarks.

And she has nowhere to go except her childhood home: a bohemian (dilapidated) townhouse in a romantic (rundown) part of London—to live with her mother, a minorly important sculptor (and major drinker) and her father, a famous poet (though unpublished) and try to survive without the devoted, potty-mouthed sister who made all the chaos bearable back then, and is now too busy or too fed up to deal with her.

But maybe, by starting over, Martha will get to write a better ending for herself—and she’ll find out that she’s not quite finished after all.]]> 347 Meg Mason 0063049600 Chris 0 currently-reading 4.08 2020 Sorrow and Bliss
author: Meg Mason
name: Chris
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ancestral Night (White Space, #1)]]> 41453114 “Outstanding…Amid a space opera resurgence, Bear’s novel sets the bar high.� �Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A space salvager and her partner make the discovery of a lifetime that just might change the universe in this wild, big-ideas space opera from Hugo Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear.

Halmey Dz and her partner Connla Kurucz are salvage operators, living just on the inside of the law...usually. Theirs is the perilous and marginal existence—with barely enough chance of striking it fantastically big—just once—to keep them coming back for more. They pilot their tiny ship into the scars left by unsuccessful White Transitions, searching for the relics of lost human and alien vessels. But when they make a shocking discovery about an alien species that has been long thought dead, it may be the thing that could tip the perilous peace mankind has found into full-out war.

Energetic and electrifying, Ancestral Night is a dazzling space opera, sure to delight fans of Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, and Peter F. Hamilton—“Bear's ability to create breathtaking variations on ancient themes and make them new and brilliant is, perhaps, unparalleled in the genre� (Library Journal, starred review).]]> 592 Elizabeth Bear 1534403000 Chris 3 4.02 2019 Ancestral Night (White Space, #1)
author: Elizabeth Bear
name: Chris
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/08/01
shelves:
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]]> Fairy Tale 60188762
Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes deep into the well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for their world or ours.

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

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

A story as old as myth, and as startling and iconic as the rest of King’s work, Fairy Tale is about an ordinary guy forced into the hero’s role by circumstance, and it is both spectacularly suspenseful and satisfying.]]> 607 Stephen King Chris 4 4.38 2022 Fairy Tale
author: Stephen King
name: Chris
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/28
date added: 2024/05/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories]]> 160149 A definitive collection of stories from the unrivaled master of twentieth-century horror.

"I think it is beyond doubt that H. P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." - Stephen King.

Frequently imitated and widely influential, Howard Philips Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the 1920s, discarding ghosts and witches and instead envisioning mankind as a tiny outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe. S. T. Joshi, Lovecraft's preeminent interpreter, presents a selection of the master's fiction, from the early tales of nightmares and madness such as "The Outsider" to the overpowering cosmic terror of "The Call of Cthulhu." More than just a collection of terrifying tales, this volume reveals the development of Lovecraft's mesmerizing narrative style and establishes him as a canonical- and visionary-American writer.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

H. P. Lovecraft was born in 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island, where he lived most of his life. Frequent illnesses in his youth disrupted his schooling, but Lovecraft gained a wide knowledge of many subjects through independent reading and study. He wrote many essays and poems early in his career, but gradually focused on the writing of horror stories, after the advent in 1923 of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, to which he contributed most of his fiction. His relatively small corpus of fiction—three short novels and about sixty short stories—has nevertheless exercised a wide influence on subsequent work in the field, and he is regarded as the leading twentieth-century American author of supernatural fiction. H. P. Lovecraft died in Providence in 1937.

S. T. Joshi is a freelance writer and editor. He has edited Penguin Classics editions of H. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (1999), and The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (2001), as well as Algernon Blackwood’s Ancient Sorceries and Other Strange Stories (2002). Among his critical and biographical studies are The Weird Tale (1990), Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination (1995), H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996), and The Modern Weird Tale (2001). He has also edited works by Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, and H. L. Mencken, and is compiling a three-volume Encyclopedia of Supernatural Literature. He lives with his wife in Seattle, Washington.]]> 420 H.P. Lovecraft 0141182342 Chris 0 to-read 4.21 1928 The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
author: H.P. Lovecraft
name: Chris
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1928
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Hello Beautiful 61771675
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters� unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?]]> 416 Ann Napolitano Chris 5 4.14 2023 Hello Beautiful
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Chris
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/14
date added: 2024/05/14
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]]> Silently and Very Fast 13493646 127 Catherynne M. Valente Chris 5 favorites 4.08 2011 Silently and Very Fast
author: Catherynne M. Valente
name: Chris
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2021/06/05
date added: 2024/05/11
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> Holly (Holly Gibney #3) 83638977
“Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.� —BILL HODGES

Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.

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

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

Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.

“I could never let Holly Gibney go. She was supposed to be a walk-on character in Mr. Mercedes and she just kind of stole the book and stole my heart. Holly is all her.� —STEPHEN KING]]> 464 Stephen King Chris 0 4.31 2023 Holly (Holly Gibney #3)
author: Stephen King
name: Chris
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/07
date added: 2024/05/07
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]]> Asylum 3411302 263 William B. Seabrook Chris 0 to-read 3.76 1935 Asylum
author: William B. Seabrook
name: Chris
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1935
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> Zen in the Art of Archery 103758
This book is the result of the author’s six year quest to learn archery in the hands of Japanese Zen masters. It is an honest account of one man’s journey to complete abandonment of â€the selfâ€� and the Western principles that we use to define ourselves. Professor Herrigel imparts knowledge from his experiences and guides the reader through physical and spiritual lessons in a clear and insightful way.

Mastering archery is not the key to achieving Zen, and this is not a practical guide to archery. It is more a guide to Zen principles and learning and perfect for practitioners and non-practitioners alike.]]> 81 Eugen Herrigel 0375705090 Chris 0 to-read 4.00 1948 Zen in the Art of Archery
author: Eugen Herrigel
name: Chris
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1948
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/22
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]]> <![CDATA[A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy]]> 867247 - Miyamoto Musashi, Book of Five Rings

Shortly before his death in 1645, the undefeated swordsman Miyamoto Musashi retreated to a cave to live as a hermit. There he wrote five scrolls describing the "true principles" required for victory in the martial arts and on the battlefield. Instead of relying on religion or theory, Musashi based his writings on his own experience, observation, and reason.]]> 192 Miyamoto Musashi 0517415283 Chris 0 to-read 4.02 1645 A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy
author: Miyamoto Musashi
name: Chris
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1645
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The City of Mirrors (The Passage, #3)]]> 26791287 In life I was a scientist called Fanning.

Then, in a jungle in Bolivia, I died.

I died, and then I was brought back to life...

Prompted by a voice that lives in her blood, the fearsome warrior known as Alicia of Blades is drawn towards to one of the great cities of The Time Before. The ruined city of New York. Ruined but not empty. For this is the final refuge of Zero, the first and last of The Twelve. The one who must be destroyed if mankind is to have a future.

What she finds is not what she's expecting.

A journey into the past.

To find out how it all began.

And an opponent at once deadlier and more human than she could ever have imagined.]]> 598 Justin Cronin 0804177643 Chris 5 4.38 2016 The City of Mirrors (The Passage, #3)
author: Justin Cronin
name: Chris
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/17
date added: 2024/04/17
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time (The Gonzo Papers, #1)]]> 10878 Gonzo Papers offers brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in his signature style.

Originally published in 1979, the first volume of the bestselling “Gonzo Papers� is now back in print. The Great Shark Hunt is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s largest and, arguably, most important work, covering Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine. These essays offer brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in signature Thompson style.

Ranging in date from the National Observer days to the era of Rolling Stone, The Great Shark Hunt offers myriad, highly charged entries, including the first Hunter S. Thompson piece to be dubbed “gonzo”—“The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,� which appeared in Scanlan's Monthly in 1970. From this essay a new journalistic movement sprang which would change the shape of American letters. Thompson's razor-sharp insight and crystal clarity capture the crazy, hypocritical, degenerate, and redeeming aspects of the explosive and colorful �60s and �70s.]]> 624 Hunter S. Thompson 0743250451 Chris 0 to-read 4.10 1979 The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time (The Gonzo Papers, #1)
author: Hunter S. Thompson
name: Chris
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Animal Liberation Now: The Definitive Classic Renewed]]> 62119780 "Peter Singer may be the most controversial philosopher alive; he is certainly among the most influential."--The New Yorker

"A most important book that will change the way many of us look at animals--and, ultimately, at ourselves."--Chicago Tribune

Updated for the first time in nearly 50 years, this mainstay of the animal rights movement includes the most recent information about humanity's relationship to animals, including the explosion of factory farming worldwide, and why our cruelty towards them persists.

One of the most influential books of the past half century, Peter Singer's Animal Liberation has only grown in relevance and popularity since its original publication in 1975. Named one of Time magazine's "All-Time 100 Best Nonfiction Books," this groundbreaking work has awakened millions to "speciesism"--humans' systematic disregard of nonhuman animals. Singer inspired a worldwide movement, transforming our careless attitude toward animals and helping to reduce and hopefully eliminate the cruelty we inflict on them. In Animal Liberation, Singer exposes the chilling realities of today's factory farms and product-testing procedures, destroying the spurious justifications behind them and exposing just how woefully we have been misled.

Now, in this updated edition--revised from top to bottom--Singer brings us to the current moment, covering important reforms in the European Union and individual U.S. states. But he shows us how these measures are offset by the explosion of factory farming caused by unprecedented demand for animal products in China. Singer also explores how meat consumption is negatively impacting the earth, and reveals how factory farms pose a profound risk for spreading new viruses worse than Covid-19. In addition, Singer offers alternatives we can use to address this profound environmental, social, and moral issue.]]> 368 Peter Singer 0063226707 Chris 0 to-read 4.52 2023 Animal Liberation Now: The Definitive Classic Renewed
author: Peter Singer
name: Chris
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads]]> 28503628
Tim Wu argues that this condition is not simply the byproduct of recent technological innovations but the result of more than a century's growth and expansion in the industries that feed on human attention. From the pre-Madison Avenue birth of advertising to the explosion of the mobile web; from AOL and the invention of email to the attention monopolies of Google and Facebook; from Ed Sullivan to celebritypower brandslike Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump, the basic business model of "attention merchants" has never changed: free diversion in exchange for a moment of your consideration, sold in turn to the highest-bidding advertiser. Wu describes the revolts that have risen against the relentless siege of our awareness, from the remote control to the creation of public broadcasting to Apple's ad-blocking OS. But he makes clear that attention merchants are always growing new heads, even as their means of getting inside our heads are changing our very nature--cognitive, social, political and otherwise--in ways unimaginable even a generation ago.
]]> 403 Tim Wu 0385352018 Chris 0 to-read 4.06 2016 The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
author: Tim Wu
name: Chris
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease]]> 17736859 A landmark book of popular science—a lucid, engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years and of how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and the modern world is fueling the paradox of greater longevity but more chronic disease.Ěý
Ěý
In a book that illuminates, as never before, the evolutionary story of the human body, Daniel Lieberman deftly examines the major transformations that contributed key adaptations to the body: the advent of bipedalism; the shift to a non-fruit-based diet; the rise of hunting and gathering and our superlative endurance athletic abilities; the development of a very large brain; and the incipience of modern cultural abilities.ĚýHe elucidates how cultural evolution differs from biological evolution, and how it further transformed our bodies during the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. Lieberman illuminates how these ongoing changes have brought many benefits, but also have created novel conditions to which our bodies are not entirely adapted, resulting in a growing incidence of obesity and new but avoidable diseases, including type-2 diabetes. He proposes that many of these chronic illnesses persist and in some cases are intensifying because of "dysevolution," a pernicious dynamic whereby only the symptoms rather than the causes of these maladies are treated. And finally—provocatively—he advocates the use of evolutionary information to help nudge, push, and sometimes oblige us to create a more salubrious environment.

(With charts and line drawings throughout.)


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 480 Daniel E. Lieberman 0307907414 Chris 0 to-read 4.25 2013 The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease
author: Daniel E. Lieberman
name: Chris
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Twelve (The Passage, #2) 13565543
No caos que se formou, a unica chance de sobrevivencia para a especie humana eram fortificacoes altamente protegidas. Assim se formou a Primeira Colonia, um reduto a salvo dos virais, mas isolado do resto do mundo.

Noventa e dois anos depois, uma andarilha surgiu as portas da Colonia. Era Amy Harper Bellafonte, a Garota de Lugar Nenhum, aquela que iria liderar um grupo de colonos e eliminar a cobaia numero 1, Gilles Babcock, libertando seus Muitos.

Agora, cinco anos apos ter cruzado as Terras Escuras em busca de respostas e salvacao, seu grupo esta separado. Cada um seguiu seu caminho, mas seus destinos logo voltarao a se cruzar, num embate definitivo contra uma ameaca mortal. Fanning, o Zero, aquele que deu origem ao apocalipse, tem planos para refazer o grupo dos Doze e conta com um aliado poderoso, disposto a qualquer coisa em nome da propria imortalidade.

Segundo livro da trilogia A passagem, Os Doze nos faz questionar a mente humana, os avancos cientificos e a busca do poder que leva a uma certeza sombria de nossa capacidade para o mal. Mas, acima de tudo, ele reforca nossa esperanca em uma humanidade que se adapta, sobrevivee nao se rende.]]> 624 Justin Cronin Chris 0 4.23 2012 The Twelve (The Passage, #2)
author: Justin Cronin
name: Chris
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/03
date added: 2024/04/03
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]]> The Passage (The Passage, #1) 8145855 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � This thrilling novel kicks off what Stephen King calls “a trilogy that will stand as one of the great achievements in American fantasy fiction.�

NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST HORROR BOOKS OF THE DECADE � NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE YEAR BY TIME AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post � Esquire � U.S. News & World Report � NPR/On Point � St. Louis Post-Dispatch � BookPage � Library Journal

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.�

An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival, The Passage is the story of Amy—abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions. But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape—but he can’t stop society’s collapse. And as Amy walks alone, across miles and decades, into a future dark with violence and despair, she is filled with the mysterious and terrifying knowledge that only she has the power to save the ruined world.]]> 785 Justin Cronin Chris 0 4.15 2010 The Passage (The Passage, #1)
author: Justin Cronin
name: Chris
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/15
date added: 2024/03/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ocean at the End of the Lane]]> 15783514
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.]]> 181 Neil Gaiman 0062255657 Chris 5 favorites 4.00 2013 The Ocean at the End of the Lane
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Chris
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/03/06
shelves: favorites
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]]> Amatka 35110377
Vanja, a government worker, leaves her home city of Essre for the austere, wintry colony of Amatka on a research assignment. It takes some people act differently in Amatka, and citizens are monitored for signs of subversion.

Intending to stay just a short while, Vanja finds herself falling in love with her housemate, Nina, and decides to stick around. But when she stumbles on evidence of a growing threat to the colony and a cover-up by its administration, she begins an investigation that puts her at tremendous risk.

In Karin Tidbeck's dystopic imagining, language has the power to shape reality. Unless objects, buildings, and the surrounding landscape are repeatedly named, and named properly, everything will fall apart. Trapped in the repressive colony, Vanja dreams of using language to break free, but her individualism may well threaten the very fabric of reality. Amatka is a beguiling and wholly original novel about freedom, love, and artistic creation by an idiosyncratic new voice.]]> 200 Karin Tidbeck 110197396X Chris 4 favorites 3.83 2012 Amatka
author: Karin Tidbeck
name: Chris
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2019/07/20
date added: 2024/03/06
shelves: favorites
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]]> Lincoln in the Bardo 30254065 Lincoln in the BardoĚýis a literary experience unlike any other—for no one but Saunders could conceive it.

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,� the president says at the time. “God has called him home.� Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returned to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory, where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.

Lincoln in the BardoĚýis an astonishingĚýfeat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices—living and dead, historical and invented—to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when weĚýknow that everything we love must end?

Praise for George Saunders
Ěý
“No one writes more powerfully than George Saunders.�—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Ěý
“Saunders makes you feel as though you are reading fiction for the first time.�—Khaled Hosseini
Ěý
“George Saunders is a complete original. There is no one better, no one more essential to our national sense of self and sanity.�—Dave Eggers
Ěý
“Few people cut as hard or deep as Saunders does.�—Junot Díaz

“Not since Twain has America produced a satirist this funny.�—Zadie Smith
Ěý
“George Saunders makes the all-but-impossible look effortless. We’re lucky to have him.�—Jonathan Franzen
Ěý
“An astoundingly tuned voice—graceful, dark, authentic, and funny—telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times.�—Thomas Pynchon]]> 368 George Saunders Chris 5 favorites 3.75 2017 Lincoln in the Bardo
author: George Saunders
name: Chris
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2019/07/17
date added: 2024/03/06
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]]> Good Morning, Midnight 27405160
At the same time, Mission Specialist Sullivan is aboard the Aether on its return flight from Jupiter. The astronauts are the first human beings to delve this deep into space, and Sully has made peace with the sacrifices required of her: a daughter left behind, a marriage ended. So far the journey has been a success, but when Mission Control falls inexplicably silent, Sully and her crew mates are forced to wonder if they will ever get home.

As Augustine and Sully each face an uncertain future against forbidding yet beautiful landscapes, their stories gradually intertwine in a profound and unexpected conclusion. In crystalline prose, Good Morning, Midnight poses the most important questions: What endures at the end of the world? How do we make sense of our lives?]]> 218 Lily Brooks-Dalton 0812998901 Chris 0 to-read 3.88 2016 Good Morning, Midnight
author: Lily Brooks-Dalton
name: Chris
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> The Light Pirate 60733412 Set in the near future, this hopeful story of survival and resilience follows Wanda—a luminous child born out of a devastating hurricane—as she navigates a rapidly changing world.

Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker, his pregnant wife, Frida, and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds in search of his children. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gives birth to an unusual child, Wanda, whom she names after the catastrophic storm that ushers her into a society closer to collapse than ever before.

As Florida continues to unravel, Wanda grows. Moving from childhood to adulthood, adapting not only to the changing landscape, but also to the people who stayed behind in a place abandoned by civilization, Wanda loses family, gains community, and ultimately, seeks adventure, love, and purpose in a place remade by nature.

Told in four parts—power, water, light, and time�The Light Pirate mirrors the rhythms of the elements and the sometimes quick, sometimes slow dissolution of the world as we know it. It is a meditation on the changes we would rather not see, the future we would rather not greet, and a call back to the beauty and violence of an untamable wilderness.

Includes a Reading Group Guide.]]> 357 Lily Brooks-Dalton 1538708299 Chris 5 4.18 2022 The Light Pirate
author: Lily Brooks-Dalton
name: Chris
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/06
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]]> A House With Good Bones 60827975 A contemporary Southern Gothic from award-winning master of modern horror, T. Kingfisher. A House With Good Bones explores the deep, dark roots of family.

Sam Montgomery is worried about her mother. She seems anxious, jumpy, and she's begun making mystifying changes to the family home on Lammergeier Lane. Sam figures it has something to do with her mother's relationship to Sam's late, unlamented grandmother.

She's not wrong.

As vultures gather around the house and frightful family secrets are unearthed under the rosebushes, Sam struggles to unravel the truth about the house on Lammergeier Lane before it consumes her and everyone else who stands in its way...

Also by T. Kingfisher
Nettle & Bone
What Moves the Dead]]> 256 T. Kingfisher Chris 0 3.82 2023 A House With Good Bones
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Chris
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/02/22
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]]> The Ferryman 61920791 New York Times bestselling author of The Passage comes a riveting standalone novel about a group of survivors on a hidden island utopia--where the truth isn't what it seems.

Founded by a mysterious genius, the archipelago of Prospera lies hidden from the horrors of a deteriorating outside world. In this island paradise, Prospera's lucky citizens enjoy long, fulfilling lives until the monitors embedded in their forearms, meant to measure their physical health and psychological well-being, fall below 10 percent. Then they retire themselves, embarking on a ferry ride to the island known as the Nursery, where their failing bodies are renewed, their memories are wiped clean, and they are readied to restart life afresh.

Proctor Bennett, of the Department of Social Contracts, has a satisfying career as a ferryman, gently shepherding people through the retirement process--and, when necessary, enforcing it. But all is not well with Proctor. For one thing, he's been dreaming--which is supposed to be impossible in Prospera. For another, his monitor percentage has begun to drop alarmingly fast. And then comes the day he is summoned to retire his own father, who gives him a disturbing and cryptic message before being wrestled onto the ferry.

Meanwhile, something is stirring. The Support Staff, ordinary men and women who provide the labor to keep Prospera running, have begun to question their place in the social order. Unrest is building, and there are rumors spreading of a resistance group--known as "Arrivalists"--who may be fomenting revolution.

Soon Proctor finds himself questioning everything he once believed, entangled with a much bigger cause than he realized--and on a desperate mission to uncover the truth.]]> 560 Justin Cronin 0525619488 Chris 5 4.10 2023 The Ferryman
author: Justin Cronin
name: Chris
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...and Maybe the World]]> 31423133

If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.
On May 17, 2014, Admiral William H. McRaven addressed the graduating class of the University of Texas at Austin on their Commencement day. Taking inspiration from the university's slogan, "What starts here changes the world," he shared the ten principles he learned during Navy Seal training that helped him overcome challenges not only in his training and long Naval career, but also throughout his life; and he explained how anyone can use these basic lessons to change themselves-and the world-for the better.

Admiral McRaven's original speech went viral with over 10 million views. Building on the core tenets laid out in his speech, McRaven now recounts tales from his own life and from those of people he encountered during his military service who dealt with hardship and made tough decisions with determination, compassion, honor, and courage. Told with great humility and optimism, this timeless book provides simple wisdom, practical advice, and words of encouragement that will inspire readers to achieve more, even in life's darkest moments.]]> 2 William H. McRaven Chris 0 to-read 3.99 2017 Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...and Maybe the World
author: William H. McRaven
name: Chris
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life]]> 52950915 A Common-Sense Guide to Living Rich�.Instead of Dying Rich

Imagine if by the time you died, you did everything you were told to. You worked hard, saved your money, and looked forward to financial freedom when you retired.
Ěý
The only thing you wasted along the way was�your life.
Ěý
Die with Zero presents a startling new and provocative philosophy as well as practical guide on how to get the most out of your moneyâ€�and out ofĚýyour life. It’s intended for those who place lifelong memorable experiences far ahead of simply making and accumulating money for one’s so-called Golden Years.
Ěý
In short, Bill Perkins wants to rescue you from over-saving and under-living. Regardless of your age, Die with Zero will teach you Perkins� plan for optimizing your life, stage by stage, so you’re fully engaged and enjoying what you’ve worked and saved for.
Ěý
You’ll discover how to maximize your lifetime memorable moments with “experience bucketing,� how to convert your earnings into priceless memories by following your “net worth curve,� and find out how to navigate whether to invest in, or delay, a meaningful adventure based on your “spend curve� and “personal interest rate.�
Ěý
Using his own life experiences as well as the inspiring stories and cautionary tales of others—and drawing on eye-opening insights about time, money, and happiness from psychological science and behavioral finance —Perkins makes a timely, convincing, and contrarian case for living large.]]> 240 Bill Perkins 0358099765 Chris 0 to-read 3.84 2020 Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life
author: Bill Perkins
name: Chris
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> Gates of Fire 6622811 Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

Nearly 2,500 years ago, in 480BC, at a bleak pass in a far-flung corner of eastern Greece, three hundred Spartan warriors faced the army of Xerxes of Persia, a massive force rumoured to be over a million strong. Their orders were to delay the enemy for as long as possible while the main Greek armies mobilized.
For six days the Spartans held the invaders at bay. In the final hours - their shields broken, swords and spears shattered - they fought with their bare hands before being overwhelmed. It was battle that would become synonymous with extraordinary courage, heroism and it was Thermopylae.
In Gates of Fire , Steven Pressfield tells the epic story of those legendary the men and women who helped shaped our history and have themselves become as immortal as their gods.]]> 402 Steven Pressfield 0553904051 Chris 5 4.49 1998 Gates of Fire
author: Steven Pressfield
name: Chris
average rating: 4.49
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/23
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]]> On Trails: An Exploration 27276431 How do they form? Why do some improve over time while others fade? What makes us follow or strike off on our own?

Over the course of the next seven years, Moor traveled the globe, exploring trails of all kinds, from the miniscule to the massive. He learned the tricks of master trail-builders, hunted down long-lost Cherokee trails, and traced the origins of our road networks and the Internet. In each chapter, Moor interweaves his adventures with findings from science, history, philosophy, and nature writing—combining the nomadic joys of Peter Matthiessen with the eclectic wisdom of Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.

Throughout, Moor reveals how this single topic—the oft-overlooked trail—sheds new light on a wealth of age-old questions: How does order emerge out of chaos? How did animals first crawl forth from the seas and spread across continents? How has humanity’s relationship with nature and technology shaped world around us? And, ultimately, how does each of us pick a path through life?

Moor has the essayist’s gift for making new connections, the adventurer’s love for paths untaken, and the philosopher’s knack for asking big questions. With a breathtaking arc that spans from the dawn of animal life to the digital era, On Trails is a book that makes us see our world, our history, our species, and our ways of life anew.]]> 352 Robert Moor 1476739218 Chris 0 currently-reading 3.95 2016 On Trails: An Exploration
author: Robert Moor
name: Chris
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Company Of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business]]> 38922272 274 Paul Jarvis Chris 0 to-read 4.19 2019 Company Of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business
author: Paul Jarvis
name: Chris
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds]]> 41721428 New York Times Best SellerOver 5 million copies soldFor David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare -- poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him "The Fittest (Real) Man in America."In Can't Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.]]> 366 David Goggins 1544512260 Chris 0 to-read 4.30 2018 Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
author: David Goggins
name: Chris
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Narrow Road to the Interior: And Other Writings (Shambhala Classics)]]> 21285416 Here is the most complete single-volume collection of the writings of one of the great luminaries of Asian literature. Basho (1644�1694)—who elevated the haiku to an art form of utter simplicity and intense spiritual beauty—is best known in the West as the author of Narrow Road to the Interior, a travel diary of linked prose and haiku that recounts his journey through the far northern provinces of Japan. This volume includes a masterful translation of this celebrated work along with three other less well-known but important works by Basho: Travelogue of Weather-Beaten Bones, The Knapsack Notebook, and Sarashina Travelogue. There is also a selection of over two hundred fifty of Basho's finest haiku. In addition, the translator has provided an introduction detailing Basho's life and work and an essay on the art of haiku.

]]> 249 Matsuo BashĹŤ 0834824930 Chris 0 to-read 4.46 1999 Narrow Road to the Interior: And Other Writings (Shambhala Classics)
author: Matsuo BashĹŤ
name: Chris
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Ways to Connect: On Interface and Product Design]]> 18586199 27 Ryan Singer Chris 0 to-read 3.91 2013 Ways to Connect: On Interface and Product Design
author: Ryan Singer
name: Chris
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine]]> 33970500 Author of cult classics The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur offers a simple, counterintuitive cash management solution that will help small businesses break out of the doom spiral and achieve instant profitability.
Conventional accounting uses the logical (albeit, flawed) Sales - Expenses = Profit. The problem is, businesses are run by humans, and humans aren't always logical. Serial entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz has developed a behavioral approach to accounting to flip the Sales - Profit = Expenses. Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows. Using Michalowicz's Profit First system, readers will learn
. Following 4 simple principles can simplify accounting and make it easier to manage a profitable business by looking at bank account balances.
. A small, profitable business can be worth much more than a large business surviving on its top line.
. Businesses that attain early and sustained profitability have a better shot at achieiving long-term growth.
With dozens of case studies, practical, step-by-step advice, and his signature sense of humor, Michalowicz has the game-changing roadmap for any entrepreneur to make money they always dreamed of."]]> 222 Mike Michalowicz 0735214166 Chris 0 4.42 2014 Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine
author: Mike Michalowicz
name: Chris
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/06
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]]> This Could Help 24277506 145 Patrick Rhone Chris 0 to-read 3.98 2014 This Could Help
author: Patrick Rhone
name: Chris
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)]]> 45154547 WINNER OF THE 2022 HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
Now a USA Today bestseller!
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2021
Amazon's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2021
Bookpage's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2021
Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ Choice Awards Nominee for Best Science Fiction Book of 2021

A Desolation Called Peace is the spectacular space opera sequel to Arkady Martine's genre-reinventing, Hugo Award-winning debut, A Memory Called Empire.

An alien armada lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is running out of options.

In a desperate attempt at diplomacy with the mysterious invaders, the fleet captain has sent for a diplomatic envoy. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass—still reeling from the recent upheaval in the Empire—face the impossible task of trying to communicate with a hostile entity.

Their failure will guarantee millions of deaths in an endless war. Their success might prevent Teixcalaan’s destruction—and allow the empire to continue its rapacious expansion.

Or it might create something far stranger . . .
]]> 496 Arkady Martine 125018648X Chris 0 to-read 4.31 2021 A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)
author: Arkady Martine
name: Chris
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Collected Regrets of Clover]]> 61214136
From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of Peter Rabbit , Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living. After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process.

Clover spends so much time with the dying that she has no life of her own, until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send Clover on a road trip to uncover a forgotten love story—and perhaps, her own happy ending. As she finds herself struggling to navigate the uncharted roads of romance and friendship, Clover is forced to examine what she really wants, and whether she’ll have the courage to go after it.

Probing, clever, and hopeful, The Collected Regrets of Clover is perfect for readers of The Midnight Library and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine as it turns the normally taboo subject of death into a reason to celebrate life.]]> 320 Mikki Brammer 1250284392 Chris 0 to-read 4.14 2023 The Collected Regrets of Clover
author: Mikki Brammer
name: Chris
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> The Wishing Game 62926992
Lucy Hart knows better than anyone what it’s like to grow up without parents who loved her. In a childhood marked by neglect and loneliness, Lucy found her solace in books, namely the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson. Now a twenty-six-year-old teacher’s aide, she is able to share her love of reading with bright, young students, especially seven-year-old Christopher Lamb, who was left orphaned after the tragic death of his parents. Lucy would give anything to adopt Christopher, but even the idea of becoming a family seems like an impossible dream without proper funds and stability.

But be careful what you wish for. . . .

Just when Lucy is about to give up, Jack Masterson announces he’s finally written a new book. Even better, he’s holding a contest at his home on the real Clock Island, and Lucy is one of the four lucky contestants chosen to compete to win the one and only copy.

For Lucy, the chance of winning the most sought-after book in the world means everything to her and Christopher. But first she must contend with ruthless book collectors, wily opponents, and the distractingly handsome (and grumpy) Hugo Reese, the illustrator of the Clock Island books. Meanwhile, Jack “the Mastermind� Masterson is plotting the ultimate twist ending that could change all their lives forever.

. . . You might just get it.]]> 304 Meg Shaffer 0593598830 Chris 0 to-read 4.01 2023 The Wishing Game
author: Meg Shaffer
name: Chris
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> Yellowface 62047984
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 319 R.F. Kuang 000853277X Chris 0 to-read 3.69 2023 Yellowface
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Chris
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> Narcissus and Goldmund 18869105 322 Hermann Hesse Chris 5 4.49 1930 Narcissus and Goldmund
author: Hermann Hesse
name: Chris
average rating: 4.49
book published: 1930
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/06
date added: 2024/01/06
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]]> Shadow Divers 9530
For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents, braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, navigating through wreckage as perilous as a minefield, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than once in the rusting hulks of sunken ships.

But in the fall of 1991, not even these courageous divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey: a World War II German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wasteland of twisted metal, tangled wires, and human bones–all buried under decades of accumulated sediment.

No identifying marks were visible on the submarine or the few artifacts brought to the surface. No historian, expert, or government had a clue as to which U-boat the men had found. In fact, the official records all agreed that there simply could not be a sunken U-boat and crew at that location.

Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest to solve the mystery. Some of them would not live to see its end. Chatterton and Kohler, at first bitter rivals, would be drawn into a friendship that deepened to an almost mystical sense of brotherhood with each other and with the drowned U-boat sailors–former enemies of their country. As the men’s marriages frayed under the pressure of a shared obsession, their dives grew more daring, and each realized that he was hunting more than the identities of a lost U-boat and its nameless crew.

Author Robert Kurson’s account of this quest is at once thrilling and emotionally complex, and it is written with a vivid sense of what divers actually experience when they meet the dangers of the ocean’s underworld. The story of Shadow Divers often seems too amazing to be true, but it all happened, two hundred thirty feet down, in the deep blue sea.]]> 335 Robert Kurson Chris 0 to-read 4.34 2004 Shadow Divers
author: Robert Kurson
name: Chris
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey]]> 78508 The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron.

After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever.

Along the way, Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide. The River of Doubt brings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived.
From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest to the darkest night of Theodore Roosevelt’s life, here is Candice Millard’s dazzling debut.]]> 416 Candice Millard 0767913736 Chris 0 to-read 4.18 2005 The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
author: Candice Millard
name: Chris
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/12
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]]> Empire of the Summer Moon 7648269 In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all.

S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.

Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. So effective were the Comanches that they forced the creation of the Texas Rangers and account for the advent of the new weapon specifically designed to fight them: the six-gun.

The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being.

Against this backdrop Gwynne presents the compelling drama of Cynthia Ann Parker, a lovely nine-year-old girl with cornflower-blue eyes who was kidnapped by Comanches from the far Texas frontier in 1836. She grew to love her captors and became infamous as the "White Squaw" who refused to return until her tragic capture by Texas Rangers in 1860. More famous still was her son Quanah, a warrior who was never defeated and whose guerrilla wars in the Texas Panhandle made him a legend.

S. C. Gwynne’s account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told.

]]> 371 S.C. Gwynne 1416591052 Chris 0 to-read 4.22 2010 Empire of the Summer Moon
author: S.C. Gwynne
name: Chris
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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]]> The Stranger 59008839 112 Albert Camus Chris 0 4.03 1942 The Stranger
author: Albert Camus
name: Chris
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1942
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/08
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]]> <![CDATA[There Is No Antimemetics Division]]> 54870256 Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which you wouldn't share with anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets. Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers, and dreams... But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely. How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war? Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. No, this is not your first day.This ebook is an official release by me, qntm from the SCP Foundation wiki! PM me if you require confirmation. This ebook collects all of my Antimemetics Division SCP-055, SCP-2256 and the complete serials There Is No Antimemetics Division and Five Five Five Five Five.]]> 220 qntm Chris 4 4.22 2020 There Is No Antimemetics Division
author: qntm
name: Chris
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/03
date added: 2023/12/03
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]]> Youth 21006986 50 Joseph Conrad Chris 4 4.36 1898 Youth
author: Joseph Conrad
name: Chris
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1898
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/18
date added: 2023/12/02
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]]> Foundation (Foundation, #1) 58831139
The Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are among the most influential in the history of science fiction, celebrated for their unique blend of breathtaking action, daring ideas, and extensive worldbuilding. In Foundation, Asimov has written a timely and timeless novel of the best—and worst—that lies in humanity, and the power of even a few courageous souls to shine a light in a universe of darkness.]]> 255 Isaac Asimov Chris 0 4.16 1951 Foundation (Foundation, #1)
author: Isaac Asimov
name: Chris
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at: 2023/11/19
date added: 2023/11/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Last Town (Wayward Pines #3)]]> 60821869 291 Blake Crouch 0593598512 Chris 4 4.38 2014 The Last Town (Wayward Pines #3)
author: Blake Crouch
name: Chris
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/04
date added: 2023/11/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Wayward: Wayward Pines: 2 (The Wayward Pines Trilogy)]]> 60692475 None of the residents know how they got here. They are told where to work, how to live, and who to marry. Some believe they are dead. Others think they’re trapped in an unfathomable experiment. Everyone secretly dreams of leaving, but those who dare face a terrifying surprise.

Ethan Burke has seen the world beyond. He’s sheriff, and one of the few who knows the truth—Wayward Pines isn’t just a town. And what lies on the other side of the fence is a nightmare beyond anyone’s imagining.]]> 340 Blake Crouch 0593598490 Chris 3 4.40 2013 Wayward: Wayward Pines: 2 (The Wayward Pines Trilogy)
author: Blake Crouch
name: Chris
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/02
date added: 2023/11/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Pines: Wayward Pines: 1 (The Wayward Pines Trilogy)]]> 60759964 303 Blake Crouch 0593598334 Chris 4 4.05 2012 Pines: Wayward Pines: 1 (The Wayward Pines Trilogy)
author: Blake Crouch
name: Chris
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/11/01
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]]> The Institute 43799634
In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.]]> 557 Stephen King Chris 0 to-read 4.39 2019 The Institute
author: Stephen King
name: Chris
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/29
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]]> The Troop 17571466 358 Nick Cutter 1476717710 Chris 0 to-read 3.83 2014 The Troop
author: Nick Cutter
name: Chris
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/29
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]]> The Sea 8266302

From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 210 John Banville Chris 5 3.78 2005 The Sea
author: John Banville
name: Chris
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/29
date added: 2023/10/29
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]]> Birnam Wood 63853404
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last.

But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the he has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells Birnam’s founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. He’s intrigued by Mira, and by Birnam Wood; although they’re poles apart politically, it seems Lemoine and the group might have enemies in common. But can Birnam trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust one another?

A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its drama, Austenian in its wit, and, like both influences, fascinated by what makes us who we are. A brilliantly constructed study of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is a mesmerizing, unflinching consideration of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.]]> 426 Eleanor Catton 0374718016 Chris 5 3.83 2023 Birnam Wood
author: Eleanor Catton
name: Chris
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/02
date added: 2023/10/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3)]]> 34017126 The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.

Essun has inherited the phenomenal power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every outcast child can grow up safe.

For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.]]> 398 N.K. Jemisin Chris 5 4.47 2017 The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Chris
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/14
date added: 2023/09/14
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]]> <![CDATA[The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, #2)]]> 68043118 The second novel in a new fantasy trilogy by Hugo, Nebula & World Fantasy Award nominated author N.K. Jemisin.

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS... FOR THE LAST TIME.

The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. Alabaster Tenring -- madman, world-crusher, savior -- has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever.

It continues with a lost daughter, found by the enemy.

It continues with the obelisks, and an ancient mystery converging on answers at last.

The Stillness is the wall which stands against the flow of tradition, the spark of hope long buried under the thickening ashfall. And it will not be broken.
]]> 321 N.K. Jemisin Chris 5 4.41 2016 The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, #2)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Chris
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/10
date added: 2023/09/10
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]]> The Goldfinch 18902634
Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph - a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate.]]> 774 Donna Tartt Chris 5 4.03 2013 The Goldfinch
author: Donna Tartt
name: Chris
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2018/05/08
date added: 2023/09/06
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]]> To Sleep in a Sea of Stars 48894288 To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a brand new epic novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eragon, Christopher Paolini.

Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds.

Now she's awakened a nightmare.

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

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

While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope . . .]]> 856 Christopher Paolini Chris 4 3.99 2020 To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
author: Christopher Paolini
name: Chris
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/06
date added: 2023/08/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Different Seasons: Four Novellas]]> 28094689 Includes the stories “The Body� and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”—set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine A “hypnotic� (The New York Times Book Review) collection of four novellas—including the inspirations behind the films Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption—from Stephen King, bound together by the changing of seasons, each taking on the theme of a journey with strikingly different tones and characters.This gripping collection begins with “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,� in which an unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge—the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award-nominee The Shawshank Redemption. Next is “Apt Pupil,� the inspiration for the film of the same name about top high school student Todd Bowden and his obsession with the dark and deadly past of an older man in town. In “The Body,� four rambunctious young boys plunge through the façade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. This novella became the movie Stand By Me. Finally, a disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death in “The Breathing Method.� “The wondrous readability of his work, as well as the instant sense of communication with his characters, are what make Stephen King the consummate storyteller that he is,� hailed the Houston Chronicle about Different Seasons.]]> 687 Stephen King Chris 0 4.37 1982 Different Seasons: Four Novellas
author: Stephen King
name: Chris
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/25
date added: 2023/07/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Beyond Basketball: Coach K's Keywords for Success]]> 226225 192 Mike Krzyzewski 044658049X Chris 0 to-read 4.10 2006 Beyond Basketball: Coach K's Keywords for Success
author: Mike Krzyzewski
name: Chris
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10]]> 5475208
Over the next four days, terribly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell crawled for miles through the mountains and was taken in by sympathetic villagers who risked their lives to keep him safe from surrounding Taliban warriors. Born and raised Texan, Marcus Luttrell takes us from the rigors of SEAL training, where he and his fellow SEALs discovered what it took to join the most elite of the American special forces, to a fight in the desolate hills of Afghanistan, for which they never could have been prepared.

His account of his squadmates' heroism and mutual support renders an experience for which two of his squadmates were posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for combat heroism that is both heartrending and life-affirming. In this rich chronicle of courage and sacrifice, honor and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers a powerful narrative of modern war.]]> 390 Marcus Luttrell Chris 0 4.48 2006 Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10
author: Marcus Luttrell
name: Chris
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/11
date added: 2023/07/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Death's End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #3)]]> 25735618
� The War of the Worlds for the 21st century� packed with a sense of wonder.� � Wall Street Journal

The New York Times bestselling conclusion to a tour de force near-future adventure trilogy from China's bestselling and beloved science fiction writer.

With The Three-Body Problem , English-speaking readers got their first chance to read China's most beloved science fiction author, Cixin Liu. The Three-Body Problem was released to great acclaim including coverage in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and reading list picks by Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg . It was also won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, making it the first translated novel to win a major SF award.

Now this epic trilogy concludes with Death's End . Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent.

Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the early twenty-first century, awakens from hibernation in this new age. She brings with her knowledge of a long-forgotten program dating from the beginning of the Trisolar Crisis, and her very presence may upset the delicate balance between two worlds. Will humanity reach for the stars or die in its cradle?

The Remembrance of Earth's Past series:
The Three-Body Problem
The Dark Forest
Death's End

Other books:
Ball Lightning
Supernova Era
To Hold Up The Sky (forthcoming)

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 605 Liu Cixin Chris 5 4.51 2010 Death's End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #3)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Chris
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/29
date added: 2023/06/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)]]> 24375664 This near-future trilogy is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple-award-winning phenomenon from Cixin Liu, China's most beloved science fiction author.

In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion-in just four centuries' time. The aliens' human collaborators may have been defeated, but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth's defense plans are totally exposed to the enemy. Only the human mind remains a secret. This is the motivation for the Wallfacer Project, a daring plan that grants four men enormous resources to design secret strategies, hidden through deceit and misdirection from Earth and Trisolaris alike. Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists, but the fourth is a total unknown. Luo Ji, an unambitious Chinese astronomer and sociologist, is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he's the one Wallfacer that Trisolaris wants dead.]]> 513 Liu Cixin Chris 5 4.47 2008 The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Chris
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/13
date added: 2023/06/13
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]]> <![CDATA[The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)]]> 58709846 The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin.

Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.]]> 400 Liu Cixin Chris 4 4.15 2006 The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Chris
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/25
date added: 2023/05/25
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]]> Midnight’s Children 14836 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,� all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts.

This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Twenty-five years after its publication, Midnight� s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.]]> 647 Salman Rushdie 0099578514 Chris 0 to-read 3.98 1981 Midnight’s Children
author: Salman Rushdie
name: Chris
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self]]> 56395724
In many ways, we’re more comfortable than ever before. But could our sheltered, temperature-controlled, overfed, underchallenged lives actually be the leading cause of many our most urgent physical and mental health issues? In this gripping investigation, award-winning journalist Michael Easter seeks out off-the-grid visionaries, disruptive genius researchers, and mind-body conditioning trailblazers who are unlocking the life-enhancing secrets of a counterintuitive discomfort.

Easter’s journey to understand our evolutionary need to be challenged takes him to meet the NBA’s top exercise scientist, who uses an ancient Japanese practice to build championship athletes; to the mystical country of Bhutan, where an Oxford economist and Buddhist leader are showing the world what death can teach us about happiness; to the outdoor lab of a young neuroscientist who’s found that nature tests our physical and mental endurance in ways that expand creativity while taming burnout and anxiety; to the remote Alaskan backcountry on a demanding thirty-three-day hunting expedition to experience the rewilding secrets of one of the last rugged places on Earth; and more.

Along the way, Easter uncovers a blueprint for leveraging the power of discomfort that will dramatically improve our health and happiness, and perhaps even help us understand what it means to be human. The Comfort Crisis is a bold call to break out of your comfort zone and explore the wild within yourself.]]> 284 Michael Easter 0593138775 Chris 4 4.55 2021 The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self
author: Michael Easter
name: Chris
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/25
date added: 2023/02/25
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]]> Constance (Constance, #1) 56326737 A breakthrough in human cloning becomes one woman’s waking nightmare in a mind-bending thriller by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Gibson Vaughn series.

In the near future, advances in medicine and quantum computing make human cloning a reality. For the wealthy, cheating death is the ultimate luxury. To anticloning militants, it’s an abomination against nature. For young Constance “Con� D’Arcy, who was gifted her own clone by her late aunt, it’s terrifying.

After a routine monthly upload of her consciousness—stored for that inevitable transition—something goes wrong. When Con wakes up in the clinic, it’s eighteen months later. Her recent memories are missing. Her original, she’s told, is dead. If that’s true, what does that make her?

The secrets of Con’s disorienting new life are buried deep. So are those of how and why she died. To uncover the truth, Con is retracing the last days she can recall, crossing paths with a detective who’s just as curious. On the run, she needs someone she can trust. Because only one thing has become clear: Con is being marked for murder—all over again.]]> 343 Matthew FitzSimmons 154201428X Chris 0 to-read 4.03 2021 Constance (Constance, #1)
author: Matthew FitzSimmons
name: Chris
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/21
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]]> Dark Matter 45697427 Alternative cover editions for this ASIN can be found here and here

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

It starts with a man in a mask kidnapping him at gunpoint, for reasons Jason can’t begin to fathom—what would anyone want with an ordinary physics professor?—and grows even more terrifying from there, as Jason’s abductor injects him with some unknown drug and watches while he loses consciousness.

When Jason awakes, he’s in a lab, strapped to a gurney—and a man he’s never seen before is cheerily telling him “welcome back!�

Jason soon learns that in this world he’s woken up to, his house is not his house. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born.

And someone is hunting him.]]> 343 Blake Crouch Chris 5 4.23 2016 Dark Matter
author: Blake Crouch
name: Chris
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/20
date added: 2023/01/20
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]]> Hidden Pictures 58938609 From Jason Rekulak, Edgar-nominated author of The Impossible Fortress, comes a wildly inventive spin on the classic horror story in Hidden Pictures, a creepy and warm-hearted mystery about a woman working as a nanny for a young boy with strange and disturbing secrets.

Fresh out of rehab, Mallory Quinn takes a job in the affluent suburb of Spring Brook, New Jersey as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.

Mallory immediately loves this new job. She lives in the Maxwell’s pool house, goes out for nightly runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body.

As the days pass, Teddy’s artwork becomes more and more sinister, and his stick figures steadily evolve into more detailed, complex, and lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to suspect these are glimpses of an unsolved murder from long ago, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force lingering in the forest behind the Maxwell’s house.

With help from a handsome landscaper and an eccentric neighbor, Mallory sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy—while coming to terms with a tragedy in her own past—before it’s too late.]]> 375 Jason Rekulak 1250819369 Chris 0 4.29 2022 Hidden Pictures
author: Jason Rekulak
name: Chris
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/17
date added: 2023/01/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Goblin Emperor (The Chronicles of Osreth, #1)]]> 45199076 Alternate cover edition can be found here

A vividly imagined fantasy of court intrigue and dark magics in a steampunk-inflected world, by a brilliant young talent.

The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an "accident," he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir.

Entirely unschooled in the art of court politics, he has no friends, no advisors, and the sure knowledge that whoever assassinated his father and brothers could make an attempt on his life at any moment.

Surrounded by sycophants eager to curry favor with the naïve new emperor, and overwhelmed by the burdens of his new life, he can trust nobody. Amid the swirl of plots to depose him, offers of arranged marriages, and the specter of the unknown conspirators who lurk in the shadows, he must quickly adjust to life as the Goblin Emperor. All the while, he is alone, and trying to find even a single friend... and hoping for the possibility of romance, yet also vigilant against the unseen enemies that threaten him, lest he lose his throne � or his life.

This exciting fantasy novel, set against the pageantry and color of a fascinating, unique world, is a memorable debut for a great new talent.]]> 449 Katherine Addison Chris 4 4.24 2014 The Goblin Emperor (The Chronicles of Osreth, #1)
author: Katherine Addison
name: Chris
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/16
date added: 2023/01/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Passenger (The Passenger #1)]]> 60581087
Traversing the American South, from the garrulous barrooms of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness.]]> 385 Cormac McCarthy 0593535227 Chris 3 3.58 2022 The Passenger (The Passenger #1)
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Chris
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/02
date added: 2023/01/02
shelves:
review:

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