en-US Sun, 04 May 2025 17:41:31 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 715 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Ankan 4 4.34 2023
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/05/04
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]]> 16631 Steppenwolf is a poetical self-portrait of a man who felt himself to be half-human and half-wolf. This Faust-like and magical story is evidence of Hesse's searching philosophy and extraordinary sense of humanity as he tells of the humanization of a middle-aged misanthrope. Yet his novel can also be seen as a plea for rigorous self-examination and an indictment of the intellectual hypocrisy of the period. As Hesse himself remarked, "Of all my books Steppenwolf is the one that was more often and more violently misunderstood than any of the others".]]> 256 Hermann Hesse 0140282580 Ankan 0 to-read 4.15 1927
author: Hermann Hesse
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1927
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]]> 42972008
For one thing, the rain is stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living. But now �� just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity �� the rain clouds are lifting. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets he needs to atone for. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.

As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world.

Harking back to a simpler time, This Is Happiness is a tender portrait of a community �� its idiosyncrasies and traditions, its paradoxes and kindnesses, its failures and triumphs �� and a coming-of-age tale like no other. Luminous and lyrical, yet anchored by roots running deep into the earthy and everyday, it is about the power of stories: their invisible currents that run through all we do, writing and rewriting us, and the transforming light that they throw onto our world.]]> 400 Niall Williams 163557420X Ankan 5 4.18 2019
author: Niall Williams
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/21
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]]> 203956647 A brand new series. An iconic new detective duo. And a puzzling new murder to solve...

Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.

Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...

Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy?

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 059365322X.]]> 400 Richard Osman Ankan 3 4.06 2024
author: Richard Osman
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/09
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]]> 201608156
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father's shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love �� and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy's lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter's lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

Set over the course of one December in the same village as Williams' beloved This Is Happiness, Time of the Child is a tender return to Faha for readers who know its charms, and a heartwarming welcome to new readers entering for the very first time.]]> 304 Niall Williams 1639734201 Ankan 0 to-read 4.17 2024
author: Niall Williams
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.17
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]]> 52504334 Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns to his popular alternate Cairo universe for his fantasy novel debut, A Master of Djinn

Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer.

So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world 50 years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage.

Alongside her Ministry colleagues and her clever girlfriend Siti, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city -or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems…]]> 438 P. Djèlí Clark 1250267676 Ankan 0 to-read 4.01 2021
author: P. Djèlí Clark
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> 34272565 How will Artificial Intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology--and there's nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who's helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial.

How can we grow our prosperity through automation without leaving people lacking income or purpose? What career advice should we give today's kids? How can we make future AI systems more robust, so that they do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked? Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, replacing humans on the job market and perhaps altogether? Will AI help life flourish like never before or give us more power than we can handle?

What sort of future do you want? This book empowers you to join what may be the most important conversation of our time. It doesn't shy away from the full range of viewpoints or from the most controversial issues--from superintelligence to meaning, consciousness and the ultimate physical limits on life in the cosmos.]]> 384 Max Tegmark 0451485076 Ankan 3 4.02 2017
author: Max Tegmark
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2017
rating: 3
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]]> 199469832
Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis , returns to graphic art with this collaboration of over 20 activists, artists, journalists, and academics working together to depict the historic uprising, in solidarity with the Iranian people and in defense of feminism.

On September 13th 2022, a young Iranian student, Mahsa Amini, was arrested by the religious police in Tehran. Her only crime was that she wasn’t properly wearing the headscarf required for women by the Islamic Republic. At the police station, she was beaten so badly she had to be taken to the hospital, where she fell into a deep coma. She died three days later.

A wave of protests soon spread through the whole country, and crowds adopted the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”—words that have been chanted around the world during solidarity rallies.

In order to tell the story of this major revolution happening in her homeland, Marjane Satrapi has gathered together an array of journalists, activists, academics, artists, and writers from around the world to create this powerful collection of full-color, graphic-novel-style essays and perspectives that bear



Woman, Life, Freedom demonstrates that this is not an unexpected movement, but a major uprising in a long history of women who have wanted to affirm their rights. It will continue.]]> 272 Marjane Satrapi 1644214059 Ankan 0 to-read 4.43 2023
author: Marjane Satrapi
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.43
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]]> 223658219
In Father Tongue, Motherland, Peggy Mohan looks at exactly how the mixed languages in South Asia came to life. Like a flame moving from wick to wick in early encounters between male settlers and locals skilled at learning languages, the language would start to ‘go native�� as it spread. This produced ‘father tongues��, with words taken from the migrant men’s language, but grammars that preserved the earlier languages of the ‘motherland��.

Looking first at Dakkhini, spoken in the Deccan where north meets south, Mohan goes on to build an X-ray image of a vanished language of the Indus Valley Civilization from the ‘ancient bones�� visible in the modern languages of the area. In the east, she explores another migration of men 4000 years ago that left its mark on language beyond the Ganga-Yamuna confluence. How did the Dravidian people and their languages end up in south India? And what about Nepal, where men coming into the Kathmandu Valley 500 years ago created a hybrid eerily similar to what we find in the rest of the subcontinent?

One image running through this book is of something that remains even when the living form of language fades. Tucked away in how we think and speak now are echoes of our history, and the story of ancestors who lived hundreds and thousands of years ago.]]> 373 Peggy Mohan 9367906404 Ankan 0 to-read 4.00
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]]> 218153843 From the internationally bestselling author of Tigana, All the Seas of the World, and A Brightness Long Ago comes a majestic new novel of love and war that brilliantly evokes the drama and turbulence of medieval France.

Thierry Villar is a well-known--even notorious-- tavern poet, familiar with the rogues and shadows of that world, but not at all with courts and power. He is an unlikely person, despite his quickness, to be caught up in the deadly contests of ambitious royals, assassins, and invading armies.

But he is indeed drawn into all these things on a savagely cold night in his beloved city of Orane. And so Thierry must use all the intelligence and charm he can muster as political struggles merge with a decades-long war to bring his country to the brink of destruction.

As he does, he meets his poetic equal in an aristocratic woman and is drawn to more than one unsettling person with a connection to the world beyond this one. He also crosses paths with an extraordinary young woman driven by voices within to try to heal the ailing king--and help his forces in war. A wide and varied set of people from all walks of life take their places in the rich tapestry of this story.

A new masterwork from the internationally bestselling author of All the Seas of the World, A Brightness Long Ago, and Tigana, Written on the Dark is an elegant tour de force about power and ambition playing out amid the intense human need for art and beauty, and memories to be left behind.]]> 320 Guy Gavriel Kay 0593953983 Ankan 0 to-read 4.40 2025
author: Guy Gavriel Kay
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.40
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]]> 39096918
Philip identifies key features in each work, as well as subtleties and surprises that await the attentive listener, and he includes enough background and biographical information to illuminate the composer’s intentions. Organized alphabetically from Bach to Webern, this compendium will be indispensable for classical music enthusiasts, whether in the concert hall or enjoying recordings at home.]]> 968 Robert Philip 0300120699 Ankan 0 to-read 4.60 2018
author: Robert Philip
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/16
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]]> 179311316 A groundbreaking exploration of the science of why and how we age and die—from Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist Venki Ramakrishnan.

The knowledge of death is so terrifying that we live most of our lives in denial of it. Throughout human history—from the immortal afterlife of Judeo-Christian thought to the cycle of reincarnation posited by many Eastern religions—we have developed beliefs that allow us to avoid recognizing its finality. One of the most difficult moments of childhood must be when each of us first realizes that not only we but all our loved ones will die—and there is nothing we can do about it.

Or at least, there hasn’t been. Today, we are living through a revolution in biology. Giant strides are being made in understanding why we age—and why some species live longer than others. Could we eventually cheat disease and death and live for a very long time, possibly many times our current lifespan?

Venki Ramakrishnan, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and former president of the Royal Society, takes us on a riveting journey to the frontiers of biology, asking whether we must be mortal. Covering the recent breakthroughs in scientific research, he examines the cutting edge of efforts to extend lifespan by altering our natural biology. But might death serve a necessary biological purpose? What are the social and ethical costs of attempting to live forever?

Why We Die is a narrative of uncommon insight and beauty from one of our leading public intellectuals.]]> 320 Venki Ramakrishnan 0063113279 Ankan 4 3.93 2024
author: Venki Ramakrishnan
name: Ankan
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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]]> 15704307
Collects: Saga #1-6.]]> 160 Brian K. Vaughan 1607066017 Ankan 0 to-read 4.16 2012
author: Brian K. Vaughan
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> 39863499 The life-changing principles of Stoicism taught through the story of its most famous proponent.

Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was the final famous Stoic philosopher of the ancient world. The Meditations, his personal journal, survives to this day as one of the most loved self-help and spiritual classics of all time. In How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, cognitive psychotherapist Donald Robertson weaves the life and philosophy of Marcus Aurelius together seamlessly to provide a compelling modern-day guide to the Stoic wisdom followed by countless individuals throughout the centuries as a path to achieving greater fulfillment and emotional resilience.

How to Think Like a Roman Emperor takes readers on a transformative journey along with Marcus, following his progress from a young noble at the court of Hadrian—taken under the wing of some of the finest philosophers of his day—through to his reign as emperor of Rome at the height of its power. Robertson shows how Marcus used philosophical doctrines and therapeutic practices to build emotional resilience and endure tremendous adversity, and guides readers through applying the same methods to their own lives.

Combining remarkable stories from Marcus’s life with insights from modern psychology and the enduring wisdom of his philosophy, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor puts a human face on Stoicism and offers a timeless and essential guide to handling the ethical and psychological challenges we face today.]]> 304 Donald J. Robertson Ankan 0 to-read 4.34 2019
author: Donald J. Robertson
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2019
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]]> 25852784 Evicted, Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of 21st-century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.]]> 418 Matthew Desmond 0553447432 Ankan 0 to-read 4.47 2016
author: Matthew Desmond
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2016
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]]> 61358638 Reimagining the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?

In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.

Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.]]> 304 Matthew Desmond 0593239911 Ankan 0 to-read 4.27 2023
author: Matthew Desmond
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.27
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]]> 58673883 Humanity is on the verge of discovering immortality, which means the avatar of Death is out of a job�� or is she?

Humanity is on the verge of discovering immortality. As a result, the avatar of Death is cast down to Earth to live a mortal life in Mumbai as twenty-something Laila Starr. Struggling with her newfound mortality, Laila has found a way to be placed in the time and place where the creator of immortality will be born. Will Laila take her chance to stop mankind from permanently altering the cycle of life, or will death really become a thing of the past? A powerful new graphic novel from award-winning writer Ram V (These Savage Shores, Swamp Thing) and Filipe Andrade (Captain Marvel) that explores the fine line between living and dying through the lens of magical realism. Collects The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1-5.]]> 128 Ram V. 1684158052 Ankan 0 to-read 4.30 2022
author: Ram V.
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.30
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]]> 36442813
With his extraordinary charm and sense of wonder, bringing together science, philosophy and art, Carlo Rovelli unravels this mystery, inviting us to imagine a world where time is in us and we are not in time.]]> 224 Carlo Rovelli 073521610X Ankan 0 to-read 4.14 2017
author: Carlo Rovelli
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2017
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]]> 6047138
The author of the book, Basharat Peer, being a Kashmiri himself has related to each and every detail provided in the book from the first hand experiences gathered by him. Since independence of India, many Kashmiri youths have been mesmerised by the terrorism to the extent that they want to join the terrorist organisations even without thinking about their families or themselves. They have illusioned godfathers in the leaders of such terrorist outfits. In fact, the author was sent out of Kashmir by his family, just to keep him away from these painful romances with the militants.

The book, Curfewed Night, has a lot of heart-rending accounts of how a mother watches her son who is forced to hold an exploding bomb or how a poet discovers his religion when his entire family is killed or how the politicians are tortured inside the refurbished torture chambers or how villages have been rigged with landmines which kills innocent civilians, and how temples have converted into army bunkers while ancient Sufi shrines have been decapitated in bomb blasts.]]> 256 Basharat Peer 8184000340 Ankan 0 to-read 4.06 2009
author: Basharat Peer
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/18
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]]> 62226126
An old friend in the antiques business has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing.

As the gang springs into action they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters and drug dealers, as well as heartache close to home.

With the body count rising, the package still missing and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out? And who will be the last devil to die?]]> 421 Richard Osman 0241512441 Ankan 4 4.44 2023
author: Richard Osman
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
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]]> 42972023
In August 1765, the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and set up, in his place, a government run by English traders who collected taxes through means of a private army.

The creation of this new government marked the moment that the East India Company ceased to be a conventional company and became something much more unusual: an international corporation transformed into an aggressive colonial power. Over the course of the next 47 years, the company's reach grew until almost all of India south of Delhi was effectively ruled from a boardroom in the city of London.]]> 544 William Dalrymple 1635573955 Ankan 5 4.18 2019
author: William Dalrymple
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> 25587
1. The Gathering Storm
2. Their Finest Hour
3. The Grand Alliance
4. The Hinge of Fate
5. Closing the Ring
6. Triumph and Tragedy]]> 4736 Winston S. Churchill 039541685X Ankan 0 to-read 4.48
author: Winston S. Churchill
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.48
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]]> 63329951 An entertaining, enlightening, and utterly original investigation into one of the most quietly influential forces in modern American life—the humble parking spot

Parking, quite literally, has a death grip on America: each year a handful of Americans are tragically killed by their fellow citizens over parking spots. But even when we don’t resort to violence, we routinely do ridiculous things for parking, contorting our professional, social, and financial lives to get a spot. Indeed, in the century since the advent of the car, we have deformed—and in some cases demolished—our homes and our cities in a Sisyphean quest for cheap and convenient car storage. As a result, much of the nation’s most valuable real estate is now devoted exclusively to empty and idle vehicles, even as so many Americans struggle to find affordable housing. Parking determines the design of new buildings and the fate of old ones, patterns of traffic and the viability of transit, neighborhood politics and municipal finance, the quality of public space, and even the course of floodwaters. Can this really be the best use of our finite resources and space? Why have we done this to the places we love? Is parking really more important than anything else?

These are the questions Slate staff writer Henry Grabar sets out to answer, telling a mesmerizing story about the strange and wonderful superorganism that is the modern American city. In a beguiling and often absurdly hilarious mix of history, politics, and reportage, Grabar brilliantly surveys the pain points of the nation’s parking crisis, from Los Angeles to Disney World to New York, stopping at every major American city in between. He reveals how the pathological compulsion for car storage has exacerbated some of our most acute problems—from housing affordability to the accelerating global climate disaster—ultimately, lighting the way for us to free our cities from parking’s cruel yoke.]]> 368 Henry Grabar 1984881140 Ankan 5 4.20 2023
author: Henry Grabar
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/21
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]]> 205670068
Forty thousand years ago, humanity fled a dying Earth. Traveling in massive arkships, these brave pioneers spread out across the galaxy to find a new home. After traveling thousands of light-years, one fleet of arkships arrived at Centauri, a dense cluster of stars with a vast array of potentially habitable planets. The survivors of Earth signaled to the remaining arkships that humanity had finally found its new home among the stars.

Thousands of years later, the Centauri Cluster has flourished. The original settlers have evolved into advanced beings known as Celestials and divided themselves into powerful Dominions. One of the most influential is that of the Crown Celestials, an alliance of five great houses that controls vast areas of Centauri. As arkships continue to arrive, the remaining humans and their descendants must fight for survival against overwhelming odds or be forced into serving the Crown Dominion.

Among those yearning for a better life is Finn, for whom Earth is not a memory but merely a footnote from humanity’s ancient history. Born on one of the Crown Dominion worlds, Finn has known nothing but the repressive rule of the Celestials, though he dreams of the possibility of boundless space beyond his home.

When another arkship from Earth, previously thought lost, unexpectedly arrives, Finn sees his chance to embrace a greater destiny and become a Traveler—one of a group of brave heroes dedicated to ensuring humanity’s future by journeying into the vast unknown of distant space.]]> 928 Peter F. Hamilton 0593357663 Ankan 4 4.15 2024
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/19
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]]> 123627807 A New York Times Notable Book of 2023 and Editors' Choice �� A Science News Favorite Book of 2023 �� A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2023 �� A Smithsonian Staff Favorite of 2023 �� A New Yorker Best Book of 2023 �� Finalist for the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism �� Finalist for the Reading the West Award �� Finalist for the Colorado Book Award �� Winner of the Banff Mountain Book Competition in Environmental Literature �� Winner of the Sierra Club's Rachel Carson Award for Excellence in Environmental Writing

An eye-opening account of the global ecological transformations wrought by roads, from the award-winning author of Eager. Some 40 million miles of roadways encircle the earth, yet we tend to regard them only as infrastructure for human convenience. While roads are so ubiquitous they’re practically invisible to us, wild animals experience them as entirely alien forces of death and disruption. In Crossings, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb travels throughout the United States and around the world to investigate how roads have transformed our planet. A million animals are killed by cars each day in the U.S. alone, but as the new science of road ecology shows, the harms of highways extend far beyond roadkill. Creatures from antelope to salmon are losing their ability to migrate in search of food and mates; invasive plants hitch rides in tire treads; road salt contaminates lakes and rivers; and the very noise of traffic chases songbirds from vast swaths of habitat. Yet road ecologists are also seeking to blunt the destruction through innovative solutions. Goldfarb meets with conservationists building bridges for California’s mountain lions and tunnels for English toads, engineers deconstructing the labyrinth of logging roads that web national forests, animal rehabbers caring for Tasmania’s car-orphaned wallabies, and community organizers working to undo the havoc highways have wreaked upon American cities. Today, as our planet’s road network continues to grow exponentially, the science of road ecology has become increasingly vital. Written with passion and curiosity, Crossings is a sweeping, spirited, and timely investigation into how humans have altered the natural world―and how we can create a better future for all living beings. 20 illustrations]]> 384 Ben Goldfarb 1324005890 Ankan 0 to-read 4.42 2023
author: Ben Goldfarb
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/17
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]]> 20948570 ����������������������
Exploring the ancient indigenous plants such as lentils, eggplants, and peppers that are central to the Indian diet, Sen depicts the country’s agricultural bounty and the fascination it has long held for foreign visitors. She illuminates how India’s place at the center of a vast network of land and sea trade routes led it to become a conduit for plants, dishes, and cooking techniques to and from the rest of the world. She shows the influence of the British and Portuguese during the colonial period, and she addresses India’s dietary prescriptions and proscriptions, the origins of vegetarianism, its culinary borrowings and innovations, and the links between diet, health, and medicine. She also offers a taste of Indian cooking itself―especially its use of spices, from chili pepper, cardamom, and cumin to turmeric, ginger, and coriander―and outlines how the country’s cuisine varies throughout its many regions.
����������������������
Lavishly illustrated with one hundred images, Feasts and Fasts is a mouthwatering tour of Indian food full of fascinating anecdotes and delicious recipes that will have readers devouring its pages.]]> 336 Colleen Taylor Sen 1780233523 Ankan 0 to-read 4.08 2014
author: Colleen Taylor Sen
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 192221 288 G. Pólya 069111966X Ankan 0 to-read 4.14 1944
author: G. Pólya
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1944
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 58957615
Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill or be killed. Suddenly the cold case has become red hot.

While Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim chase down the clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?

From an upmarket spa to a prison cell complete with espresso machine to a luxury penthouse high in the sky, this third adventure of the Thursday Murder Club is full of the cleverness, intrigue, and irresistible charm that readers have come to expect from Richard Osman's bestselling series.]]> 413 Richard Osman 0241512425 Ankan 3 4.32 2022
author: Richard Osman
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 125313 The Geography of Nowhere traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where every place is like no place in particular, where the cities are dead zones and the countryside is a wasteland of cartoon architecture and parking lots.

In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the huge economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where we live and work, to build communities that are once again worthy of our affection. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision of the common good. "The future will require us to build better places," Kunstler says, "or the future will belong to other people in other societies."

The Geography of Nowhere has become a touchstone work in the two decades since its initial publication, its incisive commentary giving language to the feeling of millions of Americans that our nation's suburban environments were ceasing to be credible human habitats. Since that time, the work has inspired city planners, architects, legislators, designers and citizens everywhere. In this special 20th Anniversary edition, dozens of authors and experts in various fields share their perspective on James Howard Kunstler's brave and seminal work.]]> 304 James Howard Kunstler 0671888250 Ankan 0 to-read 4.04 1993
author: James Howard Kunstler
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13667 259 Ursula K. Le Guin 141650964X Ankan 3 4.13 1972
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1972
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves:
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]]> 7438179
Meanwhile, the parallel story of Edeard, the Waterwalker -- as told through a series of addictive dreams communicated to the gaiasphere via Inigo, the First Dreamer -- continues to unfold. But now the inspirational tale of this idealistic young man takes a darker and more troubling turn as he finds himself faced with powerful new enemies -- and temptations more powerful still.

With time running out, a repentant Inigo must decide whether to release Edeard's final dream: a dream whose message is scarcely less dangerous than the pilgrimage promises to be. And Araminta must choose whether to run from her unwanted responsibilities or face them down, with no guarantee of success or survival. But all these choices may be for naught if the monomaniacal Ilanthe, leader of the breakaway Accelerator Faction, is able to enter the Void. For it is not paradise she seeks there, but dominion.
]]> 694 Peter F. Hamilton 0345496574 Ankan 3 4.28 2009
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves:
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]]> 9516
Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane’s child’s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.]]> 153 Marjane Satrapi 037571457X Ankan 5 4.27 2003
author: Marjane Satrapi
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/16
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]]> 9517 Persepolis, heralded by the Los Angeles Times as "one of the freshest and most original memoirs of our day," Marjane Satrapi dazzled us with her heartrending memoir-in-comic-strips about growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Here is the continuation of her fascinating story. In 1984, Marjane flees fundamentalism and the war with Iraq to begin a new life in Vienna. Once there, she faces the trials of adolescence far from her friends and family, and while she soon carves out a place for herself among a group of fellow outsiders, she continues to struggle for a sense of belonging.

Finding that she misses her home more than she can stand, Marjane returns to Iran after graduation. Her difficult homecoming forces her to confront the changes both she and her country have undergone in her absence and her shame at what she perceives as her failure in Austria. Marjane allows her past to weigh heavily on her until she finds some like-minded friends, falls in love, and begins studying art at a university. However, the repression and state-sanctioned chauvinism eventually lead her to question whether she can have a future in Iran.

As funny and poignant as its predecessor, Persepolis 2 is another clear-eyed and searing condemnation of the human cost of fundamentalism. In its depiction of the struggles of growing up--here compounded by Marjane's status as an outsider both abroad and at home--it is raw, honest, and incredibly illuminating.]]> 187 Marjane Satrapi 0375714669 Ankan 0 to-read 4.22 2001
author: Marjane Satrapi
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 209020672 Why did the same games evolve across wildly different civilisations?
And how can those games make your life happier, healthier and more fulfilled?

From scratching shapes in the sand to the combative bonding of festive board games, humans have created games to encourage fun, competition, collaboration and, in the very hardest of times, escape.

In this fascinating and entertaining look at games throughout history, Tim Clare explores the legal highs of a good dice roll, the thrills of a predatory race game, and the tactile pleasures of the games that age with us through our lives.

Drawing on Roman anti-cheating devices, organised crime card games, and dice contests that link Chaucer to Warren G, The Game Changers will show you why games are more popular now than ever, and how playing them helps us win more often, become better losers and stay one step ahead �� on and off the board. Through play, we become fully ourselves.]]> 250 Tim Clare 1837260001 Ankan 0 to-read 3.99
author: Tim Clare
name: Ankan
average rating: 3.99
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 63922110
Tuticorin, in short, is like R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi, plus aruvals and hooch.

A young police officer with scarcely any knowledge of Tamil was in charge of the district in the 1980s. Anoop Jaiswal handled the underworld of Tuticorin in a rather unorthodox way, dealing compassionately with murderers, sex workers, bootleggers and other unusual characters.

A fascinating look at small-town policing in the days before cell phones and the internet.]]> 247 V. Sudarshan Ankan 0 to-read 4.36
author: V. Sudarshan
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.36
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/01
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]]> 37755205 Winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2019

Muzaffarnagar, the infamous north Indian town that is a byword for unrest, and where skirmishes are prone to break out ever so often. This is a place where teenage love and friendships are tested by the violence that threatens to erupt at the slightest provocation. A town that always pulls you back into its ways, no matter how cosmopolitan the city has made you.

In 'Diwali in Muzaffarnagar' - Tanuj Solanki's new book of short stories after 'Neon Noon' - young men and women straddle the past and the present, the metropolis and the small town, and also the parallel needs of life: solitude and family.]]> 232 Tanuj Solanki 9352775937 Ankan 0 to-read 4.15 2018
author: Tanuj Solanki
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 457228 Butcher’s Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America.

It is the 1870s, and Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek “an original relation to nature,�� drops out of Harvard and heads west. He washes up in Butcher’s Crossing, a small Kansas town on the outskirts of nowhere. Butcher’s Crossing is full of restless men looking for ways to make money and ways to waste it. Before long Andrews strikes up a friendship with one of them, a man who regales Andrews with tales of immense herds of buffalo, ready for the taking, hidden away in a beautiful valley deep in the Colorado Rockies. He convinces Andrews to join in an expedition to track the animals down. The journey out is grueling, but at the end is a place of paradisal richness. Once there, however, the three men abandon themselves to an orgy of slaughter, so caught up in killing buffalo that they lose all sense of time. Winter soon overtakes them: they are snowed in. Next spring, half-insane with cabin fever, cold, and hunger, they stagger back to Butcher’s Crossing to find a world as irremediably changed as they have been.]]> 274 John Williams 1590171985 Ankan 5 4.18 1960
author: John Williams
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1960
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
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]]> 53368447 The first true people's history of modern India, told through a seven year, 9,000 mile journey across its many contested borders.

Sharing borders with six countries and spanning a geography that extends from Pakistan to Myanmar, India is the world's largest democracy and second most populous country. Yet most of us don't understand it, or the violent history still playing out there. In fact, India as we know it didn't exist until the map of the subcontinent was redrawn in the middle of the 20th century--the powerful repercussions of which are still being felt across South Asia.

To tell the story of political borders in the subcontinent, Suchitra Vijayan spent seven years travelling India's 9,000-mile land border. Now, in this stunning work of narrative reportage, she shares what she learned on that groundbreaking journey. With profound empathy and a novelistic eye for detail, Vijayan shows us the forgotten people and places in the borderlands and brings us face-to-face with the legacy of colonialism and the stain of extreme violence and corruption. The result is the ground-level portrait of modern India we've been missing.]]> 336 Suchitra Vijayan 1612198589 Ankan 0 to-read 3.91 2020
author: Suchitra Vijayan
name: Ankan
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> 56301206
Discover the glittering Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century USA, and the artist who really invented the Readymade. Explore the Dutch Golden Age, the astonishing work of post-War artists in Latin America, and the women artists defining art in the 2020s. Have your sense of art history overturned, and your eyes opened to many art forms often overlooked or dismissed. From the Cornish coast to Manhattan, Nigeria to Japan this is the history of art as it's never been told before.]]> 352 Katy Hessel 1788167406 Ankan 0 to-read 4.31 2022
author: Katy Hessel
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 86524
The Path to Power, Book One, reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and urge to power that set LBJ apart. Chronicling the startling early emergence of Johnson’s political genius, it follows him from his Texas boyhood through the years of the Depression in the Texas hill Country to the triumph of his congressional debut in New Deal Washington, to his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, of the national power for which he hungered.

We see in him, from earliest childhood, a fierce, unquenchable necessity to be first, to win, to dominate—coupled with a limitless capacity for hard, unceasing labor in the service of his own ambition. Caro shows us the big, gangling, awkward young Lyndon—raised in one of the country’s most desperately poor and isolated areas, his education mediocre at best, his pride stung by his father’s slide into failure and financial ruin—lunging for success, moving inexorably toward that ultimate “impossible�� goal that he sets for himself years before any friend or enemy suspects what it may be.

We watch him, while still at college, instinctively (and ruthlessly) creating the beginnings of the political machine that was to serve him for three decades. We see him employing his extraordinary ability to mesmerize and manipulate powerful older men, to mesmerize (and sometimes almost enslave) useful subordinates. We see him carrying out, before his thirtieth year, his first great political inspiration: tapping-and becoming the political conduit for-the money and influence of the new oil men and contractors who were to grow with him to immense power. We follow, close up, the radical fluctuations of his relationships with the formidable “Mr. Sam�� Rayburn (who loved him like a son and whom he betrayed) and with FDR himself. And we follow the dramas of his emotional life-the intensities and complications of his relationships with his family, his contemporaries, his girls; his wooing and winning of the shy Lady Bird; his secret love affair, over many years, with the mistress of one of his most ardent and generous supporters . . .

Johnson driving his people to the point of exhausted tears, equally merciless with himself . . . Johnson bullying, cajoling, lying, yet inspiring an amazing loyalty . . . Johnson maneuvering to dethrone the unassailable old Jack Garner (then Vice President of the United States) as the New Deal’s “connection�� in Texas, and seize the power himself . . . Johnson raging . . . Johnson hugging . . . Johnson bringing light and, indeed, life to the worn Hill Country farmers and their old-at-thirty wives via the district’s first electric lines.

We see him at once unscrupulous, admirable, treacherous, devoted. And we see the country that bred him: the harshness and “nauseating loneliness�� of the rural life; the tragic panorama of the Depression; the sudden glow of hope at the dawn of the Age of Roosevelt. And always, in the foreground, on the move, LBJ.

Here is Lyndon Johnson—his Texas, his Washington, his America—in a book that brings us as close as we have ever been to a true perception of political genius and the American political process.]]> 882 Robert A. Caro 0679729453 Ankan 0 to-read 4.39 1982
author: Robert A. Caro
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 201608148 legendary historian William Dalrymple highlights India's oft-forgotten position as a crucial economic and civilisational hub at the heart of the ancient and early medieval history of Eurasia. From Angkor to Ayutthaya, The Golden Road traces the cultural flow of Indian religions, languages, artistic and architectural forms and mathematics throughout the world. In this groundbreaking tome, Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to reinstate India as the great intellectual and philosophical superpower of ancient Asia.]]> 432 William Dalrymple 1639734147 Ankan 0 to-read 4.15 2024
author: William Dalrymple
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 34448182
In this accessible but provocative guide to the economics of land and housing, the authors reveal how many of the key challenges facing modern economies - including housing crises, financial instability and growing inequalities - are intimately tied to the land economy. Looking at the ways in which discussions of land have been routinely excluded from both housing policy and economic theory, the authors show that in order to tackle these increasingly pressing issues a major rethink by both politicians and economists is required.]]> 280 Josh Ryan-Collins 1786991195 Ankan 0 to-read 4.31 2017
author: Josh Ryan-Collins
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36750057 The incredible true story of a boy living in war-torn Somalia who escapes to America--first by way of the movies; years later, through a miraculous green card.

Abdi Nor Iftin first fell in love with America from afar. As a child, he learned English by listening to American pop artists like Michael Jackson and watching films starring action heroes like Arnold Schwarzenegger. When U.S. marines landed in Mogadishu to take on the warlords, Abdi cheered the arrival of these real Americans, who seemed as heroic as those of the movies.

Sporting American clothes and dance moves, he became known around Mogadishu as Abdi American, but when the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab rose to power in 2006, it suddenly became dangerous to celebrate Western culture. Desperate to make a living, Abdi used his language skills to post secret dispatches to NPR and the Internet, which found an audience of worldwide listeners. But as life in Somalia grew more dangerous, Abdi was left with no choice but to flee to Kenya as a refugee.

In an amazing stroke of luck, Abdi won entrance to the U.S. in the annual visa lottery, though his route to America--filled with twists and turns and a harrowing sequence of events that nearly stranded him in Nairobi--did not come easily. Parts of his story were first heard on the BBC World Service and This American Life. Now a proud resident of Maine, on the path to citizenship, Abdi Nor Iftin's dramatic, deeply stirring memoir is truly a story for our time: a vivid reminder of why western democracies still beckon to those looking to make a better life.]]> 320 Abdi Nor Iftin 1524732192 Ankan 0 to-read 4.52 2018
author: Abdi Nor Iftin
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 89231 Augustus is a sweeping narrative that brings vividly to life a compelling cast of historical figures through their letters, dispatches, and memoirs.

A mere eighteen years of age when his uncle, Julius Caesar, is murdered, Octavius Caesar prematurely inherits rule of the Roman Republic. Surrounded by men who are jockeying for power–Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, and Mark Antony–young Octavius must work against the powerful Roman political machinations to claim his destiny as first Roman emperor. Sprung from meticulous research and the pen of a true poet, Augustus tells the story of one man’s dream to liberate a corrupt Rome from the fancy of the capriciously crooked and the wildly wealthy.]]> 336 John Williams 1400076730 Ankan 4 4.23 1972
author: John Williams
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1972
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/28
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 123471 I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the “strange loop”—a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. Deep down, a human brain is a chaotic seething soup of particles, on a higher level it is a jungle of neurons, and on a yet higher level it is a network of abstractions that we call “symbols.�� The most central and complex symbol in your brain or mine is the one we both call “I.�� The “I�� is the nexus in our brain where the levels feed back into each other and flip causality upside down, with symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse. For each human being, this “I�� seems to be the realest thing in the world. But how can such a mysterious abstraction be real—or is our “I�� merely a convenient fiction? Does an “I�� exert genuine power over the particles in our brain, or is it helplessly pushed around by the all-powerful laws of physics? These are the mysteries tackled in I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas R. Hofstadter’s first book-length journey into philosophy since Gödel, Escher, Bach. Compulsively readable and endlessly thought-provoking, this is the book Hofstadter’s many readers have long been waiting for.]]> 436 Douglas R. Hofstadter 0465030785 Ankan 0 to-read 3.94 2007
author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
name: Ankan
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 48611835 "The share auto I squeeze into next seems unusually vulnerable after a night in the truck - too compact, too low down. Perhaps, these are the usual side effects of prolonged riding with the king of the road, I think to myself. But it is only when I fill in ‘truck�� as my mode of transportation in the hotel ledger at Udaipur does the utter ludicrousness of my endeavour truly hit home"

Think truck drivers, and movie scenes of them drunkenly crushing inconvenient people to their gravelly deaths come to mind. But what are their lives on the road actually like?

In Truck De India!, journalist Rajat Ubhaykar embarks on a 10,000 km-long, 100% unplanned trip, hitchhiking with truckers all across India. On the way, he makes unexpected friendships; listens to highway ghost stories; discovers the near-fatal consequences of overloading trucks; documents the fascinating tradition of truck art in Punjab; travels alongside nomadic shepherds in Kashmir; encounters endemic corruption repeatedly; survives NH39, the insurgent-ridden highway through Nagaland and Manipur; and is unfailingly greeted by the unconditional kindness of perfect strangers.

Imbued with humour, empathy, and a keen sense of history, Truck De India! is a travelogue like no other you've read. It is the story of India, and Indians, on the road.��
��
��]]> 240 Rajat Ubhaykar 9386797658 Ankan 0 to-read 4.40
author: Rajat Ubhaykar
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.40
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 199635125
Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet.

In “The Feminist,�� a young man’s passionate allyship turns to furious nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that it isn’t getting him laid. A young woman’s unrequited crush in “Pics�� spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of her sense of self. And in “Ahegao; or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression,�� a shy late bloomer’s flailing efforts at a first relationship leads to a life-upending mistake. As the characters pop up in each other’s dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection.

These brilliant satires explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a manifesto. Audacious and unforgettable, Rejection is a stunning mosaic that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society, and oneself.]]> 272 Tony Tulathimutte 0063337878 Ankan 0 to-read 3.87 2024
author: Tony Tulathimutte
name: Ankan
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 91981
Simon, a kitchen boy from the royal castle unknowingly apprenticed to a member of this League, will be sent on a quest that offers the only hope of salvation, a deadly riddle concerning long-lost swords of power. Compelled by fate and perilous magics, he must leave the only home he’s ever known and face enemies more terrifying than Osten Ard has ever seen, even as the land itself begins to die.

After the landmark Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, the epic saga of Osten Ard continues with the brand-new novel, The Heart of What Was Lost. Then don’t miss the upcoming trilogy, The Last King of Osten Ard, beginning with The Witchwood Crown!]]> 672 Tad Williams 0756402697 Ankan 4 3.96 1988
author: Tad Williams
name: Ankan
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/12
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 25808449 480 Vishwas Patil 935009617X Ankan 0 to-read 3.87 1991
author: Vishwas Patil
name: Ankan
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18749 A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as “the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,�� Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed.

With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.

Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.]]> 435 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 1400044162 Ankan 0 to-read 4.34 2006
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 41812473 Will's older brother, Shawn, has been shot.
Dead.
Will feels a sadness so great, he can't explain it. But in his neighborhood, there are THE RULES:

No. 1: Crying.
Don't.
No matter what.

No. 2: Snitching
Don't.
No matter what.

No. 3: Revenge
Do.
No matter what.

But bullets miss. You can get the wrong guy. And there's always someone else who knows to follow the rules...]]> 208 Jason Reynolds Ankan 0 to-read 4.29 2020
author: Jason Reynolds
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 201242757 From legendary storyteller and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary new collection of twelve short stories, many never-before-published, and some of his best EVER.

“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,�� writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,�� and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

“Two Talented Bastids�� explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,�� a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically. In “Rattlesnakes,�� a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In “The Dreamers,�� a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. “The Answer Man�� asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

King’s ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.]]> 512 Stephen King 1668037718 Ankan 0 to-read 4.16 2024
author: Stephen King
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 19898
McPhee and Moores also journeyed to remote mountains of Arizona and to Cyprus and northern Greece, where rock of the deep-ocean floor has been transported into continental settings, as it has in California. Global in scope and a delight to read, Assembling California is a sweeping narrative of maps in motion, of evolving and dissolving lands.]]> 294 John McPhee 0374523932 Ankan 4 4.17 1992
author: John McPhee
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2024/08/19
shelves:
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]]> 15790264 Librarian's note: Alternative cover edition here.

William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death his colleagues remember him rarely.

Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value.

Stoner tells of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history, and reclaims the significance of an individual life. A reading experience like no other, itself a paean to the power of literature, it is a novel to be savoured.]]> 306 John Williams Ankan 5 4.32 1965
author: John Williams
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1965
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/26
date added: 2024/07/26
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]]> 209532364
Here, historian and dog lover Chris Pearson reveals how the shifting fortunes of dogs hold a mirror to our changing society, from the evolution of breeding standards to the fight for animal rights. Wherever humans have gone, dogs have followed, changing size, appearance and even jobs along the way - from the forests of medieval Europe, where greyhounds chased down game for royalty, to the frontlines of twentieth-century conflicts, where dogs carried messages and hauled gun carriages.

Despite vast social change, however, the power of the human-canine bond has never diminished. By turns charming, thought-provoking and surprising, Collared reveals the fascinating tale of how we made the modern dog.]]> 280 Chris Pearson 1800816421 Ankan 0 to-read 4.11
author: Chris Pearson
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/22
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]]> 40163119
Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.]]> 441 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385521316 Ankan 0 to-read 4.47 2018
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> 6437768
Alternate cover for ISBN 9780006480105]]> 752 Robin Hobb Ankan 3 4.23 1996
author: Robin Hobb
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/11
date added: 2024/07/11
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]]> 45107 alternate cover for ISBN 0006480098

Fitz is a royal bastard, cast out into the world with only his magical link with animals for solace and companionship.
But when Fitz is adopted into the royal household, he must give up his old ways and learn a new life: weaponry, scribing, courtly manners; and how to kill a man secretly. Meanwhile, raiders ravage the coasts, leaving the people Forged and soulless. As Fitz grows towards manhood, he will have to face his first terrifying mission, a task that poses as much a risk to himself as it does to his target: Fitz is a threat to the throne�� but he may also be the key to the future of the kingdom.

Cover illustration by John Howe

]]> 460 Robin Hobb Ankan 3 4.14 1995
author: Robin Hobb
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/18
date added: 2024/06/29
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]]> 53968432 A poignant and witty graphic novel by a leading New Yorker cartoonist, following a millennial's journey from performing his life to truly connecting with people

Nick, a young illustrator, can’t shake the feeling that there is some hidden realm of human interaction beyond his reach. He haunts lookalike fussy, silly, coffee shops, listens to old Joni Mitchell albums too loudly, and stares at his navel in the hope that he will find it in there. But it isn’t until he learns to speak from the heart that he begins to find authentic human connections and is let in—to the worlds of the people he meets. Nick’s journey occurs alongside the beginnings of a relationship with Wren, a wry, spirited oncologist at a nearby hospital, whose work and life becomes painfully tangled with Nick’s.

Illustrated in both color and black-and-white in McPhail’s instantly recognizable style, In elevates the graphic novel genre; it captures his trademark humor and compassion with a semi-autobiographical tale that is equal parts hilarious and heart-wrenching—uncannily appropriate for our isolated times.]]> 267 Will McPhail 0358345545 Ankan 0 to-read 4.37 2021
author: Will McPhail
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> 49798868 96 Pascal Jousselin 1942367619 Ankan 0 to-read 4.37 2017
author: Pascal Jousselin
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 55457493
Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life.

As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus?

But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?]]> 422 Richard Osman Ankan 4 4.36 2021
author: Richard Osman
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/09
date added: 2024/06/10
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]]> 63063173
“Whether you are a new manager or a CEO, there are going to be moments when you feel alone and need help. Odds are, the advice you need is in Scaling People . You are going to pull this book off your shelf over and over!"
�� —Kim Scott, New York Times bestselling author of Radical Candor and Just Work

A leader at both Google and Stripe from their early days, Claire Hughes Johnson has worked with founders and company builders to try to replicate their success. The most common questions she’s asked are not about business strategy—they’re about how to scale the operating structures and people systems of a rapidly growing startup.

Scaling People is a practical and empathetic guide to being an effective leader and manager in a high-growth environment. The tactical information it puts forward—including guidance on crafting foundational documents, strategic and financial planning, hiring and team development, and feedback and performance mechanisms—can be applied to companies of any size, in any industry. Scaling People includes dozens of pages of worksheets, templates, exercises, and example documents to help founders, leaders, and company builders create scalable operating systems and lightweight processes that really work.

Implementing effective leadership and management practices takes effort and discipline, but the reward is a sustainable, scalable company that’s set up for long-term success. Scaling People is a detailed roadmap for company builders to put the right operating systems and structures in place to scale the most important resource a company its people.]]> 480 Claire Hughes Johnson 1953953212 Ankan 0 to-read 4.24
author: Claire Hughes Johnson
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/10
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]]> 58532701
The first game starts with a bang, but Ryohei manages to beat the clock and save his friends. It’s a short-lived victory, however, as they discover that winning only earns them a few days�� grace period. If they want to get home, they’re going to have to start playing a lot harder.]]> 344 Haro Aso 1974728374 Ankan 0 to-read 4.37 2011
author: Haro Aso
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> 91274427 For fans of The Midnight Library and Before the Coffee Gets Cold, this charming Japanese novel shows how the perfect book recommendation can change a reader's life.

What are you looking for?

This is the famous question routinely asked by Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. Like most librarians, Komachi has read every book lining her shelves—but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of her library guests. For anyone who walks through her door, Komachi can sense exactly what they’re looking for in life and provide just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it.

Each visitor comes to her library from a different juncture in their careers and dreams, from the restless sales attendant who feels stuck at her job to the struggling working mother who longs to be a magazine��editor. The conversation that they have with Sayuri Komachi—and the surprise book she lends each of them—will have life-altering consequences.

With heartwarming charm and wisdom, What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is a paean to the magic of libraries, friendship and community, perfect for anyone who has ever found themselves at an impasse in their life and in need of a little inspiration.]]> 304 Michiko Aoyama 1335005625 Ankan 0 to-read 4.07 2020
author: Michiko Aoyama
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/09
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]]> 124961437 A fearless, powerfully written on-the-ground account of a nation careening into violent autocracy—told through harrowing stories of the Philippines�� state-sanctioned killings of its citizens—from a journalist of international renown

“My job is to go to places where people die. I pack my bags, talk to the survivors, write my stories, then go home to wait for the next catastrophe. I don’t wait very long.��

Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades later, in the face of mounting inequality, the nation discovered the fragility of its democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte.

Some People Need Killing is Evangelista’s meticulously reported and deeply human chronicle of the Philippines�� drug war. For six years, Evangelista chronicled the killings carried out by police and vigilantes in the name of Duterte’s war on drugs—a war that has led to the slaughter of thousands—immersing herself in the world of killers and survivors and capturing the atmosphere of fear created when an elected president decides that some lives are worth less than others.

The book takes its title from a vigilante whose words seemed to reflect the psychological accommodation that most of the country had made: “I’m really not a bad guy,�� he said. “I’m not all bad. Some people need killing.��

A profound act of witness and a tour de force of literary journalism, Some People Need Killing is also a brilliant dissection of the grammar of violence and an important investigation of the human impulses to dominate and resist.]]> 428 Patricia Evangelista 0593133137 Ankan 0 to-read 4.19 2023
author: Patricia Evangelista
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/09
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]]> 57845087 Eating to Extinction is the prominent broadcaster’s pathbreaking tour of the world’s vanishing foods and his argument for why they matter now more than ever

Over the past several decades, globalization has homogenized what we eat, and done so ruthlessly. The numbers are Of the roughly six thousand different plants once consumed by human beings, only nine remain major staples today. Just three of these―rice, wheat, and corn―now provide fifty percent of all our calories. Dig deeper and the trends are more worrisome

The source of much of the world’s food―seeds―is mostly in the control of just four corporations. Ninety-five percent of milk consumed in the United States comes from a single breed of cow. Half of all the world’s cheese is made with bacteria or enzymes made by one company. And one in four beers drunk around the world is the product of one brewer.

If it strikes you that everything is starting to taste the same wherever you are in the world, you’re by no means alone. This when we lose diversity and foods become endangered, we not only risk the loss of traditional foodways, but also of flavors, smells, and textures that may never be experienced again. And the consolidation of our food has other steep costs, including a lack of resilience in the face of climate change, pests, and parasites. Our food monoculture is a threat to our health―and to the planet.

In Eating to Extinction, the distinguished BBC food journalist Dan Saladino travels the world to experience and document our most at-risk foods before it’s too late. He tells the fascinating stories of the people who continue to cultivate, forage, hunt, cook, and consume what the rest of us have forgotten or didn’t even know existed. Take honey―not the familiar product sold in plastic bottles, but the wild honey gathered by the Hadza people of East Africa, whose diet consists of eight hundred different plants and animals and who communicate with birds in order to locate bees�� nests. Or consider murnong―once the staple food of Aboriginal Australians, this small root vegetable with the sweet taste of coconut is undergoing a revival after nearly being driven to extinction. And in Sierra Leone, there are just a few surviving stenophylla trees, a plant species now considered crucial to the future of coffee.

From an Indigenous American chef refining precolonial recipes to farmers tending Geechee red peas on the Sea Islands of Georgia, the individuals profiled in Eating to Extinction are essential guides to treasured foods that have endured in the face of rampant sameness and standardization. They also provide a roadmap to a food system that is healthier, more robust, and, above all, richer in flavor and meaning.]]> 464 Dan Saladino 0374605327 Ankan 0 to-read 4.30
author: Dan Saladino
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.30
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rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/09
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]]> 18490708
It's the eve of the twenty-second century: a world where the dearly departed send postcards back from Heaven and evangelicals make scientific breakthroughs by speaking in tongues; where genetically engineered vampires solve problems intractable to baseline humans and soldiers come with zombie switches that shut off self-awareness during combat. And it’s all under surveillance by an alien presence that refuses to show itself.

Daniel Bruks is a living fossil: a field biologist in a world where biology has turned computational, a cat's-paw used by terrorists to kill thousands. Taking refuge in the Oregon desert, he’s turned his back on a humanity that shatters into strange new subspecies with every heartbeat. But he awakens one night to find himself at the center of a storm that will turn all of history inside-out.

Now he’s trapped on a ship bound for the center of the solar system. To his left is a grief-stricken soldier, obsessed by whispered messages from a dead son. To his right is a pilot who hasn’t yet found the man she's sworn to kill on sight. A vampire and its entourage of zombie bodyguards lurk in the shadows behind. And dead ahead, a handful of rapture-stricken monks takes them all to a meeting with something they will only call “The Angels of the Asteroids.��

Their pilgrimage brings Dan Bruks, the fossil man, face-to-face with the biggest evolutionary breakpoint since the origin of thought itself.]]> 384 Peter Watts 076532802X Ankan 3 3.81 2014
author: Peter Watts
name: Ankan
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/26
date added: 2024/05/26
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]]> 78666706

Indian policy has been characterised by a denial of urbanization. This has prevented us from meaningfully addressing the blizzard of policy issues that come with the from governance deficit to infrastructure shortfall, from effective management of land to lack of focus on growing city economies; from access to potable water to incessant flooding; from traffic congestion to sufficient urban green and public spaces; and from lack of safety to marginalization of urban poor, migrants, and vulnerable communities. Consequently, cities have truly become India's blind spot. And blind spots can be fatal.

India's Blind Spot will explore our understanding of Indian cities and how we have reached this point of exasperation. The book illustrates that cities are critical to achieving India's promised destiny and provides policy solutions and innovations to tackle complex issues in our cities. The book vividly explains that Indian cities will be at the frontier of driving key global political-economy trends in coming decades.]]> 537 Devashish Dhar 9354895425 Ankan 0 to-read 4.41
author: Devashish Dhar
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.41
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> 209309160
This seminal book systematically analyses India’s governance challenges, especially in delivering essential public services, and highlights how these are limiting India’s development. Drawing on a wealth of research and practical insights, it provides actionable, evidence-based strategies, emphasizing state-level reforms as critical for India’s advancement.

Accelerating India’s Development is addressed to all Indians—leaders, officials, entrepreneurs, teachers, students, citizens, and civil society—and provides an urgent call to action. It argues that building an effective state is the great unfinished task of Indian democracy, because quality public services are key to translating the political equality of ‘One Person, One Vote�� into greater equality of opportunity for all Indians.

Every chapter showcases the author’s dedication to bridging the gap between scholarly research, public understanding, and actionable governance. This book is a testament to cautious optimism and the belief that with the right public systems in place, India’s next twenty-five years can be a period of unprecedented growth and societal enrichment.
]]> 978 Karthik Muralidharan 9357087656 Ankan 0 to-read 4.46
author: Karthik Muralidharan
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/25
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]]> 51036155
Roya, a dreamy, idealistic teenager living amid the political upheaval of 1953 Tehran, finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri’s neighborhood stationery shop, stocked with books and pens and bottles of jewel-colored ink.

Then Mr. Fakhri, with a keen instinct for a budding romance, introduces Roya to his other favorite customer—handsome Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi’s poetry—and she loses her heart at once. Their romance blossoms, and the little stationery shop remains their favorite place in all of Tehran.

A few short months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts—a result of the coup d’etat that forever changes their country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she moves on—to college in California, to another man, to a life in New England—until, more than sixty years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me?]]> 308 Marjan Kamali 147118918X Ankan 0 to-read 4.19 2019
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> 23848027 The scions of a falling house must navigate a world of corporate warfare to maintain their family's status in the Moon's vicious political atmosphere

The Moon wants to kill you.

Maybe it will kill you when the per diem for your allotted food, water, and air runs out, just before you hit paydirt. Maybe it will kill you when you are trapped between the reigning corporations-the Five Dragons-in a foolish gamble against a futuristic feudal society. On the Moon, you must fight for every inch you want to gain. And that is just what Adriana Corta did.

As the leader of the Moon's newest "dragon," Adriana has wrested control of the Moon's Helium-3 industry from the Mackenzie Metal corporation and fought to earn her family's new status. Now, in the twilight of her life, Adriana finds her corporation-Corta Helio-confronted by the many enemies she made during her meteoric rise. If the Corta family is to survive, Adriana's five children must defend their mother's empire from her many enemies... and each other.]]> 398 Ian McDonald 0765375516 Ankan 0 to-read 3.73 2015
author: Ian McDonald
name: Ankan
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 278280
In the next few weeks, they will all be swept together to decide the fate of the nation.

River of Gods teems with the life of a country choked with peoples and cultures--one and a half billion people, twelve semi-independent nations, nine million gods. Ian McDonald has written the great Indian novel of the new millennium, in which a war is fought, a love betrayed, a message from a different world decoded, as the great river Ganges flows on.]]> 597 Ian McDonald 1591024366 Ankan 5 3.92 2004
author: Ian McDonald
name: Ankan
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/20
date added: 2024/05/20
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]]> 23503006 Unflattening is an experiment in visual thinking. Nick Sousanis defies conventional forms of scholarly discourse to offer readers both a stunning work of graphic art and a serious inquiry into the ways humans construct knowledge.

Unflattening is an insurrection against the fixed viewpoint. Weaving together diverse ways of seeing drawn from science, philosophy, art, literature, and mythology, it uses the collage-like capacity of comics to show that perception is always an active process of incorporating and reevaluating different vantage points. While its vibrant, constantly morphing images occasionally serve as illustrations of text, they more often connect in nonlinear fashion to other visual references throughout the book. They become allusions, allegories, and motifs, pitting realism against abstraction and making us aware that more meets the eye than is presented on the page.

In its graphic innovations and restless shape-shifting, Unflattening is meant to counteract the type of narrow, rigid thinking that Sousanis calls “flatness.�� Just as the two-dimensional inhabitants of Edwin A. Abbott’s novella Flatland could not fathom the concept of “upwards,�� Sousanis says, we are often unable to see past the boundaries of our current frame of mind. Fusing words and images to produce new forms of knowledge, Unflattening teaches us how to access modes of understanding beyond what we normally apprehend.]]> 208 Nick Sousanis 0674744438 Ankan 0 to-read 4.07 2015
author: Nick Sousanis
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> 123018903 The Little Book of Aliens considers the biggest questions in our search for extraterrestrial life, questions we stand ready to answer. Everyone is curious about life in the universe, UFOs and whether ET is out there. Over the course of his thirty-year career as an astrophysicist, Frank has consistently been asked about the possibility of intelligent life in the universe. Are aliens real? Where are they? Why haven’t we found them? What happens if we do? We’ve long been led to believe that astronomers spend every night searching the sky for extraterrestials, but the truth is we have barely started looking.

Frank, a leading researcher in the field, takes us on a journey to all that we know about the possibility of life beyond planet Earth and shows us the cutting-edge science that has brought us to this unique moment in human history: the one where we go find out for ourselves. In this small book with big stakes, Frank gives a rundown of everything we need to know, from the scientific origins of the search for intelligent life, the Fermi Paradox, the Kardashev Scale, and the James Webb Telescope, as well as the conspiracy theories surrounding UFOs. Drawing from his own work and that of other scientists studying the possibility of alien life, he brings together the latest scientific thinking, data, ideas, and discoveries to equip us with the critical facts as we stand at what may be the last moment in human history where we still believe we are all alone.

In language that is engaging, entertaining, and fun, The Little Book of Aliens provides a comprehensive first look at how close we are to finding out if others actually exist—and if they do, what they might be like. Humankind is on the precipice of finding its neighbors. What comes next?]]> 272 Adam Frank 0063279738 Ankan 4 4.23
author: Adam Frank
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/12
date added: 2024/05/12
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]]> 35424671 From the 2017 John W. Campbell Award Winner for Best Writer, Ada Palmer's Perhaps the Stars is the final book of the Hugo Award-shortlisted Terra Ignota series.

World Peace turns into global civil war.

In the future, the leaders of Hive nations—nations without fixed location—clandestinely committed nefarious deeds in order to maintain an outward semblance of utopian stability. But the facade could only last so long. The comforts of effortless global travel and worldwide abundance may have tempered humanity's darkest inclinations, but conflict remains deeply rooted in the human psyche. All it needed was a catalyst, in form of special little boy to ignite half a millennium of repressed chaos.

Now, war spreads throughout the globe, splintering old alliances and awakening sleeping enmities. All transportation systems are in ruins, causing the tyranny of distance to fracture a long-united Earth and threaten to obliterate everything the Hive system built.

With the arch-criminal Mycroft nowhere to be found, his successor, Ninth Anonymous, must not only chronicle the discord of war, but attempt to restore order in a world spiraling closer to irreparable ruin.

The fate of a broken society hangs in the balance. Is the key to salvation to remain Earth-bound or, perhaps, to start anew throughout the far reaches of the stars?]]> 586 Ada Palmer 1786699605 Ankan 3 4.31 2021
author: Ada Palmer
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/08
date added: 2024/05/08
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]]> 187149
Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe.

Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably.

This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende’s inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.]]> 317 Eduardo Galeano 0853459916 Ankan 0 to-read 4.31 1971
author: Eduardo Galeano
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 195725093
In Towles's novel, Rules of Civility , the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September, 1938, with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, "Eve in Hollywood" describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself-and others-in the midst of Hollywood's golden age.

Throughout the stories, two characters often find themselves sitting across a table for two where the direction of their futures may hinge upon what they say to each other next.

Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles's canon of stylish and transporting historical fiction.]]> 444 Amor Towles 1804949515 Ankan 0 to-read 4.32 2024
author: Amor Towles
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 1774836
Relevant to today’s war-torn world, The Palace of Illusions takes us back to a time that is half history, half myth, and wholly magical. Narrated by Panchaali, the wife of the legendary Pandavas brothers in the Mahabharat, the novel gives us a new interpretation of this ancient tale.

The Palace of Illusions traces the princess Panchaali's life, beginning with her birth in fire and following her spirited balancing act as a woman with five husbands who have been cheated out of their father’s kingdom. Panchaali is swept into their quest to reclaim their birthright, remaining at their side through years of exile and a terrible civil war involving all the important kings of India. Meanwhile, we never lose sight of her strategic duels with her mother-in-law, her complicated friendship with��the enigmatic Krishna, or her secret��attraction to��the mysterious��man who is her husbands'��most dangerous��enemy. Panchaali is a fiery female redefining for us a world of warriors, gods, and the ever-manipulating hands of fate.]]> 360 Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni 0385515995 Ankan 4 4.20 2008
author: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/01
date added: 2024/05/01
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]]> 61294937 Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman’s determined quest to seize a final chance at glory—and write her own legend.

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.

Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.]]> 483 Shannon Chakraborty Ankan 0 to-read 4.25 2023
author: Shannon Chakraborty
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/29
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]]> 61190812 An epic yet intimate novel about a Colombian man caught up in the sweep of global historical and ideological revolutions.

The Colombian film director, Sergio Cabrera, is in Barcelona for a retrospective of his work. It's a hard time for him: his father, famous actor Fausto Cabrera, has just died; his marriage is in crisis; and his home country has rejected peace agreements that might have ended more than fifty years of war. In the course of a few intense days, as his films are on exhibit, Sergio recalls the events that marked his family's unusual and dramatic lives: especially his father's, his sister Marianella's and his own.

Growing up in Colombia as the children of famous actors, Sergio and Marianella were privileged and artistic, until their parents became disillusioned with bourgeois conventions and moved the entire family to China. Mao's Cultural Revolution was underway and the family lived in an entirely ex-pat hotel where they learned Chinese and joined the revolution, became members of the Red Guard, and trained as guerilla fighters. When they returned to Colombia to support the revolution there, they were sent into the countryside to join the guerilla force, were shot at and nearly died. Out of these lives molded by ideology and zealotry, came an artistic second life for Sergio as he escaped the movement and became his country's most celebrated film director.

From the Spanish Civil War to the exile of his family to Latin America, and from the Cultural Revolution in China to the guerrilla movements of 1960s Colombia, Sergio and his family's experience is extraordinary by any standards. Equal parts family saga and epic historical novel, Retrospective reveals the story of one man and his family -- based on real people and events -- and a devastating portrait of the forces that shaped their lives, and for half a century turned the world upside down.
]]> 448 Juan Gabriel Vásquez 0593539613 Ankan 0 to-read 3.97 2020
author: Juan Gabriel Vásquez
name: Ankan
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> 56769571
But the cat and mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad’s spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared Republican Guard. Set against the backdrop of a Syria pulsing with fear and rebellion, Damascus Station is a gripping thriller that offers a textured portrayal of espionage, love, loyalty, and betrayal in one of the most difficult CIA assignments on the planet.]]> 432 David McCloskey 0393881040 Ankan 0 to-read 4.08 2021
author: David McCloskey
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/28
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]]> 144405196
Wired called Dr. Fei-Fei Li “one of a tiny group of scientists―a group perhaps small enough to fit around a kitchen table―who are responsible for AI’s recent remarkable advances.��

Known to the world as the creator of ImageNet, a key catalyst of modern artificial intelligence, Dr. Li has spent more than two decades at the forefront of the field. But her career in science was improbable from the start. As immigrants, her family faced a difficult transition from China’s middle class to American poverty. And their lives were made all the harder as they struggled to care for her ailing mother, who was working tirelessly to help them all gain a foothold in their new land.

Fei-Fei’s adolescent knack for physics endured, however, and positioned her to make a crucial contribution to the breakthrough we now call AI, placing her at the center of a global transformation. Over the last decades, her work has brought her face-to-face with the extraordinary possibilities―and the extraordinary dangers―of the technology she loves.

The Worlds I See is a story of science in the first person, documenting one of the century’s defining moments from the inside. It provides a riveting story of a scientist at work and a thrillingly clear explanation of what artificial intelligence actually is―and how it came to be. Emotionally raw and intellectually uncompromising, this book is a testament not only to the passion required for even the most technical scholarship but also to the curiosity forever at its heart.]]> 336 Fei-Fei Li Ankan 0 to-read 4.31 2023
author: Fei-Fei Li
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> 58416952 At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

The Catenan Republic �� the Hierarchy �� may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus �� what they call Will �� to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.]]> 639 James Islington 1982141190 Ankan 0 to-read 4.60 2023
author: James Islington
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2023
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]]> 53036979 Being You is not as simple as it sounds. Somehow, within each of our brains, billions of neurons work to create our conscious experience. How does this happen? Why do we experience life in the first person? After over twenty years researching the brain, world-renowned neuroscientist Anil Seth puts forward a radical new theory of consciousness and self. His unique theory of what it means to 'be you' challenges our understanding of perception and reality and it turns what you thought you knew about yourself on its head.]]> 352 Anil Seth 0571337708 Ankan 0 to-read 4.06 2020
author: Anil Seth
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/07
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]]> 6493208
Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored�� ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia �� a land of wooden quarters for enslaved people, faith healings, and voodoo �� to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality�� until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family �� past and present �� is inextricably connected to the history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.]]> 370 Rebecca Skloot 1400052173 Ankan 0 to-read 4.12 2010
author: Rebecca Skloot
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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]]> 17899948 Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives--presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.

First published in 1938, this classic gothic novel is such a compelling read that it won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century.]]> 449 Daphne du Maurier 0316323705 Ankan 0 to-read 4.28 1938
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1938
rating: 0
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]]> 169354 The Prize recounts the panoramic history of oil -- and the struggle for wealth and power that has always surrounded oil. This struggle has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, and transformed the destiny of men and nations.

The Prize is as much a history of the twentieth century as of the oil industry itself. The canvas of history is enormous -- from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania through two great world wars to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm.]]> 928 Daniel Yergin 0671799320 Ankan 0 to-read 4.43 1991
author: Daniel Yergin
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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]]> 3061336 From Volga to Ganga is a collection of stories by great scholar and Writer Rahul Sankrityayan. Rahul Sankrityayan was a true vagabond who traveled to far lands like Russia, Korea, Japan, China and many others. He mastered the languages of these lands and was an authority on cultural studies.

First published in 1942, this book was considered the greatest Hindi Book of modern Indian Literature. It was translated into many languages including English, Tamil, Telugu, Russian, Chinese and many more. This book is now also considered a Classic in History of Indian Literature.]]> 253 Rahul Sankrityayan 8177693093 Ankan 0 to-read 4.21 1942
author: Rahul Sankrityayan
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1942
rating: 0
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]]> 150244643 For readers of Caste, the coming-of-age story of a Dalit individual that illuminates systemic injustice in India and its growing impact on US society

“A moving personal story and a useful educational examination of persistent discrimination”��Kirkus Reviews

Winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puruskar, 2020

Born into a “formerly untouchable manual-scavenging family in small-town India,�� Yashica Dutt was taught from a young age to not appear “Dalit looking.�� Although prejudice against Dalits, who compose 25% of the population, has been illegal since 1950, caste-ism in India is alive and well. Blending her personal history with extensive research and reporting, Dutt provides an incriminating analysis of caste’s influence in India over everything from entertainment to judicial systems and how this discrimination has carried over to US institutions.

Dutt traces how colonial British forces exploited and perpetuated a centuries-old caste system, how Gandhi could have been more forceful in combatting prejudice, and the role played by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, whom Isabel Wilkerson called “the MLK of India’s caste issues�� in her book Caste. Alongside her analysis, Dutt interweaves personal stories of learning to speak without a regional accent growing up and desperately using medicinal packs to try to lighten her skin.

Published in India in 2019 to acclaim, this expanded edition includes 2 new chapters covering how the caste system traveled to the US, its history here, and the continuation of bias by South Asian communities in professional sectors. Amid growing conversations about caste discrimination prompting US institutions including Harvard University, Brandeis University, the University of California system, and the NAACP to add caste as a protected category to their policies, Dutt’s work sheds essential light on the significant influence caste-ism has across many aspects of US society.

Raw and affecting, Coming Out as Dalit brings a new audience of readers into a crucial conversation about embracing Dalit identity, offering a way to change the way people think about caste in their own communities and beyond.]]> 262 Yashica Dutt 0807045292 Ankan 0 to-read 4.19 2019
author: Yashica Dutt
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> 331256
First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years.]]> 145 Arkady Strugatsky 0575070536 Ankan 0 to-read 4.16 1972
author: Arkady Strugatsky
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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]]> 62919732
According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,�� but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.

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

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

How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? A captivating story of women helping each other, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a triumphant reimagining of the life of one person who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.]]> 352 Lisa See 1982117087 Ankan 0 to-read 4.31 2023
author: Lisa See
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2023
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]]> 127305853
Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

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

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

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm's way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Ankan 0 to-read 4.58 2024
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
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]]> 68021 362 Ursula K. Le Guin 0060509066 Ankan 5 4.33 2002
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/28
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]]> 328 1) Why is it so difficult, especially for adult players, to improve?
2) What kinds of mental attitudes are needed to find good moves in different phases of the game?
3) Is White’s alleged first-move advantage a myth, and does it make a difference whether you are playing Black or White?
In a strikingly original work, Rowson makes use of his academic background in philosophy and psychology to answer these questions in an entertaining and instructive way. This book assists all players in their efforts to improve, and provides fresh insights into the opening and early middlegame.

Rowson presents many new ideas on how Black should best combat White’s early initiative, and make use of the extra information that he gains as a result of moving second. For instance, he shows that in some cases a situation he calls ‘Zugzwang Lite�� can arise, where White finds himself lacking any constructive moves. He also takes a close look at the theories of two players who, in differing styles, have specialized in championing Black’s Mihai Suba and Andras Adorjan. Readers are also equipped with a ‘mental toolkit�� that will enable them to handle many typical over-the-board situations with greater success, and avoid a variety of psychological pitfalls.

Chess for Zebras offers fresh insights into human idiosyncrasies in all phases of the game. The depth and breadth of this book will therefore help players to appreciate chess at a more profound level, and make steps towards sustained and significant improvement]]> 256 Jonathan Rowson 1901983854 Ankan 0 to-read 4.39 2003
author: Jonathan Rowson
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2003
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]]> 20651
In this thought-provoking and entertaining book, Jonathan Rowson investigates, in his inimitable style, the main reasons why chess-players sometimes go horribly astray, focusing on the underlying psychological
* Thinking (unnecessary or erroneous)
* Blinking (missing opportunities; lack of resolution)
* Wanting (too much concern with the result of the game)
* Materialism (lack of attention to non-material factors)
* Egoism (insufficient awareness of the opponent and his ideas)
* Perfectionism (running short of time; trying too hard)
* Looseness (“losing the plot��; drifting; poor concentration)]]> 208 Jonathan Rowson 1901983366 Ankan 0 to-read 4.36 2000
author: Jonathan Rowson
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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]]> 529075 here.

Javier Marías's A Heart So White chronicles with unnerving insistence the relentless power of the past. Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesn't really want to know. Secrecy—its possible convenience, its price, and even its civility—hovers throughout the novel. A Heart So White becomes a sort of anti-detective story of human nature. Intrigue; the sins of the father; the fraudulent and the genuine; marriage and strange repetitions of violence: Marías elegantly sends shafts of inquisitory light into the shadows and on to the costs of ambivalence. ("My hands are of your colour; but I shame/To wear a heart so white"—Shakespeare's Macbeth.)]]> 280 Javier Marías 0811215059 Ankan 0 to-read 4.13 1992
author: Javier Marías
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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]]> 65211701 Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.

Everyone's favorite lethal SecUnit is back.

Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.

But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast.

Yeah, this plan is... not going to work.]]> 245 Martha Wells 1250826977 Ankan 4 4.19 2023
author: Martha Wells
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/07
date added: 2024/02/10
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]]> 53205854 No, I didn’t kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn’t dump the body in the station mall.

When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?)

Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!

Again!]]> 168 Martha Wells 1250765374 Ankan 4 4.25 2021
author: Martha Wells
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/02
date added: 2024/02/04
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]]> 169264937 0 Elena Ferrante Ankan 0 to-read 4.64 2015
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Ankan
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/03
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]]>