Brian's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 07 Jun 2025 09:31:40 -0700 60 Brian's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)]]> 32758901 "As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid--a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.� Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.]]> 144 Martha Wells Brian 4 4.10 2017 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)
author: Martha Wells
name: Brian
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/07
date added: 2025/06/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club, #5)]]> 222292420 Who's got time to think about murder when there's a wedding to plan?

It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favourite criminal.

But when Elizabeth meets a wedding guest who’s in trouble, kidnap and death are hot on their heels once more. A villain wants access to an uncrackable code, and will stop at nothing to get it. Plunged back into action once more, can the gang solve the puzzle and a murder in time?]]> 368 Richard Osman 0593653254 Brian 0 to-read 5.00 2025 The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club, #5)
author: Richard Osman
name: Brian
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/06
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]]> Project Hail Mary 54998275
Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name. Let alone the nature of his assignment, or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but a computer and two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that's been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it's up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.

Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, The Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian--while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.]]> 677 Andy Weir 0593395565 Brian 0 to-read 4.36 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Brian
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Al Capone Does My Homework (Tales from Alcatraz, #3)]]> 16101014 224 Gennifer Choldenko 0803734727 Brian 0 currently-reading 4.09 2013 Al Capone Does My Homework (Tales from Alcatraz, #3)
author: Gennifer Choldenko
name: Brian
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/26
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham (2023-) #2]]> 202239803 56 Rafael Grampá Brian 0 to-read 4.15 Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham (2023-) #2
author: Rafael Grampá
name: Brian
average rating: 4.15
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/26
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]]> The Second Curtain 2517212 192 Roy Fuller 0897331974 Brian 3 3.42 1953 The Second Curtain
author: Roy Fuller
name: Brian
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1953
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/26
date added: 2025/05/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Al Capone Shines My Shoes (Tales from Alcatraz, #2)]]> 6137155
You see, Moose has never met Al Capone, but a few weeks ago Moose wrote a letter to him asking him to use his influence to get his sister, Natalie, into a school she desperately needs in San Francisco. After Natalie got accepted, a note appeared in Moose?s freshly laundered shirt that said: Done.

As this book begins, Moose discovers a new note. This one says: Your turn. Is it really from Capone? What does it mean? Moose can?t risk anything that might get his dad fired. But how can he ignore Al Capone?]]> 274 Gennifer Choldenko 0803734603 Brian 4 3.99 2009 Al Capone Shines My Shoes (Tales from Alcatraz, #2)
author: Gennifer Choldenko
name: Brian
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/22
date added: 2025/05/22
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]]> Lowdown Road 62066640
It’s the summer of �74…Richard Nixon has resigned from office, CB radios are the hot new thing, and in the great state of Texas two cousins hatch a plan to drive $1 million worth of stolen weed to Idaho, where some lunatic is gearing up to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered motorcycle. But with a vengeful sheriff on their tail and the revered and feared marijuana kingpin of Central Texas out to get his stash back, Chuck and Dean are in for the ride of their lives � if they can make it out alive…]]> 352 Scott Von Doviak 1803361425 Brian 3 4.06 2023 Lowdown Road
author: Scott Von Doviak
name: Brian
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/06
date added: 2025/05/06
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]]> <![CDATA[We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, #1)]]> 228177199 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?]]> 400 Richard Osman 0593653246 Brian 0 to-read 4.01 2024 We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, #1)
author: Richard Osman
name: Brian
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/24
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]]> The Troop 28187199 355 Nick Cutter 1501144820 Brian 0 to-read 3.90 2014 The Troop
author: Nick Cutter
name: Brian
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over Any Audience]]> 2607485
--Peter Kaufman, CEO, Glenair Inc.

Former MGM Director of Creative Affairs Stephanie Palmer reveals the techniques used by Hollywood’s top writers, directors and producers to get financing for their projects and explains how you can apply these techniques to be more successful in your own high-stakes meetings. Because, as Palmer as found, the strategies used to sell yourself and your ideas in Hollywood Hollywood not only work in other businesses, they often work better .

After taking over three thousand pitch meetings, Stephanie Palmer has seen what works, what doesn’t, and has developed a system for helping people with good ideas get the attention and financing they deserve. This is important because of how technology and globalization have created exponential growth in the marketplace for ideas. If you can communicate your ideas concisely and effectively, you will have the edge no matter what industry you are in.

Whether you intend to ask for a raise, sign a potential client, promote a new business, secure financing for a creative project, get sponsors for your charity walk or even ask someone on a date, GOOD IN A ROOM shows you how

-Master the five stages of the face-to-face meeting
-Avoid the secret dealbreakers of the first ninety seconds
-Be confident in high-pressure situations
-Present yourself better and more effectively than you ever have before

GOOD IN A ROOM is a step-by-step guide to improving your performance in high-stakes meetings as well as in other areas of your professional life. You’ll learn insider secrets, cutting-edge techniques, and how to construct winning presentations that persuade decision-makers. That’s what being good in a room is all about.]]> 271 Stephanie Palmer 0385520433 Brian 0 to-read 3.81 2008 Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over Any Audience
author: Stephanie Palmer
name: Brian
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Next Time I Die (Hard Case Crime)]]> 59205216
Steven Blitz didn't think about his own safety when he saw the man trying to force a woman into his car. He stepped in to defend her, and got a knife to the gut for his troubles.

But when he wakes up in the hospital from what should have been a fatal wound, he finds the whole world changed - a different president in the White House, a loving family when he'd been on the verge of divorce, more money in the bank than he's ever seen. There's a dark side, though: in this world, Steven Blitz is not a good man. And now he's got to get himself out of serious trouble without even knowing what it is he's done wrong.

A paranoid thriller in the mind-bending tradition of Philip K. Dick and The Twilight Zone, THE NEXT TIME I DIE will draw you into its claustrophobic web of suspense and leave you questioning everything you think you know.]]> 252 Jason Starr 178909951X Brian 0 to-read 3.59 2022 The Next Time I Die (Hard Case Crime)
author: Jason Starr
name: Brian
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> Too Many Bullets 123232257 Acclaimed "True Crime" detective Nathan Heller, whose cases have sold more than 1 million copies, returns to uncover the secrets behind Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 assassination in this brand-new novel from bestselling ROAD TO PERDITION author Max Allan Collins.

A HELL OF A FINALE TO A DECADE OF ASSASSINATION

It began with John F. Kennedy in 1963. Then Malcolm X in 1965. Martin Luther King in April 1968. And then, in June of the same year, President Kennedy's brother Robert fell before an assassin's bullets at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

But how many shooters were there, really? And who sent them? In this astonishing, meticulously researched novel, bestselling author Max Allan Collins � Mystery Writers of America Grand Master � takes Nathan Heller, "Private Eye to the Stars," from the scene of the crime to Hollywood's seediest haunts, from striptease joints to Washington D.C.'s corridors of power to a deadly desert showdown outside Las Vegas, all in pursuit of the truth about a conspiracy that may have put the wrong man in jail, let the real killers go free, and snuffed out the life of a man poised to become the next president of the United States.]]> 315 Max Allan Collins 1789099471 Brian 0 to-read 3.95 2023 Too Many Bullets
author: Max Allan Collins
name: Brian
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> Death Comes Too Late 178818632 20 UNFORGETTABLE STORIES BY HARD CASE CRIME FOUNDER CHARLES ARDAI
“A MASTER OF THE SHORT STORY.� � STEPHEN KING

Since debuting 20 years ago, Hard Case Crime has won acclaim for publishing the best in hardboiled crime fiction � not least of all the work of founding editor Charles Ardai, which has won the Edgar, Shamus and Ellery Queen Awards, been selected for ‘Best of the Year� anthologies, and earned praise from everyone from the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune to Megan Abbott and Stephen King.

Collected here for the first time anywhere are the author’s 20 finest stories, including his Edgar-winning “The Home Front,� about death and repentance during World War II; the Shamus Award finalist “Nobody Wins,� about a brutal gangland enforcer searching for the woman he loves; and year’s-best selections such as “A Bar Called Charley’s,� about a traveling salesman’s most grueling night on the road. From Brazil at Carnival to Times Square at midnight, from Tijuana, Mexico to history’s first gunshot in 11th-century China, Ardai will take you to some of the most dangerous places in the world � and the darkest corners of the human heart.]]> 400 Charles Ardai 1803366265 Brian 0 to-read 4.09 2024 Death Comes Too Late
author: Charles Ardai
name: Brian
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> Call Me a Cab 57927320
Fans of mystery fiction have often pondered whether it would be possible to write a suspense novel without any crime at all. In Call Me a Cab the masterful Donald E. Westlake answers the question in his inimitable style. You won’t find any crime in these pages � but what you will find is a wonderful suspense story, about a New York City taxi driver hired to drive a beautiful woman all the way across America, from Manhattan to Los Angeles, where the biggest decision of her life is waiting to be made. It’s Westlake at his witty, thought-provoking best, and it proves that a page-turner doesn’t need to have a bomb set to go off at the end of it in order to keep sparks flying every step of the way.]]> 244 Donald E. Westlake 1789098181 Brian 0 to-read 3.90 2022 Call Me a Cab
author: Donald E. Westlake
name: Brian
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> Five Decembers 57522883
This extraordinary novel is so much more than just a gripping crime story—it’s a story of survival against all odds, of love and loss and the human cost of war. Spanning the entirety of World War II, Five Decembers is a beautiful, masterful, powerful novel that will live in your memory forever.]]> 429 James Kestrel 1789096111 Brian 0 to-read 4.37 2021 Five Decembers
author: James Kestrel
name: Brian
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story]]> 1160780 193 Oliver La Farge 0618446729 Brian 3 3.74 1929 Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story
author: Oliver La Farge
name: Brian
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1929
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fourth Suit (The Magic Misfits, #4)]]> 50497265



Ridley Larsen is everything you want in a friend. She's tough as nails, she's fiercely loyal, and she's smart as a whip. But she can be a harsh critic, which has put her position with the Magic Misfits on the rocks, even as the threat of the group's longtime enemy Kalagan looms large. Ever since his recent appearance in Mineral Wells, the kids know that a showdown with the vicious magician is imminent.




They must first deal with a series of odd instances and random attacks, though, all of which they use to bring themselves closer to discovering where Kalagan may be hiding, and the nature of his true identity. But can Ridley finally master her temper and put her essential magical skills to good use? She'll do anything to protect her friends, and when the time comes, she'll find that the Magic Misfits are strongest when they all work together.




Join the Magic Misfits as they discover adventure, friendship, and more than a few hidden secrets in this finale of the unique and surprising series. Whether you're a long-time expert at illusion or simply a new fan of stage magic, hold on to your top hat!]]> 336 Neil Patrick Harris 0316391956 Brian 3 4.22 2020 The Fourth Suit (The Magic Misfits, #4)
author: Neil Patrick Harris
name: Brian
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files, #1)]]> 222419283
It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.

In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?

As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.]]> 384 Kristen Perrin 0593474023 Brian 0 to-read 3.93 2024 How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files, #1)
author: Kristen Perrin
name: Brian
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War]]> 195608683 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War—a slow-burning crisis that finally tore a deeply divided nation in two.

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston: Fort Sumter.

Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.�

At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between both. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous Secretary of State, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.

Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.]]> 565 Erik Larson 0385348746 Brian 5 4.12 2024 The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
author: Erik Larson
name: Brian
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
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]]> Not Quite Dead Yet 220223963 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder—now a hit Netflix series—returns with her first novel for adults: a twisty thriller about a young woman trying to solve her own murder.

In seven days Jet Mason will be dead.

Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. I’ll do it later, she always says. She has time.

Until Halloween night, when Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder.

She suffers a catastrophic head injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a deadly aneurysm.

Jet has never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her former best friend turned sister-in-law, her ex-boyfriend.

She has at most seven days, and as her condition deteriorates she has only her childhood friend Billy for help. But nevertheless, she’s absolutely determined to finally finish something:

Jet is going to solve her own murder.]]> 400 Holly Jackson 059397705X Brian 0 to-read 4.27 2025 Not Quite Dead Yet
author: Holly Jackson
name: Brian
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Marble Hall Murders (Susan Ryeland, #3)]]> 217432789 Murder links past and present once again in this mind-boggling metafictional mystery fromAnthony Horowitz—another tribute to the golden age of Agatha Christie featuring detective Atticus Pund and editor Susan Ryland, stars of the New York Times bestsellers Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders.

Editor Susan Ryeland has left her Greek island, her hotel, and her Greek boyfriend Andreas in search of a new life back in England.

Freelancing for Causton Books, she’s working on the manuscript of a novel, Pund’s Last Case, by a young author named Eliot Crace, a continuation of the popular Alan Conway series. Susan is surprised to learn that Eliot is the grandson of legendary children’s author Marian Crace, who died some fifteen years ago—murdered, Elliot insists, by poison.

As Susan begins to read the manuscript’s opening chapters, the skeptical editor is relieved to find that Pund’s Last Case is actually very good. Set in the South of France, it revolves around the mysterious death of Lady Margaret Chalfont, who, though mortally ill, is poisoned—perhaps by a member of her own family. But who did it? And why?

The deeper Susan reads, the more it becomes clear that the clues leading to the truth of Marian Crace’s death are hidden within this Atticus Pund mystery.

While Eliot’s accusation becomes more plausible, his behavior grows increasingly erratic.. Then he is suddenly killed in a hit-and-run accident, and Susan finds herself under police scrutiny as a suspect in his killing.

Three mysterious deaths. Multiple motives and possible murderers. If Susan doesn’t solve the mystery of Pund’s Last Case, she may well be the next victim.]]> 582 Anthony Horowitz 0063305704 Brian 0 to-read 4.30 2025 Marble Hall Murders (Susan Ryeland, #3)
author: Anthony Horowitz
name: Brian
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/25
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]]> King of Ashes 219833252 Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama.

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his himself, and his own particular set of skills.

Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.

Because everything burns.]]> 352 S.A. Cosby 1250832063 Brian 0 to-read 4.43 2025 King of Ashes
author: S.A. Cosby
name: Brian
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/14
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]]> <![CDATA[The Minor Third (The Magic Misfits, #3)]]> 44428917



Theo Stein-Meyer loves being part of the Magic Misfits. Armed with his trusty violin bow, he completes the team with his levitation skills, unflappable calm, and proper manners. But when a girl named Emily begins to spend time with the group and the other Misfits grow suspicious, Theo is surprisingly drawn to her. She seems to understand the pull he feels between music and magic, family and friends.




Then a famous ventriloquist arrives in town, and the Misfits are sure he (and his creepy dummy Daniel) are up to no good. With their mentor, Mr. Vernon, suddenly called away and tension simmering among the friends, will they be able to come together to stop this newest member of the mysterious Emerald Ring? It's time for Theo to make a choice about where -- and with whom -- he belongs.




Join the Magic Misfits as they discover adventure, friendship, and more than a few hidden secrets in this unique and surprising series. Whether you're a long-time expert at illusion or simply a new fan of stage magic, hold on to your top hat!]]> 336 Neil Patrick Harris 0316391875 Brian 0 4.07 2019 The Minor Third (The Magic Misfits, #3)
author: Neil Patrick Harris
name: Brian
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Three Bags Full (Sheep Detective Story, #1)]]> 213960819 Soon to be a major motion picture starring Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson, this funny and surprising mystery features a new breed of detectives you’ve got to read to baaaaa-lieve.

This twentieth-anniversary deluxe paperback features a foreword by A. J. Finn, discussion questions, and more.

Something is not right with George the shepherd. His sheep have gathered around him outside the cozy Irish village of Glennkill to assess the situation. George has cared for the sheep, reading them books every night, and now he lies pinned to the ground with a spade. His flock, far savvier about the workings of the human mind than your average sheep, sets out to find George’s killer, led by Miss Maple, the smartest sheep in Glennkill (and possibly the world).

Her team of investigators includes Othello, who was rescued from the Dublin Zoo; Mopple the Whale, who is always hungry and remembers everything; and Zora, an existential ewe—just to name a few. Together, the sheep discuss the crime late into the night, and their speculations vary wildly. Determined to unravel the mystery, they embark on furtive missions into the village, where they encounter a hoof-full of two-legged suspects. There’s Ham, the terrifying butcher who smells of death; Rebecca, the secretive village newcomer; and Father Will, a sinister priest the sheep call God.

With wit and heart, this clever international bestseller is a mystery to chew on—and savor.]]> 384 Leonie Swann 1641296828 Brian 0 to-read 3.48 2005 Three Bags Full (Sheep Detective Story, #1)
author: Leonie Swann
name: Brian
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/10
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]]> Come Fly with Me 214336229 It’s 1962, the dawn of the jet-set era. Hope takes flight for two Pan Am stewardesses navigating an adventurous new life in a novel about love, friendship, and escape by the bestselling author of The Memory of Us and Until We Meet.

Welcome to a glamorous gateway to the jet age.

Judy Goodman and Beverly Caldwell have different reasons for putting continents and oceans between themselves and their disparate pasts, but they have the same desire—to earn a coveted position on an elite team of stewardesses for Pan American Airlines. For Judy, running away from an oppressive marriage in small-town Pennsylvania is a risk she must take. And for Beverly, leaving behind the gilded cage of New York society will allow her to pursue a future of her own making.

Embracing the culture, etiquette, and strict rules of a thrilling and unpredictable new world above the clouds, Judy and Beverly are bound for faraway destinations and opportunities that other women dare only to dream about. But as they build a deep friendship, encounter love and danger, and discover what’s truly important, Judy and Beverly must also confront the secrets that could change their lives all over again—and forever.]]> 347 Camille Di Maio 1662523947 Brian 0 to-read 4.14 2025 Come Fly with Me
author: Camille Di Maio
name: Brian
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/10
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]]> Fever Beach 217245548 Another instant classic from Carl Hiaasen—laugh-out-loud funny, tackling the current chaotic and polarized American culture (following in the path of Squeeze Me), with two wonderful new Hiaasen heroes

“The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he’d take him there after finishing an errand.�

Thus begins Fever Beach, with an errand that leads—in pure Hiaasen-style—into the depths of Florida at its most a sun-soaked bastion of right-wing extremism, white power, greed, and corruption. Figgo, it turns out, is the only hate-monger ever to be kicked out of the Proud Boys for being too dumb and incompetent. On January 6, 2021 he thought he was defacing a statue of Ulysses S. Grant, but he wound up spreading feces all over a statue of James Zacharia George, a Civil War Confederate war leader.

Figgo's already messy life is about to get more complicated, thanks to two formidable adversaries. Viva Morales is a newly transplanted Floridian, a clever woman recently taken to the cleaners by her ex-husband, now working at the Mink Foundation, a supposedly philanthropical organization, and renting a room in Figgo’s apartment because there’s no place else she can afford. Twilly Spree has an anger management problem, especially when it comes to those who deface the environment, and way too many inherited millions of dollars. He's living alone a year after his dog died, two years after he sank a city councilman’s party barge, and three years after his divorce.

Viva and Twilly are plunged into a mystery—involving dark money and darker motives—they are determined to solve, and become entangled in a world populated by some of Hiaasen’s most outrageous Claude and Eletra Mink—billionaire philanthropists with way too much plastic surgery and a secret right-wing agenda—and Congressman Clure Boyette—who dreams of being Florida’s (and maybe America’s) most important politician. The only things standing in his way are his love for hookers and young girls, and his total lack of intelligence. We meet Noel Kristianson—a Scandinavian agnostic injured when Figgo thinks he’s aJewish threat to humanity and runs him over with his car; Jonus Onus—Figgo’s partner in white power idiocy; and many, many more. Hiaasen ties them all together and delivers them to their appropriate fates, in his wildest and most entertaining novel to date.]]> 368 Carl Hiaasen 0593320948 Brian 0 to-read 3.98 2025 Fever Beach
author: Carl Hiaasen
name: Brian
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Belle Starr: The Truth Behind the Wild West Legend]]> 213395435 In this definitive biography of the most famous female outlaw of the nineteenth century, best-selling historian Michael Wallis challenges a notorious legacy.


In the annals of legendary Wild West desperados, Belle Starr is remembered to this day as the Bandit Queen. Shortly after her murder in 1889, a highly romanticized, sensational book titled Bella Starr . . . The Bandit Queen, or the Female Jesse James was published—the first of scores of high-profile portraits to brand Starr as a villain. Now, celebrated historian Michael Wallis parses over a century of mythmaking to reveal the woman behind the “Wanted� poster. From war-torn Carthage, Missouri, to rollicking Scyene, Texas, Starr indeed ran in the same circles as notorious outlaws Cole Younger and Jesse James, but Wallis shows that the crimes ascribed to her were embellished. The result is a breathtaking portrait of a woman demonized for refusing to accept the genteel Victorian ideals expected of her. Instead, she chose to live her life outside the law, riding sidesaddle with a pearl-handled Colt .45 strapped to her hip.]]> 464 Michael Wallis 1631494775 Brian 0 to-read 4.50 Belle Starr: The Truth Behind the Wild West Legend
author: Michael Wallis
name: Brian
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/18
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]]> Wool - Holston (Wool, #1) 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]> 56 Hugh Howey Brian 0 to-read 4.14 2012 Wool - Holston (Wool, #1)
author: Hugh Howey
name: Brian
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> Anima Rising 217223362 FromNew York Timesbestselling author Christopher Moore comes a hilariously deranged tale of a mad scientist, a famous painter, and an undead woman’s electrifying journey of self-discovery.

Vienna, 1911. Gustav Klimt, the most famous painter in the Austrian Empire, the darling of Viennese society, spots a woman’s nude body in the Danube canal. He knows he should summon a policeman, but he can’t resist stopping to make a sketch first. And as he draws, the woman coughs. She’s alive!

Back at his studio, Klimt and his model-turned-muse Wally tend to the erstwhile-drowned girl. She’s nearly feral and doesn’t remember who she is, or how she came to be floating in the canal. Klimt names her Judith, after one of his most famous paintings, and resolves to help her find her memory.

With a little help from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Judith recalls being stranded in the arctic one hundred years ago, locked in a crate by a man named Victor Frankenstein, and visiting the Underworld.

So how did she get here? And why are so many people chasing her, including Geoff, the giant croissant-eating devil dog of the North?

Poor Things meets Bride of Frankenstein in Anima Rising, Christopher Moore’s most ingenious (and probably most hilarious) novel yet.


]]> 400 Christopher Moore 0062434152 Brian 0 to-read 4.08 2025 Anima Rising
author: Christopher Moore
name: Brian
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/06
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]]> Letters 207611493 The letters of one of the greatest observers of the human species, revealing his passion for life and work, friendship and art, medicine and society, and the richness of his relationships with friends, family, and fellow intellectuals over the decades. Dr. Oliver Sacks—who describes himself variously in these pages as “a philosophical physician,� “an astronomer of the inward,� and a “neuropathological Talmudist”—wrote lengthy letters throughout his to his parents, his beloved Aunt Lennie, to friends and colleagues from London, Oxford, California, and around the world. These pages begin with his arrival in America as a young man, eager to establish himself away from the confines of postwar England, and carry us through his bumpy early career in medicine and the discovery of his writer’s voice and métier; his weightlifting, motorcycle-riding years and his explosive seasons of discovery with the patients who populate his book Awakenings; his growing interest in matters of sight and the musical brain; his many friendships and exchanges with fellow writers, artists and scientists (to say nothing of astronauts, botanists, and mathematicians), and his deep gratitude for all these relationships at the end of his life. Some letters contain the first detailed sketches of an essay forming in his mind, others reveal his agony over a tempestuous love affair or his reminiscences of childhood. From Francis Crick and Jane Goodall to W. H. Auden and Susan Sontag, from lovers to patients, and ordinary folk who wrote to him with their odd symptoms and questions, all are treated equally to Sacks� lyrical, ferocious, penetrating and at times hilarious observations. Sensitively introduced and edited by Kate Edgar, Sacks� longtime editor (and one of his correspondents), the letters deliver a complete portrait of Sacks as he wrestles with the workings of the brain and mind. We see, through his eyes, the beginnings of modern neuroscience as it unlocks many secrets of how the human brain defines us. We experience the arc of a remarkable personal evolution, closely following the thought processes of one of the great intellectuals of our time whose words, as evidenced in these pages, were unfailingly shaped with generosity and wonder toward other people.]]> 752 Oliver Sacks 0451492919 Brian 0 to-read 4.31 Letters
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Brian
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way]]> 30753734
In Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way, acclaimed music critic Ryan White has crafted the first definitive account of Buffett’s rise from singing songs for beer to his emergence as a tropical icon and CEO behind the Margaritaville industrial complex, a vast network of merchandise, chain restaurants, resorts, and lifestyle products all inspired by his sunny but disillusioned hit “Margaritaville.�

Filled with interviews from friends, musicians, Coral Reefer Band members past and present, and business partners who were there, this book is a top-down joyride with plenty of side trips and meanderings from Mobile and Pascagoula to New Orleans, Key West, down into the islands aboard the Euphoria and the Euphoria II, and into the studios and onto the stages where the foundation of Buffett’s reputation was laid.

Buffett wasn’t always the pied piper of beaches, bars, and laid-back living. Born on the Gulf Coast, the son of a son of a sailing ship captain, Buffett scuffed around New Orleans in the late sixties, flunked out of Nashville (and a marriage) in 1971, and found refuge among the artists, dopers, shrimpers, and genuine characters who’d collected at the end of the road in Key West. And it was there, in those waning outlaw days at the last American exit, where Buffett, like Hemingway before him, found his voice and eventually brought to life the song that would launch Parrot Head nation.

And just where is Margaritaville? It’s wherever it’s five o’clock; it’s wherever there’s a breeze and salt in the air; and it’s wherever Buffett sets his bare feet, smiles, and sings his songs.]]> 368 Ryan White 1501132555 Brian 5 3.76 2017 Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way
author: Ryan White
name: Brian
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
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]]> Night Stalks the Mansion 2978703 179 Constance Westbie 0553122851 Brian 0 3.60 1977 Night Stalks the Mansion
author: Constance Westbie
name: Brian
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/05
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]]> <![CDATA[We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, #1)]]> 219449299 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?]]> 387 Richard Osman 059365322X Brian 0 to-read 4.05 2024 We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, #1)
author: Richard Osman
name: Brian
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/01
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]]> Getting Away with Murder 205519741 307 Kathryn Foxfield 1728278910 Brian 0 to-read 3.42 2024 Getting Away with Murder
author: Kathryn Foxfield
name: Brian
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Second Story (The Magic Misfits, #2)]]> 37912471
Join the Magic Misfits as they discover adventure, friendship, and more than a few hidden secrets in this delightful new series. Whether you're a new fan of stage magic or a longtime expert at illusion, Magic Misfits is sure to delight even more than sawing your assistant in half!

... have more questions? I thought you might. Here are some answers:

WHERE? A sleepy town in New England and the magic shop there, run by the friendly but mysterious Dante Vernon—the gang's caped and top-hatted mentor.

WHO? Carter, who makes cards and coins vanish. Leila, who escapes from trunks and straitjackets. Theo, who levitates with the aid of his violin bow. Ridley, who invents and transforms everyday objects. And of course twins Olly and Izzy, who make everyone laugh.

WHY? Because together, these six Magical Misfits will discover adventure, friendship, and the town's long-hidden secrets.

(Psst. Hey, you! Yes, YOU! Congratulations on reading this far down. As a reward, I'll let you in on a little secret.... This book isn't just a book. It's a treasure trove of secrets and ciphers and codes and even tricks. Keep your eyes peeled and you'll discover more than just a story—you'll learn how to make your own magic!)]]> 336 Neil Patrick Harris 0316391859 Brian 3 4.15 2018 The Second Story (The Magic Misfits, #2)
author: Neil Patrick Harris
name: Brian
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/21
date added: 2024/10/21
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]]> The Last Decade of Cinema 180076971 338 Scott Ryan 1949024717 Brian 0 4.26 The Last Decade of Cinema
author: Scott Ryan
name: Brian
average rating: 4.26
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/17
date added: 2024/10/17
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]]> On the Move: A Life 25852818
When Oliver Sacks was twelve years old, a perceptive schoolmaster “Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far.� It is now abundantly clear that Sacks has never stopped going. With unbridled honesty and humor, Sacks writes about the passions that have driven his life—from motorcycles and weight lifting to neurology and poetry. He writes about his love affairs, both romantic and intellectual; his guilt over leaving his family to come to America; his bond with his schizophrenic brother; and the writers and scientists—W. H. Auden, Gerald M. Edelman, Francis Crick—who have influenced his work.]]> 448 Oliver Sacks 0804170932 Brian 0 to-read 4.29 2015 On the Move: A Life
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Brian
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/16
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]]> Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 214161672
Yet the cautious Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician. Young, handsome and daring, Jonathan Strange is his very antithesis. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men � which overwhelms that between England and France. And soon their own secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine…]]> 864 Susanna Clarke Brian 0 to-read 4.18 2004 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Brian
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales]]> 567722 The stories in An Anthropologist on Mars are medical case reports not unlike the classic tales of Berton Roueché in The Medical Detectives. Sacks's stories are of "differently brained" people, and they have the intrinsic human interest that spurred his book Awakenings to be re-created as a Robin Williams movie.

The title story in Anthropologist is that of autistic Temple Grandin, whose own book Thinking in Pictures gives her version of how she feels--as unlike other humans as a cow or a Martian. The other minds Sacks describes are equally remarkable: a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome, a painter who loses color vision, a blind man given the ambiguous gift of sight, artists with memories that overwhelm "real life," the autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire, and a man with memory damage for whom it is always 1968.

Oliver Sacks is the Carl Sagan or Stephen Jay Gould of his field; his books are true classics of medical writing, of the breadth of human mentality, and of the inner lives of the disabled. --Mary Ellen Curtin

]]> 327 Oliver Sacks 0679756973 Brian 0 to-read 4.18 1995 An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Brian
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales]]> 57640291
Featuring a new preface, Oliver Sacks’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with perceptual and intellectual disorders: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; whose limbs seem alien to them; who lack some skills yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents. In Dr. Sacks’s splendid and sympathetic telling, his patients are deeply human and his tales are studies of struggles against incredible adversity. A great healer, Sacks never loses sight of medicine’s ultimate responsibility: “the suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject.”]]> 320 Oliver Sacks 0593466675 Brian 0 to-read 3.75 1985 The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Brian
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/12
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]]> The Venom Business 50030380
Between jobs in Paris, Raynaud meets an old drinking buddy. One of London’s wealthiest, nastiest men, Richard Pierce has eyes on his late father’s fortune and wants Raynaud to act as his bodyguard until he acquires it. But after the first attempts on Pierce’s life, Raynaud begins to smell a rat. Has he been hired as a bodyguard, or a target?

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Michael Crichton including rare images from the author’s estate.]]> 400 John Lange 1480400629 Brian 0 to-read 3.83 1969 The Venom Business
author: John Lange
name: Brian
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1969
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/11
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]]> Awakenings 14456 464 Oliver Sacks 0375704051 Brian 0 to-read 4.11 1973 Awakenings
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Brian
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1973
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/05
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]]> Hallucinations 17345344
“An absorbing plunge into a mystery of the mind.� � Entertainment Weekly

To many people, hallucinations imply madness, but in fact they are a common part of the human experience. These sensory distortions range from the shimmering zigzags of a visual migraine to powerful visions brought on by fever, injuries, drugs, sensory deprivation, exhaustion, or even grief. Hallucinations doubtless lie behind many mythological traditions, literary inventions, and religious epiphanies.

Drawing on his own experiences, a wealth of clinical cases from among his patients, and famous historical examples ranging from Dostoevsky to Lewis Carroll, the legendary neurologist Oliver Sacks investigates the mystery of these sensory what they say about the working of our brains, how they have influenced our folklore and culture, and why the potential for hallucination is present in all humans.]]> 323 Oliver Sacks 0307947432 Brian 0 to-read 3.96 2012 Hallucinations
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Brian
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/05
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]]> The Lost Library 63005200 A little free library guarded by a cat and a boy who takes on the mystery it keeps.

When a mysterious little free library (guarded by a large orange cat) appears overnight in the small town of Martinville, eleven-year-old Evan plucks two weathered books from its shelves, never suspecting that his life is about to change.

Evan and his best friend Rafe quickly discover a link between one of the old books and a long-ago event that none of the grown-ups want to talk about. The two boys start asking questions whose answers will transform not only their own futures, but the town itself.

Told in turn by a ghost librarian named Al, an aging (but beautiful) cat named Mortimer, and Evan himself, The Lost Library is a timeless story from award-winning authors Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass. It's about owning your truth, choosing the life you want, and the power of a good book (and, of course, the librarian who gave it to you).]]> 215 Rebecca Stead 1250838819 Brian 4 4.09 2023 The Lost Library
author: Rebecca Stead
name: Brian
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/27
date added: 2024/08/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Hungry Authors: The Indispensable Guide to Planning, Writing, and Publishing a Nonfiction Book]]> 203873604
So many people want to write a book. They dream of holding their work in their hands, seeing their name on the spine. They feel passionate and invigorated, ready to take action. They know it won’t be easy; it takes grit, initiative, and commitment. But with the right mindset and the right plan, publishing a book is within every writer’s reach.

In HUNGRY AUTHORS: THE INDISPENSABLE GUIDE TO PLANNING, CREATING, AND PUBLISHING A NONFICTION BOOK, writers and publishing experts Liz Morrow and Ariel Curry offer aspiring authors an engaging, hands-on resource that includes:

- Hope and optimism about the publishing landscape
- A fresh and humorous perspective on the work and business of being a writer
- A practical roadmap for ideating, planning, writing, and publishing a book
- Tips and tricks for how to get an agent or publisher’s attention, even without a huge platform
-Access to dozens of extra resources on the accompanying website, hungryauthors [dot] com.

Good books don’t happen by accident. They happen because the author has a plan every step of the way, from their book’s structure to the publishing path that’s best for them. Any author with a great idea and a boatload of gumption can write and publish an impactful nonfiction book, and Hungry Authors is the tool every writer needs to make that happen.]]> 282 Liz Morrow 1538187329 Brian 0 to-read 4.86 Hungry Authors: The Indispensable Guide to Planning, Writing, and Publishing a Nonfiction Book
author: Liz Morrow
name: Brian
average rating: 4.86
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> Eruption 199372731
“The book is a classic summer beach read...Eruption will revive the art of speed-reading...told with a singular voice that is a compelling amalgam of the two writers.”—USA Today

“Eruption is an epic thriller…fast-paced and deeply considered…a cinematic story rooted in science and infused with plenty of heart, tackling big themes like love and loss.�
–T

The master of the techno-blockbuster joins forces with the master of the modern thriller to create the most anticipated mega bestseller in years.

Michael Crichton, creator of Jurassic Park, ER, Twister, and Westworld, had a passion project he’d been pursuing for years, ahead of his untimely passing in 2008. Knowing how special it was, his wife, Sherri Crichton, held back his notes and the partial manuscript until she found the right author to complete it: James Patterson, the world’s most popular storyteller.

“Red-hot storytelling... The action scenes will make readers� eyes pop as the tension continues to build." –Kirkus, starred review

“Explosive…the summer’s ultimate literary mashup.� —Washington Post

"Takes readers on a thrilling journey." —BBC

"Beachbag-ready." —Boston Globe

“A seismic publishing event…all the elements of a summer blockbuster…it’s a thrill and the pages practically turn themselves.� —Associated Press

“Eruption is this summer’s literary version of a blockbuster action movie.� –Los Angeles Times

"Breakneck and plausible." —Publishers Weekly]]> 423 Michael Crichton 0316565083 Brian 3 3.78 2024 Eruption
author: Michael Crichton
name: Brian
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/09
date added: 2024/08/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)]]> 203578804 A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret.

Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 416 T.J. Klune 1250357241 Brian 0 to-read 4.38 2020 The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Brian
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/05
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]]> The Booklover's Library 195458052
In Nottingham, England, widow Emma Taylor finds herself in desperate need of a job to provide for herself and her beloved daughter, Olivia. But with the legal restrictions prohibiting widows with children from most employment opportunities, she’s left with only one option: persuading the manageress at Boots� Booklover’s Library to take a chance on her.

When the threat of war becomes a reality, Olivia must be evacuated to the countryside. In her daughter’s absence, Emma seeks solace in the unlikely friendships she forms with her neighbors and coworkers, as well as the recommendations she provides to the library’s quirky regulars. But the job doesn’t come without its difficulties. Books are mysteriously misshelved and disappearing, and her work forces her to confront the memories of her late father and the bookstore they once owned together before a terrible accident.

As the Blitz intensifies in Nottingham and Emma fights to reunite with her daughter, she must learn to depend on her community and the power of literature more than ever to find hope in the darkest of times.]]> 432 Madeline Martin 1335000399 Brian 0 to-read 3.95 2024 The Booklover's Library
author: Madeline Martin
name: Brian
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Magic Misfits (The Magic Misfits, #1)]]> 28107444 From award-winning actor, Neil Patrick Harris, comes the magical first book in a new series with plenty of tricks up its sleeve.

When street magician Carter runs away, he never expects to find friends and magic in a sleepy New England town. But like any good trick, things change instantly as greedy B.B. Bosso and his crew of crooked carnies arrive to steal anything and everything they can get their sticky fingers on.

After a fateful encounter with the local purveyor of illusion, Dante Vernon, Carter teams up with five other like-minded illusionists. Together, using both teamwork and magic, they'll set out to save the town of Mineral Wells from Bosso's villainous clutches. These six Magic Misfits will soon discover adventure, friendship, and their own self-worth in this delightful new series.

(Psst. Hey, you! Yes, you! Congratulations on reading this far. As a reward, I'll let you in on a little secret... This book isn't just a book. It's a treasure trove of secrets and ciphers and codes and even tricks. Keep your eyes peeled and you'll discover more than just a story--you'll learn how to make your own magic!)]]> 256 Neil Patrick Harris 0316355585 Brian 4 4.00 2017 The Magic Misfits (The Magic Misfits, #1)
author: Neil Patrick Harris
name: Brian
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/18
date added: 2024/07/18
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Anastasia Krupnik (Anastasia Krupnik, #1)]]> 116494 113 Lois Lowry 0553153382 Brian 3 3.89 1978 Anastasia Krupnik (Anastasia Krupnik, #1)
author: Lois Lowry
name: Brian
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1978
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster]]> 152180034
Journalist and writer John O'Connor takes readers on a narrative quest through the American wilds in search of Bigfoot, its myth and meaning. Inhabited by an eccentric cast of characters � reputable men of science and deluded charlatans alike � the book explores the zany and secretive world of "cryptozoology," tracking Bigfoot from the Wild Men of Native American and European lore to Harry and the Hendersons, while examining the forces behind our ever-widening belief in the supernatural.

By turns an ardent, philosophical defense of nature, investigation into what Kurt Andersen calls our peculiar "American appetites for immersive make-believe," and a gonzo trip into alternative reality, this is the story of our Bigfoot obsession � where it comes from, what it means today � and the people driving it. Tag along with O'Connor as he treks through the shrouded forests of the Pacific Northwest, studies indigenous legends, and attends off-the-wall cryptozoological conventions.

Perfect for readers of Bill Bryson and Douglas Preston and with sharp wit and an adventurous spirit, this heartfelt exploration of a cornerstone of American folklore unpacks why we believe in the things that we do, and what that says about us.]]> 304 John O’Connor 1464216630 Brian 3 3.03 2024 The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster
author: John O’Connor
name: Brian
average rating: 3.03
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
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]]> The Bright Sword 201750794
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords are laying siege to Camelot, and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.]]> 673 Lev Grossman 0735224048 Brian 0 to-read 3.92 2024 The Bright Sword
author: Lev Grossman
name: Brian
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/27
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]]> Project Hail Mary 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Brian 0 to-read 4.49 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Brian
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Double Barrel Bluff (Shake Bouchon, #3)]]> 27064318 Edgar Award-nominated and USA Today-bestselling crime writer Lou Berney returns to his critically acclaimed thriller series starring former mob wheelman Shake Bouchon, who finds himself reluctantly involved in a high-stakes hostage rescue, among the mighty temples and shadowy underground of Cambodia.

During his years as a wheelman for the Armenian mob in Las Vegas, Shake Bouchon didn’t think of himself as the settling-down type. But now he’s happily married to Gina, the love of his life—and former adversary—in Indiana, of all places.

The great thing about Bloomington, for two people with exceptionally checkered pasts, is that everyone is nice and no one knows them. Until the day a brutal Armenian thug who has always hated Shake shows up in his backyard. He demands that Shake help him find the missing mob boss, the pakhan—the dangerous and beautiful Alexandra “Lexy� Ilandryan, who also happens to be Shake’s ex-girlfriend.

Shake’s got a lot of history with Lexy, so he reluctantly agrees to travel to Siem Reap, Cambodia, where she was last seen. Once there, he finds himself in a predatory underworld of Cambodian gangsters, mob politics, and opportunistic expats, where the stakes aren’t clear and everyone is looking to gain. With only the help of a clairvoyant hippie and the Armenian thug, Shake becomes involved in a high-stakes negotiation for Lexy that might cost him his own life. But perhaps most threatening of all is Gina’s wrath when she arrives in Cambodia intent on saving Shake from himself—and from all the people trying to kill him.

With Lou Berney’s trademark wit, flawless plotting, vibrant locale, and memorable characters, Double Barrel Bluff is another unputdownable, globetrotting adventure.]]> 320 Lou Berney 006229248X Brian 0 to-read 3.92 2016 Double Barrel Bluff (Shake Bouchon, #3)
author: Lou Berney
name: Brian
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/15
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]]> You Never Know: A Memoir 44890084 352 Tom Selleck 0062945769 Brian 4 3.77 2024 You Never Know: A Memoir
author: Tom Selleck
name: Brian
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/11
date added: 2024/06/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts]]> 204593617
In September of 1892, Oscar Wilde and his family retreated to the idyllic Norfolk countryside for a holiday. His wife, Constance, has every reason to be happy: two beautiful sons, a stellar reputation as an advocate for progressive causes, and a delightfully charming and affectionate husband and father, who is perhaps the most famous man in England. But as an assortment of houseguests arrive, including an aristocratic young wannabe poet named Lord Alfred Douglas, Constance gradually—and then all at once—comes to see that her husband's heart is elsewhere and that the growing intensity between the two men threatens the whole foundation of their lives.

The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts revolves around that fateful summer: what happened, and what might have been. When it was exposed, Oscar's affair with Lord Alfred Douglas—Bosie, as he was known—led to Wilde's imprisonment for homosexuality, and the financial and emotional ruin of his family. In Act Two, Bayard reveals Constance and their sons, Cyril and Vyvyan, in exile, forced to sell their possessions, leave England, and hide their identities. Act Three, from the perspective of Cyril, brings readers into the French trenches of World War I, where Cyril must grapple with the kind of man he wants to become, while Act Four reveals Vyvyan in London, years after the war, searching for answers from those who knew his parents. And in a brilliant act of the imagination, Act Five brings the entire cast back together in a surprising, poignant, and tremendously satisfying tableau.

With Louis Bayard's trademark sparkling dialogue, paired with his deep insight into the lives and longings of all his characters—and based on real events—The Wildes could almost have been created by Oscar Wilde himself: lightly told but with hidden depths, it is an entertaining and dramatic story about the human condition.]]> 304 Louis Bayard 1643755307 Brian 0 to-read 3.60 2024 The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts
author: Louis Bayard
name: Brian
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Treasure Island - Special Student Edition]]> 9865412 132 Robert Louis Stevenson 1604504374 Brian 3 2.60 1882 Treasure Island - Special Student Edition
author: Robert Louis Stevenson
name: Brian
average rating: 2.60
book published: 1882
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/31
date added: 2024/05/31
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]]> <![CDATA[The Secret Life of Hidden Places: Concealed Rooms, Clandestine Passageways, and the Curious Minds That Made Them]]> 173404007 A spellbinding tour, filled with stories and photographs, of some of the world’s most fascinating architectural mysteries.

This wondrous guide for the curious and the intrepid takes readers on a lushly photographed and lyrically written tour of eighteen of the world’s most captivating architectural mysteries. Delve into both the secretive places themselves and the eccentric and obsessive minds that created them. Visit a chamber of skulls high in the Swiss Alps, a Japanese temple full of traps, a Parisian apartment locked and untouched since World War II, a Prohibition-era speakeasy in Washington, DC, and a spooky “initiation� well in Portugal built by a secret society. How far down can you climb before losing your nerve?]]> 304 Stefan Bachmann 1523516984 Brian 5 3.67 2024 The Secret Life of Hidden Places: Concealed Rooms, Clandestine Passageways, and the Curious Minds That Made Them
author: Stefan Bachmann
name: Brian
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/24
date added: 2024/05/24
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]]> Out of Order 1765075
Before her mom remarried, Lily was the eldest; now she has dropped to second from the bottom. Her 13-year-old stepsister, V, is brilliant, popular, and seriously beautiful, but "lately she's been toxic waste." That, however, is only Lily's viewpoint. Hicks tells her uproarious story in fast, alternating narratives from the four stepsiblings, who suddenly find themselves together in a blended family. Along with all the jealousy and hurt, they still have fun, as when they hold a rock-paper-scissors competition for a neighborhood fund-raiser. There's also a little puzzle. Who has destroyed the tomatoes that V has been growing to raise money to send soccer balls to kids in Iraq? Without heavy message, the switching viewpoints make readers privy to the family secrets and the lies, as the combination of farce and tenderness in daily life brings home both the struggle and the fun.� Booklist]]> 176 Betty Hicks 0312373554 Brian 4 3.75 2005 Out of Order
author: Betty Hicks
name: Brian
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/21
date added: 2024/05/21
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]]> You Like It Darker 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.]]> 502 Stephen King 1668037718 Brian 0 to-read 4.16 2024 You Like It Darker
author: Stephen King
name: Brian
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/21
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]]> <![CDATA[A Song For Everyone: The Story of Creedence Clearwater Revival]]> 59801769
From 1969 to 1971, as the United States convulsed with political upheaval and transformative social movements, no band was bigger than Creedence Clearwater Revival. They managed a two-year barrage of top-10 singles and LPs that doubled as an ubiquitous soundtrack to one of the most volatile periods in modern American history, and they remain a staple of classic rock radio and films about the era. Yet despite their enduring popularity, no book has ever sought to understand Creedence in conversation with their time.

A Song for Everyone finally tells that the thirteen-year saga of an unassuming suburban quartet's journey through the wilds of 1960s pop, and their slow accrual of a sound and ethos that were almost mystically aligned with the concerns of decade's end. Starting in middle school, these Californian friends and brothers cut a working-class path through the most expansive decade in American music, playing R&B, country, and rock 'n' roll under a variety of names as each of those genres expanded and evolved. When they finally synthesized those styles under a new name in 1968, Creedence Clearwater Revival became instantly epochal, then fell apart under the weight of personal grievances that dated back to adolescence. As musicians and as men, they embodied the contradictions and difficulties of their time, and those dimensions of their career have never been explored until now.

Drawing on wide-ranging research into the social and musical developments of 1959-1972, extensive original interviews with surviving Creedence members and associates, and unpublished memoirs from people who knew the group closely, A Song for Everyone is the definitive account of a legendary and still-beloved American band. At the same time, it is also a cultural history of those same years—from Elvis to Altamont, Eisenhower to Watergate—seen through the eyes of four men who encapsulated them in song for all time, told by one of the rising figures in contemporary music writing.]]> 384 John Lingan 0306846713 Brian 0 to-read 3.75 A Song For Everyone: The Story of Creedence Clearwater Revival
author: John Lingan
name: Brian
average rating: 3.75
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rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/15
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]]> <![CDATA[We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, #1)]]> 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 Brian 0 to-read 4.05 2024 We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, #1)
author: Richard Osman
name: Brian
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece]]> 62673108 From the Academy Award-winning actor and best-selling author: a novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film . . . and the humble comic books that inspired it. Funny, touching, and wonderfully thought-provoking, while also capturing the changes in America and American culture since World War II.

Part One of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for twenty-three years.

Cut to 1970: The nephew, now drawing underground comic books in Oakland, California, reconnects with his uncle and, remembering the comic book he saw when he was five, draws a new version with his uncle as a World War II fighting hero.

Cut to the present day: A commercially successful director discovers the 1970 comic book and decides to turn it into a contemporary superhero movie.

Cue the cast: We meet the film's extremely difficult male star, his wonderful leading lady, the eccentric writer/director, the producer, the gofer production assistant, and everyone else on both sides of the camera.

Bonus material: Interspersed throughout are three comic books that are featured in the story--all created by Tom Hanks himself--including the comic book that becomes the official tie-in to this novel's major motion picture masterpiece.]]> 448 Tom Hanks 052565559X Brian 4 3.64 2023 The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece
author: Tom Hanks
name: Brian
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/07
date added: 2024/05/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Killer Instinct (The Naturals, #2)]]> 20409231
But when victims of a brutal new serial killer start turning up, the Naturals are pulled into an active case that strikes too close to home: the killer is a perfect copycat of Dean’s incarcerated father—a man he’d do anything to forget. Forced deeper into a murderer’s psyche than ever before, will the Naturals be able to outsmart the enigmatic killer’s brutal mind games before this copycat twists them into his web for good?

With her trademark wit, brilliant plotting, and twists that no one will see coming, Jennifer Lynn Barnes will keep readers on the edge of their seats (and looking over their shoulders) as they race through the pages of this thrilling novel.]]> 375 Jennifer Lynn Barnes 1423168321 Brian 4 4.27 2014 Killer Instinct (The Naturals, #2)
author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
name: Brian
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2014
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/04/21
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]]> Blubber 37739 Blubber is a good name for her, the note from Wendy says about Linda. Jill crumples it up and leaves it on the corner of her desk. She doesn't want to think about Linda or her dumb report on the whale just now. Jill wants to think about Halloween.

But Robby grabs the note, and before Linda stops talking it has gone halfway around the room.

That's where it all starts. There's something about Linda that makes a lot of kids in her fifth-grade class want to see how far they can go -- but nobody, least of all Jill, expects the fun to end where it does.

A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year]]> 127 Judy Blume Brian 2 3.78 1974 Blubber
author: Judy Blume
name: Brian
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1974
rating: 2
read at: 2024/03/23
date added: 2024/03/23
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]]> Sheine Lende (Elatsoe, #0) 190854829 Darcie Little Badger's Elatsoe launched her career and in the years since has become a beloved favorite. This prequel to Elatsoe, centered on Ellie's grandmother, deepens and expands Darcie's one-of-a-kind world and introduces us to another cast of characters that will wend their way around readers' hearts.

Shane works with her mother and their ghost dogs, tracking down missing persons even when their families can't afford to pay. Their own family was displaced from their traditional home years ago following a devastating flood - and the loss of Shane's father and her grandparents. They don't think they'll ever get their home back.

Then Shane's mother and a local boy go missing, after a strange interaction with a fairy ring. Shane, her brother, her friends, and her lone, surviving grandparent - who isn't to be trusted - set off on the road to find them. But they may not be anywhere in this world - or this place in time.

Nevertheless, Shane is going to find them.]]> 391 Darcie Little Badger 1646143795 Brian 0 to-read 4.23 2024 Sheine Lende (Elatsoe, #0)
author: Darcie Little Badger
name: Brian
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life]]> 125063314
The world’s greatest bodybuilder. The world’s highest-paid movie star. The leader of the world’s sixth-largest economy. That these are the same person sounds like the setup to a joke, but this is no joke. This is Arnold Schwarzenegger. And this did not happen by accident.

Arnold’s stratospheric success happened as part of a process. As the result of clear vision, big thinking, hard work, direct communication, resilient problem-solving, open-minded curiosity, and a commitment to giving back. All of it guided by the one lesson Arnold’s father hammered into him above be useful. As Arnold conquered every realm he entered, he kept his father’s adage close to his heart.

Written with his uniquely earnest, blunt, powerful voice, Be Useful takes readers on an inspirational tour through Arnold’s tool kit for a meaningful life. He shows us how to put those tools to work, in service of whatever fulfilling future we can dream up for ourselves. He brings his insights to vivid life with compelling personal stories, life-changing successes and life-threatening failures alike—some of them famous; some told here for the first time ever.

Too many of us struggle to disconnect from our self-pity and connect to our purpose. At an early age, Arnold forged the mental tools to build the ladder out of the poverty and narrow-mindedness of his rural Austrian hometown, tools he used to add rung after rung from there. Now he shares that wisdom with all of us. As he puts it, no one is going to come rescue you—you only have yourself. The good news, it turns out, is that you are all you need.]]> 288 Arnold Schwarzenegger 0593655958 Brian 4 4.08 2023 Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life
author: Arnold Schwarzenegger
name: Brian
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/13
date added: 2024/03/13
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]]> The Princess Bride 21787
As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad's recitation, and only the "good parts" reached his ears.

Now Goldman does Dad one better. He's reconstructed the "Good Parts Version" to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.

What's it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.

In short, it's about everything.]]> 429 William Goldman 0345418263 Brian 5 4.27 1973 The Princess Bride
author: William Goldman
name: Brian
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1973
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/08
date added: 2024/03/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Close to Death (Hawthorne & Horowitz, #5)]]> 179311283 In New York Times–bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s ingenious fifth literary whodunit in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, Detective Hawthorne is once again called upon to solve an unsolvable case—a gruesome murder in an idyllic gated community in which suspects abound

Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong and tranquility from behind the security of a locked gate.

It is the perfect idyll until the Kentworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, a gaggle of shrieking children and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. Obvious outsiders, the Kentworthys do not belong in Riverside Close, and they quickly offend every last one of their neighbours.

When Giles Kentworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator that can be called on to solve the case.

Because how do you solve a murder when everyone is a suspect?]]> 432 Anthony Horowitz 006330564X Brian 0 to-read 4.05 2024 Close to Death (Hawthorne & Horowitz, #5)
author: Anthony Horowitz
name: Brian
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/08
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]]> The Red Badge of Courage 415002
Ernest Hemingway called the novel an American classic, and Crane's genius is as much apparent in his sharp, colorful prose as in his ironic portrayal of an episode of war so intense, so immediate, so real that the terror of battle becomes our own ... in a masterpiece so unique that many believe modern American fiction began with Stephen Crane.]]> 138 Stephen Crane 0553210114 Brian 5 3.22 1895 The Red Badge of Courage
author: Stephen Crane
name: Brian
average rating: 3.22
book published: 1895
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/03/07
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The best book about war ever. Really. In its simplicity it does more to explain the experiences of Civil War soldiers than a whole college course on the subject. It is required in most schools and it should be.
]]> <![CDATA[How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files, #1)]]> 181350367 For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club, an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate.... Now it's up to her great-niece to catch the killer.

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.

In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?

As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.]]> 358 Kristen Perrin 0593474015 Brian 0 to-read 3.77 2024 How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files, #1)
author: Kristen Perrin
name: Brian
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story]]> 62047954 400 Sam Wasson 006303784X Brian 5 3.74 2023 The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story
author: Sam Wasson
name: Brian
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/21
date added: 2024/02/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bridge Battle (The Lemonade War, #6)]]> 60017832 In this gripping, funny addition to the bestselling Lemonade War series, both Jessie and her brother Evan find themselves unexpectedly cast as outsiders. How they find their way forward makes for a timeless story about the power of courage and kindness.

Evan and Jessie Treski have waged a lemonade war, sought justice in a class trial, unmasked a bell thief, and created a professional magic show. Yet for all their skills and talents, both find them themselves being singled out this summer for reasons beyond their control.

Natural-born leader Evan, who is always good at making new friends, discovers he is at the mercy of a bully on the summer school playground, and is pressured to act in a way he never has before.

Science-loving Jessie just wants to construct the best bridge she can for the competition next month, yet she is stuck in the wrong summer camp, surrounded by kids who believe fairies are more real than physics and a group of girls who tortured her back in second grade. Suddenly, she, too finds herself acting in ways that puzzle her.

Bestselling author Jacqueline Davies once again shows how well she understands her readers in this timely story of how being true to ourselves can help us remember how to treat others.]]> 240 Jacqueline Davies 0358692997 Brian 3 4.12 The Bridge Battle (The Lemonade War, #6)
author: Jacqueline Davies
name: Brian
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/19
date added: 2024/02/19
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]]> Little Heaven 29430791
But shortly after they arrive, things begin to turn ominous. There are stirrings in the woods and over the treetops—and, above all else, the brooding shape of a monolith known as the Black Rock casts its terrible pall.

Paranoia and distrust soon grip the settlement. Escape routes are gradually cut off as events spiral toward madness. Hell—or the closest thing to it—invades Little Heaven. All present here are now forced to take a stand and fight back, but whatever has set its dark eye on Little Heaven is marshaling its powers—and it wants them all...]]> 486 Nick Cutter 1501104217 Brian 0 to-read 3.81 2017 Little Heaven
author: Nick Cutter
name: Brian
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/07
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]]> The Deep 21412284
A strange plague called the ’Gets is decimating humanity on a global scale. It causes people to forget—small things at first, like where they left their keys, then the not-so-small things, like how to drive or the letters of the alphabet. Their bodies forget how to function involuntarily. There is no cure.

But now, far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, deep in the Mariana Trench, a heretofore-unknown substance hailed as “ambrosia”—a universal healer, from initial reports—has been discovered. It may just be the key to eradicating the ’Gets.

In order to study this phenomenon, a special research lab, the Trieste, has been built eight miles under the sea’s surface. But when the station goes incommunicado, a brave few descend through the lightless fathoms in hopes of unraveling the mysteries lurking at those crushing depths . . . and perhaps to encounter an evil blacker than anything one could possibly imagine.]]> 394 Nick Cutter 1476717737 Brian 0 to-read 3.41 2015 The Deep
author: Nick Cutter
name: Brian
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/07
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]]> The Troop 17571466 358 Nick Cutter 1476717710 Brian 0 to-read 3.83 2014 The Troop
author: Nick Cutter
name: Brian
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World]]> 199593962 320 Eric Jay Dolin 1324093080 Brian 0 to-read 3.87 2024 Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World
author: Eric Jay Dolin
name: Brian
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/29
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]]> The Last One 62919433
And when she walks out into the corridor, all the cabin doors are open. To her horror, she soon realizes that the ship is completely empty. No passengers, no crew, nobody but her. The Atlantica is steaming into the mid-Atlantic and Caz is the only person on board. But that’s just the beginning of the terrifying journey she finds herself trapped on in this white-knuckled mystery.]]> 448 Will Dean 1668021153 Brian 4 3.49 2023 The Last One
author: Will Dean
name: Brian
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/27
date added: 2024/01/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham (2023-) #1]]> 197201581 54 Rafael Grampá Brian 0 4.19 Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham (2023-) #1
author: Rafael Grampá
name: Brian
average rating: 4.19
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/24
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]]> Turtle in Paradise 6871737
She's smart and tough and has seen enough of the world not to expect a Hollywood ending. After all, it's 1935 and jobs and money and sometimes even dreams are scarce. So when Turtle's mama gets a job housekeeping for a lady who doesn't like kids, Turtle says goodbye without a tear and heads off to Key West, Florida, to live with relatives she's never met. Florida's like nothing Turtle's ever seen before though. It's hot and strange, full of ragtag boy cousins, family secrets, scams, and even buried pirate treasure! Before she knows what's happened, Turtle finds herself coming out of the shell she's spent her life building, and as she does, her world opens up in the most unexpected ways. Filled with adventure, humor and heart, Turtle in Paradise is an instant classic both boys and girls will love.]]> 177 Jennifer L. Holm 0375836888 Brian 4 3.94 2010 Turtle in Paradise
author: Jennifer L. Holm
name: Brian
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/17
date added: 2024/01/17
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]]> The House with Chicken Legs 33832945
But that's tough when your grandmother is a Yaga, a guardian who guides the dead into the afterlife. It's even harder when you live in a house that wanders all over the world . . . carrying you with it. Even worse, Marinka is being trained to be a Yaga. That means no school, no parties--and no playmates that stick around for more than a day.

So when Marinka stumbles across the chance to make a real friend, she breaks all the rules . . . with devastating consequences. Her beloved grandmother mysteriously disappears, and it's up to Marinka to find her--even if it means making a dangerous journey to the afterlife.


With a mix of whimsy, humor, and adventure, this debut novel will wrap itself around your heart and never let go.]]> 337 Sophie Anderson 1474940668 Brian 3 4.09 2018 The House with Chicken Legs
author: Sophie Anderson
name: Brian
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/16
date added: 2024/01/16
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]]> All the Sinners Bleed 61884832 A Black sheriff. A serial killer. A small town ready to combust.

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, Charon has had only two murders. After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.

Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. Those festering secrets are now out in the open and ready to tear the town apart.

As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.

Powerful and unforgettable, All the Sinners Bleed confirms S. A. Cosby as “one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction� (The Washington Post).]]> 338 S.A. Cosby 1250831911 Brian 4 4.18 2023 All the Sinners Bleed
author: S.A. Cosby
name: Brian
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/10
date added: 2024/01/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Spielberg: The First Ten Years]]> 60320806
In the first ten years of his career, Steven Spielberg directed some of the most influential and beloved films in cinema history. Movies such as Jaws , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , Raiders of the Lost Ark , and E.T. T he Extra-Terrestrial introduced audiences to the modern blockbuster and cemented Spielberg as a monumental figure in pop culture. Through exclusive imagery and unparalleled insight from Spielberg’s longtime documentarian, Laurent Bouzereau, this deluxe volume explores how a young filmmaker reinvented American cinema within just ten years. Featuring a fresh perspective on films including Duel , The Sugarland Express , Jaws , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , 1941 , Raiders of the Lost Ark , and E.T. T he Extra-Terrestrial , this book is an essential exploration of an iconic filmmaker’s early career.

ALL-NEW Featuring exclusive imagery and unparalleled insight from Spielberg’s longtime documentarian, Laurent Bouzereau.

EXPLORE SPIELBERG’S EARLY Covering the years 1971 to 1982, this deluxe volume explores how a young filmmaker reinvented American cinema within just a decade.

LEARN THE HISTORY OF LANDMARK This book dives deep into groundbreaking Spielberg films including Duel , The Sugarland Express , Jaws , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , 1941 , Raiders of the Lost Ark , and E.T. Th e Extra-Terrestrial .

COMPLETE YOUR This book stands alongside hit titles including Jurassic The Ultimate Visual History and Close Encounters of the Third The Ultimate Visual History .]]> 256 Laurent Bouzereau 1647225175 Brian 0 currently-reading 4.61 Spielberg: The First Ten Years
author: Laurent Bouzereau
name: Brian
average rating: 4.61
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/05
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Holly 65916344 Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King’s most compelling and ingeniously resourceful characters, returns in this thrilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a midwestern town.

“Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.� � BILL HODGES

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

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

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

Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.]]> 449 Stephen King 1668016133 Brian 4 4.01 2023 Holly
author: Stephen King
name: Brian
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/30
date added: 2023/12/30
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]]> Son (The Giver, #4) 13324841
Son thrusts readers once again into the chilling world of the Newbery Medal winning book, The Giver, as well as Gathering Blue and Messenger where a new hero emerges. In this thrilling series finale, the startling and long-awaited conclusion to Lois Lowry’s epic tale culminates in a final clash between good and evil.]]> 393 Lois Lowry 0547887205 Brian 4 3.98 2012 Son (The Giver, #4)
author: Lois Lowry
name: Brian
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/05
date added: 2023/12/05
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]]> <![CDATA[The Magic Trap (The Lemonade War, #5)]]> 18222709 Now they are creating a magic show—a professional magic show, in their own backyard! They practice, they study, and they practice some more. And who shows up? Their father, who has done such a good job of disappearing over the past fewyears.
Just as Evan and Jessie took on running a business inThe LemonadeWarand a court of law in The Lemonade Crime, in this fifth novel of the bestselling Lemonade War series, they take on the challenges of magic and illusion all while discovering somehidden truths about their own family. Anotherfresh, funny, emotionally charged novel by the author whom Books for Kids calls, "one of the best writers for the middle grades around."]]> 272 Jacqueline Davies 0544052897 Brian 4 4.14 2014 The Magic Trap (The Lemonade War, #5)
author: Jacqueline Davies
name: Brian
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/05
date added: 2023/12/05
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]]> <![CDATA[BETA: A Technological Nightmare]]> 195087811 329 Sammy Scott Brian 4 4.41 2023 BETA: A Technological Nightmare
author: Sammy Scott
name: Brian
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/05
date added: 2023/12/05
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]]> The Hadrian Memorandum 6583243
""

"Taking a new identity, he fled the country he loved and as Nicholas Marten became a landscape architect in the north of England determined to put a life of violence behind him forever. Then suddenly he found himself in Spain ensnared in a massive global conspiracy where he saved the life of John Henry Harris, the president of the United States. Not long afterward the president came calling again. "

""

Sent to the West African country of Equatorial Guinea to gain information on alleged collusion between a U.S. oil company and mercenaries hired to protect its workers, Marten is caught up in a bloody civil war between rebellious tribesmen and a merciless dictator. Soon he meets a priest who has clandestine photographs that show the mercenaries supplying arms to the rebels. In a blink the priest is captured by army troops and Marten flees for his life, determined to find the photographs and turn them over to the president before they are made public and ignite a global firestorm of protest and propaganda. But others are close on his heels. Among them; Conor White, a highly decorated former SAS commando turned elite killer; Sy Wirth, the arrogant president of the oil company; the alluring and dangerous oil company board member, Anne Tidrow; and, quietly, operatives of the CIA.

Murder, suspense, and deceit shadow Marten every inch of the way as his harrowing journey takes him to Berlin, to the Portuguese Riviera, and finally to the always-mysterious Lisbon. At stake is the struggle for control of an ocean of oil, and with it the constantly shifting line between good and evil, love and hate, law and politics. Its cost, thousands of human lives. Its cause, a top secret agreement called "The Hadrian Memorandum."]]> 448 Allan Folsom 0765321572 Brian 0 to-read 3.69 2009 The Hadrian Memorandum
author: Allan Folsom
name: Brian
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/07
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]]> The Exile 107458 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Day After Tomorrow and The Day of Confession comes The Exile, an all new heart-pounding thriller

The Los Angeles Police Department's famed 5-2 squad boards a commuter train in an attempt to take a cold-blooded killer into custody. John Barron, the newest and youngest member of the elite LAPD unit, learns quickly that the 5-2 has their own deadly system of justice, and that even the slightest protest will result in his suffering the same swift fate. Thus begins a dark, explosive struggle between good and evil--pitting Barron's squad against an exceedingly imaginative and brutal killer.

Suddenly the game widens when John flees to London with his sister, Rebecca, and they are thrown into a race against time. Pursuing them is a baroness, beautiful and cruel, who will stop at nothing to protect her family, her fortune, and her global ambitions. Her secret--spanning oceans, continents, the collapse of the USSR, even the death of the Tsars--is a stunning revelation that could catapult her to the pinnacle of world power.]]> 690 Allan Folsom 0765348357 Brian 0 to-read 3.84 2004 The Exile
author: Allan Folsom
name: Brian
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Machiavelli Covenant 80745 In Europe to meet with distinguished heads of state prior to a crucial NATO summit in Warsaw, US President John Henry Harris may well face the same deadly fate. A secret cabal within his own administration orders Harris to have the president of France and the chancellor of Germany assassinated. Refusal, he knows, will mean his death.
Afraid to trust anyone, even his Secret Service protectors, the President flees for his life. Pursued by the Secret Service, the CIA, and Spanish Intelligence who believe he is the victim of foul play, Harris joins forces with Nicholas Marten and the beautiful but enigmatic French photo-journalist, Demi Picard. Together the three uncover one of the most secretive and brutally powerful groups the world has ever known, a brotherhood of blood that will stop at nothing to realize their own depraved ambitions. The assassination of world leaders, a genocidal attack on a major civilian populace with of weapons of mass destruction -- nothing is beyond them.
The origin of their evil reaches back to the Renaissance when the dying political thinker Niccolo Machiavelli fashioned a sinister addendum to his most infamous work, The Prince. Titled simply The Covenant, it is a terrifying blueprint for the gaining and keeping of true political power. For five hundred years this despotic order of thesupremely rich and powerful has kept Machiavelli's original manuscript hidden away under heavy guard, the document itself worshiped like some divine artifact. Bonded by complicity in ritual murder and dedicated to a singular vision of global domination, over the centuries they have prospered far beyond any dreams of power and avarice. Outmanned, outnumbered, outgunned, three people now stand alone against it: Nicholas Marten, Demi Picard and John Henry Harris, President of the United States.]]> 554 Allan Folsom 0765313057 Brian 0 to-read 3.60 2006 The Machiavelli Covenant
author: Allan Folsom
name: Brian
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> Day of Confession 87617 576 Allan Folsom 0751520195 Brian 0 to-read 3.77 1998 Day of Confession
author: Allan Folsom
name: Brian
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears]]> 61190218
America does not have royalty. It has the Academy Awards. For nine decades, perfectly coiffed starlets, debonair leading men, and producers with gold in their eyes have chased the elusive Oscar. What began as an industry banquet in 1929 has now exploded into a hallowed ceremony, complete with red carpets, envelopes, and little gold men. But don’t be fooled by the the Oscars, more than anything, are a battlefield, where the history of Hollywood—and of America itself—unfolds in dramas large and small. The road to the Oscars may be golden, but it’s paved in blood, sweat, and broken hearts.

In Oscar Wars, Michael Schulman chronicles the remarkable, sprawling history of the Academy Awards and the personal dramas—some iconic, others never-before-revealed—that have played out on the stage and off camera. Unlike other books on the subject, each chapter takes a deep dive into a particular year, conflict, or even category that tells a larger story of cultural change, from Louis B. Mayer to Moonlight. Schulman examines how the red carpet runs through contested turf, and the victors aren't always as clear as the names drawn from envelopes. Caught in the crossfire are their thwarted ambitions, their artistic epiphanies, their messy collaborations, their dreams fulfilled or dashed.

Featuring a star-studded cast of some of the most powerful Hollywood players of today and yesterday, as well as outsiders who stormed the palace gates, this captivating history is a collection of revelatory tales, each representing a turning point for the Academy, for the movies, or for the culture at large.]]> 589 Michael Schulman 0062859013 Brian 5 4.08 2023 Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears
author: Michael Schulman
name: Brian
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/05
date added: 2023/11/05
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]]> All the Light We Cannot See 135462712
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.]]> 560 Anthony Doerr 1668017342 Brian 0 to-read 4.13 2014 All the Light We Cannot See
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Brian
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures]]> 16052012 Winner of the 2014 Newbery Medal

A New York Times bestseller!

Holy unanticipated occurrences! A cynic meets an unlikely superhero in a genre-breaking novel by master storyteller Kate DiCamillo.

It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!, is the just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses (the squirrel) has been born anew, with powers of strength, flight, and misspelled poetry � and that Flora will be changed too, as she discovers the possibility of hope and the promise of a capacious heart. From #1 New York Times best-selling author Kate DiCamillo comes a laugh-out-loud story filled with eccentric, endearing characters and featuring an exciting format � a novel interspersed with comic-style graphic sequences and full-page illustrations, all rendered in black-and-white by artist K. G. Campbell.]]> 231 Kate DiCamillo 076366040X Brian 3 3.87 2013 Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures
author: Kate DiCamillo
name: Brian
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/25
date added: 2023/10/25
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]]> <![CDATA[The Twist of a Knife (Hawthorne & Horowitz #4)]]> 122772036 New York Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s ingenious fourth literary whodunit following The Word is Murder, The Sentence is Death and A Line to Kill, Horowitz becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation� and only one man can prove his innocence: his newly estranged partner in solving crime, Detective Hawthorne.

“I’m sorry but the answer’s no.� Reluctant author, Anthony Horowitz, has had enough. He tells ex-detective Daniel Hawthorne that after three books he’s splitting and their deal is over. The truth is that Anthony has other things on his mind.

His new play, a thriller called Mindgame, is about to open at the Vaudeville Theatre in London’s West End. Not surprisingly, Hawthorne declines a ticket to the opening night. The play is panned by the critics. In particular, Sunday Times critic Margaret Throsby gives it a savage review, focusing particularly on the writing. The next day, Throsby is stabbed in the heart with an ornamental dagger which turns out to belong to Anthony, and has his fingerprints all over it.

Anthony is arrested by an old enemy... Detective Inspector Cara Grunshaw. She still carries a grudge from her failure to solve the case described in the second Hawthorne adventure, The Sentence is Death, and blames Anthony. Now she’s out for revenge. Thrown into prison and fearing for both his personal future and his writing career, Anthony is the prime suspect in Throsby’s murder and when a second theatre critic is found to have died in mysterious circumstances, the net closes in. Ever more desperate, he realizes that only one man can help him. But will Hawthorne take the call?]]> 384 Anthony Horowitz 0062938193 Brian 0 to-read 4.09 2022 The Twist of a Knife (Hawthorne & Horowitz #4)
author: Anthony Horowitz
name: Brian
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Missing Piece of Charlie O'Reilly]]> 40535648
Then came the morning when the bunk, and Liam, disappeared forever. No one even remembers him—not Charlie’s mother, who has been lost in her own troubles; and not Charlie’s father, who is gone frequently on business trips. The only person who believes Charlie is his best friend, Ana—even if she has no memory of Liam, she is as determined as Charlie is to figure out what happened to him.

The search seems hopeless—until Charlie receives a mysterious note, written in Liam’s handwriting. The note leads Charlie and Ana to make some profound discoveries abouta magic they didn’t know existed, and they soon realize that if they're going to save Liam, they may need to risk being forgotten themselves, forever.]]> 400 Rebecca Ansari 006267966X Brian 0 to-read 4.15 2019 The Missing Piece of Charlie O'Reilly
author: Rebecca Ansari
name: Brian
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Elementals 301053
The McCrays and Savages, two fine Mobile families allied by marriage, have been coming to Beldame for years. This summer, with a terrible funeral behind them and a messy divorce coming up, even Luker McCray and little India down from New York are looking forward to being alone at Beldame.

But they won't be alone. For something there, something they don't like to think about, is thinking about them...and about all the ways to make them die.]]> 292 Michael McDowell 0380783606 Brian 5 3.98 1981 The Elementals
author: Michael McDowell
name: Brian
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/21
date added: 2023/09/21
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review:
Stephen King recommended this - and I now know why! McDowell is fantastic at setting - Alabama Southern gothic horror. The characters are so well drawn and the dialog pitch perfect. I will come back to this one�
]]> <![CDATA[The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood's Kings of Carnage]]> 62192505
“This book takes you so close to the action that you can smell the sweat, cigar smoke, and bad cologne that brought these movies to life.”—Paul Scheer

The Last Action Heroes opens in May 1990 in Cannes, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone waltzing together, cheered on by a crowd of famous faces. After years of bitter combat—Stallone once threw a bowl of flowers at Schwarzenegger’s head, and the body count in Schwarzenegger’s Commando was increased so the film would “have a bigger dick than Rambo ”—the world’s biggest action stars have at last made peace.

In this wildly entertaining account of the golden age of the action movie, Nick de Semlyen charts Stallone and Schwarzenegger’s carnage-packed journey from enmity to friendship against the backdrop of Reagan’s America and the Cold War. He also reveals fascinating untold stories of the colorful characters who ascended in their high-kickers Chuck Norris and Jackie Chan, glowering tough guys Dolph Lundgren and Steven Seagal, and quipping troublemakers Jean-Claude Van Damme and Bruce Willis. But as time rolled on, the era of the invincible action hero who used muscle, martial arts, or the perfect weapon to save the day began to fade. When Jurassic Park trounced Schwarzenegger’s Last Action Hero in 1993, the glory days of these macho men—and the vision of masculinity they celebrated—were officially over.

Drawing on candid interviews with the action stars themselves, plus their collaborators, friends, and foes, The Last Action Heroes is a no-holds-barred account of a period in Hollywood history when there were no limits to the heights of fame these men achieved, or to the mayhem they wrought, on-screen and off.]]> 352 Nick de Semlyen 059323880X Brian 4 4.10 2023 The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood's Kings of Carnage
author: Nick de Semlyen
name: Brian
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/11
date added: 2023/09/11
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]]> Messenger (The Giver, #3) 12930
Matty has lived in Village and flourished under the guidance of Seer, a blind man known for his special sight. Village once welcomed newcomers, but something sinister has seeped into Village and the people have voted to close it to outsiders. Matty has been invaluable as a messenger. Now he must risk everything to make one last journey through the treacherous forest with his only weapon, a power he unexpectedly discovers within himself.]]> 169 Lois Lowry 0385732538 Brian 3 3.90 2004 Messenger (The Giver, #3)
author: Lois Lowry
name: Brian
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/06
date added: 2023/09/06
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]]>