Rishika's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 07 Aug 2024 18:41:35 -0700 60 Rishika's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939]]> 692473
Giving considerable emphasis to a wealth of new archival findings, Saul Friedlander restores the voices of Jews who, after the 1933 Nazi accession to power, were engulfed in an increasingly horrifying reality. We hear from the persecutors themselves: the leaders of the Nazi party, the members of the Protestant and Catholic hierarchies, the university elites, and the heads of the business community. Most telling of all, perhaps, are the testimonies of ordinary German citizens, who in the main acquiesced to increasing waves of dismissals, segregation, humiliation, impoverishment, expulsion, and violence.]]> 439 Saul Friedländer 0060928786 Rishika 0 to-read 4.14 Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939
author: Saul Friedländer
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.14
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date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence]]> 6726938 The partition of India, 1947, some call it vivisection as Gandhi had, has without doubt been the most wounding trauma of the twentieth century. It has seared the psyche of four plus generations of this subcontinent. Why did this partition take place at all? Who was/is responsible - Jinnah? The Congress party? Or the British? Jaswant Singh attempts to find an answer, his answer, for there can perhaps not be a definitive answer, yet the author searches. Jinnah's political journey began as 'an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity' (Gopal Krishna Gokhale), yet ended with his becoming the 'sole spokesman' of Muslims in India; the creator of Pakistan, The Quaid-e-Azam: How and why did this transformation take place?

No Indian or Pakistani politician/Member of Parliament has ventured an analytical, political biography of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, about whom views necessarily get divided as being either Hagiographical or additional demonology. The book attempts an objective evaluation. Jaswant Singh's experience as a minister responsible for the conduct of India's foreign policy, managing the country's defence (concurrently), had been uniformly challenging (Lahore Peace process; betrayed at Kargil; Kandahar; the Agra Peace Summit; the attack on Jammu and Kashmir Assembly and the Indian Parliament; coercive diplomacy of 2002; the peace overtures reinitiated in April 2003).

He asks where and when did this questionable thesis of 'Muslims as a separate nation' first originate and lead the Indian sub-continent to? And where did it drag Pakistan to? Why then a Bangladesh? Also what now of Pakistan? Where is it headed? This book is special; it stands apart, for it is authored by a practitioner of policy, an innovator of policies in search of definitive answers. Those burning 'whys' of the last sixty-two years, which bedevil us still. Jaswant Singh believes that for the return of lasting peace in South Asia there is no alternative but to first understand what made it 'abandon' us in the first place. Until we do that, a minimum, a must, we will never be able to persuade peace to return.

]]> 674 Jaswant Singh 8129113783 Rishika 3
Singh does a fantastic job of personifying Jinnah - who to this day remains something of an enigma to most people. Worth a read.]]> 3.76 2009 Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence
author: Jaswant Singh
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2009
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/07/16
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Jaswant Singh, finally, shows there were several players more culpable - the British, the Congress Party leaders such as M.K Gandhi and fundamentalist Muslim and Hindu leaders. He gives us a brilliant account of the machinations and mistakes that happened behind the scenes as well as revealing a fascinating collection of correspondence between Nehru, Gandhi, Jinnah and all the various Viceroys of India.

Singh does a fantastic job of personifying Jinnah - who to this day remains something of an enigma to most people. Worth a read.
]]> <![CDATA[The Essays of Warren Buffett : Lessons for Corporate America]]> 145565 256 Warren Buffett 0966446119 Rishika 0 currently-reading 4.28 1998 The Essays of Warren Buffett : Lessons for Corporate America
author: Warren Buffett
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/11
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]]> The Last Mughal 6573525
The last Mughal emperor, Zafar, came to the throne when the political power of the Mughals was already in steep decline. Nonetheless, Zafar—a mystic, poet, and calligrapher of great accomplishment—created a court of unparalleled brilliance, and gave rise to perhaps the greatest literary renaissance in modern Indian history. All the while, the British were progressively taking over the Emperor's power. When, in May 1857, Zafar was declared the leader of an uprising against the British, he was powerless to resist though he strongly suspected that the action was doomed. Four months later, the British took Delhi, the capital, with catastrophic results. With an unsurpassed understanding of British and Indian history, Dalrymple crafts a provocative, revelatory account of one the bloodiest upheavals in history.]]> 512 William Dalrymple 0307267393 Rishika 3 4.24 2006 The Last Mughal
author: William Dalrymple
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2006
rating: 3
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date added: 2020/05/14
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]]> Cutting for Stone 8122546
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.

Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.

penguinrandomhouse.com]]> 672 Abraham Verghese 030727134X Rishika 0 currently-reading 4.51 2009 Cutting for Stone
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/11/30
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings]]> 175515 'And much of Madness and more of Sin And Horror the Soul of the Plot'

This selection of Poe's critical writings, short fiction and poetry demonstrates his intense interest in aesthetic issues, and the astonishing power and imagination with which he probed the darkest corners of the human mind. 'The Fall of the House of Usher' describes the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past. In 'Tell-Tale Heart', a murderer's insane delusions threaten to betray him, while stories such as 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'The Cask of Amontillado' explore extreme states of decadence, fear and hate. These works display Poe's startling ability to build suspense with almost nightmarish intensity.

David Galloway's introduction re-examines the myths surrounding Poe's life and reputation. This edition includes a new chronology and suggestions for further reading.

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED AS SELECTED WRITINGS

Chronology
Introduction
Further Reading
A Note on the Text
POEMS
Stanzas
Sonnet � To Science
A/ Aaraaf
Romance
TO Helen
Israfel
The City in the Sea
The Sleeper
Lenore
The Valley of Unrest
The Raven
Ulalume
For Annie
A Valentine
Annabel Lee
The Bells
Eldorado
TALES
MS. Found in a Bottle
Ligeia
The Man that was Used Up
The Fall of the House of Usher
William Wilson
The Man of the Crowd
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
A Descent into the Maelström
Eleonora
The Oval Portrait
The Masque of the Red Death
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Tell-Tale Heart
The Gold-Bug
The Black Cat
The Purloined Letter
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
The Cask of Amontillado
Hop-Frog
ESSÄYS AND REVIEWS
Letter to B�
Georgia Scenes
The Drake—Halleck Review (excerpts)
Watkins Tottle
The Philosophy of Furniture
²ⲹԻdzٳé
Music
Time and Space
Twice-Told Tales
The American Drama (excerpts)
Hazlitt
The Philosophy of Composition
Song-Writing
On Imagination
The Veil of the Soul
The Poetic Principle (excerpts)
Notes]]> 488 Edgar Allan Poe 0141439815 Rishika 4 4.15 1967 The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1967
rating: 4
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date added: 2019/02/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York]]> 1111 The Power Broker tells the hidden story behind the shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York (city and state) and makes public what few have known: that Robert Moses was, for almost half a century, the single most powerful man of our time in New York, the shaper not only of the city's politics but of its physical structure and the problems of urban decline that plague us today.

In revealing how Moses did it--how he developed his public authorities into a political machine that was virtually a fourth branch of government, one that could bring to their knees Governors and Mayors (from La Guardia to Lindsay) by mobilizing banks, contractors, labor unions, insurance firms, even the press and the Church, into an irresistible economic force--Robert Caro reveals how power works in all the cities of the United States. Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He personally conceived and completed public works costing 27 billion dollars--the greatest builder America (and probably the world) has ever known. Without ever having been elected to office, he dominated the men who were--even his most bitter enemy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, could not control him--until he finally encountered, in Nelson Rockefeller, the only man whose power (and ruthlessness in wielding it) equalled his own.]]> 1246 Robert A. Caro 0394720245 Rishika 4 4.51 1974 The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
author: Robert A. Caro
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.51
book published: 1974
rating: 4
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date added: 2018/10/25
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unfettered Mind: Writings from a Zen Master to a Master Swordsman]]> 18923737 The Japanese have always closely associated the sword and the spirit, but it was in the 1600s during the Tokugawa shogunate when the techniques of swordsmanship became forever associated with the spirit of Zen. The Unfettered Mind is a book of advice on swordsmanship and the cultivation of right mind and intention, written by the 17th-century Zen master Takuan Soho (1573-1645). Takuan was a gardener, calligrapher, poet, author, adviser to samurai and shoguns, and a pivotal figure in Zen painting. He was also known for his brilliance and acerbic wit. The succinct and pointed essays in this book were written to the samurai Yagyu Munenori, who was a great swordsman and rival to the legendary Miyamoto Musashi.

In these writings Soho is concerned primarily with understanding and refining the mind—both generally and when faced with conflict. Soho illuminates the difference between the right mind and the confused mind, the nature of right-mindedness, and what makes life precious. First published in 1988, this book is considered a true classic that influenced the direction that the art of Japanese swordsmanship has taken since.

]]> 131 Takuan Soho 0834827891 Rishika 0 currently-reading 4.00 1644 The Unfettered Mind: Writings from a Zen Master to a Master Swordsman
author: Takuan Soho
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1644
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/09/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River]]> 18992167 282 Alice Albinia Rishika 0 to-read 4.55 2008 Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River
author: Alice Albinia
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/09/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Brothers at War (Empire of the Moghul, #2)]]> 6764155 496 Alex Rutherford 0755347560 Rishika 0 to-read 3.66 2010 Brothers at War (Empire of the Moghul, #2)
author: Alex Rutherford
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/09/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another]]> 870853 644 Philip Ball 0099457865 Rishika 0 to-read 3.73 2003 Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another
author: Philip Ball
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/09/02
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]]> August: Osage County 2437710 August: Osage County is a portrait of the dysfunctional American family at its finest—and absolute worst. When the patriarch of the Weston clan disappears one hot summer night, the family reunites at the Oklahoma homestead, where long-held secrets are unflinchingly and uproariously revealed. The three-act, three-and-a-half-hour mammoth of a play combines epic tragedy with black comedy, dramatizing three generations of unfulfilled dreams and leaving not one of its thirteen characters unscathed.]]> 138 Tracy Letts 1559363304 Rishika 5 4.15 2008 August: Osage County
author: Tracy Letts
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2008
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/08/31
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]]> Everything I Never Told You 18693763
Lydia is the favourite child of Marilyn and James Lee; a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue - in Marilyn's case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James's case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the centre of every party. But Lydia is under pressures that have nothing to do with growing up in 1970s small town Ohio. Her father is an American born of first-generation Chinese immigrants, and his ethnicity, and hers, make them conspicuous in any setting.

When Lydia's body is found in the local lake, James is consumed by guilt and sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to make someone accountable, no matter what the cost. Lydia's older brother, Nathan, is convinced that local bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it's the youngest in the family - Hannah - who observes far more than anyone realises and who may be the only one who knows what really happened.

Everything I Never Told You is a gripping page-turner, about secrets, love, longing, lies and race.

Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.]]> 297 Celeste Ng 159420571X Rishika 0 to-read 3.81 2014 Everything I Never Told You
author: Celeste Ng
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/08/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Sleeping Giants (Themis Files, #1)]]> 25733990
Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved - the object's origins, architects, and purpose unknown.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top-secret team to crack the hand's code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the relic they seek. What's clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unravelling history's most perplexing discovery-and finally figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?]]> 320 Sylvain Neuvel 1101886692 Rishika 4 3.82 2016 Sleeping Giants (Themis Files, #1)
author: Sylvain Neuvel
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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date added: 2018/07/22
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]]> <![CDATA[God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican]]> 22609469 The New York Times).

From a master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct, a magnificent investigation nine years in the making, this book traces the political intrigue and inner workings of the Catholic Church. Decidedly not about faith, belief in God, or religious doctrine, this book is about the church's accumulation of wealth and its byzantine entanglements with financial markets across the world. Told through 200 years of prelates, bishops, cardinals, and the Popes who oversee it all, Gerald Posner uncovers an eyebrow-raising account of money and power in perhaps the most influential organization in the history of the world.

God's Bankers has it all: a rare expose and an astounding saga marked by poisoned business titans, murdered prosecutors, mysterious deaths of private investigators, and questionable suicides; a carnival of characters from Popes and cardinals, financiers and mobsters, kings and prime ministers; and a set of moral and political circumstances that clarify not only the church's aims and ambitions, but reflect the larger dilemmas of the world's more recent history. And Posner even looks to the future to surmise if Pope Francis can succeed where all his predecessors failed: to overcome the resistance to change in the Vatican's Machiavellian inner court and to rein in the excesses of its seemingly uncontrollable financial quagmire. Part thriller, part financial tell-all, this book shows with extraordinary precision how the Vatican has evolved from a foundation of faith to a corporation of extreme wealth and power.]]> 752 Gerald Posner 1416576576 Rishika 0 to-read 3.95 2015 God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican
author: Gerald Posner
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/05/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind]]> 20873740 From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.�

One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us?

Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.

Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become?

Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.]]> 414 Yuval Noah Harari 0062316109 Rishika 0 to-read 4.44 2011 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/02/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Shadow In The Mirror: A Thrilling Quest for Redemption]]> 32612382 What follows are stories within stories, eras and worlds colliding with each other, leaving behind splintered relationships and mesmerizing slices of lives that appear to be drawn together and driven apart by the whimsical threads of destiny.
As events cast their shadows ahead to link the stories of Vinny, Kavita, Roma, Krish and Nita in an unrelenting knot, a journey starts to uncover the truth. What is the secret that links Nita’s death to the other characters? Will Vinny be able to unravel the mystery of Nita’s death?
From intimate diary entries and letters, to bantering over a meal and sharing memories while spring cleaning, this novel de-familiarizes the ordinary, presenting a kaleidoscope of our own pasts, broken edges and pulsating hearts.]]> 206 Deepti Menon 9385854143 Rishika 0 to-read 3.79 Shadow In The Mirror: A Thrilling Quest for Redemption
author: Deepti Menon
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.79
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/10/21
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]]> The Metamorphosis 485894 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 0553213695 / 9780553213690

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."

With it's startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first opening, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote, "Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man."]]> 201 Franz Kafka 0553213695 Rishika 5 3.90 1915 The Metamorphosis
author: Franz Kafka
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1915
rating: 5
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date added: 2016/10/19
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]]> <![CDATA[My Traitor's Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience]]> 61118 349 Rian Malan 0802136842 Rishika 0 to-read 4.24 1990 My Traitor's Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience
author: Rian Malan
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/10/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Pather Panchali (English and Bengali Edition)]]> 1391179
It first appeared as a serial in a Calcutta periodical in 1928 and was published as a book the next year; it was the first published novel written by the author. It was followed in 1932 by a sequel Aparajito, which was later also adapted into a film of the same name by Satyajit Ray.]]> 360 Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay 8172233337 Rishika 5 favorites 4.43 1929 Pather Panchali (English and Bengali Edition)
author: Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1929
rating: 5
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date added: 2016/10/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The First Nazi, the Life and Times of General Erich Ludendorff of Germany]]> 25786915 356 Will Brownell 1619026090 Rishika 0 to-read 3.39 2016 The First Nazi, the Life and Times of General Erich Ludendorff of Germany
author: Will Brownell
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/09/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Being Hindu: Old Faith, New World and You]]> 28192727 33 million gods and goddesses
You

One of the world's oldest forms of faith, Hinduism has an unbroken trajectory of beliefs and rituals that have passed on for many millennia through the footsteps of pilgrims and the pedagogies of theologists; through myth, science and politics. But what does all that mean to the modern Hindu today? Why do Hindus call themselves so? Is it merely because their parents were Hindus? In what way does the faith speak to those who profess to follow it? What does Hinduism mean to the everyday-practicing or sometimes-accessing ordinary Hindu? Away from the raucous debate around religions, this is the journey of a common Hindu—an attempt to understand why, for so many Hindus, their faith is one of the most powerful arguments for plurality, for unity in diversity, and even more than the omnipresent power of God, the sublime courage and conviction of man.

Being Hindu is the exploration of Hinduism in a way you have never seen before—almost through your own eyes.]]> 166 Hindol Sengupta Rishika 0 to-read 3.88 Being Hindu: Old Faith, New World and You
author: Hindol Sengupta
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.88
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date added: 2016/09/18
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]]> Death 21483554 "The fact that we will die, and that our death can come at any time, pervades the entirety of our living. There are many ways to think about and deal with death. A good number of them are attempts to escape its grip. However, in this book the philosopher Todd May seeks to confront death in its power and considers the possibility that our mortal deaths are the end of us, and asks what this might mean for our living. What lessons can we draw from our mortality? And how might we live as creatures who die, and who know we are going to die?" In exploring these questions, May brings together two divergent perspectives on death. The First holds that death is not an evil, or at least that immortality would be far worse than dying. The second holds that death is indeed an evil, and that there is no escaping that fact. May shows that if we are to live with death we need to hold these two perspectives together. Their convergence yields both a beauty and a tragedy to our living that are inextricably entwined.

]]> 114 Todd May 7818446516 Rishika 0 to-read 3.75 2009 Death
author: Todd May
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/09/18
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]]> Slander & DOUBT 17993233
Enter the minds of ordinary men. Unflinchingly explore rape, infidelity, drug use, BDSM, prostitution in the burning crucible of Slander & Doubt... this novel won't shy away from the truth - will you?

Why should you be interested? Because that burning crucible is in your own mind. Think not? Listen to the novel's main protagonist:

"You're immune to insecurity, right? You have the odd moment, sure, but it's other people that let doubt take them over, that endlessly analyse their relationships and replay their glories and flaws, not you... right? You'd never be like me, Ken, at this moment lying awake sick to my stomach, in thrall to the accusation that my wife, Lol, is having an affair with a rapist.

The rapist is an everyman family-man who flounders between the high of sexual assault and the low of self-loathing. To escape his urges he buries himself in work, drink, drugs, and sex, but his is a lifelong search for the woman who will understand him, love him anyway, and cure him of the need to rape.

The slander's gnawing at me and it's so bloody powerful. Could you, even stable normal upstanding you, resist entertaining my unspeakable thoughts? Could you resist the fear that he might actually be telling the truth? My name is Ken and I have my... doubts."

A note from Alistair: the inspiration for the book has been with me for over twenty years, from when I worked as a volunteer helping women in crises and their families. A rape counsellor came to speak to us, and she spoke frankly and honestly about rape and its affects. One statement in particular was very confronting for the teenage me, that all men have the capability and latent urge to rape. I have written this book about two men, one of whom is a rapist and the other is the husband of one of his victims.

Sex, violence, sexual violence, drug use, and prostitution are part of this confronting story, and they are necessary and involving elements of the work. I would like to emphasise that neither I, nor my work, condone sexual violence in any way. I hate even having to write that, but there are some bloody fruitcakes in the world unfortunately.

Additional note 16th July 2013....

Before I go on, I'd like to say that a) the book was written with the highest ethical integrity, and b) it's fucking confronting. I need to say this as I've had people interested who see the title, see the blurb, but don't think it's for real. I guess we're all so bombarded with hype that we immediately think it's overkill, but I'd like to say that this book does exactly what it says on the tin. It's not Fifty Shades of tittilating bollocks, it's for real.

If it were a movie then it would be an adapted screenplay of the works of Irvine Welsh, Michel Houellebecq, and Marquez, and it would be directed by Ken Loach.

Whilst it's as graphic as some of Bret Easton Ellis's work, it's actually nothing like it. Dont mind a bit o' Bret now 'n' again, but my work wasn't aiming to bear any resemblance. It's not meant to allegorical, fantastic, or horror - though its reality can be horrific.

Anyhoo, Part 1 is available on Kindle/epub for here for FREE, and the full novel is US$18.99 paperback and US$0.99 on Kindle and US$8.99 on most other ebooks (I don't control all the pricing). Check out the links here ]]> 356 Alistair Baillie 0987543709 Rishika 0 to-read 4.11 2013 Slander & DOUBT
author: Alistair Baillie
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/06/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Led by Faith: Rising from the Ashes of the Rwandan Genocide (Left to Tell)]]> 2921701 256 Immaculée Ilibagiza 1401918883 Rishika 0 to-read 4.40 2008 Led by Faith: Rising from the Ashes of the Rwandan Genocide (Left to Tell)
author: Immaculée Ilibagiza
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/06/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> Einstein’s Dreams 14376 Einstein's Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, so that people are fated to repeat triumphs and failures over and over. In another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clinging to their children. In another, time is a nightingale, sometimes trapped by a bell jar.

Now translated into thirty languages, Einstein's Dreams has inspired playwrights, dancers, musicians, and painters all over the world. In poetic vignettes, it explores the connections between science and art, the process of creativity, and ultimately the fragility of human existence.]]> 140 Alan Lightman 140007780X Rishika 5 4.08 1993 Einstein’s Dreams
author: Alan Lightman
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/05/13
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]]> Mistress 101285 428 Anita Nair 0312349475 Rishika 0 to-read 3.63 2005 Mistress
author: Anita Nair
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/08/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> Difficult Daughters 354501 Difficult Daughters is the story of a woman torn between family duty, the desire for education, and illicit love. Virmati, a young woman born in Amritsar into an austere and high-minded household, falls in love with a neighbour, the Professor--a man who is already married. That the Professor eventually marries Virmati, installs her in his home (alongside his furious first wife) and helps her towards further studies in Lahore, is small consolation to her scandalised family. Or even to Virmati, who finds that the battle for her own independence has created irrevocable lines of partition and pain around her.]]> 256 Manju Kapur 0571195695 Rishika 0 to-read 3.56 1998 Difficult Daughters
author: Manju Kapur
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/06/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> Life Had Other Plans 23911436 Nik, a college dropout, joins Roy & Grant Communications, a passionately charged advertising agency, with enthusiastic anticipation, only to discover that his life is about to change forever. He bumps into Ratty, the love rat; and Su, the benevolent prude, instinctively perceiving that there’s a cosmic connection between the three!
They become the best of friends. Soon, they are inseparable. 3 more team up with them to form a batty group that lives up to the advertising world’s reputation of being totally demented. But they hardly care. They’re having way too much fun, together!
Just when they hope that their merry little world continues, life reveals a new plan.
Nik commits the cardinal sin of falling in love with one of his best friends. Before he can declare it, he learns that Su is in love too, but not with him! When the bombshell Mallika arrives on the scene, the skirt-chasing love rat finds himself in love too!
What happens next is an entangled saga that unfolds into an incredible chain of events, leaving the reader breathless.
‘Life Had Other Plans� is part funny, part loony, part tragic tale where nothing goes according to plan. It’s a high drama of love gained and love lost that builds up to a completely unexpected end. But not before the three protagonists - Nik, Ratty and Su are forced to confront their deepest, darkest secrets!]]> 361 Munish Dhawan 9384226572 Rishika 0 to-read 3.70 2014 Life Had Other Plans
author: Munish Dhawan
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/06/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dentist of Auschwitz: A Memoir]]> 339760 248 Benjamin Jacobs 0813190126 Rishika 5
Benjamin Jacobs writes an inspirational memoir of survival during the Holocaust and how fortuitous skills and training in dentistry saved his life.

In a thoroughly engaging manner, Mr. Jacobs relates his thoughts, loves, passions, and challenges with God as he endured the daily fear and hunger, cold and pain of 4 years in the Holocaust universe. He is to be commended for sharing his life with us. Hopefully, we will listen.]]> 4.15 1994 The Dentist of Auschwitz: A Memoir
author: Benjamin Jacobs
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2015/04/11
date added: 2015/06/01
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In Holocaust literature, this testimony is by far and above one of the best I've read. The author's desire to preserve his family at all costs is gripping, yet the finality of their humanity is inevitable.

Benjamin Jacobs writes an inspirational memoir of survival during the Holocaust and how fortuitous skills and training in dentistry saved his life.

In a thoroughly engaging manner, Mr. Jacobs relates his thoughts, loves, passions, and challenges with God as he endured the daily fear and hunger, cold and pain of 4 years in the Holocaust universe. He is to be commended for sharing his life with us. Hopefully, we will listen.
]]> The 48 Laws of Power 1303 Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control � from the author of The Laws of Human Nature.

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

Some laws teach the need for prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master�), others teach the value of confidence (“Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness�), and many recommend absolute self-preservation (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally�). Every law, though, has one thing in common: an interest in total domination. In a bold and arresting two-color package, The 48 Laws of Power is ideal whether your aim is conquest, self-defense, or simply to understand the rules of the game.]]> 452 Robert Greene 0140280197 Rishika 0 4.11 1998 The 48 Laws of Power
author: Robert Greene
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/06/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan]]> 721931
In this book Yasmin Khan examines the context, execution, and aftermath of Partition, weaving together local politics and ordinary lives with the larger political forces at play. She exposes the widespread obliviousness to what Partition would entail in practice and how it would affect the populace.Drawing together fresh information from an array of sources, Khan underscores the catastrophic human cost and shows why the repercussions of Partition resound even now, some sixty years later. The book is an intelligent and timely analysis of Partition, the haste and recklessness with which it was completed, and the damaging legacy left in its wake.]]> 251 Yasmin Cordery Khan 0300120788 Rishika 0 3.85 2007 The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan
author: Yasmin Cordery Khan
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/06/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Twentieth Wife (Taj Mahal Trilogy, #1)]]> 27298
She came into the world in the year 1577, to the howling accompaniment of a ferocious winter storm. As the daughter of starving refugees fleeing violent persecution in Persia, her fateful birth in a roadside tent sparked a miraculous reversal of family fortune, culminating in her father's introduction to the court of Emperor Akbar. She is called Mehrunnisa, the Sun of Women. This is her story.

Growing up on the fringes of Emperor Akbar's opulent palace grounds, Mehrunnisa blossoms into a sapphire-eyed child blessed with a precocious intelligence, luminous beauty, and a powerful ambition far surpassing the bounds of her family's station. Mehrunnisa first encounters young Prince Salim on his wedding day. In that instant, even as a royal gala swirls around her in celebration of the future emperor's first marriage, Mehrunnisa foresees the path of her own destiny. One day, she decides with uncompromising surety, she too will become Salim's wife. She is all of eight years old -- and wholly unaware of the great price she and her family will pay for this dream.

Skillfully blending the textures of historical reality with the rich and sensuous imaginings of a timeless fairy tale, The Twentieth Wife sweeps readers up in the emotional pageant of Salim and Mehrunnisa's embattled love. First-time novelist Indu Sundaresan charts her heroine's enthralling journey across the years, from an ill-fated first marriage through motherhood and into a dangerous maze of power struggles and political machinations. Through it all, Mehrunnisa and Salim long with fiery intensity for the true, redemptive love they've never known -- and their mutual quest ultimately takes them, and the vast empire that hangs in the balance, to places they never dreamed possible.

Shot through with wonder and suspense, The Twentieth Wife is at once a fascinating portrait of one woman's convention-defying life behind the veil and a transporting saga of the astonishing potency of love.]]> 380 Indu Sundaresan Rishika 0 4.06 2002 The Twentieth Wife (Taj Mahal Trilogy, #1)
author: Indu Sundaresan
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wilderness Family: At Home with Africa's Wildlife]]> 830265
Kobie and her husband Kobus were overwhelmed by the beauty of the Mahlangeni ranger station when they arrived with their little girls in the autumn of 1980. Golden sunshine glowed in the lush garden where fruit bats hung in the sausage trees; hippos basked in the glittering waters of the Letaba River; storks and herons perched along the shore. Kobie felt she had found heaven on earth--until she awoke that first night to find a python slithering silently across her bedroom floor. It was the perfect introduction to the wonders and terrors that awaited her.

As the Krügers settled in, they became accustomed to living in the midst of ravishing splendor and daily surprises. A honey badger they nursed back to health rampaged affectionately through the house. Sneaky hyenas stole blankets and cook pots. Ordinarily placid elephants grew foul-tempered and violent in the summer heat. And one terrible day, the shadow of tragedy fell across the family when a lion attacked Kobus in the bush and nearly killed him.

But nothing prepared the Krügers for the adventure of raising an orphaned lion cub. The cub was only a few days old and on the verge of death when they found him alone.Leo, as the girls promptly named the cub, survived on loads of love and bottles of fat-enriched milk, and soon became an affectionate, rambunctious member of the family. At the heart of the book, Kobie recounts the unique bond that each of the Krügers forged with Leo and their sometimes hilarious endeavor to teach him to become a "real" lion and live with his own kind in the wild.

Writing with deep affection and luminous prose, Kobie Krüger captures here the mystery of untamed Africa--its fathomless skies, soulful landscapes, and most of all, its astonishing array of animals. By turns funny and
heart-breaking, engaging and suspenseful, The Wilderness Family is an unforgettable memoir of a woman, her family, and the amazing game reserve they called home for seventeen incredible years.]]> 400 Kobie Krüger 0345444264 Rishika 0 4.42 2001 The Wilderness Family: At Home with Africa's Wildlife
author: Kobie Krüger
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe]]> 3343049 Prunier vividly describes the grisly aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, when some two million refugees--a third of Rwanda's population--fled to exile in Zaire in 1996. The new Rwandan regime then crossed into Zaire and attacked the refugees, slaughtering upwards of 400,000 people. The Rwandan forces then turned on Zaire's despotic President Mobutu and, with the help of a number of allied African countries, overthrew him. But as Prunier shows, the collapse of the Mobutu regime and the ascension of the corrupt and erratic Laurent-Désiré Kabila created a power vacuum that drew Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and other African nations into an extended and chaotic war. The heart of the book documents how the whole core of the African continent became engulfed in an intractible and bloody conflict after 1998, a devastating war that only wound down following the assassination of Kabila in 2001. Prunier not only captures all this in his riveting narrative, but he also indicts the
international community for its utter lack of interest in what was then the largest conflict in the world.

Praise for the

"The most ambitious of several remarkable new books that reexamine the extraordinary tragedy of Congo and Central Africa since the Rwandan genocide of 1994."
-- New York Review of Books

"One of the first books to lay bare the complex dynamic between Rwanda and Congo that has been driving this disaster."
--Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times Book Review

"Lucid, meticulously researched and incisive, Prunier's will likely become the standard account of this under-reported tragedy."
-- Publishers Weekly]]> 576 Gérard Prunier 0195374207 Rishika 0 4.10 2006 Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe
author: Gérard Prunier
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/06/01
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]]> The Lover's Dictionary 9279177
If the moment doesn't pass, that's it―you're done. And if the moment does pass, it never goes that far. It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back. Sometimes it's even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route, or your lover's face.

How does one talk about love? Do we even have the right words to describe something that can be both utterly mundane and completely transcendent, pulling us out of our everyday lives and making us feel a part of something greater than ourselves? Taking a unique approach to this problem, the nameless narrator of David Levithan's The Lover's Dictionary has constructed the story of his relationship as a dictionary. Through these short entries, he provides an intimate window into the great events and quotidian trifles of being within a couple, giving us an indelible and deeply moving portrait of love in our time.]]> 211 David Levithan 0374193681 Rishika 5 3.87 2011 The Lover's Dictionary
author: David Levithan
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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date added: 2015/06/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Before They Are Hanged (The First Law, #2)]]> 902715
Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are spreading fire and death across the frozen country. Crown Prince Ladisla is poised to drive them back and win undying glory. There is only one problem � he commands the worst-armed, worst-trained, worst-led army in the world.

And Bayaz, the First of the Magi, is leading a party of bold adventurers on a perilous mission through the ruins of the past. The most hated woman in the South, the most feared man in the North, and the most selfish boy in the Union make a strange alliance, but a deadly one. They might even stand a chance of saving mankind from the Eaters. If they didn't hate each other quite so much.

Ancient secrets will be uncovered. Bloody battles will be won and lost. Bitter enemies will be forgiven � but not before they are hanged.]]> 441 Joe Abercrombie 0575077883 Rishika 0 to-read 4.35 2007 Before They Are Hanged (The First Law, #2)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/04/10
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]]> <![CDATA[The Boy in the Striped Pajamas]]> 39999
Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter one.]]> 224 John Boyne 0385751079 Rishika 5 4.17 2006 The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
author: John Boyne
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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date added: 2014/12/04
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]]> The Mughal Throne 694024
In December 1525 Babur, the great grandson of the Mongol conqueror Tamberlaine, crossed the Indus river into the Punjab with a modest army and some cannon. At the battle of Panipat five months later he routed the mammoth army of the Afghan ruler of Hindustan. Mughal rule in India had begun. It was to continue for over three centuries, shaping India for all time. Full of dramatic episodes and colourful detail, THE MUGHAL EMPIRE tells the story of one of the world's great empires.]]> 608 Abraham Eraly 0753817586 Rishika 0 to-read 4.17 2007 The Mughal Throne
author: Abraham Eraly
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2014/10/19
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]]> <![CDATA[When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda]]> 66419

Rejecting easy explanations of the genocide as a mysterious evil force that was bizarrely unleashed, one of Africa's best-known intellectuals situates the tragedy in its proper context. He coaxes to the surface the historical, geographical, and political forces that made it possible for so many Hutu to turn so brutally on their neighbors. He finds answers in the nature of political identities generated during colonialism, in the failures of the nationalist revolution to transcend these identities, and in regional demographic and political currents that reach well beyond Rwanda. In so doing, Mahmood Mamdani usefully broadens understandings of citizenship and political identity in postcolonial Africa.


There have been few attempts to explain the Rwandan horror, and none has succeeded so well as this one. Mamdani's analysis provides a solid foundation for future studies of the massacre. Even more important, his answers point a way out of a direction for reforming political identity in central Africa and preventing future tragedies.]]> 384 Mahmood Mamdani 0691102805 Rishika 0 to-read 4.07 2001 When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda
author: Mahmood Mamdani
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2014/05/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Astonishing Power of Emotions: Let Your Feelings Be Your Guide]]> 657137 Esther and Jerry Hicks, who present the teachings of the Non-Physical entity Abraham, will help you understand the emotions that you’ve been experiencing all of your life. Instead of the out-of-control, knee-jerk reactions that most people have to their ever-changing life experience, this work will put those responses into a broader context. You’ll come to understand what emotions are, what each of them means, and how to effectively utilize your new awareness of them.


As you read, you’ll come to appreciate, and make peace with, where you are right now, even though there is so much more that you may desire. Every thought you absorb will bring you to a greater understanding of your own personal value and will show you how to open your own doors to whatever you may wish to be, do, or have. And as you turn the last page of this book, you will very likely find yourself thinking, I have always known this, but now, I know this!


Includes a FREE CD excerpt from a live Art of Allowing Workshop with Abraham!


ձ> 262 Esther Hicks 1401912451 Rishika 0 to-read 4.35 2007 The Astonishing Power of Emotions: Let Your Feelings Be Your Guide
author: Esther Hicks
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2014/05/20
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]]> Villette 31173 Villette, Charlotte Brontë reached the height of her artistic power. First published in 1853, Villette is Brontë's most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even Jane Eyre in critical acclaim. Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquette. The first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life's journey - a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman's consciousness in English literature.]]> 573 Charlotte Brontë Rishika 5 3.78 1853 Villette
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1853
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Nobody Can Love You More: Life in Delhi's Red Light District]]> 16115625 By following the daily lives of the denizens of one kotha, Mayank Austen Soofi paints an intimate portrait of women for whom sex is work—a way to make a living.
With precise details and haunting photographs, Soofi delicately and carefully etches the everyday world of those who inhabit the peripheries of society.]]> 240 Mayank Soofi 067008414X Rishika 4 3.82 2012 Nobody Can Love You More: Life in Delhi's Red Light District
author: Mayank Soofi
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2014/01/21
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]]> We Need New Names 15852479
Darling is only ten years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad.

But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her--from Junot Diaz to Zadie Smith to J.M. Coetzee--while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own.]]> 298 NoViolet Bulawayo 0316230812 Rishika 4 to-read 3.74 2013 We Need New Names
author: NoViolet Bulawayo
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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date added: 2014/01/21
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]]> The Lowland 17262100
From Subhash's earliest memories, at every point, his brother was there. In the suburban streets of Calcutta where they wandered before dusk and in the hyacinth-strewn ponds where they played for hours on end, Udayan was always in his older brother's sight. So close in age, they were inseparable in childhood and yet, as the years pass - as U.S tanks roll into Vietnam and riots sweep across India - their brotherly bond can do nothing to forestall the tragedy that will upend their lives.

Udayan - charismatic and impulsive - finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty. He will give everything, risk all, for what he believes, and in doing so will transform the futures of those dearest to him: his newly married, pregnant wife, his brother and their parents. For all of them, the repercussions of his actions will reverberate across continents and seep through the generations that follow.

Epic in its canvas and intimate in its portrayal of lives undone and forged anew, The Lowland is a deeply felt novel of family ties that entangle and fray in ways unforeseen and unrevealed, of ties that ineluctably define who we are. With all the hallmarks of Jhumpa Lahiri's achingly poignant, exquisitely empathetic story-telling, this is her most devastating work of fiction to date.]]> 340 Jhumpa Lahiri 0307265749 Rishika 5 3.86 2013 The Lowland
author: Jhumpa Lahiri
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2013
rating: 5
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date added: 2013/11/14
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]]> The Illuminated Rumi 38627
In the mid-thirteenth century, in a dusty marketplace in Konya, Turkey, a city where Muslim, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist travelers mingled, Jelaluddin Rumi, a popular philosopher and scholar, met Shams of Tabriz, a wandering dervish.Their meeting forever altered the course of Rumi's life and influenced the mystical evolution of the planet.The bond they formed was everlasting--a powerful transcendent friendship that would flow through Rumi as some of the world's best-loved ecstatic poetry.

Rumi's passionate, playful poems find and celebrate sacred life in everyday existence.They speak across all traditions, to all peoples, and today his relevance and popularity continue to grow.In The Illuminated Rumi, Coleman Barks, widely regarded as the world's premier translator of Rumi's writings, presents some of his most brilliant work, including many new translations.To complement Rumi's universal vision, Michael Green has worked the ancient art of illumination into a new, visually stunning form that joins typography, original art, old masters, photographs, and prints with sacred images from around the world.

The Illuminated Rumi is a truly groundbreaking collaboration that interweaves word and a magnificent meeting of ancient tradition and modern interpretation that uniquely captures the spiritual wealth of Rumi's teachings.Coleman Barks's wise and witty commentary, together with Michael Green's art, makes this a classic guide to the life of the soul for a whole new generation of seekers.]]> 128 Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi 0767900022 Rishika 0 to-read 4.52 1997 The Illuminated Rumi
author: Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.52
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/09/08
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]]> The Essential Rumi 304079 The Essential Rumi includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks and more than 80 never-before-published poems.

Through his lyrical translations, Coleman Barks has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to a remarkably wide range of readers, making the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenth-century Sufi Mystic Rumi more popular than ever.

The Essential Rumi continues to be the bestselling of all Rumi books, and the definitive selection of his beautiful, mystical poetry.]]> 416 Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi 0062509594 Rishika 0 to-read 4.40 1273 The Essential Rumi
author: Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1273
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/09/08
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]]> Anansi Boys 2744 God is dead. Meet the kids.

Fat Charlie Nancy's normal life ended the moment his father dropped dead on a Florida karaoke stage. Charlie didn't know his dad was a god. And he never knew he had a brother.

Now brother Spider's on his doorstep -- about to make Fat Charlie's life more interesting... and a lot more dangerous.]]> 387 Neil Gaiman 0060515198 Rishika 0 to-read 4.03 2005 Anansi Boys
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Immortals of Meluha (Shiva Trilogy, #1)]]> 7913305 The only hope for the Suryavanshis is an ancient legend: When evil reaches epic proportions, when all seems lost, when it appears that your enemies have triumphed, a hero will emerge.

Is the rough-hewn Tibetan immigrant Shiva, really that hero? And does he want to be that hero at all? Drawn suddenly to his destiny, by duty as well as by love, will Shiva lead the Suryavanshi vengeance and destroy evil?

]]> 436 Amish Tripathi Rishika 0 to-read 4.11 2010 The Immortals of Meluha (Shiva Trilogy, #1)
author: Amish Tripathi
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/06/21
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]]> The Palace of Illusions 1774836
Relevant to today’s war-torn world, The Palace of Illusions takes us back to a time that is half history, half myth, and wholly magical. Narrated by Panchaali, the wife of the legendary Pandavas brothers in the Mahabharat, the novel gives us a new interpretation of this ancient tale.

The Palace of Illusions traces the princess Panchaali's life, beginning with her birth in fire and following her spirited balancing act as a woman with five husbands who have been cheated out of their father’s kingdom. Panchaali is swept into their quest to reclaim their birthright, remaining at their side through years of exile and a terrible civil war involving all the important kings of India. Meanwhile, we never lose sight of her strategic duels with her mother-in-law, her complicated friendship withthe enigmatic Krishna, or her secretattraction tothe mysteriousman who is her husbands'most dangerousenemy. Panchaali is a fiery female redefining for us a world of warriors, gods, and the ever-manipulating hands of fate.]]> 360 Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni 0385515995 Rishika 5 4.20 2008 The Palace of Illusions
author: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2008
rating: 5
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date added: 2013/05/15
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]]> Kane & Abel (Kane & Abel, #1) 78983 592 Jeffrey Archer 0312995059 Rishika 5 4.31 1979 Kane & Abel (Kane & Abel, #1)
author: Jeffrey Archer
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1979
rating: 5
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date added: 2013/03/15
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]]> The Witch of Portobello 816720
That is the central question of international bestselling author Paulo Coelho's profound new work, The Witch of Portobello. It is the story of a mysterious woman named Athena, told by the many who knew her well—or hardly at all.]]> 320 Paulo Coelho 0007251866 Rishika 4 3.55 2006 The Witch of Portobello
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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date added: 2013/03/15
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]]> The God Delusion 14743
With rigor and wit, Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament, to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion, and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence.

The God Delusion makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just wrong, but potentially deadly. It also offers exhilarating insight into the advantages of atheism to the individual and society, not the least of which is a clearer, truer appreciation of the universe's wonders than any faith could ever muster.]]> 374 Richard Dawkins 0618680004 Rishika 4 3.89 2006 The God Delusion
author: Richard Dawkins
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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]]> The Prophet 2547 The Prophet, is one of the most beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American editions alone have sold more than nine million copies.

The Prophet is a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and, above all, inspirational. Gibran’s musings are divided into twenty-eight chapters covering such sprawling topics as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.]]> 127 Kahlil Gibran 000100039X Rishika 5 4.27 1923 The Prophet
author: Kahlil Gibran
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1923
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda]]> 516710 789 Alison Des Forges 1564321711 Rishika 4 4.47 1999 Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda
author: Alison Des Forges
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2013/03/15
date added: 2013/03/15
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]]> The Maharajas of India 544579 Book by Morrow, Ann 290 Ann Morrow 8187075341 Rishika 4 3.30 1998 The Maharajas of India
author: Ann Morrow
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.30
book published: 1998
rating: 4
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]]> Tai-Pan (Asian Saga, #2) 42933 732 James Clavell Rishika 5 4.28 1966 Tai-Pan (Asian Saga, #2)
author: James Clavell
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1966
rating: 5
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date added: 2013/01/20
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]]> Vertigo 247754 Penguin India Vertigo Ashok Banker 0143032348 Rishika 5 3.70 2005 Vertigo
author: Ashok Banker
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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]]> Noble House (Asian Saga, #5) 390711 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN13: 9780440164845.

The tai-pan, Ian Dunross, struggles to rescue Struan's from the precarious financial position left by his predecessor. To do this, he seeks partnership with an American millionaire, while trying to ward off his arch-rival Quillan Gornt, who seeks to destroy Struan's once and for all. Meanwhile, Chinese communists, Taiwanese nationalists, and Soviet spies illegally vie for influence in Hong Kong while the British government seeks to prevent this. And nobody, it seems, can get anything done without enlisting the aid of Hong Kong's criminal underworld. Other obstacles include water shortages, landslides, bank runs and stock market crashes.

Nov. 1987 Dell jumbo mass market paperback, 21st printing. James Clavell.]]> 1376 James Clavell Rishika 5 4.26 1981 Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)
author: James Clavell
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1981
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Prince at War (Ramayana Omnibus, Volume III: Bridge of Rama / King of Ayodhya)]]> 2709514
PRINCE AT RAMAYANA SERIES Part 3
contains the complete text of Vengeance of Ravana & Sons of Sita

THE ONLY AUTHORIZED EDITION OF THE MILLION COPY-BESTSELLING & CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED EPIC SERIES! Visit the official author website at ashokbanker.com

Ashok K. Banker’s Ramayana series is presented here the way the author originally intended for his retelling. Four magnificent omnibus ebook editions bring together all the eight books. Prince at War, Part Three of the Ramayana Series, includes the fifth and sixth books, Bridge of Rama and King of Ayodhya. Each of these omnibus ebook editions contains over 300,000 words of text and includes the original Author Introduction and Preface to the Indian print editions, hand-crafted by the author himself and made available exclusively under his own AKB eBOOKS imprint. To know more, visit the official website at or his ebookstore at

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ashok Banker is regarded as a pioneer among Indian authors. Credited as the author of the first Indian English crime novels, the first Indian TV series in English, co-writer of the first Malaysian TV series, the first Indian author of fantasy, horror and science fiction to find worldwide success, the first successful series author and many more firsts. His hugely successful Ramayana Series® was published in seven languages in 56 countries to great international acclaim. With over one million copies of his books in print worldwide, he is one of India's most successful and best-loved authors.]]> 856 Ashok K. Banker 0670081124 Rishika 4 4.12 2011 Prince at War (Ramayana Omnibus, Volume III: Bridge of Rama / King of Ayodhya)
author: Ashok K. Banker
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Prince in Exile: Demons of Chitrakut / Armies of Hanuman (Ramayana #3-4)]]> 6335176 880 Ashok K. Banker 0670081116 Rishika 4 4.18 2011 Prince in Exile: Demons of Chitrakut / Armies of Hanuman (Ramayana #3-4)
author: Ashok K. Banker
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[When the Lion Feeds (Courtney publication, #1; Courtney chronological, #10)]]> 16951
'Something always dies when the lion feeds and yet there is meat for those that follow him.' The lion is Sean, hero of this tremendous drama of the men who took possession of South Africa in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Sean and his twin-brother Garrick grew up on their father's farm in Natal. The first part of the book deals with his childhood and youth and his longing to become a successful farmer and hard-hitting fighter like his father.

The tough life of cattle-farming is brusquely interrupted by the Zulu Wars, when Sean and his brother see fighting for the first time. Wilbur Smith vividly recreates the excitement of the war for the young men-their hope of winning their own cattle, the horror of the massacre at Isandhlwana, the heroism of the defence at Rorkes Drift.

'Witwatersrand' is the name of the second part of this book and it tells the story of Sean's fabulous success in the gold rush and his rich life with Duff Charleywood and the beautiful Candy in the new town of Johannesburg, where huge fortunes were made and lost in a morning's dealing on the Exchange.

The atmosphere of this feverish, violent time is brilliantly drawn: the heavy drinking, the elaborate houses, the ruthless abandonment of the failure. Sean and Duff are caught at last in a trap laid by their rival, the sinister and clever Hradsky, and leave Johannesburg for the wilderness to seek their fortunes once more.

And now the book moves to its climax. At last it seems as though Sean will settle to a quiet married life � but fate has other plans for him. They return to Johannesburg and tragedy strikes quickly. Sean finds himself alone once more...

Filled with action scenes in war and the early heady days of the gold rush, and adventure among the vast game herds of the African wilderness, this novel is dominated by the towering compelling personality of Sean, whose life story is continued in The Sound of Thunder and A Sparrow Falls.]]> 534 Wilbur Smith 0312940661 Rishika 4 4.21 1964 When the Lion Feeds (Courtney publication, #1; Courtney chronological, #10)
author: Wilbur Smith
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1964
rating: 4
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]]> Gallipoli 6018580 280 Jack Bennett 020714673X Rishika 4 3.67 1981 Gallipoli
author: Jack Bennett
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1981
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus, #1)]]> 629 Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an examination of how we live, a meditation on how to live better set around the narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America's Northwest, undertaken by a father & his young son.]]> 540 Robert M. Pirsig 0060589469 Rishika 4 3.78 1974 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus, #1)
author: Robert M. Pirsig
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1974
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Rendezvous with Rama (Rama, #1)]]> 112537 243 Arthur C. Clarke 1857231589 Rishika 5 4.12 1973 Rendezvous with Rama (Rama, #1)
author: Arthur C. Clarke
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1973
rating: 5
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date added: 2013/01/20
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]]> Sphere 455373 371 Michael Crichton Rishika 3 3.83 1987 Sphere
author: Michael Crichton
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1987
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays]]> 11987 212 Albert Camus Rishika 3 4.23 1942 The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
author: Albert Camus
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1942
rating: 3
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]]> The Stranger 49552 The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."]]> 123 Albert Camus Rishika 5 4.04 1942 The Stranger
author: Albert Camus
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1942
rating: 5
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]]> Anna Karenina 15823480 Anna Karenina provides a vast panorama of contemporary life in Russia and of humanity in general. In it Tolstoy uses his intense imaginative insight to create some of the most memorable characters in all of literature. Anna is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as the wife of Karenin and turns to Count Vronsky to fulfil her passionate nature - with tragic consequences. Levin is a reflection of Tolstoy himself, often expressing the author's own views and convictions.

Throughout, Tolstoy points no moral, merely inviting us not to judge but to watch. As Rosemary Edmonds comments, 'He leaves the shifting patterns of the kaleidoscope to bring home the meaning of the brooding words following the title, 'Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.]]> 964 Leo Tolstoy 0345803922 Rishika 4 4.11 1878 Anna Karenina
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1878
rating: 4
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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 Rishika 3 4.27 1973 The Princess Bride
author: William Goldman
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1973
rating: 3
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]]> Les Misérables 24280 1463 Victor Hugo 0451525264 Rishika 4 4.19 1862 Les Misérables
author: Victor Hugo
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1862
rating: 4
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]]> If I Stay (If I Stay, #1) 4374400 208 Gayle Forman 0525421033 Rishika 2 3.92 2009 If I Stay (If I Stay, #1)
author: Gayle Forman
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2009
rating: 2
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date added: 2013/01/20
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]]> <![CDATA[City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments, #5)]]> 8755776 New York Times bestselling Mortal Instruments continues—and so do the thrills and danger for Jace, Clary, and Simon.

What price is too high to pay, even for love? When Jace and Clary meet again, Clary is horrified to discover that the demon Lilith’s magic has bound her beloved Jace together with her evil brother Sebastian, and that Jace has become a servant of evil. The Clave is out to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. As Alec, Magnus, Simon, and Isabelle wheedle and bargain with Seelies, demons, and the merciless Iron Sisters to try to save Jace, Clary plays a dangerous game of her own. The price of losing is not just her own life, but Jace’s soul. She’s willing to do anything for Jace, but can she still trust him? Or is he truly lost?

Love. Blood. Betrayal. Revenge. Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series.]]> 535 Cassandra Clare 1442416866 Rishika 3 4.22 2012 City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments, #5)
author: Cassandra Clare
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 3
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]]> The Book Thief 19063 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

(Note: this title was not published as YA fiction)]]> 592 Markus Zusak Rishika 4 4.38 2005 The Book Thief
author: Markus Zusak
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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]]> Thirteen Reasons Why 1217100 You can’t stop the future.
You can’t rewind the past.
The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker–his classmate and crush–who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why.

Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah’s pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.]]> 288 Jay Asher 1595141715 Rishika 3 4.00 2007 Thirteen Reasons Why
author: Jay Asher
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2007
rating: 3
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]]> The Catcher in the Rye 5107 It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school...

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

J.D. Salinger's (1919�2010) classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.]]> 277 J.D. Salinger 0316769177 Rishika 4 3.81 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 4
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]]> The Elephant Tree 9293020 252 R.D. Ronald 1848764561 Rishika 3 3.82 2010 The Elephant Tree
author: R.D. Ronald
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2010
rating: 3
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]]> 1984 5470 328 George Orwell Rishika 4 4.15 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 4
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]]> The Fault in Our Stars 11870085
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.]]> 313 John Green Rishika 3 4.13 2012 The Fault in Our Stars
author: John Green
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy]]> 356824 India After Gandhi is a breathtaking chronicle of the brutal conflicts that have rocked a giant nation and the extraordinary factors that have held it together. An intricately researched and elegantly written epic history peopled with larger-than-life characters, it is the work of a major scholar at the peak of his abilities...]]> 912 Ramachandra Guha 0060198818 Rishika 0 to-read 4.38 2007 India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy
author: Ramachandra Guha
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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]]> Unbowed 201111
Born in a rural village in 1940, Wangari Maathai was already an iconoclast as a child, determined to get an education even though most girls were uneducated. We see her studying with Catholic missionaries, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the United States, and becoming the first woman both to earn a PhD in East and Central Africa and to head a university department in Kenya. We witness her numerous run-ins with the brutal Moi government. She makes clear the political and personal reasons that compelled her, in 1977, to establish the Green Belt Movement, which spread from Kenya across Africa and which helps restore indigenous forests while assisting rural women by paying them to plant trees in their villages. We see how Maathai’s extraordinary courage and determination helped transform Kenya’s government into the democracy in which she now serves as assistant minister for the environment and as a member of Parliament. And we are with her as she accepts the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in recognition of her “contribution to sustainable development, human rights, and peace.�

In Unbowed, Wangari Maathai offers an inspiring message of hope and prosperity through self-sufficiency.]]> 314 Wangari Maathai 0307263487 Rishika 4 4.05 2006 Unbowed
author: Wangari Maathai
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide]]> 378814
In The Rwanda Crisis , journalist and Africa scholar Gérard Prunier provides a historical perspective that Western readers need to understand how and why the brutal massacres of 800,000 Rwandese came to pass. Prunier shows how the events in Rwanda were part of a deadly logic, a plan that served central political and economic interests, rather than a result of ancient tribal hatreds―a notion often invoked by the media to dramatize the fighting.

The Rwanda Crisis makes great strides in dispelling the racist cultural myths surrounding the people of Rwanda, views propogated by European colonialists in the nineteenth century and carved into "history" by Western influence. Prunier demonstrates how the struggle for cultural dominance and subjugation among the Hutu and Tutsi―the central players in the recent massacres―was exploited by racially obsessed Europeans. He shows how Western colonialists helped to construct a Tutsi identity as a superior racial type because of their distinctly "non-Negro" features in order to facilitate greater control over the Rwandese.

Expertly leading readers on a journey through the troubled history of the country and its surroundings, Prunier moves from the pre-colonial Kingdom of Rwanda, though German and Belgian colonial regimes, to the 1973 coup. The book chronicles the developing refugee crisis in Rwanda and neighboring Uganda in the 1970s and 1980s and offers the most comprehensive account available of the manipulations of popular sentiment that led to the genocide and the events that have followed.

In the aftermath of this devastating tragedy, The Rwanda Crisis is the first clear-eyed analysis available to American readers. From the massacres to the subsequent cholera epidemic and emerging refugee crisis, Prunier details the horrifying events of recent years and considers propsects for the future of Rwanda.]]> 424 Gérard Prunier 023110409X Rishika 5 4.19 1995 The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide
author: Gérard Prunier
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945]]> 29658 Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through thirty-four nations and sixty years of political and cultural change-all in one integrated, enthralling narrative. Both intellectually ambitious and compelling to read, thrilling in its scope and delightful in its small details, Postwar is a rare joy.

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award
One of theNew York Times'Ten Best Books of the Year.

Table of contents

About the author
Copyright page
Dedication
Preface & acknowledgement
Introduction

PART ONE - Post-War: 1945-1953
1. The legacy of war
2. Retribution
3. The rehabilitation of Europe
4. The impossible settlement
5. The coming of the Cold War
6. Into the whirlwind
7. Culture wars
CODA The end of old Europe

PART TWO - Prosperity and its discontents: 1953-1971
8. The politics of stability
9. Lost illusions
10. The age of affluence
POSTSCRIPT: A Tale of two economies
11. The Social Democrat moment
12. The spectre of revolution
13. The end of the affair

PART THREE - Recessional: 1971-1989
14. Diminished expectations
15. Politics in a new key
16. A time of transition
17. The new realism
18. The power of the powerless
19. The end of the old order

PART FOUR - After the Fall: 1989-2005
20. A fissile continent
21. The reckoning
22. The old Europe -and the new
23. The varieties of Europe
24. Europe as a way of life

Photo crdits
Suggestions for further readings]]> 933 Tony Judt 0143037757 Rishika 4 4.36 2005 Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
author: Tony Judt
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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date added: 2012/12/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The Coming of the Third Reich (The History of the Third Reich, #1)]]> 319473 From one of the world's most distinguished historians, a magisterial new reckoning with Hitler's rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany.

In 1900 Germany was the most progressive and dynamic nation in Europe, the only country whose rapid technological and social growth and change challenged that of the United States. Its political culture was less authoritarian than Russia's and less anti-Semitic than France's; representative institutions were thriving, and competing political parties and elections were a central part of life. How then can we explain the fact that in little more than a generation this stable modern country would be in the hands of a violent, racist, extremist political movement that would lead it and all of Europe into utter moral, physical, and cultural ruin?

There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand, and Richard Evans has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans's history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as he shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. With many people angry and embittered by military defeat and economic ruin; a state undermined by a civil service, an army, and a law enforcement system deeply alienated from the democratic order introduced in 1918; beset by the growing extremism of voters prey to panic about the increasing popularity of communism; home to a tiny but quite successful Jewish community subject to widespread suspicion and resentment, Germany proved to be fertile ground for Nazism's ideology of hatred.

The first book of what will ultimately be a complete three-volume history of Nazi Germany, The Coming of the Third Reich is a masterwork of the historian's art and the book by which all others on this subject will be judged.]]> 622 Richard J. Evans 0143034693 Rishika 4 4.28 2003 The Coming of the Third Reich (The History of the Third Reich, #1)
author: Richard J. Evans
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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]]> The Septembers of Shiraz 1038088
As Isaac navigates the tedium and terrors of prison, forging tenuous trusts, his wife feverishly searches for him, suspecting, all the while, that their once-trusted housekeeper has turned on them and is now acting as an informer.

And as his daughter, in a childlike attempt to stop the wave of baseless arrests, engages in illicit activities, his son, sent to New York before the rise of the Ayatollahs, struggles to find happiness even as he realizes that his family may soon be forced to embark on a journey of incalculable danger.

A page-turning literary debut, The Septembers of Shiraz simmers with questions of identity, alienation, and love, not simply for a spouse or a child, but for all the intangible sights and smells of the place we call home.]]> 340 Dalia Sofer 0061130400 Rishika 4 3.80 2007 The Septembers of Shiraz
author: Dalia Sofer
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2007
rating: 4
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date added: 2012/09/14
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]]> The Great Gatsby 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Rishika 4 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 4
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]]> Water for Elephants 43641
Beautifully written, Water for Elephants is illuminated by a wonderful sense of time and place. It tells a story of a love between two people that overcomes incredible odds in a world in which even love is a luxury that few can afford.]]> 368 Sara Gruen 1565125606 Rishika 3 4.11 2006 Water for Elephants
author: Sara Gruen
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2006
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[The Other Boleyn Girl (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #9)]]> 37470 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780743227445

Two sisters competing for the greatest prize: The love of a king

When Mary Boleyn comes to court as an innocent girl of fourteen, she catches the eye of Henry VIII. Dazzled, Mary falls in love with both her golden prince and her growing role as unofficial queen. However, she soon realises just how much she is a pawn in her family's ambitious plots as the king's interest begins to wane and she is forced to step aside for her best friend and rival: her sister, Anne. Then Mary knows that she must defy her family and her king and take fate into her own hands.

A rich and compelling novel of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue, The Other Boleyn Girl introduces a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the heart of the most exciting and glamourous court in Europe and survived by following her heart.]]> 661 Philippa Gregory Rishika 4 4.08 2001 The Other Boleyn Girl (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #9)
author: Philippa Gregory
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2001
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Lord Edgware Dies (Hercule Poirot, #9)]]> 10183005
But how could she have stabbed Lord Edgware in his library at exactly the same time she was seen dining with friends? It’s a case that almost proves to be too much for the great Poirot.]]> 269 Agatha Christie 0062073893 Rishika 4 3.94 1933 Lord Edgware Dies (Hercule Poirot, #9)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1933
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society]]> 2728527
“Treat yourself to this book, please - I can’t recommend it highly enough.� (Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love)

“I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.�

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb....

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends - and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island - boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.

Praise for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

“A jewel... Poignant and keenly observed, Guernsey is a small masterpiece about love, war, and the immeasurable sustenance to be found in good books and good friends.� (People)

“A book-lover’s delight, an implicit and sometimes explicit paean to all things literary.� (Chicago Sun-Times)

“A sparkling epistolary novel radiating wit, lightly worn erudition and written with great assurance and aplomb.� (The Sunday Times [London])

“Cooked perfectly à point: subtle and elegant in flavour, yet emotionally satisfying to the finish.� (The Times [London])]]> 277 Mary Ann Shaffer 0385340990 Rishika 4 4.13 2008 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
author: Mary Ann Shaffer
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2008
rating: 4
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]]> The Help 4667024
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women, mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends, view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.


Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here]]> 464 Kathryn Stockett 0399155341 Rishika 4 4.46 2009 The Help
author: Kathryn Stockett
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2009
rating: 4
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]]> Jane Eyre 10210 Alternate editions can be found here and here.

A gothic masterpiece of tempestuous passions and dark secrets, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis in Penguin Classics.

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.]]> 532 Charlotte Brontë 0142437204 Rishika 4 4.14 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1847
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Kalahari Typing School for Men (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, #4)]]> 7036 here.

Life is never without its problems. Will Precious Ramotswe’s delightfully cunning and profoundly moral methods save the day? Find out in this, the fourth volume in the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series featuring Botswana's first and only lady detective.

Now that The No. 1 Ladies� Detective Agency (the only detective agency for ladies and others in Botswana) is established, its founder, Precious Ramotswe, can look upon her life with pride: she’s reached her late thirties ("the finest age to be"), has a house, two children, a good fiancé -- Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni -- and many satisfied customers. But life is never without its problems. It turns out that her adopted son is responsible for the dead hoopoe bird in the garden; her assistant, Mma Makutsi, wants a husband and needs help with her idea to open the Kalahari Typing School for Men; yet Mma Ramotswe’s sexist rival has no trouble opening his Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency across town. Will Precious Ramotswe’s delightfully cunning and profoundly moral methods save the day? Follow the continuing story of Botswana’s first lady detective in the irresistible The Kalahari Typing School for Men.]]> 210 Alexander McCall Smith Rishika 3 4.02 2002 The Kalahari Typing School for Men (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, #4)
author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2002
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Don't Cry, Tai Lake (Inspector Chen Cao #7)]]> 10970765
“Dark, gorgeous…feels authentically Chinese and it works like a charm.� --Washington Post Book World on A Case of Two Cities

Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department isoffered a bit of luxury by friends and supporters within the Party � a week’s vacation at a luxurious resort near Lake Tai, aweek where he can relax, and recover, undisturbed by outside demands or disruptions. Unfortunately, the once beautiful Lake Tai, renowned for its clear waters, is now covered by fetid algae, its waters polluted by toxic runoff from local manufacturing plants. Then the director of one of the manufacturing plantsresponsible for the pollution is murdered and the leader of the local ecological group is the primary suspect of the local police.Now Inspector Chen must tread carefully if he isto uncover the truthbehind the brutal murder and find a measure of justice for both the victim and the accused.
]]> 262 Qiu Xiaolong 0312550642 Rishika 2 3.64 2012 Don't Cry, Tai Lake (Inspector Chen Cao #7)
author: Qiu Xiaolong
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2012
rating: 2
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]]> One Hundred Shades of White 564159

There's East. There's West. And then there's Maya�


Maya, her mother Nalini, and her brother Satchin have left a carefree life in India to come to England. But when Maya's father disappears, leaving only deceit and debt behind, they are left to fend for themselves in a strange, damp land.


Maya, though, doesn't know of her father's betrayal. Nalini, determined to preserve her children's pride, tells them that their father died in an accident and, as their struggle to make a life begins, whole realities are built on this lie. While Nalini cooks exotic pickles which enchant all who eat them, Maya begins to adapt to her new home � the unfamiliar food, the language, the music � and then to explore and make bold plans, plans that her mother does not understand.


But even a white lie cannot remain hidden forever � and when the truth resurfaces, it changes everything…]]> 294 Preethi Nair 000714346X Rishika 1 3.80 2003 One Hundred Shades of White
author: Preethi Nair
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2003
rating: 1
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]]> <![CDATA[I Never Promised You a Rose Garden]]> 45220 I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is the story of a sixteen-year-old who retreats from reality into the bondage of a lushly imagined but threatening kingdom, and her slow and painful journey back to sanity.

Chronicles the three-year battle of a mentally ill, but perceptive, teenage girl against a world of her own creation, emphasizing her relationship with the doctor who gave her the ammunition of self-understanding with which to help herself.

"I wrote this novel, which is a fictionalized autobiography, to give a picture of what being schizophrenic feels like and what can be accomplished with a trusting relationship between a gifted therapist and a willing patient. It is not a case history or study. I like to think it is a hymn to reality." —Joanne Greenberg]]> 252 Hannah Green 0451160312 Rishika 3 3.88 1964 I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
author: Hannah Green
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1964
rating: 3
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]]> Night 1617 Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. This new translation by his wife and most frequent translator, Marion Wiesel, corrects important details and presents the most accurate rendering in English of Elie Wiesel's testimony to what happened in the camps and of his unforgettable message that this horror must simply never be allowed to happen again.]]> 120 Elie Wiesel 0374500010 Rishika 5 favorites 4.38 1956 Night
author: Elie Wiesel
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1956
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Eye of the Elephant: An Epic Adventure in the African Wilderness]]> 613929 306 Delia Owens 0395680905 Rishika 5 4.08 1992 The Eye of the Elephant: An Epic Adventure in the African Wilderness
author: Delia Owens
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1992
rating: 5
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]]> The End of the Affair 29641 "A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses a moment of experience from which to look ahead..."

"This is a record of hate far more than of love," writes Maurice Bendrix in the opening passages of The End of the Affair, and it is a strange hate indeed that compels him to set down the retrospective account of his adulterous affair with Sarah Miles.

Now, a year after Sarah's death, Bendrix seeks to exorcise the persistence of his passion by retracing its course from obsessive love to love-hate. At first, he believes he hates Sarah and her husband, Henry. Yet as he delves deeper into his emotional outlook, Bendrix's hatred shifts to the God he feels has broken his life, but whose existence at last comes to recognize.]]> 160 Graham Greene Rishika 4 3.91 1951 The End of the Affair
author: Graham Greene
name: Rishika
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1951
rating: 4
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]]> The Secret Garden 2998
Mary Lennox, a spoiled, ill-tempered, and unhealthy child, comes to live with her reclusive uncle in Misselthwaite Manor on England’s Yorkshire moors after the death of her parents. There she meets a hearty housekeeper and her spirited brother, a dour gardener, a cheerful robin, and her wilful, hysterical, and sickly cousin, Master Colin, whose wails she hears echoing through the house at night.

With the help of the robin, Mary finds the door to a secret garden, neglected and hidden for years. When she decides to restore the garden in secret, the story becomes a charming journey into the places of the heart, where faith restores health, flowers refresh the spirit, and the magic of the garden, coming to life anew, brings health to Colin and happiness to Mary.]]> 331 Frances Hodgson Burnett 0517189607 Rishika 4 4.16 1911 The Secret Garden
author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
name: Rishika
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1911
rating: 4
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]]>