Dan's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 01 May 2025 02:15:56 -0700 60 Dan's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg git commit murder 34684331
The BSD North conference draws some of the smartest people in the world. These few days will validate Dale Whitehead’s work—or expose him as a fraud.

When a tragic death devastates the conference, only Dale suspects murder.

Computer geeks care about code.

But do they care enough� to kill?]]>
263 Michael Warren Lucas Dan 0 currently-reading 3.92 git commit murder
author: Michael Warren Lucas
name: Dan
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/01
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<![CDATA[English Pastoral: An Inheritance]]> 54846916
English Pastoral is the story of an inheritance: one that affects us all. It tells of how rural landscapes around the world were brought close to collapse, and the age-old rhythms of work, weather, community and wild things were lost. And yet this elegy from the northern fells is also a song of hope: of how, guided by the past, one farmer began to salvage a tiny corner of England that was now his, doing his best to restore the life that had vanished and to leave a legacy for the future.

This is a book about what it means to have love and pride in a place, and how, against all the odds, it may still be possible to build a new pastoral: not a utopia, but somewhere decent for us all.]]>
282 James Rebanks Dan 0 4.57 2020 English Pastoral: An Inheritance
author: James Rebanks
name: Dan
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
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Ten Years Later 16004081 344 Alexandre Dumas Dan 0 shortlist, to-read 3.96 1850 Ten Years Later
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Dan
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1850
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/19
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<![CDATA[The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)]]> 58416952 At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.]]>
639 James Islington 1982141190 Dan 0 to-read 4.60 2023 The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)
author: James Islington
name: Dan
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/15
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Birdsong 6259 483 Sebastian Faulks 0679776818 Dan 0 to-read 4.11 1993 Birdsong
author: Sebastian Faulks
name: Dan
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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The Feeling of Power 39342736 The Terrestrial Federation is at war with Deneb, and the war is conducted by long-range weapons controlled by computers which are expensive and hard to replace. Myron Aub, a low grade Technician, discovers how to reverse-engineer the principles of pencil-and-paper arithmetic from computers—a development which is later dubbed "Graphitics". The discovery is appropriated by the military establishment, who use it to re-invent their understanding of mathematics. They also plan to replace their computer-operated ships with lower cost, more expendable (in their opinion) manned ships to continue the war.
Aub is so upset by the appropriation of his discovery for military purposes that he commits suicide. As Aub's funeral proceeds, his supervisor realizes that even with Aub dead, the advancement of Graphitics is unstoppable. He executes simple multiplications in his mind without help from any machine, which gives him a great feeling of power.]]>
Isaac Asimov Dan 0 3.67 1958 The Feeling of Power
author: Isaac Asimov
name: Dan
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1958
rating: 0
read at: 2017/07/10
date added: 2025/04/14
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Coin Locker Babies 14289
Abandoned at birth in adjacent train station lockers, two troubled boys spend their youth in an orphanage and with foster parents on a semi-deserted island before finally setting off for the city to find and destroy the women who first rejected them. Both are drawn to an area of freaks and hustlers called Toxitown. One becomes a bisexual rock singer, star of this exotic demimonde, while the other, a pole vaulter, seeks his revenge in the company of his girlfriend, Anemone, a model who has converted her condominium into a tropical swamp for her pet crocodile.

Together and apart, their journey from a hot metal box to a stunning, savage climax is a brutal funhouse ride through the eerie landscape of late-twentieth-century Japan.

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393 Ryū Murakami 4770028962 Dan 0 to-read 3.82 1980 Coin Locker Babies
author: Ryū Murakami
name: Dan
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1980
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/14
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<![CDATA[The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3)]]> 36043305 The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.

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

For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.]]>
464 N.K. Jemisin 0356504905 Dan 0 4.27 2017 The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Dan
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
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Rogue Justice 1343857 Rogue Male decides to try again and travels, in secret, from Sweden, to Poland, to Turkey, to Africa, in his own lonely war on the Third Reich.]]> 208 Geoffrey Household 0140068538 Dan 0 to-read 3.47 1982 Rogue Justice
author: Geoffrey Household
name: Dan
average rating: 3.47
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/30
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<![CDATA[Welcome to the Monkey House: The Special Edition]]> 18240383
Includes the following stories:

“Where I Live�
“Harrison Bergeron�
“Who Am I This Time?�
“Welcome to the Monkey House�
“Long Walk to Forever�
“The Foster Portfolio�
“Miss Temptation�
“All the King’s Horses�
“Tom Edison’s Shaggy Dog�
“New Dictionary�
“Next Door�
“More Stately Mansions�
“The Hyannis Port Story�
..�
“Report on the Barnhouse Effect�
“The Euphio Question�
“Go Back to Your Precious Wife and Son�
“Deer in the Works�
“The Lie�
“Unready to Wear�
“The Kid Nobody Could Handle�
“The Manned Missiles�
“E辱�
“A岹�
“Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”]]>
384 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0812993616 Dan 0 to-read 4.19 1968 Welcome to the Monkey House: The Special Edition
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Dan
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1968
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/30
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<![CDATA[The Trading Game: A Confession]]> 188543465
'If you were gonna rob a bank, and you saw the vault door there, left open, what would you do? Would you wait around?

Ever since he was a kid, kicking broken footballs on the streets of East London in the shadow of Canary Wharf's skyscrapers, Gary wanted something better. Something a whole lot bigger.

Then he won a competition run by a 'The Trading Game'. The a golden ticket to a new life, as the youngest trader in the whole city. A place where you could make more money than you'd ever imagined. Where your colleagues are dysfunctional maths geniuses, overfed public schoolboys and borderline psychopaths, yet they start to feel like family. Where soon you're the bank's most profitable trader, dealing in nearly a trillion dollars. A day . Where you dream of numbers in your sleep - and then stop sleeping at all.

But what happens when winning starts to feel like losing? When the easiest way to make money is to bet on millions becoming poorer and poorer - and, as the economy starts slipping off a precipice, your own sanity starts slipping with it? You want to stop, but you can't. Because nobody ever leaves .

Would you stick, or quit? Even if it meant risking everything?]]>
352 Gary Stevenson 0593727215 Dan 0 to-read 4.20 2024 The Trading Game: A Confession
author: Gary Stevenson
name: Dan
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Rogue Male (New York Review Books Classics)]]> 10836817 182 Geoffrey Household 1590174755 Dan 4 4.04 1939 Rogue Male (New York Review Books Classics)
author: Geoffrey Household
name: Dan
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1939
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/26
date added: 2025/03/26
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Leviathan (Leviathan, #1) 6050678
Deryn Sharp is a commoner, disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She's a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered.

With World War I brewing, Alek and Deryn's paths cross in the most unexpected way…taking them on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure that will change both their lives forever.]]>
440 Scott Westerfeld 1416971734 Dan 0 to-read 3.92 2009 Leviathan (Leviathan, #1)
author: Scott Westerfeld
name: Dan
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
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<![CDATA[Nuking the Moon: And Other Intelligence Schemes and Military Plots Left on the Drawing Board]]> 42857824 The International Spy Museum's Historian takes us on a wild tour of missions and schemes that almost happened, but were ultimately deemed too dangerous, expensive, ahead of their time, or even certifiably insane. "Compulsively readable laugh out loud history." —Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Grunt and Stiff In 1958, the U.S. Air Force nuked the moon as a show of military force. In 1967, the CIA sent live cats to spy on the Soviet government. In 1942, the British built a torpedo-proof aircraft carrier out of an iceberg. Of course, none of these things ever actually happened. But in Nuking the Moon, intelligence historian Vince Houghton proves that abandoned plans can be just as illuminating--and every bit as entertaining—as the ones that made it. Vividly capturing the fascinating stories of how twenty-one plans from WWII and the Cold War went from conception, planning, and testing to cancellation, Houghton explores what happens when innovation meets For every plan as good as D-Day, there's a scheme to strap bombs to bats or dig a spy tunnel underneath the Soviet embassy. Along the way, he reveals what each one tells us about twentieth-century history, the art of spycraft, military strategy, and famous figures like JFK, Castro, and Churchill. By turns terrifying and hilarious—but always riveting—this is the unique story of history left on the drawing board.]]> 316 Vince Houghton 0525505180 Dan 0 to-read 3.79 2019 Nuking the Moon: And Other Intelligence Schemes and Military Plots Left on the Drawing Board
author: Vince Houghton
name: Dan
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth #2)]]> 28118494
The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. Alabaster Tenring � madman, world-crusher, savior � has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever.

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

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

The Stillness is the wall which stands against the flow of tradition, the spark of hope long buried under the thickening ashfall. And it will not be broken.]]>
413 N.K. Jemisin 0316229261 Dan 5 4.38 2016 The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth #2)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Dan
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
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<![CDATA[Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits]]> 25658690
An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move.

Mysterious, smooth-talking power players who lurk behind the scenes.

A young woman from the trailer park.

And her very smelly cat.

Together, they will decide the future of mankind.

Get ready for a world in which anyone can have the powers of a god or the fame of a pop star, in which human achievement soars to new heights while its depravity plunges to the blackest depths. A world in which at least one cat smells like a seafood shop's dumpster on a hot summer day.

This is the world in which Zoey Ashe finds herself, navigating a futuristic city in which one can find elements of the fantastic, nightmarish and ridiculous on any street corner. Her only trusted advisor is the aforementioned cat, but even in the future, cats cannot give advice. At least not any that you'd want to follow.

Will Zoey figure it all out in time? Or maybe the better question is, will you? After all, the future is coming sooner than you think.]]>
384 David Wong 1466835435 Dan 3 3.80 2015 Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits
author: David Wong
name: Dan
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/13
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The Gremlins 6677
The story of the The Gremlins concerns the mischievous mythical creatures of the title, often invoked by Royal Air Force pilots as an explanation of mechanical troubles and mishaps. In Dahl's book, the gremlins' motivation for sabotaging British aircraft is revenge of the destruction of their forest home, which was razed to make way for an aircraft factory. The principal character in the book, Gus, has his Hawker Hurricane fighter destroyed over the English Channel by a gremlin, but is able to convince the gremlins as they parachute into the water that they should join forces against a common enemy, Hitler and the Nazis, rather than fight each other. Source: Wikipedia

With full-page color illustrations and with several black and white illustrations by the Disney artists throughout.

This was Roald Dahl's first book and preceded the British publication by several months. The story was optioned by Disney and was intended to be made into an animated film, but it was never produced. A note on the copyright page states: "The RAF Benevolent Fund will receive the author's share of the proceeds from the sale of this book." Dahl's next children's book, James and the Giant Peach, published eighteen years later.]]>
56 Roald Dahl 1593074964 Dan 0 3.44 1943 The Gremlins
author: Roald Dahl
name: Dan
average rating: 3.44
book published: 1943
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick (Zoey Ashe, #2)]]> 49127471 New York Times bestselling author David Wong's Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick is the latest—and arguably greatest–sci-fi thriller in the Zoey Ashe Series.

In the futuristic city of Tabula Ra$a, Zoey Ashe is like a fish so far out of water that it has achieved orbit. After inheriting a criminal empire, the twenty-three year-old finds herself under threat from all sides as a rogue's gallery of larger-than-life enemies think they smell weakness.

On the eve of the world's most lavish and ridiculous Halloween celebration, a steamer trunk-sized box arrives at Zoey's door and she is shocked to find that it contains a disembowelled corpse. She is even more shocked when that corpse, controlled by an unknown party, rises and goes on a rampage through the house. Speaking in an electronic voice, it publicly accuses Zoey of being its murderer. This is the kind of thing that almost never happened at her old job.

The city was already a ticking time bomb of publicity-hungry vigilantes with superhuman enhancements and Zoey knows this turn of events is unlikely to improve the situation. Now, she and her team of high-tech tricksters have to solve this bizarre murder while simultaneously keeping Tabula Ra$a from descending into chaos.]]>
368 David Wong 1250195799 Dan 0 to-read 4.09 2020 Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick (Zoey Ashe, #2)
author: David Wong
name: Dan
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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This Perfect Day 139390
The world is ruled by a central computer called UniComp that has been programmed to keep every single human on the surface of the earth in check. People are continually drugged by means of regular injections so that they can never realize their potential as human beings, but will remain satisfied and cooperative. They are told where to live, when to eat, whom to marry, when to reproduce. Even the basic facts of nature are subject to UniComp's will - men do not grow facial hair, women do not develop breasts, and it only rains at night.

"The Family" was everywhere. For centuries, mankind longed for a world without suffering or war. The Family made that dream come true. They have triumphed. Programmed, every need satisfied, they knew nothing of struggle or pain. They had mastered... perfected Earth.

But for one man, perfection was not enough. For Chip, it was a nightmare. The Family was a suffocating force of evil. His dream was to escape... and destroy!]]>
368 Ira Levin 0553290029 Dan 0 to-read 4.00 1970 This Perfect Day
author: Ira Levin
name: Dan
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1970
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/10
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<![CDATA[Beholder's Eye (Web Shifters, #1)]]> 635403 Esen-alit-Quar, Esen for short, Es in a hurry or between friends. The dear little blob has only begun her adventures.]]> 416 Julie E. Czerneda 0886778182 Dan 0 to-read 3.96 1998 Beholder's Eye (Web Shifters, #1)
author: Julie E. Czerneda
name: Dan
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/10
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Embassytown 9265453
Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist, has returned to Embassytown after years of deep-space adventure. She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of speech, a living simile in their language.

When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently upset. Catastrophe looms, and Avice is torn between competing loyalties—to a husband she no longer loves, to a system she no longer trusts, and to her place in a language she cannot speak yet speaks through her.]]>
345 China Miéville 0345524497 Dan 0 to-read 3.89 2011 Embassytown
author: China Miéville
name: Dan
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/10
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<![CDATA[The Win Machine: The Road to Hell is Paved With Intervention]]> 221827934
When Mike’s proprietary software predicts an inevitable conflict between the United States and China, he faces an impossible exploit the knowledge to secure unimaginable wealth, or risk everything to avert a nuclear war.

As financial markets teeter on the brink and global tensions escalate, Mike finds himself at the crossroads of ethics and ambition. With his closest allies questioning his every move and powerful enemies circling, he must decide - will he become the savior of humanity or the architect of its destruction?

In The Win Machine, Ryan McBeth delivers a gripping techno-thriller that explores the terrifying power of technology, the dangers of unchecked ambition, and the razor-thin line between profit and catastrophe. As the countdown to global annihilation ticks away, the ultimate question How far would you go to win?]]>
205 Ryan McBeth Dan 0 to-read 4.41 The Win Machine: The Road to Hell is Paved With Intervention
author: Ryan McBeth
name: Dan
average rating: 4.41
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/20
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<![CDATA[The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)]]> 19163509 This is the way the world ends... for the last time.

A season of endings has begun.

It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.

It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.

It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.

This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.]]>
369 N.K. Jemisin 031622930X Dan 5 4.30 2015 The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Dan
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
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<![CDATA[Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orïsha, #1)]]> 34728667 They killed my mother.
They took our magic.
They tried to bury us.

Now we rise.

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.

But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.]]>
544 Tomi Adeyemi 1250170974 Dan 0 to-read 4.10 2018 Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orïsha, #1)
author: Tomi Adeyemi
name: Dan
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/11
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<![CDATA[The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)]]> 55457493
Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life.

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

But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?]]>
422 Richard Osman Dan 0 to-read 4.36 2021 The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)
author: Richard Osman
name: Dan
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/06
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<![CDATA[The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)]]> 46000520
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?

Alternate cover edition can be found here .]]>
382 Richard Osman Dan 4 3.87 2020 The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)
author: Richard Osman
name: Dan
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
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Titus Groan (Gormenghast, #1) 39063 396 Mervyn Peake 0879514256 Dan 0 to-read, shortlist 3.91 1946 Titus Groan (Gormenghast, #1)
author: Mervyn Peake
name: Dan
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1946
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read, shortlist
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<![CDATA[Exodus: The Archimedes Engine (Archimedes Engine, #1)]]> 205670068
Forty thousand years ago, humanity fled a dying Earth. Traveling in massive arkships, these brave pioneers spread out across the galaxy to find a new home. After traveling thousands of light-years, one fleet of arkships arrived at Centauri, a dense cluster of stars with a vast array of potentially habitable planets. The survivors of Earth signaled to the remaining arkships that humanity had finally found its new home among the stars.

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

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

When another arkship from Earth, previously thought lost, unexpectedly arrives, Finn sees his chance to embrace a greater destiny and become a Traveler—one of a group of brave heroes dedicated to ensuring humanity’s future by journeying into the vast unknown of distant space.]]>
928 Peter F. Hamilton 0593357663 Dan 0 to-read 4.16 2024 Exodus: The Archimedes Engine (Archimedes Engine, #1)
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: Dan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/20
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Zombie 11785 181 Joyce Carol Oates 0452275008 Dan 0 to-read 3.35 1995 Zombie
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: Dan
average rating: 3.35
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
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Let the Right One In 943402
But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next door—a girl who has never seen a Rubik's Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night....]]>
513 John Ajvide Lindqvist 1847241697 Dan 4 4.08 2004 Let the Right One In
author: John Ajvide Lindqvist
name: Dan
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
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<![CDATA[THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL BUT CAME DOWN A MOUNTAIN.]]> 4627427
It is a difference of only twenty feet - but a greater injustice than the villagers can bear. With smarting pride they band together to keep the mapmakers occupied whilst they set about putting the situation to rights... whatever it takes.

Written and directed by Christopher Monger, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain is a beautifully observed romantic comedy, which proves that mind over matter is still a powerful force for change...]]>
252 Christopher Monger 0552143278 Dan 0 to-read 4.00 1995 THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL BUT CAME DOWN A MOUNTAIN.
author: Christopher Monger
name: Dan
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
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Wool - Holston (Wool, #1) 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]>
56 Hugh Howey Dan 0 to-read, shortlist 4.14 2012 Wool - Holston (Wool, #1)
author: Hugh Howey
name: Dan
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read, shortlist
review:

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<![CDATA[Red Team Blues (Martin Hench, #1)]]> 60784417
Martin Hench is 67 years old, single, and successful in a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley. He lives and roams California in a very comfortable fully-furnished touring bus, The Unsalted Hash, that he bought years ago from a fading rock star. He knows his way around good food and fine drink. He likes intelligent women, and they like him back often enough.

Martin is a―contain your excitement―self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He knows computer hardware and software alike, including the ins and outs of high-end databases and the kinds of spreadsheets that are designed to conceal rather than reveal. He’s as comfortable with social media as people a quarter his age, and he’s a world-level expert on the kind of international money-laundering and shell-company chicanery used by Fortune 500 companies, mid-divorce billionaires, and international drug gangs alike. He also knows the Valley like the back of his hand, all the secret histories of charismatic company founders and Sand Hill Road VCs. Because he was there at all the beginnings. He’s not famous, except to the people who matter. He’s made some pretty powerful people happy in his time, and he’s been paid pretty well. It’s been a good life.

Now he’s been roped into a job that’s more dangerous than anything he’s ever agreed to before―and it will take every ounce of his skill to get out alive.]]>
213 Cory Doctorow 1250865840 Dan 0 to-read 3.77 2023 Red Team Blues (Martin Hench, #1)
author: Cory Doctorow
name: Dan
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats� from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge�: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as �1847� or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,� “Spotify,� and “the collapse of the British Empire.� But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.]]>
339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Dan 0 to-read 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Dan
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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Voyage (NASA Trilogy, #1) 843565 784 Stephen Baxter 0061057088 Dan 0 to-read 3.80 1996 Voyage (NASA Trilogy, #1)
author: Stephen Baxter
name: Dan
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/17
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Raft (Xeelee Sequence, #1) 100680 Alternate-cover editions can be found here and here

Stephen Baxter's highly acclaimed first novel and the beginning of his stunning Xeelee Sequence. A spaceship from Earth accidentally crossed through a hole in space-time to a universe where the force of gravity is one billion times as strong as the gravity we know. Somehow the crew survived, aided by the fact that they emerged into a cloud of gas surrounding a black hole, which provided a breathable atmosphere. Five hundred years later, their descendants still struggle for existence, divided into two main groups. The Miners live on the Belt, a ramshackle ring of dwellings orbiting the core of a dead star, which they excavate for raw materials. These can be traded for food from the Raft, a structure built from the wreckage of the ship, on which a small group of scientists preserve the ancient knowledge which makes survival possible. Rees is a Miner whose curiosity about his world makes him stow away on a flying tree—just one of the many strange local lifeforms—carrying trade between the Belt and the Raft.]]>
251 Stephen Baxter 0586210911 Dan 0 to-read 3.69 1991 Raft (Xeelee Sequence, #1)
author: Stephen Baxter
name: Dan
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Mercy of Gods (The Captive’s War #1)]]> 201930181
Caught up in academic intrigue and affairs of the heart, Dafyd Alkhor is pleased just to be an assistant to a brilliant scientist and his celebrated research team.  Then the Carryx ships descend, decimating the human population and taking the best and brightest of Anjiin society away to serve on the Carryx homeworld, and Dafyd is swept along with them. They are dropped in the middle of a struggle they barely understand, set in a competition against the other captive species with extinction as the price of failure.

Only Dafyd and a handful of his companions see past the Darwinian contest to the deeper game that they must play to learning to understand � and manipulate � the Carryx themselves. With a noble but suicidal human rebellion on one hand and strange and murderous enemies on the other, the team pays a terrible price to become the trusted servants of their new rulers. Dafyd Alkhor is a simple man swept up in events that are beyond his control and more vast than his imagination.  He will become the champion of humanity and its betrayer, the most hated man in history and the guardian of his people. This is where his story begins.]]>
422 James S.A. Corey 031652557X Dan 0 to-read 4.11 2024 The Mercy of Gods (The Captive’s War #1)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Dan
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/14
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<![CDATA[Theatre of Cruelty (Discworld, #14.5; City Watch, #1.5)]]> 9528398 4 Terry Pratchett Dan 0 to-read 3.80 1993 Theatre of Cruelty (Discworld, #14.5; City Watch, #1.5)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Dan
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/13
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<![CDATA[The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock]]> 30338791 One of T.S. Eliot’s earliest, and most significant works.

A great achievement of modernist literature, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock takes the form of the complex musings of the titular Prufrock as he considers life and his role in it. The poem draws heavily on allusion to classical works, including Dante’s [ Comedy' (1320)|6656] and Shakespeare’s [ (1601)|1589254].

[ Elliot|18540] was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. Born in 1888 in St. Louis (MO, USA), he is considered one of the 20th century's major poets, and a central figure in English-language Modernist poetry."In ten years' time," wrote Edmund Wilson in [ Castle (1931)|350271], "Elliot has left upon English poetry a mark more unmistakable than that of any other poet writing in English." In 1948, Eliot was awarded the Nobel Price "for his work as a trail-blazing pioneer of modern poetry."]]>
67 T.S. Eliot 1551999218 Dan 0 to-read 4.30 1915 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
author: T.S. Eliot
name: Dan
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1915
rating: 0
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Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Dan 0 to-read 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Dan
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
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The Gone-Away World 3007704 531 Nick Harkaway 0434018422 Dan 0 to-read, shortlist 4.10 2008 The Gone-Away World
author: Nick Harkaway
name: Dan
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/24
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Tell No One 43933
Everyone tells him it's time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible- that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive.

Beck has been warned to tell no one. And he doesn't. Instead, he runs from the people he trusts the most, plunging headlong into a search for the shadowy figure whose messages hold out a desperate hope.

But already Beck is being hunted down. He's headed straight into the heart of a dark and deadly secret- and someone intends to stop him before he gets there.]]>
370 Harlan Coben 0440236703 Dan 0 to-read, shortlist 4.06 2001 Tell No One
author: Harlan Coben
name: Dan
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: to-read, shortlist
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<![CDATA[The Tyrant Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade, #3)]]> 52379336 656 Seth Dickinson 0765380765 Dan 4 4.31 2020 The Tyrant Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade, #3)
author: Seth Dickinson
name: Dan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/22
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The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1) 334176 419 Mary Doria Russell 0449912558 Dan 0 to-read 4.13 1996 The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1)
author: Mary Doria Russell
name: Dan
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/16
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<![CDATA[Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth-Century Caribbean]]> 470346
Pirates are among the most heavily romanticized and fabled characters in history. From Bluebeard to Captain Hook, they have been the subject of countless movies, books, children's tales, even a world-famous amusement park ride.

In Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition , historian B. R. Burg investigates the social and sexual world of these sea rovers, a tightly bound brotherhood of men engaged in almost constant warfare. What, he asks, did these men, often on the high seas for years at a time, do for sexual fulfillment? Buccaneer sexuality differed widely from that of other all- male institutions such as prisons, for it existed not within a regimented structure of rule, regulations, and oppressive supervision, but instead operated in a society in which widespread toleration of homosexuality was the norm and conditions encouraged its practice.

In his new introduction, Burg discusses the initial response to the book when it was published in 1983 and how our perspectives on all-male societies have since changed.]]>
264 B.R. Burg 0814712363 Dan 0 to-read 3.60 1983 Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth-Century Caribbean
author: B.R. Burg
name: Dan
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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Vanity Fair 5797 867 William Makepeace Thackeray 0141439831 Dan 0 to-read 3.80 1847 Vanity Fair
author: William Makepeace Thackeray
name: Dan
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1847
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/03
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Islands in the Net 218571 In an age of advanced technology, information is the world's most precious commodity. Information is power. Data is locked in computers and carefully rationed through a global communications network. Full access is a privilege held by few.
Now, Laura Webster is about to be plunged into a netherworld of black-market data pirates, new-age mercenaries, high-tech voodoo... and murder.]]>
396 Bruce Sterling 0441374239 Dan 0 to-read 3.67 1988 Islands in the Net
author: Bruce Sterling
name: Dan
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5)]]> 22886612
A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle.

Ships are disappearing without a trace. Private armies are being secretly formed. The sole remaining protomolecule sample is stolen. Terrorist attacks previously considered impossible bring the inner planets to their knees. The sins of the past are returning to exact a terrible price.

And as a new human order is struggling to be born in blood and fire, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante must struggle to survive and get back to the only home they have left.]]>
536 James S.A. Corey 031621759X Dan 0 4.44 2015 Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Dan
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2017/10/07
date added: 2024/09/30
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The Book of General Ignorance 6572307
Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British bestseller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more,

The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha� compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It’ll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school.

Revealing the truth behind all the things we think we know but don’t, this book leaves you dumbfounded about all the misinformation you’ve managed to collect during your life, and sets you up to win big should you ever be a contestant on Jeopardy! or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

Besides righting the record on common (but wrong) myths like Captain Cook discovering Australia or Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone, The Book of General Ignorance also gives us the skinny on silly slipups to trot out at dinner parties (Cinderella wore fur, not glass, slippers and chicken tikka masala was invented in Scotland, not India).

Thomas Edison said that we know less than one millionth of one percent about anything: this book makes us wonder if we know even that much.

You’ll be surprised at how much you don’t know! Check out THE BOOK OF GENERAL IGNORANCE for more fun entries and complete answers to the following:

How long can a chicken live without its head?
About two years.

What do chameleons do?
They don’t change color to match the background. Never have; never will. Complete myth. Utter fabrication. Total Lie. They change color as a result of different emotional states.

Who invented champagne?
Not the French.

How many legs does a centipede have?
Not a hundred.

How many toes has a two-toed sloth?
It’s either six or eight.

How many penises does a European earwig have?
a)Fourteen
b)None at all
c)Two (one for special occasions)
d)Mind your own business

Which animals are the best-endowed of all?
Barnacles. These unassuming modest beasts have the longest penis relative to their size of any creature. They can be seven times longer than their body.

What is a rhino’s horn made from?
A rhinoceros horn is not, as some people think, made out of hair.

Who was the first American president?
Peyton Randolph.

What were George Washington’s false teeth made from?
Mostly hippopotamus.

What was James Bond’s favorite drink?
Not the vodka martini.


From the Hardcover edition.]]>
288 John Mitchinson 0307405516 Dan 0 currently-reading 3.86 2006 The Book of General Ignorance
author: John Mitchinson
name: Dan
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia, #2) (Publication Order, #1)]]> 7806720 Narnia . . . a land frozen in eternal winter . . . a country waiting to be set free

Four adventurers step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change . . . and a great sacrifice.]]>
146 C.S. Lewis 0061974153 Dan 0 4.36 1950 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia, #2) (Publication Order, #1)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Dan
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1950
rating: 0
read at: 2018/06/06
date added: 2024/09/28
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Redemption Ark 48893829 592 Alastair Reynolds 0316462489 Dan 4 4.33 2002 Redemption Ark
author: Alastair Reynolds
name: Dan
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/14
date added: 2024/09/28
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Burial Rites 18244056
Agnes is sent to wait out the time leading to her execution on the farm of District Officer Jon Jonsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoids speaking with Agnes. Only Toti, the young assistant reverend appointed as Agnes' spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her, as he attempts to salvage her soul. As the summer months fall away to winter and the hardships of rural life force the household to work side by side, Agnes' ill-fated tale of longing and betrayal begins to emerge. And as the days to her execution draw closer, the question did she or didn't she?

Based on a true story, Burial Rites is a deeply moving novel about personal who we are seen to be versus who we believe ourselves to be, and the ways in which we will risk everything for love. In beautiful, cut-glass prose, Hannah Kent portrays Iceland's formidable landscape, where every day is a battle for survival, and asks, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?]]>
352 Hannah Kent 1743287917 Dan 4 4.16 2013 Burial Rites
author: Hannah Kent
name: Dan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2017/05/01
date added: 2024/09/27
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<![CDATA[The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Tales from the Jazz Age]]> 14289852
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most memorable short stories. The protagonist, Benjamin Button, is born an old man and ages in reverse until he becomes a baby and then finally vanishes from the earth. This story remains one of Fitzgerald’s most haunting and beautiful tales.

Stories includes:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz
Tarquin of Cheapside
"O Russet Witch"
The Jelly-Bean
The Camel's Back
May Day
Porcelain and Pink
The Lees of Happiness
Mr. Icky
Jemina, The Mountain Girl]]>
279 F. Scott Fitzgerald 1937810860 Dan 3 3.62 1922 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Tales from the Jazz Age
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Dan
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1922
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/03
date added: 2024/09/27
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<![CDATA[Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (The Karla Trilogy, #1)]]> 20587606 400 John Le Carré 1101528788 Dan 0 4.19 1974 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (The Karla Trilogy, #1)
author: John Le Carré
name: Dan
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at: 2015/12/19
date added: 2024/09/27
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<![CDATA[The Republic Of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down]]> 18894548
In the early eighteenth century, the Pirate Republic was home to some of the great pirate captains, including Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, "Black Sam" Bellamy, and Charles Vane. Along with their fellow pirates -- former sailors, indentured servants, and runaway slaves -- this "Flying Gang" established a crude but distinctive democracy in the Bahamas, carving out their own zone of freedom in which servants were free, blacks could be equal citizens, and leaders were chosen or deposed by a vote.

They cut off trade routes, sacked slave ships, and severed Europe from its New World empires. For a brief, glorious period the Republic was a success as the pirates became heroes in the eyes of the people.

Drawing on extensive research in the archives of Britain and the Americas, award-winning author Colin Woodard tells the dramatic untold story of the Pirate Republic that shook the very foundations of the British and Spanish Empires and fanned the democratic sentiments that would one day drive the American revolution.]]>
405 Colin Woodard 0547415753 Dan 4 4.07 2007 The Republic Of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down
author: Colin Woodard
name: Dan
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2019/10/20
date added: 2024/09/27
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<![CDATA[The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3)]]> 17697801
Magi political elections are imminent, and the factions are in need of a pawn. If Locke agrees to play the role, sorcery will be used to purge the venom from his body—though the process will be so excruciating he may well wish for death. Locke is opposed, but two factors cause his will to crumble: Jean’s imploring � and the Bondsmage’s mention of a woman from Locke’s past...Sabetha. She is the love of his life, his equal in skill and wit, and now, his greatest rival.

Locke was smitten with Sabetha from his first glimpse of her as a young fellow orphan and thief-in-training. But after a tumultuous courtship, Sabetha broke away. Now they will reunite in yet another clash of wills. For faced with his one and only match in both love and trickery, Locke must choose whether to fight Sabetha � or to woo her. It is a decision on which both their lives may depend.]]>
754 Scott Lynch 0553905589 Dan 5 4.28 2013 The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3)
author: Scott Lynch
name: Dan
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2020/02/01
date added: 2024/09/27
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A Night Without Stars 29600563 The Abyss Beyond Dreams, Night Without Stars is the epic second and final part to Peter F. Hamilton's Chronicle of the Fallers.]]> 722 Peter F. Hamilton 0230770371 Dan 4 4.55 2016 A Night Without Stars
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: Dan
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/10/11
date added: 2024/09/26
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<![CDATA[Children of Ruin (Children of Time, #2)]]> 41721879 Children of Time, the award-winning novel of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet.

Thousands of years ago, Earth's terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life - but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity's great empire fell, and the program's decisions were lost to time.

Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth.

But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed.

And it's been waiting for them.
For more from Adrian Tchaikovsky, check out:
Children of Time
]]>
496 Adrian Tchaikovsky Dan 4 4.04 2019 Children of Ruin (Children of Time, #2)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Dan
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/01
date added: 2024/09/24
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Watership Down 11061042
'We've got to go away before it's too late.'

Fiver was only a small rabbit, but he had a sixth sense and foresaw that disaster was about to destroy the warren. Few believed him. Led by his brother Hazel, a small band of rabbits set out on a perilous journey to find a safe home. Fiver's intuition finally leads them to Watership Down. But here they encounter the greatest threat of all.]]>
478 Richard Adams 0141937645 Dan 0 to-read 4.24 1972 Watership Down
author: Richard Adams
name: Dan
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Babylon's Ashes (The Expanse Book 6)]]> 35030971 The sixth novel in James S. A. Corey's New York Times bestselling Expanse series--now a major television series from Syfy!

A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood.
The Free Navy - a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships - has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets. The colony ships heading for the thousand new worlds on the far side of the alien ring gates are easy prey, and no single navy remains strong enough to protect them.
James Holden and his crew know the strengths and weaknesses of this new force better than anyone. Outnumbered and outgunned, the embattled remnants of the old political powers call on the Rocinante for a desperate mission to reach Medina Station at the heart of the gate network.

But the new alliances are as flawed as the old, and the struggle for power has only just begun. As the chaos grows, an alien mystery deepens. Pirate fleets, mutiny, and betrayal may be the least of the Rocinante's problems. And in the uncanny spaces past the ring gates, the choices of a few damaged and desperate people may determine the fate of more than just humanity.]]>
544 James S.A. Corey 0316217638 Dan 0 4.14 2016 Babylon's Ashes (The Expanse Book 6)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Dan
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2018/02/08
date added: 2024/09/23
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<![CDATA[The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape]]> 25116145 The New York Times bestseller and International PhenomenonOne of the Top Ten Books of 2015, Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times."It's bloody marvelous." - Helen Macdonald, New York Times bestselling author of H IS FOR HAWK"Captivating... A book about continuity and roots and a sense of belonging in an age that's increasingly about mobility and self-invention. Hugely compelling." - Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesSome people's lives are entirely their own creations. James Rebanks' isn't. The first son of a shepherd, who was the first son of a shepherd himself, his family have lived and worked in the Lake District of Northern England for generations, further back than recorded history. It's a part of the world known mainly for its romantic descriptions by Wordsworth and the much loved illustrated children's books of Beatrix Potter. But James' world is quite different. His way of life is ordered by the seasons and the work they demand. It hasn't changed for hundreds of sending the sheep to the fells in the summer and making the hay; the autumn fairs where the flocks are replenished; the grueling toil of winter when the sheep must be kept alive, and the light-headedness that comes with spring, as the lambs are born and the sheep get ready to return to the hills and valleys.The Shepherd's Life the story of a deep-rooted attachment to place, modern dispatches from an ancient landscape that describe a way of life that is little noticed and yet has profoundly shaped the landscape over time. In evocative and lucid prose, James Rebanks takes us through a shepherd's year, offering a unique account of rural life and a fundamental connection with the land that most of us have lost. It is a story of working lives, the people around him, his childhood, his parents and grandparents, a people who exist and endure even as the culture - of the Lake District, and of farming - changes around them. Many memoirs are of people working desperately hard to leave a place. This is the story of someone trying desperately hard to stay.]]> 306 James Rebanks 1250060257 Dan 0 4.30 2015 The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape
author: James Rebanks
name: Dan
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2018/05/23
date added: 2024/09/23
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Glasshouse 6057292 “ONE NIGHTMARISH PANOPTICON.� � The New York Times                When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it doesn’t take him long to discover that someone is trying to kill him. It’s the twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees� personalities—including Robin’s earlier self.               On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide, he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental the Glasshouse, a simulated pre-accelerated culture where participants are assigned anonymized identities. But what looks like the perfect sanctuary turns into a trap, placing Robin at the mercy of the experimenters—and at the mercy of his own unbalanced psyche…]]> 346 Charles Stross 1101208597 Dan 0 4.04 2006 Glasshouse
author: Charles Stross
name: Dan
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2016/01/17
date added: 2024/09/23
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<![CDATA[Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH]]> 11420744 They are not like other rats. They work at night, in secret�

Time is running out for Mrs Frisby. She must move her family of mice before the farmer destroys their home. But her youngest son, Timothy, is too ill to survive the move.

Help comes in the unexpected form of a group of mysterious, super-intelligent rats. But the rats are in danger too, and little by little Mrs Frisby discovers their extraordinary past�
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256 Robert C. O'Brien 0141968583 Dan 5 4.43 1971 Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
author: Robert C. O'Brien
name: Dan
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1971
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/04
date added: 2024/09/22
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<![CDATA[Dune Messiah (Dune Chronicles #2)]]> 19387223 461 Frank Herbert 1101357762 Dan 3 3.78 1969 Dune Messiah (Dune Chronicles #2)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Dan
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1969
rating: 3
read at: 2022/09/23
date added: 2024/09/21
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<![CDATA[The Lost Metal (The Mistborn Saga #7)]]> 59768312 Alternative cover edition of ASIN B09MBS37W9

For years, frontier lawman turned big-city senator Waxillium Ladrian has hunted the shadowy organization the Set—with his late uncle and his sister among their leaders—since they started kidnapping people with the power of Allomancy in their bloodlines. When Detective Marasi Colms and her partner Wayne find stockpiled weapons bound for the Outer City of Bilming, this opens a new lead. Conflict between Elendel and the Outer Cities only favors the Set, and their tendrils now reach to the Elendel Senate-whose corruption Wax and Steris have sought to expose-and Bilming is even more entangled.

After Wax discovers a new type of explosive that can unleash unprecedented destruction and realizes that the Set must already have it, an immortal kandra serving Scadrial's god, Harmony, reveals that Bilming has fallen under the influence of another Trell, worshipped by the Set. And Trell isn't the only factor at play from the larger Cosmere—Marasi is recruited by offworlders with strange abilities who claim their goal is to protect Scadrial...at any cost.

Wax must choose whether to set aside his rocky relationship with God and once again become the Sword that Harmony has groomed him to be. If no one steps forward to be the hero Scadrial needs, the planet and its millions of people will come to a sudden and calamitous ruin.]]>
513 Brandon Sanderson Dan 4 4.59 2022 The Lost Metal (The Mistborn Saga #7)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Dan
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/09
date added: 2024/09/21
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<![CDATA[Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker]]> 18999754
Kevin Mitnick was the most elusive computer break-in artist in history. He accessed computers and networks at the world's biggest companies -- and no matter how fast the authorities were, Mitnick was faster, sprinting through phone switches, computer systems, and cellular networks. As the FBI's net finally began to tighten, Mitnick went on the run, engaging in an increasingly sophisticated game of hide-and-seek that escalated through false identities, a host of cities, and plenty of close shaves, to an ultimate showdown with the Feds, who would stop at nothing to bring him down.

Ghost in the Wires is a thrilling true story of intrigue, suspense, and unbelievable escapes -- and a portrait of a visionary who forced the authorities to rethink the way they pursued him, and forced companies to rethink the way they protect their most sensitive information.

"Mitnick manages to make breaking computer code sound as action-packed as robbing a bank." -- NPR]]>
368 Kevin D. Mitnick 0316134473 Dan 0 4.19 2011 Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker
author: Kevin D. Mitnick
name: Dan
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/04
date added: 2024/09/20
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Light Chaser 53715327 In Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell's action-packed sci-fi adventure LIGHT CHASER, a love powerful enough to transcend death can bring down an entire empire.Amahle is a Light Chaser � one of a number of explorers, who travel the universe alone (except for their onboard AI), trading trinkets for life stories. But when she listens to the stories sent down through the ages she hears the same voice talking directly to her from different times and on different worlds. She comes to understand that something terrible is happening, and only she is in a position to do anything about it.And it will cost everything to put it right.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 178 Peter F. Hamilton 1250769817 Dan 4 3.99 2021 Light Chaser
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: Dan
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/26
date added: 2024/09/20
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<![CDATA[A Storm of Swords 2: Blood and Gold (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3, Part 2 of 2)]]> 11539233
A STORM OF SWORDS: BLOOD AND GOLD is the SECOND part of the third volume in the series.

‘Colossal, staggering . . . one of the greats� SFX

The Starks are scattered.

Robb Stark may be King in the North, but he must bend to the will of the old tyrant Walder Frey if he is to hold his crown. And while his youngest sister, Arya, has escaped the clutches of the depraved Cersei Lannister and her son, the capricious boy-king Joffrey, Sansa Stark remains their captive.

Meanwhile, across the ocean, Daenerys Stormborn, the last heir of the Dragon King, delivers death to the slave-trading cities of Astapor and Yunkai as she approaches Westeros with vengeance in her heart.]]>
607 George R.R. Martin Dan 0 4.59 2000 A Storm of Swords 2: Blood and Gold (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3, Part 2 of 2)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Dan
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2012/08/17
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<![CDATA[Salvation (Salvation Sequence, #1)]]> 37684919 Humanity’s complex relationship with technology spirals out of control in this first book of an all-new series from “the owner of the most powerful imagination in science fiction� (Ken Follett).

“How far ‘space opera� has come! The Old Masters of sci-fi would admire the scope and sweep of Salvation.Ũ�The Wall Street Journal

In the year 2204, humanity is expanding into the wider galaxy in leaps and bounds. Cutting-edge technology of linked jump gates has rendered most forms of transportation—including starships—virtually obsolete. Every place on Earth, every distant planet humankind has settled, is now merely a step away from any other. All seems wonderful—until a crashed alien spaceship of unknown origin is found on a newly located world eighty-nine light-years from Earth, carrying a cargo as strange as it is horrifying. To assess the potential of the threat, a high-powered team is dispatched to investigate. But one of them may not be all they seem. . . .

Bursting with tension and big ideas, Peter F. Hamilton’s Salvation is the first book of an all-new series that highlights the inventiveness of an author at the top of his game.]]>
552 Peter F. Hamilton 0399178775 Dan 4 4.25 2018 Salvation (Salvation Sequence, #1)
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: Dan
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2018/11/26
date added: 2024/09/18
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<![CDATA[Immune: A journey into the system that keeps you alive - the book from KURZGESAGT IN A NUTSHELL]]> 58748012 A gorgeously illustrated deep dive into the immune system that will forever change how you think about your body, from the creator of the popular science YouTube channel Kurzgesagt—In a Nutshell

You wake up and feel a tickle in your throat. Your head hurts. You're mildly annoyed as you get the kids ready for school and dress for work yourself. Meanwhile, an epic war is being fought, just below your skin. Millions are fighting and dying for you to be able to complain as you head out the door.

So what, exactly, is your immune system?

Second only to the human brain in its complexity, it is one of the oldest and most critical facets of life on Earth. Without it, you would die within days. In Immune, Philipp Dettmer, the brains behind the most popular science channel on YouTube, takes readers on a journey through the fortress of the human body and its defenses. There is a constant battle of staggering scale raging within us, full of stories of invasion, strategy, defeat, and noble self-sacrifice. In fact, in the time you've been reading this, your immune system has probably identified and eradicated a cancer cell that started to grow in your body.

Each chapter delves into an element of the immune system, including defenses like antibodies and inflammation as well as threats like bacteria, allergies, and cancer, as Dettmer reveals why boosting your immune system is actually nonsense, how parasites sneak their way past your body's defenses, how viruses work, and what goes on in your wounds when you cut yourself.

Enlivened by engaging graphics and immersive descriptions, Immune turns one of the most intricate, interconnected, and confusing subjects—immunology—into a gripping adventure through an astonishing alien landscape. Immune is a vital and remarkably fun crash course in what is arguably, and increasingly, the most important system in the body.]]>
312 Philipp Dettmer 1529360692 Dan 0 currently-reading 4.74 2021 Immune: A journey into the system that keeps you alive - the book from KURZGESAGT IN A NUTSHELL
author: Philipp Dettmer
name: Dan
average rating: 4.74
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood]]> 32330340 The compelling, inspiring, (often comic) coming-of-age story of Trevor Noah, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.

One of the comedy world's brightest new voices, Trevor Noah is a light-footed but sharp-minded observer of the absurdities of politics, race and identity, sharing jokes and insights drawn from the wealth of experience acquired in his relatively young life. As host of the US hit show The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, he provides viewers around the globe with their nightly dose of biting satire, but here Noah turns his focus inward, giving readers a deeply personal, heartfelt and humorous look at the world that shaped him.

Noah was born a crime, son of a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents' indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the first years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, take him away.

A collection of eighteen personal stories, Born a Crime tells the story of a mischievous young boy growing into a restless young man as he struggles to find his place in a world where he was never supposed to exist. Born a Crime is equally the story of that young man's fearless, rebellious and fervently religious mother - a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence and abuse that ultimately threatens her own life.

Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Noah illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and an unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a personal portrait of an unlikely childhood in a dangerous time, as moving and unforgettable as the very best memoirs and as funny as Noah's own hilarious stand-up. Born a Crime is a must read.

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233 Trevor Noah Dan 5 4.58 2016 Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
author: Trevor Noah
name: Dan
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2016
rating: 5
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Project Hail Mary 54906250 An impossible mission.
An ally he never imagined.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

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

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

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

Or does he?]]>
549 Andy Weir Dan 5 4.57 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Dan
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/06/09
date added: 2024/09/13
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<![CDATA[Thinking in Promises: Designing Systems for Cooperation]]> 24216682
Such principles are the subject of Promise Theory, and the focus of this insightful book. The goal of Promise Theory is to reveal the behavior of a whole from the sum of its parts, taking the viewpoint of the parts rather than the whole. In other words, it is a bottom-up, constructionist view of the world. Start Thinking in Promises and find out why this discipline works for documenting system behaviors from the bottom-up.]]>
192 Mark Burgess 1491917873 Dan 0 to-read 3.79 2015 Thinking in Promises: Designing Systems for Cooperation
author: Mark Burgess
name: Dan
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires]]> 60165391
Five mysterious billionaires summoned theorist Douglas Rushkoff to a desert resort for a private talk. The topic? How to survive the “Event�: the societal catastrophe they know is coming. Rushkoff came to understand that these men were under the influence of The Mindset, a Silicon Valley–style certainty that they and their cohort can break the laws of physics, economics, and morality to escape a disaster of their own making—as long as they have enough money and the right technology.

In Survival of the Richest, Rushkoff traces the origins of The Mindset in science and technology through its current expression in missions to Mars, island bunkers, AI futurism, and the metaverse. In a dozen urgent, electrifying chapters, he confronts tech utopianism, the datafication of all human interaction, and the exploitation of that data by corporations. Through fascinating characters—master programmers who want to remake the world from scratch as if redesigning a video game and bankers who return from Burning Man convinced that incentivized capitalism is the solution to environmental disasters—Rushkoff explains why those with the most power to change our current trajectory have no interest in doing so. And he shows how recent forms of anti-mainstream rebellion—QAnon, for example, or meme stocks—reinforce the same destructive order.

This mind-blowing work of social analysis shows us how to transcend the landscape The Mindset created—a world alive with algorithms and intelligences actively rewarding our most selfish tendencies—and rediscover community, mutual aid, and human interdependency. In a thundering conclusion, Survival of the Richest argues that the only way to survive the coming catastrophe is to ensure it doesn’t happen in the first place.]]>
224 Douglas Rushkoff 0393881067 Dan 0 to-read 3.83 2022 Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires
author: Douglas Rushkoff
name: Dan
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar]]> 24943
1 computer optical disc (2 h, 18 min.)]]>
72 Roald Dahl 0060536241 Dan 0 to-read 4.00 1977 The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
author: Roald Dahl
name: Dan
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[If It's Smart, It's Vulnerable]]> 59891205
This book is an insider's look into how the Internet changed the world for the better and for the worse. It is about the internet and us. The internet has changed from a technical curiosity to a seamless part of our everyday life. Eventually it will become invisible; something we take for granted and assume to be available always and everywhere. This is what happened with the electricity grid.

This book also explores the things that threaten the future of the internet: organized online crime gangs, governmental surveillance and censorship, and the fight over control of the internet. It also looks at how law enforcement and intelligence agencies operate on the internet, how money became data and the myriad, often surprising impacts that occur when we all carry a supercomputer in our pockets.]]>
288 Mikko Hypponen 1119895189 Dan 0 to-read 4.00 2021 If It's Smart, It's Vulnerable
author: Mikko Hypponen
name: Dan
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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Around the World in 80 Days 6607962 154 Jules Verne Dan 0 4.16 1872 Around the World in 80 Days
author: Jules Verne
name: Dan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1872
rating: 0
read at: 2017/07/10
date added: 2024/08/31
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Ember 205977714 John Dempsey is back in the next installment in the Tier One series by #1 internationally bestselling authors Andrews & Wilson.

The world is chaotic and unpredictable with Russia on the verge of collapse or civil war. The geopolitical order is uncertain and nation states and non-state power brokers are scrambling to fill the power vacuum left by Russia’s military and clandestine retreat from the European theater, the Middle East, and Africa.

John Dempsey is home in Florida with his Ember teammates recovering from his mission and incarceration in Russia. On the outside, he’s back; he’s fine, he’s the same old Dempsey � but on the inside, he’s changed.

As India-Pakistani relations take a turn for the worse, word comes of attempts to stoke fresh conflict in the Kashmir region. Ember is dispatched to Islamabad to investigate, where Dempsey is unexpectedly reunited with someone he believed to be dead …]]>
438 Brian Andrews 166504196X Dan 0 to-read 4.52 Ember
author: Brian Andrews
name: Dan
average rating: 4.52
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A Gentleman in Moscow 34066798 The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers—Now a Paramount+ with Showtime series starring Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.]]>
462 Amor Towles Dan 0 to-read 4.28 2016 A Gentleman in Moscow
author: Amor Towles
name: Dan
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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Rules of Civility 11931825 From the New York Times-bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow, a “sharply stylish� (Boston Globe) novel of a young woman in post-Depression era New York who suddenly finds herself thrust into high society.

On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society—where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.

With its sparkling depiction of New York’s social strata, its intricate imagery and themes, and its immensely appealing characters, Rules of Civility won the hearts of readers and critics alike.]]>
349 Amor Towles 1444708864 Dan 5 4.24 2011 Rules of Civility
author: Amor Towles
name: Dan
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/28
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Great North Road 13606267
Investigating this alien threat becomes the Human Defence Agency’s top priority. The bio-fuel flowing from St Libra is the lifeblood of Earth’s economy and must be secured. So a vast expedition is mounted via the Newcastle gateway, and teams of engineers, support personnel and xenobiologists are dispatched to the planet. Along with their technical advisor, grudgingly released from prison, Angela Tramelo.

But the expedition is cut off, deep within St Libra’s rainforests. Then the murders begin. Someone or something is picking off the team one by one. Angela insists it’s the alien, but her new colleagues aren’t so sure. Maybe she did see an alien, or maybe she has other reasons for being on St Libra…]]>
1100 Peter F. Hamilton 0230750052 Dan 0 4.11 2012 Great North Road
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: Dan
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2012/11/26
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<![CDATA[The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency, #1)]]> 30078567
Our universe is ruled by physics and faster than light travel is not possible -- until the discovery of The Flow, an extra-dimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transport us to other worlds, around other stars.

Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war -- and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.

The Flow is eternal -- but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that The Flow is moving, possibly cutting off all human worlds from faster than light travel forever, three individuals -- a scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency -- are in a race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.]]>
336 John Scalzi 0765388898 Dan 0 to-read 4.08 2017 The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency, #1)
author: John Scalzi
name: Dan
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Absolution Gap (Revelation Space #3)]]> 50521624 "Absolution Gap is a good as it gets, and should solidify Alastair Reynolds' reputation as one of the best hard SF writers in the field."-SF Site
In the third book in legendary author, Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space trilogy, the last remnants of humanity realize that their only chance for survival may mean forging an alliance with a greater and even more mysterious alien force.
The Inhibitors were designed to eliminate any life form reaching a certain level of intelligence-and they've targeted Humanity. War veteran Clavain and a ragtag group of refugees have fled into hiding. Their leadership is faltering, and their situation is growing more desperate. But their little colony has just received an unexpected an avenging angel with the power to lead mankind to safety-or draw down its darkest enemy.
And as she leads them to an apparently insignificant moon light-years away, it begins to dawn on Clavain and his companions that to beat one enemy, it may be necessary to forge an alliance with something much worse...]]>
592 Alastair Reynolds 0316462659 Dan 0 4.18 2003 Absolution Gap (Revelation Space #3)
author: Alastair Reynolds
name: Dan
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/15
date added: 2024/08/13
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<![CDATA[Twenty Years After (Trilogie des Mousquetaires #2)]]> 7184
Twenty Years After (1845), the sequel to The Three Musketeers, is a supreme creation of suspense and heroic adventure.

Two decades have passed since the musketeers triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. Time has weakened their resolve, and dispersed their loyalties. But treasons and stratagems still cry out for justice: civil war endangers the throne of France, while in England Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. Dumas brings his immortal quartet out of retirement to cross swords with time, the malevolence of men, and the forces of history. But their greatest test is a titanic struggle with the son of Milady, who wears the face of Evil.]]>
845 Alexandre Dumas 0192838431 Dan 4 4.06 1845 Twenty Years After (Trilogie des Mousquetaires #2)
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Dan
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1845
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/08
date added: 2024/08/07
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Blindsight (Firefall, #1) 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown.

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,� recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist � an informational topologist with half his mind gone � as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]>
384 Peter Watts 0765312182 Dan 0 to-read, shortlist 4.01 2006 Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
author: Peter Watts
name: Dan
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3.1)]]> 768889
The Seven Kingdoms are divided by revolt and blood feud. In the northern wastes, a horde of hungry, savage people steeped in the dark magic of the wilderness is poised to invade the Kingdom of the North where Robb Stark wears his new-forged crown. And Robb's defences are ranged against the South, the land of the cunning and cruel Lannisters, who have his young sisters in their power.

Throughout Westeros, the war for the Iron Throne rages more fiercely than ever, but if the wall is breached, no king will live to claim it.]]>
663 George R.R. Martin 0006479901 Dan 0 4.47 2000 A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3.1)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Dan
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2012/07/29
date added: 2024/08/07
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<![CDATA[A Dance with Dragons 1: Dreams and Dust (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5, Part 1 of 2)]]> 13337715
Tyrion Lannister, having killed his father, and wrongfully accused of killing his nephew, King Joffrey, has escaped from King’s Landing with a price on his head.

To the north lies the great Wall of ice and stone � a structure only as strong as those guarding it. Eddard Stark's bastard son Jon Snow has been elected 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. But Jon has enemies both inside and beyond the Wall.

And in the east Daenerys Targaryen struggles to hold a city built on dreams and dust.]]>
690 George R.R. Martin Dan 0 4.33 2011 A Dance with Dragons 1: Dreams and Dust (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5, Part 1 of 2)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Dan
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2014/08/23
date added: 2024/08/07
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Snow Crash 830 Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous� you'll recognize it immediately.]]> 438 Neal Stephenson 0553380958 Dan 5 4.02 1992 Snow Crash
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Dan
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/02
date added: 2024/08/02
shelves:
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Watchmen 472331 Watchmen, the groundbreaking series from award-winning author Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, presents a world where the mere presence of American superheroes changed history—the U.S. won the Vietnam War, Nixon is still president, and the Cold War is in full effect.

Considered the greatest graphic novel in the history of the medium, the Hugo Award-winning story chronicles the fall from grace of a group of superheroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the superhero is dissected as an unknown assassin stalks the erstwhile heroes.]]>
416 Alan Moore 0930289234 Dan 0 to-read 4.38 1987 Watchmen
author: Alan Moore
name: Dan
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/08
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes]]> 15803166
On Looking begins with inattention. It is not meant to help you focus on your reading of Tolstoy; it is not about how to multitask. Rather, it is about attending to the joys of the unattended, the perceived "ordinary." Horowitz encourages us to rediscover the extraordinary things that we are missing in our ordinary activities. Even when engaged in the simplest of activities - taking a walk around the block - we pay so little attention to most of what is right before us that we are sleepwalkers in our own lives. So turn off the phone and portable electronics and get into the real world, where you'll find there are worlds within worlds within worlds.]]>
308 Alexandra Horowitz 1439191255 Dan 0 to-read 3.48 2013 On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes
author: Alexandra Horowitz
name: Dan
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/06
shelves: to-read
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The Design of Everyday Things 34451081 Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door. The fault, argues this ingenious—even liberating—book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization. The Design of Everyday Things shows that good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints. The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time.

In this entertaining and insightful analysis, cognitive scientist Donald A. Norman hails excellence of design as the most important key to regaining the competitive edge in influencing consumer behavior. Now fully expanded and updated, with a new introduction by the author, The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how—and why—some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.

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429 Donald A. Norman Dan 0 currently-reading 4.31 1988 The Design of Everyday Things
author: Donald A. Norman
name: Dan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/04
shelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[Asterix and Cleopatra (Astérix, #6)]]> 2083248 The series follows the exploits of a village of ancient Gauls as they resist Roman occupation. They do so by means of a magic potion, brewed by their druid, which gives the recipient superhuman strength. The protagonist, the titular character, Asterix, along with his friend Obelix have various adventures. In many cases, this leads them to travel to various countries around the world, though other books are set in and around their village. For much of the history of the series (Volumes 4 through 29), settings in Gaul and abroad alternated, with even-numbered volumes set abroad and odd-numbered volumes set in Gaul, mostly in the village.

The Asterix series is one of the most popular Franco-Belgian comics in the world, with the series being translated into over 100 languages, and it is popular in most European countries.

The success of the series has led to the adaptation of several books into 11 films; eight animated, and three with live actors. There have also been a number of games based on the characters, and a theme park near Paris, Parc Asterix, is themed around the series. To date, 325 million copies of 33 Asterix books have been sold around the world making co-creators Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo France's bestselling authors abroad.]]>
48 René Goscinny 0340172207 Dan 0 4.48 1965 Asterix and Cleopatra (Astérix, #6)
author: René Goscinny
name: Dan
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1965
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/03
date added: 2024/07/03
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<![CDATA[The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently, #2)]]> 357 307 Douglas Adams 0671742515 Dan 0 4.05 1988 The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently, #2)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Dan
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/02
date added: 2024/07/02
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Hamnet 50214441 'Dazzling. Devastating' Kamila Shamsie
'Stunning... deserves to win prizes' Marian Keyes

A stunning new departure for Maggie O'Farrell's fiction, HAMNET is the heart-stopping story behind Shakespeare's most famous play.

On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?

Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week.

Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright. It is a story of the bond between twins, and of a marriage pushed to the brink by grief. It is also the story of a kestrel and its mistress; flea that boards a ship in Alexandria; and a glovemaker's son who flouts convention in pursuit of the woman he loves. Above all, it is a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.

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321 Maggie O'Farrell Dan 5 4.39 2020 Hamnet
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Dan
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/23
date added: 2024/06/23
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<![CDATA[All Quiet on the Western Front]]> 355697
In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the ‘glorious war�. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young ‘unknown soldier� experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.]]>
296 Erich Maria Remarque 0449213943 Dan 0 to-read, shortlist 4.04 1928 All Quiet on the Western Front
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Dan
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1928
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/21
shelves: to-read, shortlist
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<![CDATA[I Think, Therefore I Laugh : The Flip Side of Philosophy]]> 152009 John Allen Paulos 0140295488 Dan 0 borrowing 4.00 1985 I Think, Therefore I Laugh : The Flip Side of Philosophy
author: John Allen Paulos
name: Dan
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at: 2011/06/01
date added: 2024/06/14
shelves: borrowing
review:

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The Light Over Lake Como 198619782
It’s 1945. The Nazi occupation of Italy is in its closing days. But risk is ever present.

It’s been nearly two years since Sarah Zinsi found tenuous sanctuary in Switzerland. Unmoored in a foreign land, she heeds a rumor that her village on the Lake Como shore has been liberated. Clutching her young daughter, Sarah navigates the arduous mountain trek back home to be with Luca Benedetto, the father of her child.

A resister to the end, Luca has one last assignment: assassinate Mussolini, the man who destroyed everything Luca cherished and who forced the love of his life to flee. Sarah’s path crosses that of a charismatic and kindly black marketeer turned partisan spy. He vows to keep mother and child safe as Luca’s perilous mission escalates and the Nazis� final moves devolve into chaos.

But for Sarah and Luca, the pull of love, the will to survive, and the promise of a new family are greater than any odds against them.]]>
280 Roland Merullo 1662510799 Dan 0 to-read 4.32 2024 The Light Over Lake Como
author: Roland Merullo
name: Dan
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/14
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The Turn of the Screw 12948
A very young woman's first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate... An estate haunted by a beckoning evil. Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls. But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them.

Excerpt:
I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days - found myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that carried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by a vehicle from the house.]]>
121 Henry James 0140620613 Dan 0 to-read 3.42 1898 The Turn of the Screw
author: Henry James
name: Dan
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1898
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/13
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<![CDATA[Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever]]> 59644256
Backdoor access to Anom and a series of related investigations granted American, Australian, and European authorities a front-row seat to the underworld. Tens of thousands of criminals worldwide appeared in full view of the same agents they were trying to evade. International smugglers. Money launderers. Hitmen. A sprawling global economy as efficient and interconnected as the legal one. Officers watched drug shipments and murder plots unfold, making arrests without blowing their cover. But, as the FBI started to lose control of Anom, did the agency go too far?

A painstakingly investigated exposé, Dark Wire reveals the true scale and stakes of this unprecedented operation through the agents and crooks who were there. This fly-on-the-wall thriller is a caper for our modern world, where no one can be sure who is listening in.]]>
Joseph Cox Dan 0 to-read 3.96 2024 Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever
author: Joseph Cox
name: Dan
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: to-read
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The Fall 11991
The Fall (French: La Chute) is a philosophical novel by Albert Camus. First published in 1956, it is his last complete work of fiction. The Fall explores themes of innocence, imprisonment, non-existence, and truth. In a eulogy to Albert Camus, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described the novel as "perhaps the most beautiful and the least understood" of Camus' books.]]>
147 Albert Camus 0679720227 Dan 0 to-read 4.07 1956 The Fall
author: Albert Camus
name: Dan
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1956
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/08
shelves: to-read
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