Joya's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 12 May 2025 05:01:25 -0700 60 Joya's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War]]> 335677
In the gray dawn of this new era, Enloe finds that the politics of sexuality have already shifted irrevocably. Women glimpse the possibilities of democratization and demilitarization within what is still a largely patriarchal world. New opportunities for greater freedom are seen in emerging social movements―gays fighting for their place in the American military, Filipina servants rallying for their rights in Saudi Arabia, Danish women organizing against the European Community's Maastricht treaty. Enloe also documents the ongoing assaults against women as newly emerging nationalist movements serve to reestablish the privileges of masculinity.

The voices of real women are heard in this book. They reach across cultures, showing the interconnections between military networks, jobs, domestic life, and international politics. The Morning After will spark new ways of thinking about the complexities of the post-Cold War period, and it will bring contemporary sexual politics into the clear light of day as no other book has done.]]> 340 Cynthia Enloe 0520083369 Joya 0 to-read 4.14 1993 The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War
author: Cynthia Enloe
name: Joya
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sex and Rage 32332902
Sex and Rage delights in its sensuous, dreamlike narrative and spontaneous embrace of fate, work, and of certain meetings and chances. Jacaranda moves beyond the tango of sex and rage into the open challenge of a defined and more fulfilling expressive life. Sex and Rage further solidifies Eve Babitz's place as a singularly important voice in Los Angeles literature―haunting, alluring, and alive.]]> 256 Eve Babitz 1619029359 Joya 5 The House of Mirth.]]> 3.56 1979 Sex and Rage
author: Eve Babitz
name: Joya
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/17
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: short, sub-10k-ratings, white-woman-lit-fic, best-reads-2023, god-tier
review:
If Kurt Vonnegut wrote The House of Mirth.
]]> <![CDATA[The Office of Historical Corrections]]> 51777605 The award-winning author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self brings her signature voice and insight to the subjects of race, grief, apology, and American history.

Danielle Evans is widely acclaimed for her blisteringly smart voice and x-ray insights into complex human relationships. With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters' lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history. She introduces us to Black and multiracial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief—all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively. Ultimately, she provokes us to think about the truths of American history—about who gets to tell them, and the cost of setting the record straight.

In "Boys Go to Jupiter," a white college student tries to reinvent herself after a photo of her in a Confederate-flag bikini goes viral. In "Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain," a photojournalist is forced to confront her own losses while attending an old friend's unexpectedly dramatic wedding. And in the eye-opening title novella, a black scholar from Washington, DC, is drawn into a complex historical mystery that spans generations and puts her job, her love life, and her oldest friendship at risk.]]> 269 Danielle Evans 1594487332 Joya 0 to-read 4.15 2020 The Office of Historical Corrections
author: Danielle Evans
name: Joya
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> An American Marriage 33590210
This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.]]> 308 Tayari Jones 1616201347 Joya 0 to-read 3.90 2018 An American Marriage
author: Tayari Jones
name: Joya
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Bright Young Women 101124639
The survivors, including key witness Pamela Schumacher, will be forever changed by this night. They have all become victims. But they tell their perspectives here, they remain masters of their stories. And they hunt the perpetrator on their own - against resistance from the justice system and the police; against public opinion, which idolizes the serial killer.]]> 384 Jessica Knoll 1501153226 Joya 0 to-read 3.99 2023 Bright Young Women
author: Jessica Knoll
name: Joya
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/04
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review:

]]> Girl in Snow 40606040 Who Are You When No One Is Watching?

When a beloved high schooler named Lucinda Hayes is found murdered, no one in her sleepy Colorado suburb is untouched—not the boy who loved her too much; not the girl who wanted her perfect life; not the officer assigned to investigate her murder. In the aftermath of the tragedy, these three indelible characters—Cameron, Jade, and Russ—must each confront their darkest secrets in an effort to find solace, the truth, or both.

In crystalline prose, Danya Kukafka offers a brilliant exploration of identity and of the razor-sharp line between love and obsession, between watching and seeing, between truth and memory. Compulsively readable and powerfully moving, Girl in Snow offers an unforgettable reading experience and introduces a singular new talent in Danya Kukafka.]]> 369 Danya Kukafka 1501144391 Joya 0 to-read 3.30 2017 Girl in Snow
author: Danya Kukafka
name: Joya
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Notes on an Execution 57773248
Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he’s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. He hoped it wouldn’t end like this, not for him.

Through a kaleidoscope of women—a mother, a sister, a homicide detective—we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and finally, Saffy, the homicide detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake.

Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men.]]> 306 Danya Kukafka 0063052733 Joya 4 4.04 2022 Notes on an Execution
author: Danya Kukafka
name: Joya
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/04
date added: 2025/04/04
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review:

]]> Romney: A Reckoning 101025305 A remarkably illuminating biography of the political maverick, filled with revelations and written with his full cooperation by an award-winning writer at The Atlantic.

Authoritative, personal, and vividly written, Romney: A Reckoning is a revealing account of Mitt Romney’s life.

Based on dozens of exclusive interviews with Romney, his family, and his inner circle as well as hundreds of pages of his personal journals, this book offers a rare, portrait of a politician who in recent years has been at the center of our nation’s most defining political dramas.]]> 416 McKay Coppins 1982196238 Joya 0 4.33 2023 Romney: A Reckoning
author: McKay Coppins
name: Joya
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Accidental Empress (Sisi, #1)]]> 22609307 The Traitor’s Wife, with the little-known and tumultuous love story of “Sisi� the Austro-Hungarian Empress and captivating wife of Emperor Franz Joseph.

The year is 1853, and the Habsburgs are Europe’s most powerful ruling family. With his empire stretching from Austria to Russia, from Germany to Italy, Emperor Franz Joseph is young, rich, and ready to marry.

Fifteen-year-old Elisabeth, “Sisi,� Duchess of Bavaria, travels to the Habsburg Court with her older sister, who is betrothed to the young emperor. But shortly after her arrival at court, Sisi finds herself in an unexpected dilemma: she has inadvertently fallen for and won the heart of her sister’s groom. Franz Joseph reneges on his earlier proposal and declares his intention to marry Sisi instead.

Thrust onto the throne of Europe’s most treacherous imperial court, Sisi upsets political and familial loyalties in her quest to win, and keep, the love of her emperor, her people, and of the world.

With Pataki’s rich period detail and cast of complex, bewitching characters, The Accidental Empress offers a captivating glimpse into one of history’s most intriguing royal families, shedding new light on the glittering Hapsburg Empire and its most mesmerizing, most beloved “Fairy Queen.”]]> 495 Allison Pataki 1476790221 Joya 0 3.87 2015 The Accidental Empress (Sisi, #1)
author: Allison Pataki
name: Joya
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves:
review:

]]> A Raisin in the Sun 5517 A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959.

Indeed Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America--and changed American theater forever.ĚýĚýThe play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry up/like a raisin in the sun."

"The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun," said The New York Times.ĚýĚý"It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic."ĚýĚýThis Modern Library edition presents the fully restored, uncut version of Hansberry's landmark work with an introduction by Robert Nemiroff.]]> 162 Lorraine Hansberry 0375508333 Joya 0 3.84 1959 A Raisin in the Sun
author: Lorraine Hansberry
name: Joya
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/07
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]]> Fucking A 60751616 �"Critics' Pick! Timeless and enduringly relevant. As harrowing as it is witty!" - Ben Brantley, The New York Times
"Four stars! Like Hester's bloodily branded A, the play leaves an indelible mark." - Raven Snook, Time Out New York
"A fiery, raw-throated shout in the face of hypocrisy, privilege and injustice." - Sara Holdren, New York Magazine
"An expressionistic and politically charged exploration of class, family and violence, studded with jarring bursts of humor and song." - Raven Snook, Time Out New York]]> 114 Suzan-Lori Parks 0573709211 Joya 0 3.67 Fucking A
author: Suzan-Lori Parks
name: Joya
average rating: 3.67
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/07
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]]> <![CDATA[No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce]]> 213618273 “Enigmatic, opalescent, so precise.� —Jia Tolentino

An intimate and candid account of one of the most romantic and revolutionary of relationships: divorce

Divorce was everything for Haley Mlotek. As a child, she listened to her twice-divorced grandmother tell stories about her “husbands.� As a pre-teen, she answered the phones for her mother’s mediation and marriage counseling practice and typed out the paperwork for couples in the process of leaving each other. She grew up with the sense that divorce was an outcome to both resist and desire, an ordeal that promised something better on the other side of something bad. But when she herself went on to marry—and then divorce—the man she had been with for twelve years, suddenly, she had to reconsider her generation’s inherited understanding of the institution.

Deftly combining her personal story with wry, searching social and literary exploration, No Fault is a deeply felt and radiant account of 21st century divorce—the remarkably common and seemingly singular experience, and what it reveals about our society and our desires for family, love, and friendship. Mlotek asks profound questions about what divorce should be, who it is for, and why the institution of marriage maintains its power, all while charting a poignant and cathartic journey away from her own marriage towards an unknown future.

Brilliant, funny, and unflinchingly honest, No Fault is a kaleidoscopic look at marriage, secrets, ambitions, and what it means to love and live with uncertainty, betrayal, and hope.]]> 304 Haley Mlotek 1984879081 Joya 0 to-read 3.30 2025 No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce
author: Haley Mlotek
name: Joya
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America]]> 54666
The New York Times bestseller, praised as "hilariously funny . . . the only way to understand why so many Americans have decided to vote against their own economic and political interests" (Molly Ivins)

Hailed as "dazzlingly insightful and wonderfully sardonic" (Chicago Tribune), "very funny and very painful" (San Francisco Chronicle), and "in a different league from most political books" (The New York Observer), What's the Matter with Kansas? unravels the great political mystery of our day: Why do so many Americans vote against their economic and social interests? With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank answers the riddle by examining his home state, Kansas-a place once famous for its radicalism that now ranks among the nation's most eager participants in the culture wars. Charting what he calls the "thirty-year backlash"-the popular revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment-Frank reveals how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans.

A brilliant analysis-and funny to boot-What's the Matter with Kansas? is a vivid portrait of an upside-down world where blue-collar patriots recite the Pledge while they strangle their life chances; where small farmers cast their votes for a Wall Street order that will eventually push them off their land; and where a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs has managed to convince the country that it speaks on behalf of the People.
]]> 332 Thomas Frank 080507774X Joya 0 3.84 2004 What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
author: Thomas Frank
name: Joya
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/01
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: poli-sci-major-approved, we-live-in-a-society
review:
Finished this a while back after having meant to read it for years. Pithy and salient analysis of the conservative utilization of cultural issues to sway the Heartlands to the GOP regardless of policy interest. Wish Frank was more prolific nowadays as it seems like he'd have a lot to contribute about the current state of electoral politics
]]> <![CDATA[The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton]]> 90469 545 Stephen Skowronek 0674689372 Joya 0 to-read 3.89 1993 The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton
author: Stephen Skowronek
name: Joya
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America]]> 142391526
This pathbreaking book pinpoints forces behind the rise of the “rural voter”―a new political identity that combines a deeply felt sense of place with an increasingly nationalized set of concerns. Combining a historical perspective with the largest-ever national survey of rural voters, Nicholas F. Jacobs and Daniel M. Shea uncover how this overwhelmingly crucial voting bloc emerged and how it has roiled American politics. They show how perceptions of economic and social change, racial anxieties, and a traditional way of life under assault have converged into a belief in rural uniqueness and separateness. Rural America believes it rises and falls together, and that the Democratic Party stands in the way.

An unparalleled exploration of rural partisanship, this book offers a timely warning that the chasm separating urban and rural Americans cannot be papered over with policies or rhetoric. Instead, The Rural Voter shows how this division is the latest chapter in the enduring conflict over American identity.]]> 488 Daniel Shea 0231211589 Joya 0 to-read 4.07 The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America
author: Daniel Shea
name: Joya
average rating: 4.07
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s]]> 195790601
With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.� Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today.

In When the Clock Broke , the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents. Ranging from upheavals in Crown Heights and Los Angeles to the advent of David Duke and the heartland survivalists, the broadcasts of Rush Limbaugh, and the bitter disputes between neoconservatives and the “paleo-con� right, Ganz immerses us in a time when what Philip Roth called the “indigenous American berserk� took new and ever-wilder forms. In the 1992 campaign, Pat Buchanan's and Ross Perot’s insurgent populist bids upended the political establishment, all while Americans struggled through recession, alarm about racial and social change, the specter of a new power in Asia, and the end of Cold War–era political norms. Conspiracy theories surged, and intellectuals and activists strove to understand the “Middle American Radicals� whose alienation fueled new causes. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton appeared to forge a new, vital center, though it would not hold for long.

In a rollicking, eye-opening book, Ganz narrates the fall of the Reagan order and the rise of a new and more turbulent America.]]> 432 John Ganz 0374605440 Joya 0 to-read 4.08 2024 When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s
author: John Ganz
name: Joya
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> Sick of It 215524971 308 Sophie Harman 0349017212 Joya 0 to-read 3.86 Sick of It
author: Sophie Harman
name: Joya
average rating: 3.86
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women]]> 200883
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award •Ěý“Enraging, enlightening, and invigorating,Ěý Backlash Ěýis, most of all, true.”â€� Newsday

First published in 1991,Ěý Backlash Ěýmade headlines and became a bestselling classic for its thoroughgoing debunking of a decadelong antifeminist backlash against women’s advances. A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, Susan Faludi brilliantly deconstructed the reigning myths about the “costsâ€� of women’s independence—from the supposed “man shortageâ€� to the “infertility epidemicâ€� to “career burnoutâ€� to “toxic day care”—and traced their circulation from Reagan-era politics through the echo chambers of mass media, advertising, and popular culture.Ěý
Ěý
As Faludi writes in a new preface for this edition, much has changed in the intervening The Internet has given voice to a new generation of feminists. Corporations list “gender equality� among their core values. In 2019, a record number of women entered Congress. Yet the glass ceiling is still unshattered, women are still punished for wanting to succeed, and reproductive rights are hanging by a thread. This startling and essential book helps explain why women’s freedoms are still so demonized and threatened—and urges us to choose a different future.]]> 608 Susan Faludi 0307345424 Joya 0 to-read 4.03 1991 Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
author: Susan Faludi
name: Joya
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail]]> 29242448 An unassailable case that, in the eyes of history, Barack Obama will be viewed as one of America’s best and most accomplished presidents.

Over the course of eight years, Barack Obama amassed an array of historic achievements. His administration saved the American economy from collapse, expanded health insurance to tens of millions who previously could not afford it, negotiated an unprecedented nuclear deal with Iran, helped craft a groundbreaking international climate accord, reined in Wall Street, launched a fundamental overhaul of our education system, and formulated a new vision of racial progress. He has done all of this despite a left that frequently disdained him as a sellout, and a hysterical right that did everything possible to destroy his agenda, even in instances when they actually agreed with what he was doing before Obama was the one doing it.

Now, as the page turns to possibly the most dangerous Commander in Chief in our history, Jonathan Chait, one of America’s most incisive and meticulous political commentators, digs deep into Obama’s record on major policy fronts—the economy, the environment, domestic reform, health care, race, and foreign policy—to demonstrate why history will judge our forty-fourth president as among our greatest. Chait explains why so many observers, from cynical journalists to disheartened Democrats, missed the enormous evidence of progress amidst the smoke screen of extremist propaganda and the confinement of short-term perspective. He also reveals why Obama’s accomplishments will last despite the reactionary effort by Donald Trump and the Republicans to extinguish them. And in its resounding defense of Obama’s tenure, Audacity both makes clear his victories, and what we need to fight for next.]]> 386 Jonathan Chait 0062426990 Joya 0 to-read 3.85 2016 Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail
author: Jonathan Chait
name: Joya
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Obama's Last Stand 15799266 A series ofĚýon the 2012 presidential election, POLITICO’s Playbook 2012 provides an unprecedented real-time account of the race for the White House. The third edition, Obama’s Last Stand, follows the reelection campaign of President Barack Obama as it struggles to find the winning formula in a political landscape that has changed dramatically since his history-making victory in 2008.

Though battered and bruised after nearly four years in office, Barack Obama remains the most competitive player on the field in American politics today. In Obama’s Last Stand, POLITICO White House correspondent Glenn Thrush chronicles the efforts of the president and his team to secure a second term in the face of a determined opposition, unfavorable economic headwinds, and a series of missteps by his own team.

This is a revealing portrait of the president at the most precarious moment in his political life, with insights and anecdotes drawn straight from the notebook of one of the most perceptive reporters in America. The trash-talking schoolyard athlete in Obama is very much in evidence, especially when he speaks caustically about his Republican rivals, including the man he thinks is trying to steal his legacy, Mitt Romney.

Yet apart from Romney and the uncertain economy, Obama’s greatest obstacle on the road to reelection may be Obama 2008. He and his team of talented advisers must try to reconcile their nostalgia for that once-in-a-lifetime campaign with the realities of an election fundamentally altered by the advent of super PACs and the evaporation of Obama’s superstar popularity. That challenge has led a campaign operation that once prided itself on flawless execution of strategy to commit several of the most dangerous unforced errors of Obama’s political career.

Yet the game is far from over. If Obama is sometimes his own worst enemy, he also has the talent and drive to reclaim this race. Spurred on by the realistic prospect of losing, and growing ever more impatient with the foibles of his campaign staff, Obama the competitor is gearing up for the most critical fourth quarter of his career. This is the story of the last stand that will either cement his legacy forever—or consign him to a roster of once-promising one-term presidents.]]> Glenn Thrush 0449009793 Joya 0 3.55 2012 Obama's Last Stand
author: Glenn Thrush
name: Joya
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: poli-sci-major-approved, sub-10k-ratings
review:

]]> <![CDATA[At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House]]> 201896702 A revealing account of National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster’s turbulent and consequential thirteen months in the Trump White House.

At War with Ourselves is the story of helping a disruptive President drive necessary shifts in U.S. foreign policy at a critical moment in history. McMaster entered an administration beset by conflict and the hyper partisanship of American politics. With the candor of a soldier and the perspective of a historian, McMaster rises above the fray to lay bare the good, the bad, and the ugly of Trump’s presidency and give readers insight into what a second Trump term would look like.

While all administrations are subject to backstabbing and infighting, some of Trump’s more unscrupulous political advisors were determined to undermine McMaster and others to advance their narrow agendas. McMaster writes candidly about Cabinet officials who, deeply disturbed by Trump’s language and behavior, prioritized controlling the President over collaborating to provide the President with options.

McMaster offers a frank and fresh assessment of the achievements and failures of his tenure as National Security Advisor and the challenging task of maintaining one’s bearings and focus on the mission in a hectic and malicious environment.

Determined to transcend the war within the administration and focus on national security priorities, McMaster forged coalitions in Washington and internationally to help Trump advance U.S. interests. Trump’s character and personality helped him make tough decisions, but sometimes prevented him from sticking to them. McMaster adroitly assesses the record of Trump’s presidency in comparison to the Obama and Biden administrations.

With the 2024 election on the horizon, At War with Ourselves highlights the crucial importance of competence in foreign policy, and makes plain the need for leaders who possess the character and intellect to guide the United States in a tumultuous world.]]> 576 H.R. McMaster 0063386283 Joya 0 to-read 3.83 2024 At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House
author: H.R. McMaster
name: Joya
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Don't You Forget About Me 34109621
Reeling from the indignity of a double dumping on the same day, Georgina snatches at the next job that she’s offered—barmaid in a newly opened pub, which just so happens to run by the boy she fell in love with at school: Lucas McCarthy. And whereas Georgina (voted Most Likely to Succeed in her school yearbook) has done nothing but dead-end jobs in the last twelve years, Lucas has not only grown into a broodingly handsome man, but also has turned into an actual grown-up along the way, with a business and a dog.

Meeting Lucas again not only throws Georgina’s rackety present into sharp relief, but also brings a dark secret from her past bubbling to the surface. Only she knows the truth about what happened on the last day of school, and why she’s allowed it to chase her all these years…]]> 433 Mhairi McFarlane 0008169322 Joya 0 to-read 3.82 2019 Don't You Forget About Me
author: Mhairi McFarlane
name: Joya
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America]]> 27209433 In her groundbreaking history of the class system in America, extending from colonial times to the present, Nancy Isenberg takes on our comforting myths about equality, uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing––if occasionally entertaining–�"poor white trash."

The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement. They were alternately known as “waste people,� “offals,� “rubbish,� “lazy lubbers,� and “crackers.� By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called “clay eaters� and “sandhillers,� known for prematurely aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds.

Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society––where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery.

Reconstruction pitted "poor white trash" against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics�-a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ’s Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, "white trash" have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity.

We acknowledge racial injustice as an ugly stain on our nation’s history. With Isenberg’s landmark book, we will have to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class as well.]]> 460 Nancy Isenberg 0670785970 Joya 0 to-read 3.75 2016 White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
author: Nancy Isenberg
name: Joya
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Master of the Senate (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #3)]]> 86525
At the heart of the book is its unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works in America, how the Senate works, and how Johnson, in his ascent to the presidency, mastered the Senate as no political leader before him had ever done.
Ěý
It was during these years that all Johnson’s experience—from his Texas Hill Country boyhood to his passionate representation in Congress of his hardscrabble constituents to his tireless construction of a political machine—came to fruition. Caro introduces the story with a dramatic account of the Senate itself: how Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun had made it the center of governmental energy, the forum in which the great issues of the country were thrashed out. And how, by the time Johnson arrived, it had dwindled into a body that merely responded to executive initiatives, all but impervious to the forces of change. Caro anatomizes the genius for political strategy and tactics by which, in an institution that had made the seniority system all-powerful for a century and more, Johnson became Majority Leader after only a single term-the youngest and greatest Senate Leader in our history; how he manipulated the Senate’s hallowed rules and customs and the weaknesses and strengths of his colleagues to change the “unchangeable� Senate from a loose confederation of sovereign senators to a whirring legislative machine under his own iron-fisted control.
Ěý
Caro demonstrates how Johnson’s political genius enabled him to reconcile the unreconcilable: to retain the support of the southerners who controlled the Senate while earning the trust—or at least the cooperation—of the liberals, led by Paul Douglas and Hubert Humphrey, without whom he could not achieve his goal of winning the presidency. He shows the dark side of Johnson’s ambition: how he proved his loyalty to the great oil barons who had financed his rise to power by ruthlessly destroying the career of the New Dealer who was in charge of regulating them, Federal Power Commission Chairman Leland Olds. And we watch him achieve the impossible: convincing southerners that although he was firmly in their camp as the anointed successor to their leader, Richard Russell, it was essential that they allow him to make some progress toward civil rights. In a breathtaking tour de force, Caro details Johnson’s amazing triumph in maneuvering to passage the first civil rights legislation since 1875.
Ěý
Master of the Senate, told with an abundance of rich detail that could only have come from Caro’s peerless research, is both a galvanizing portrait of the man himself—the titan of Capital Hill, volcanic, mesmerizing—and a definitive and revelatory study of the workings and personal and legislative power.]]> 1167 Robert A. Caro 0394720954 Joya 0 to-read 4.40 2002 Master of the Senate (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #3)
author: Robert A. Caro
name: Joya
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency]]> 56893135
In Lucky, #1 New York Times bestselling authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes use their unparalleled access to key players inside the Democratic and Republican campaigns to unfold how Biden’s nail-biting run for the presidency vexed his own party as much as it did Trump. Having premised his path on unlocking the black vote in South Carolina, Biden nearly imploded before he got there after a relentless string of misfires left him free falling in polls and nearly broke.

Allen and Parnes brilliantly detail the remarkable string of chance events that saved him, from the botched Iowa caucus tally that concealed his terrible result, to the pandemic lock-down that kept him off the stump, where he was often at his worst. More powerfully, Lucky unfolds the pitched struggle within Biden’s general election campaign to downplay the very issues that many Democrats believed would drive voters to the polls, especially in the wake of Trump’s response to nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd. Even Biden’s victory did not salve his party’s wounds; instead, it revealed a surprising, complicated portrait of American voters and crushed Democrats� belief in the inevitability of a blue wave.

A thrilling masterpiece of political reporting, Lucky is essential reading for understanding the most important election in American history and the future that will come of it.]]> 17 Jonathan Allen Joya 0 to-read 3.88 2021 Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency
author: Jonathan Allen
name: Joya
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning]]> 23995415 A brilliant, haunting, and profoundly original portrait of the defining tragedy of our time.

In this epic history of extermination and survival, Timothy Snyder presents a new explanation of the great atrocity of the twentieth century, and reveals the risks that we face in the twenty-first. Based on new sources from eastern Europe and forgotten testimonies from Jewish survivors, Black Earth recounts the mass murder of the Jews as an event that is still close to us, more comprehensible than we would like to think, and thus all the more terrifying.

The Holocaust began in a dark but accessible place, in Hitler's mind, with the thought that the elimination of Jews would restore balance to the planet and allow Germans to win the resources they desperately needed.ĚýSuch a worldview could be realized only if Germany destroyed other states, so Hitler's aim was a colonial war in Europe itself. In the zones of statelessness, almost all Jews died.ĚýA few people, the righteous few, aided them, without support from institutions.ĚýMuch of the new research in this book is devoted to understanding these extraordinary individuals.ĚýThe almost insurmountable difficulties they faced only confirm the dangers of state destruction and ecological panic.ĚýThese men and women should be emulated, but in similar circumstances few of us would do so.Ěý

By overlooking the lessons of the Holocaust, Snyder concludes, we have misunderstood modernity and endangered the future.ĚýThe early twenty-first century is coming to resemble the early twentieth, as growing preoccupations with food and water accompany ideological challenges to global order.ĚýOur world is closer to Hitler's than we like to admit, and saving it requires us to see the Holocaust as it was -- and ourselves as we are.Ěý Groundbreaking, authoritative, and utterly absorbing, Black Earth reveals a Holocaust that is not only history but warning.]]> 462 Timothy Snyder 1101903457 Joya 0 we-live-in-a-society
Idk if I remember my assigned readings from this semester well enough to add any of them on here but adding all the books I read on my own for papers - I think this might be the last of them unless I'm forgetting anything from POL1 300]]> 4.28 2015 Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning
author: Timothy Snyder
name: Joya
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/01
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: we-live-in-a-society
review:
And I read this in early May for a final paper as well - didn't end up being very helpful for my topic but was an astonishing read

Idk if I remember my assigned readings from this semester well enough to add any of them on here but adding all the books I read on my own for papers - I think this might be the last of them unless I'm forgetting anything from POL1 300
]]> <![CDATA[The Origins of Totalitarianism]]> 396931 Hannah Arendt's definitive work on totalitarianism and an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history

The Origins of Totalitarianism begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. Arendt explores the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our time—Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia—which she adroitly recognizes were two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. From this vantage point, she discusses the evolution of classes into masses, the role of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world, the use of terror, and the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination.]]> 527 Hannah Arendt Joya 0 4.30 1951 The Origins of Totalitarianism
author: Hannah Arendt
name: Joya
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/01
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: we-live-in-a-society, poli-sci-major-approved
review:
I must have read this at some point in high school but have no memory of it. Reread in late April for one of my final papers - a classic
]]> <![CDATA[Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World]]> 22483 586 Barrington Moore Jr. 0807050733 Joya 0
Correlates political change with economic evolution too much imo like you can have revolution without introducing a new economic system. But would recommend if you're writing anything on the democratic or fascist revolutions if only bc every elderly professor you ever meet will ask you what you think of Barrington Moore]]> 3.99 1966 Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World
author: Barrington Moore Jr.
name: Joya
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1966
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/01
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: school-books-i-liked, we-live-in-a-society, poli-sci-major-approved
review:
Looking thru my Kindle and I forgot to add this but I read this very slowly, half in March and half in May - mostly whenever I had a POL2 306 paper lol

Correlates political change with economic evolution too much imo like you can have revolution without introducing a new economic system. But would recommend if you're writing anything on the democratic or fascist revolutions if only bc every elderly professor you ever meet will ask you what you think of Barrington Moore
]]> Seven Days in June 55648820
When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their past buried traumas, but the eyebrows of New York's Black literati. What no one knows is that twenty years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. They may be pretending that everything is fine now, but they can't deny their chemistry - or the fact that they've been secretly writing to each other in their books ever since.

Over the next seven days in the middle of a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect, but Eva's not sure how she can trust the man who broke her heart, and she needs to get him out of New York so that her life can return to normal. But before Shane disappears again, there are a few questions she needs answered...

With its keen observations of Black life and the condition of modern motherhood, as well as the consequences of motherless-ness, Seven Days in June is by turns humorous, warm and deeply sensual.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781538719107.]]> 336 Tia Williams Joya 0 to-read 3.98 2021 Seven Days in June
author: Tia Williams
name: Joya
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Mariana 5460558 Dusty Answer, I Capture the Castle or The Pursuit of Love, about a girl encountering life and love, which is also funny, readable and perceptive; it is a 'hot-water bottle' novel, one to curl up with on the sofa on a wet Sunday afternoon. But it is more than this. As Harriet Lane remarks in her Preface: 'It is Mariana's artlessness, its enthusiasm, its attention to tiny, telling domestic detail that makes it so appealing to modern readers.' And John Sandoe Books in Sloane Square (an early champion of Persephone Books) commented: 'The contemporary detail is superb - Monica Dickens's descriptions of food and clothes are particularly good - and the characters are observed with vitality and humour. Mariana is written with such verve and exuberance that we would defy any but academics and professional cynics not to enjoy it.']]> 377 Monica Dickens 1906462046 Joya 0 to-read 3.93 1940 Mariana
author: Monica Dickens
name: Joya
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1940
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Offer From a Gentleman (Bridgertons, #3)]]> 9408584
Sophie Beckett never dreamed she'd be able to sneak into Lady Bridgerton's famed masquerade ball—or that "Prince Charming" would be waiting there for her! Though the daughter of an earl, Sophie has been relegated to the role of servant by her disdainful stepmother. But now, spinning in the strong arms of the debonair and devastatingly handsome Benedict Bridgerton, she feels like royalty. Alas, she knows all enchantments must end when the clock strikes midnight.

Who was that extraordinary woman? Ever since that magical night, a radiant vision in silver has blinded Benedict to the attractions of any other—except, perhaps this alluring and oddly familiar beauty dressed in housemaid's garb whom he feels compelled to rescue from a most disagreeable situation. He has sworn to find and wed his mystery miss, but this breathtaking maid makes him weak with wanting her. Yet, if he offers his heart, will Benedict sacrifice his only chance for a fairy tale love?

Alternate cover for ISBN 0380815583 / 9780380815586]]> 390 Julia Quinn Joya 0 3.89 2001 An Offer From a Gentleman (Bridgertons, #3)
author: Julia Quinn
name: Joya
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/30
date added: 2024/05/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Vanity Fair 5797 867 William Makepeace Thackeray 0141439831 Joya 0 to-read 3.80 1847 Vanity Fair
author: William Makepeace Thackeray
name: Joya
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1847
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Real Americans 62929342 Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.

In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than answers.

In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance—a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home.

Exuberant and explosive, Real Americans is a social novel par excellence that asks: Are we destined, or made, and if so, who gets to do the making? Can our genetic past be overcome?

From the award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin: How far would you go to shape your own destiny? An exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family, and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures? ]]> 399 Rachel Khong 0593537254 Joya 0 to-read 3.93 2024 Real Americans
author: Rachel Khong
name: Joya
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Funny Story 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé, Peter, told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it... right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Joya 0 * Having now read all 5 of her 'canon', this is probably the least profound of them all. But it was also extremely well-written and I liked the plot a LOT, maybe even better than I liked the plot of Beach Read and Book Lovers
* I think the set of characters in this was overall the best - Daphne might be my favorite of Emily Henry's FMC, and while I never was going to love Miles as much as Wyn or Gus, I found him MUCH better written than Charlie Strada. Also the secondary characters were def the best-written - I like the mom and the sister and Ashleigh a lot
* Really liked the pacing too, I think that's the biggest improvement from the Beach Read formula
* My biggest complaint is the third-act conflict? Specifically I don't understand [spoilers removed]
Still REALLY liked this, like maybe a top 3 Emily Henry book, and that's an accomplishment bc while Happy Place is my #1, Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation are sooo hard to beat]]> 4.21 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Joya
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/26
date added: 2024/05/26
shelves:
review:
Bro I was not intending on reading another Emily Henry but this was the only book at the Orlando airport that looked remotely enjoyable:
* Having now read all 5 of her 'canon', this is probably the least profound of them all. But it was also extremely well-written and I liked the plot a LOT, maybe even better than I liked the plot of Beach Read and Book Lovers
* I think the set of characters in this was overall the best - Daphne might be my favorite of Emily Henry's FMC, and while I never was going to love Miles as much as Wyn or Gus, I found him MUCH better written than Charlie Strada. Also the secondary characters were def the best-written - I like the mom and the sister and Ashleigh a lot
* Really liked the pacing too, I think that's the biggest improvement from the Beach Read formula
* My biggest complaint is the third-act conflict? Specifically I don't understand [spoilers removed]
Still REALLY liked this, like maybe a top 3 Emily Henry book, and that's an accomplishment bc while Happy Place is my #1, Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation are sooo hard to beat
]]> <![CDATA[JFK: Coming Of Age In The American Century, 1917-1956]]> 49350179 A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian takes us as close as we have ever been to the real John F. Kennedy in the first truly definitive biography of the elusive 35th president.

By the time of his assassination in 1963, John F. Kennedy stood at the helm of the greatest power the world had ever seen, a booming American nation he had steered through some of the most perilous diplomatic standoffs of the Cold War era. Born in 1917 to a striving Irish American family that had ascended the ranks of Boston's labyrinthine political machine, Kennedy was bred for government, and his meteoric rise to become the youngest elected president ever cemented his status as one of the most mythologized political figures in American history. And yet, in the decades since his untimely death, hagiographic portrayals of his dazzling charisma, reports of his extramarital affairs, and disagreements over his political legacy have made our 35th president more mysterious than ever--a problem further exacerbated by the fact that no genuinely comprehensive account of his life has yet been attempted.

Beckoned by this gap in our historical knowledge, Fredrik Logevall has spent seven years searching for the "real" JFK. The result of this prodigious effort is a sweeping two-volume biography that, for the first time, properly contextualizes Kennedy amidst the roiling American Century. Beginning with the three generations of Kennedy men and women who transformed the clan from working-class Irish immigrants to members of Boston's political elite, Volume One spans the first thirty-nine years of JFK's life, from sickly second son to restless Harvard undergraduate and World War II hero, through his ascendance on Capitol Hill and, finally, his decision to run for president.

In chronicling Kennedy's extraordinary life and times, Logevall offers the clearest portrait we have of an iconic, yet still elusive, American president.]]> 792 Fredrik Logevall 0812997131 Joya 0 to-read 4.54 2020 JFK: Coming Of Age In The American Century, 1917-1956
author: Fredrik Logevall
name: Joya
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Anne of the Island (Anne of Green Gables, #3)]]> 123280461 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

New adventures lie ahead as Anne Shirley packs her bags, waves good-bye to childhood, and heads for Redmond College. With her old friend Prissy Grant waiting in the bustling city of Kingsport and her frivolous new friend Philippa Gordon at her side, Anne tucks her memories of rural Avonlea away and discovers life on her own terms, filled with surprises . . . including a marriage proposal from the worst fellow imaginable, the sale of her very first story, and a tragedy that teaches her a painful lesson. But tears turn to laughter when Anne and her friends move into an old cottage and an ornery black cat steals her heart. Little does Anne know that handsome Gilbert Blythe wants to win her heart, too. Suddenly Anne must decide whether she's ready for love.]]> 243 L.M. Montgomery 0553213172 Joya 0 jane-austen-mom 4.39 1915 Anne of the Island (Anne of Green Gables, #3)
author: L.M. Montgomery
name: Joya
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1915
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/22
date added: 2024/05/22
shelves: jane-austen-mom
review:

]]> Book Lovers 58690308 One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming....

Nora Stephens� life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters� trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.]]> 377 Emily Henry 0593334833 Joya 0 * I liked Charlie a lot but I'm not sure I get him as a character? Like I found him charming, but I don't really get his backstory and personality. Maybe I'm just spoiled reading this directly after Happy Place where I felt like Wyn was so fleshed-out. Idk I feel like I don't understand Charlie's motivations or goals or quirks beyond being into Nora.
* Lowk there was no real conflict lmfao. I liked Nora's arc but there were like. No events or drama in this until the last 40 or so pages, and even then I knew how it was going to work out.
* I feel like it could have somehow both been shorter AND longer like there were so few events but sooo many pages.
I LOVED Happy Place and I'm thinking about reading her newest release next so I can round out the collection. I read Beach Read and People We Meet On Vacation in 2021 and am deciding whether or not I should reread them so I can compare all 5 on a level playing field. The problem is I feel like I should reread both or not reread either, and I remember People We Meet On Vacation much less than I remember Beach Read so idk. I love the silly little concerns I get to have when I'm not going back to W*ll*sley C*ll*g* for 15 months <3]]> 4.09 2022 Book Lovers
author: Emily Henry
name: Joya
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/16
date added: 2024/05/16
shelves:
review:
I very rarely read romance and am VERY picky with it, but I have been an Emily Henry fan since ? 2021? (if you could even call her a romance writer). I have June designated to do lots of dense political history readings so trying to cure my college burnout rn with some more light-hearted reads. Emily Henry is incapable of writing a bad book so while there are things I didn't like about this, I did overall enjoy it a lot:
* I liked Charlie a lot but I'm not sure I get him as a character? Like I found him charming, but I don't really get his backstory and personality. Maybe I'm just spoiled reading this directly after Happy Place where I felt like Wyn was so fleshed-out. Idk I feel like I don't understand Charlie's motivations or goals or quirks beyond being into Nora.
* Lowk there was no real conflict lmfao. I liked Nora's arc but there were like. No events or drama in this until the last 40 or so pages, and even then I knew how it was going to work out.
* I feel like it could have somehow both been shorter AND longer like there were so few events but sooo many pages.
I LOVED Happy Place and I'm thinking about reading her newest release next so I can round out the collection. I read Beach Read and People We Meet On Vacation in 2021 and am deciding whether or not I should reread them so I can compare all 5 on a level playing field. The problem is I feel like I should reread both or not reread either, and I remember People We Meet On Vacation much less than I remember Beach Read so idk. I love the silly little concerns I get to have when I'm not going back to W*ll*sley C*ll*g* for 15 months <3
]]> Happy Place 61718053
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends� hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week� in front of those who know you best?

A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.]]> 400 Emily Henry 0593441273 Joya 0 3.95 2023 Happy Place
author: Emily Henry
name: Joya
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/13
date added: 2024/05/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s]]> 196585876 An Unfinished Love A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of America’s most beloved historians, artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history. She takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin embarked upon in the last years of his life.

Dick and Doris Goodwin were married for forty-two years and married to American history even longer. In his twenties, Dick was one of the brilliant young men of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier. In his thirties he both named and helped design Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and was a speechwriter and close advisor to Robert Kennedy. Doris Kearns was a twenty-four-year-old graduate student when selected as a White House Fellow. She worked directly for Lyndon Johnson and later assisted on his memoir.

Over the years, with humor, anger, frustration, and in the end, a growing understanding, Dick and Doris had argued over the achievements and failings of the leaders they served and observed, debating the progress and unfinished promises of the country they both loved.

The Goodwins� last great adventure involved finally opening the more than three hundred boxes of letters, diaries, documents, and memorabilia that Dick had saved for more than fifty years. They soon realized they had before them an unparalleled personal time capsule of the 1960s, illuminating public and private moments of a decade when individuals were powered by the conviction they could make a difference; a time, like today, marked by struggles for racial and economic justice, a time when lines were drawn and loyalties tested.

Their expedition gave Dick’s last years renewed purpose and determination. It gave Doris the opportunity to connect and reconnect with participants and witnesses of pivotal moments of the 1960s. And it gave them both an opportunity to make fresh assessments of the central figures of the time—John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, and especially Lyndon Johnson, who greatly impacted both their lives. The voyage of remembrance brought unexpected discoveries, forgiveness, and the renewal of old dreams, reviving the hope that the youth of today will carry forward this unfinished love story with America.]]> 480 Doris Kearns Goodwin 1982108665 Joya 0 to-read 4.53 2024 An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s
author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
name: Joya
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation]]> 13380846 153 Rachel Cusk 0571277659 Joya 0 to-read 3.71 2012 Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation
author: Rachel Cusk
name: Joya
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Radicalism of the American Revolution]]> 6956 447 Gordon S. Wood 0679736883 Joya 0 to-read 4.07 1992 The Radicalism of the American Revolution
author: Gordon S. Wood
name: Joya
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State]]> 4045 226 Isaac Kramnick 0393328376 Joya 0 to-read 3.89 1996 The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State
author: Isaac Kramnick
name: Joya
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson]]> 22680 440 Joseph J. Ellis 0679764410 Joya 0 to-read 3.94 1997 American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
author: Joseph J. Ellis
name: Joya
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> My Dear Hamilton 41014257 New York Times bestselling authors of America’s First Daughter comes the epic story of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton—a revolutionary woman who, like her new nation, struggled to define herself in the wake of war, betrayal, and tragedy. Haunting, moving, and beautifully written, Dray and Kamoie used thousands of letters and original sources to tell Eliza’s story as it’s never been told before—not just as the wronged wife at the center of a political sex scandal—but also as a founding mother who shaped an American legacy in her own right.

A general’s daughter�

Coming of age on the perilous frontier of revolutionary New York, Elizabeth Schuyler champions the fight for independence. And when she meets Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s penniless but passionate aide-de-camp, she’s captivated by the young officer’s charisma and brilliance. They fall in love, despite Hamilton’s bastard birth and the uncertainties of war.

A founding father’s wife...

But the union they create—in their marriage and the new nation—is far from perfect. From glittering inaugural balls to bloody street riots, the Hamiltons are at the center of it all—including the political treachery of America’s first sex scandal, which forces Eliza to struggle through heartbreak and betrayal to find forgiveness.

The last surviving light of the Revolution�

When a duel destroys Eliza’s hard-won peace, the grieving widow fights her husband’s enemies to preserve Alexander’s legacy. But long-buried secrets threaten everything Eliza believes about her marriage and her own legacy. Questioning her tireless devotion to the man and country that have broken her heart, she’s left with one last battle—to understand the flawed man she married and the imperfect union he could never have created without her…]]> 652 Stephanie Dray Joya 2 people 4.31 2018 My Dear Hamilton
author: Stephanie Dray
name: Joya
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2024/04/16
date added: 2024/04/16
shelves: people
review:
Mid as hell, and Eliza was so annoying
]]> <![CDATA[Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power]]> 41021344 American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power.

Thomas Jefferson hated confrontation, and yet his understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and to marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes, and to prevail. Passionate about many things—women, his family, books, science, architecture, gardens, friends, Monticello, and Paris—Jefferson loved America most, and he strove over and over again, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America. Jon Meacham lets us see Jefferson’s world as Jefferson himself saw it, and to appreciate how Jefferson found the means to endure and win in the face of rife partisan division, economic uncertainty, and external threat. Drawing on archives in the United States, England, and France, as well as unpublished Jefferson presidential papers, Meacham presents Jefferson as the most successful political leader of the early republic, and perhaps in all of American history.

The father of the ideal of individual liberty, of the Louisiana Purchase, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and of the settling of the West, Jefferson recognized that the genius of humanity—and the genius of the new nation—lay in the possibility of progress, of discovering the undiscovered and seeking the unknown. From the writing of the Declaration of Independence to elegant dinners in Paris and in the President’s House; from political maneuverings in the boardinghouses and legislative halls of Philadelphia and New York to the infant capital on the Potomac; from his complicated life at Monticello, his breathtaking house and plantation in Virginia, to the creation of the University of Virginia, Jefferson was central to the age. Here too is the personal Jefferson, a man of appetite, sensuality, and passion.

The Jefferson story resonates today not least because he led his nation through ferocious partisanship and cultural warfare amid economic change and external threats, and also because he embodies an eternal drama, the struggle of the leadership of a nation to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world.

]]> 802 Jon Meacham Joya 0 to-read 4.13 2012 Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
author: Jon Meacham
name: Joya
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Strength And Honor: The Life Of Dolley Madison]]> 1696994 444 Richard N. Côté 1929175094 Joya 0 to-read 3.86 2004 Strength And Honor: The Life Of Dolley Madison
author: Richard N. Côté
name: Joya
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation]]> 178637 "Delightful and discerning . . . In this evocative study a remarkable woman, creator of the â€first lady' role, comes vividly to life."â€�The New York Times

When the roar of the Revolution had finally died down, a new generation of politicians was summoned to the Potomac to assemble the nation's capital. Into that unsteady atmosphere—which would soon enough erupt into another conflict with Britain—Dolley Madison arrived, alongside her husband, James. Within a few years, she had mastered both the social and political intricacies of the city, and by her death in 1849 was the most celebrated person in Washington. And yet, to most Americans, she's best known for saving a portrait from the burning White House.

Why did her contemporaries so admire a lady so little known today? In A Perfect Union, acclaimed historian Catherine Allgor reveals how Dolley manipulated the contstraints of her gender to construct an American democratic ruling style and to achieve her husband's political goals. By emphasizing cooperation over coercion—building bridges instead of bunkers—she left us with not only an important story about our past but a model for a modern form of politics.]]> 512 Catherine Allgor 0805083006 Joya 0 to-read 3.70 2006 A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation
author: Catherine Allgor
name: Joya
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> RFK: His Words for Our Times 36039845
Twenty-five years after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, RFK: His Words for Our Times, a celebration of Kennedy’s life and legacy, was published to enormous acclaim. Now, a quarter century later, this classic volume has been thoroughly edited and updated. Through his own words we get a direct and intimate perspective on Kennedy’s views on civil rights, social justice, the war in Vietnam, foreign policy, the desirability of peace, the need to eliminate poverty and the role of hope in American politics.

Here, too, is evidence of the impact of those he knew and worked with, including his brother John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Cesar Chavez, among others. The tightly curated collection also includes commentary about RFK’s legacy from major historians and public figures, among them Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Eric Garcetti, William Manchester, Anna Quindlen, Elie Wiesel, and Desmond Tutu. Assembled with the full cooperation of the Kennedy family, RFK: His Words for Our Times is a potent reminder of Robert Kennedy’s ability to imagine a greater America—a faith and vision we could use today.]]> 480 Edwin O. Guthman 006283410X Joya 0 Read this in ? 2018 ? Maybe ? 4.52 RFK: His Words for Our Times
author: Edwin O. Guthman
name: Joya
average rating: 4.52
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves:
review:
Read this in ? 2018 ? Maybe ?
]]> <![CDATA[The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family]]> 3364462
In the mid-1700s the English captain of a trading ship that made runs between England and the Virginia colony fathered a child by an enslaved woman living near Williamsburg. The woman, whose name is unknown and who is believed to have been born in Africa, was owned by the Eppeses, a prominent Virginia family. The captain, whose surname was Hemings, and the woman had a daughter. They named her Elizabeth.

So begins The Hemingses of Monticello, Annette Gordon-Reed’s “riveting history� of the Hemings family, whose story comes to vivid life in this brilliantly researched and deeply moving work. Gordon-Reed, author of the highly acclaimed historiography Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, unearths startling new information about the Hemingses, Jefferson, and his white family. Although the book presents the most detailed and richly drawn portrait ever written of Sarah Hemings, better known by her nickname Sally, who bore seven children by Jefferson over the course of their thirty-eight-year liaison, The Hemingses of Monticello tells more than the story of her life with Jefferson and their children. The Hemingses as a whole take their rightful place in the narrative of the family’s extraordinary engagement with one of history’s most important figures.

Not only do we meet Elizabeth Hemings—the family matriarch and mother to twelve children, six by John Wayles, a poor English immigrant who rose to great wealth in the Virginia colony—but we follow the Hemings family as they become the property of Jefferson through his marriage to Martha Wayles. The Hemings-Wayles children, siblings to Martha, played pivotal roles in the life at Jefferson’s estate.

We follow the Hemingses to Paris, where James Hemings trained as a chef in one of the most prestigious kitchens in France and where Sally arrived as a fourteen-year-old chaperone for Jefferson’s daughter Polly; to Philadelphia, where James Hemings acted as the major domo to the newly appointed secretary of state; to Charlottesville, where Mary Hemings lived with her partner, a prosperous white merchant who left her and their children a home and property; to Richmond, where Robert Hemings engineered a plan for his freedom; and finally to Monticello, that iconic home on the mountain, from where most of Jefferson’s slaves, many of them Hemings family members, were sold at auction six months after his death in 1826.

As The Hemingses of Monticello makes vividly clear, Monticello can no longer be known only as the home of a remarkable American leader, the author of the Declaration of Independence; nor can the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president have been expunged from history until very recently, be left out of the telling of America’s story. With its empathetic and insightful consideration of human beings acting in almost unimaginably difficult and complicated family circumstances, The Hemingses of Monticello is history as great literature. It is a remarkable achievement.]]> 798 Annette Gordon-Reed 0393064778 Joya 0 to-read 4.01 2008 The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
author: Annette Gordon-Reed
name: Joya
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:
I want to read this so bad I'm practically salivating but I think I might go insane if I start an 800 page nonfiction book before I finish my finals
]]> Rouge 157184735 From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother’s unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty. Can she escape her mother’s fate—and find a connection that is more than skin deep?

For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.

Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.]]> 383 Mona Awad Joya 5 Fucking fantastic 3.54 2023 Rouge
author: Mona Awad
name: Joya
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/30
date added: 2024/04/09
shelves: 21st-century, white-woman-lit-fic, best-reads-2023
review:
Fucking fantastic
]]> <![CDATA[When He Was Wicked (Bridgertons, #6)]]> 110396 Everything was so much simpler... when he was wicked.

In every life there is a turning point. A moment so tremendous, so sharp and breathtaking, that one knows one's life will never be the same. For Michael Stirling, London's most infamous rake, that moment came the first time he laid eyes on Francesca Bridgerton.

After a lifetime of chasing women, of smiling slyly as they chased him, of allowing himself to be caught but never permitting his heart to become engaged, he took one look at Francesca Bridgerton and fell so fast and hard into love it was a wonder he managed to remain standing. Unfortunately for Michael, however, Francesca's surname was to remain Bridgerton for only a mere thirty-six hours longer—the occasion of their meeting was, lamentably, a supper celebrating her imminent wedding to his cousin.

But that was then... Now Michael is the earl and Francesca is free, but still she thinks of him as nothing other than her dear friend and confidant. Michael dares not speak to her of his love... until one dangerous night, when she steps innocently into his arms, and passion proves stronger than even the most wicked of secrets...]]> 368 Julia Quinn 0060531231 Joya 0
She came into town this weekend and we talked about the series and why I didn't like the books and she made me read this one

Enjoyed it much better than the other two I read but that's as much as I can say as someone who never finished the show]]> 3.96 2004 When He Was Wicked (Bridgertons, #6)
author: Julia Quinn
name: Joya
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/06
date added: 2024/04/07
shelves:
review:
Mom is a huge Bridgerton fan and tried to get me into it in ? 2021? Maybe ? Anyways I hated the first two and swore to never try it again

She came into town this weekend and we talked about the series and why I didn't like the books and she made me read this one

Enjoyed it much better than the other two I read but that's as much as I can say as someone who never finished the show
]]> You Deserve Each Other 50027029 When your nemesis also happens to be your fiancé, happily ever after becomes a lot more complicated in this wickedly funny, lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy debut.

Naomi Westfield has the perfect fiancé: Nicholas Rose holds doors open for her, remembers her restaurant orders, and comes from the kind of upstanding society family any bride would love to be a part of. They never fight. They're preparing for their lavish wedding that's three months away. And she is miserably and utterly sick of him.

Naomi wants out, but there's a catch: whoever ends the engagement will have to foot the nonrefundable wedding bill. When Naomi discovers that Nicholas, too, has been feigning contentment, the two of them go head-to-head in a battle of pranks, sabotage, and all-out emotional warfare.

But with the countdown looming to the wedding that may or may not come to pass, Naomi finds her resolve slipping. Because now that they have nothing to lose, they're finally being themselves--and having fun with the last person they expect: each other.]]> 368 Sarah Hogle Joya 0
Title sounded familiar, and apparently, I have read this before, as I already own it on Kindle. Lo and behold upon a command-F of the Google Document I used to keep track of my books in my sophomore year of high school, there it was (I also apparently gave it a one star)

I have NO recollection of this whatsoever and usually I have a very good memory for books even if I read them years ago. So 'reread' today

Reread in air quotes because tbh I think I skipped vast sections of it when I read it way back - I have NO MEMORY OF ANY OF THIS

But maybe my brain has developed since I read this because I enjoyed this far more as a 20 year old than a 15? 16? year old. I laughed, I probably would have cried if I was not hopped up on SSRIs. I audibly 'aw'-ed through my mouthful of sweetgreen and my roommate likely thinks I'm insane

It's really going to suck when I have to read Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy right after this (Barrington Moore Jr. hml)]]> 3.90 2020 You Deserve Each Other
author: Sarah Hogle
name: Joya
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/07
date added: 2024/04/07
shelves:
review:
On the topic of romance novels Mom asked if I had read this one

Title sounded familiar, and apparently, I have read this before, as I already own it on Kindle. Lo and behold upon a command-F of the Google Document I used to keep track of my books in my sophomore year of high school, there it was (I also apparently gave it a one star)

I have NO recollection of this whatsoever and usually I have a very good memory for books even if I read them years ago. So 'reread' today

Reread in air quotes because tbh I think I skipped vast sections of it when I read it way back - I have NO MEMORY OF ANY OF THIS

But maybe my brain has developed since I read this because I enjoyed this far more as a 20 year old than a 15? 16? year old. I laughed, I probably would have cried if I was not hopped up on SSRIs. I audibly 'aw'-ed through my mouthful of sweetgreen and my roommate likely thinks I'm insane

It's really going to suck when I have to read Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy right after this (Barrington Moore Jr. hml)
]]> <![CDATA[Franklin D.Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln: Competing Perspectives on Two Great Presidencies (M. E. Sharp Library of Franklin D. Roosevelt Studies)]]> 1775337 320 William D. Pederson 0765610345 Joya 0 to-read 4.33 2002 Franklin D.Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln: Competing Perspectives on Two Great Presidencies (M. E. Sharp Library of Franklin D. Roosevelt Studies)
author: William D. Pederson
name: Joya
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy]]> 482198 Ted Bundy 183 Elizabeth Kendall 0914842706 Joya 4 short, people 4.15 1981 The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy
author: Elizabeth Kendall
name: Joya
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/26
date added: 2024/03/26
shelves: short, people
review:

]]> America's First Daughter 25817162
From her earliest days, Patsy Jefferson knows that though her father loves his family dearly, his devotion to his country runs deeper still. As Thomas Jefferson’s oldest daughter, she becomes his helpmate, protector, and constant companion in the wake of her mother’s death, traveling with him when he becomes American minister to France.

It is in Paris, at the glittering court and among the first tumultuous days of revolution, that fifteen-year-old Patsy learns about her father’s troubling liaison with Sally Hemings, a slave girl her own age. Meanwhile, Patsy has fallen in love—with her father’s protégé William Short, a staunch abolitionist and ambitious diplomat. Torn between love, principles, and the bonds of family, Patsy questions whether she can choose a life as William’s wife and still be a devoted daughter.

Her choice will follow her in the years to come, to Virginia farmland, Monticello, and even the White House. And as scandal, tragedy, and poverty threaten her family, Patsy must decide how much she will sacrifice to protect her father's reputation, in the process defining not just his political legacy, but that of the nation he founded.]]> 606 Stephanie Dray Joya 0 4.17 2016 America's First Daughter
author: Stephanie Dray
name: Joya
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/22
date added: 2024/03/22
shelves:
review:
Rereading my favorite childhood books while home pt. 2
]]> <![CDATA[Memories of the Ford Administration]]> 677946 384 John Updike 0140178589 Joya 0 to-read 3.29 1992 Memories of the Ford Administration
author: John Updike
name: Joya
average rating: 3.29
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point]]> 122769171
America is undergoing a massive experiment: It is moving, in fits and starts, toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the prospect of change has sparked an authoritarian backlash that threatens the very foundations of our political system. Why is this happening here, and not in other diversifying nations? And what can we do to save our democracy?

With the clarity and brilliance that made their first book, How Democracies Die, a global bestseller, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt offer a coherent framework for understanding these volatile times. They draw on a wealth of examples—from 1930s France to present-day Thailand—to explain why and how political parties turn against democracy: When political leaders realize they can no longer win at the ballot box, they begin to attack the system from within, condoning violent extremists and using the law as a weapon. Unfortunately, our Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable. It is a pernicious enabler of minority rule, allowing partisan minorities to consistently thwart and even rule over popular majorities. Most modern democracies—from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand—have eliminated outdated institutions like elite upper chambers, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges. The United States lags dangerously behind.

In this revelatory book, Levitsky and Ziblatt issue an urgent call to perfect our national experiment. It’s a daunting task, but we have remade our country before—most notably, after the Civil War and during the Progressive Era. And now we are at a crossroads: America will either become a multiracial democracy or it will cease to be a democracy at all.]]> 368 Steven Levitsky 0593443071 Joya 4
Was fully prepared to give this five stars - I picked it up at an airport and liked it so much I incorporated it into my POL2 306 paper. The first half or so was thorough political sociology examining the framework of multiracial democracy. Nice.

But the last fifth became an orgy of European cocksucking. To cite late 1930s Europe as an example of how to avoid fascism is CRAZY. Discussing why the U.S. lags behind Europe in democratic reforms without mentioning race once and also forgetting about all of the happenings of the twentieth century i.e. fucking Hitler and then all of the Cold War like be sooooo fr.

At some point the linkage between race and minority rule disappears to discuss... constitutional protectionism? I don't think that our problem in the United States is that we have too much respect for our democratic institutions.

Nearly every reform proposed in chapter 8 is impossible, and half of them are stupid as is but whatever.

How are you going to be a political scientist and think that federalism is inherently countermajoritarian??? Congrats on your thirteenth birthday I guess I hope someone gifted you a dictionary

If this even counts as a silver lining the book reminded me - as if I haven't been grinding my teeth all week - how fucking brain-dead the students at Wellesley College have to be to threaten to not vote after the founding members of our college gave their lives to make it possible for us:

"Hundreds of women gave the accumulated possibilities of an entire lifetime, thousands gave years of their lives, hundreds of thousands gave constant interest and such aid as they could. It was a continuous, seeming endless, chain of activity. Young suffragists who helped forge the last link of that chain were not born when it began. Old suffragists who forged the first links were dead when it ended."


Also I thought this book was gassing up the city of B*st*n too much so I checked the cover to see where the authors worked and barf!]]> 4.37 2023 Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point
author: Steven Levitsky
name: Joya
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/14
date added: 2024/03/19
shelves: poli-sci-major-approved, we-live-in-a-society, sub-10k-ratings
review:
3.75 stars.

Was fully prepared to give this five stars - I picked it up at an airport and liked it so much I incorporated it into my POL2 306 paper. The first half or so was thorough political sociology examining the framework of multiracial democracy. Nice.

But the last fifth became an orgy of European cocksucking. To cite late 1930s Europe as an example of how to avoid fascism is CRAZY. Discussing why the U.S. lags behind Europe in democratic reforms without mentioning race once and also forgetting about all of the happenings of the twentieth century i.e. fucking Hitler and then all of the Cold War like be sooooo fr.

At some point the linkage between race and minority rule disappears to discuss... constitutional protectionism? I don't think that our problem in the United States is that we have too much respect for our democratic institutions.

Nearly every reform proposed in chapter 8 is impossible, and half of them are stupid as is but whatever.

How are you going to be a political scientist and think that federalism is inherently countermajoritarian??? Congrats on your thirteenth birthday I guess I hope someone gifted you a dictionary

If this even counts as a silver lining the book reminded me - as if I haven't been grinding my teeth all week - how fucking brain-dead the students at Wellesley College have to be to threaten to not vote after the founding members of our college gave their lives to make it possible for us:

"Hundreds of women gave the accumulated possibilities of an entire lifetime, thousands gave years of their lives, hundreds of thousands gave constant interest and such aid as they could. It was a continuous, seeming endless, chain of activity. Young suffragists who helped forge the last link of that chain were not born when it began. Old suffragists who forged the first links were dead when it ended."


Also I thought this book was gassing up the city of B*st*n too much so I checked the cover to see where the authors worked and barf!
]]> <![CDATA[The End of the Line: Romney vs. Obama: The 34 Days That Decided the Election]]> 16704783 The fourth and final eBook in POLITICO’s Playbook 2012 series once again provides an unprecedented minute-by-minute account of the race for the presidency. The End of the Line follows President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney as their campaign teams go all-in to win in the critical final weeks of the 2012 election.

From Mitt Romney’s �47 percent� video to Clint Eastwood’s speech to an empty chair, the 2012 presidential campaign did not lack for memorable moments. In The End of the Line, POLITICO senior White House reporter Glenn Thrush and senior political reporter Jonathan Martin chronicle every hairpin turn in a race that defied the predictions of pundits and prognosticators.

While some political observers considered Barack Obama’s reelection far from a sure thing, the president and his team remained resolute in their belief that they would prevail. In Boston, Mitt Romney’s advisers were just as confident that their man was headed for a smashing victory. In the end, only one of those views would be validated by events. The outcome of this election was never foreordained, however, and would ultimately be determined by two candidates, three debates, and a thousand small but critical strategic decisions.

With an eye toward writing a “first draft of history,� Thrush and Martin report on the intense internal debates over ad strategy that defined the parameters of the fall campaign—including a crucial late-May decision by the Obama campaign that may have tipped the scales in the president’s favor. They provide a behind-the-scenes look at the candidates� debate preparation sessions, and they reveal why Romney’s campaign was so confident they were going to win.

The action climaxes on election night, as the opposing camps huddle nervously in their hotel suites to await the verdict of the voters. The End of the Line reveals for the first time what the Obama brain trust really thought about the agonizingly long wait for Romney’s official concession—and what happened after Obama put the telephone to his ear and heard the words “Hello, Mr. President, it’s Mitt Romney.�

No one could have predicted all the twists and turns of the 2012 election—and no one was better equipped to chronicle them than the POLITICO team. The End of the Line is frontline campaign reporting at its finest, meticulously reported and compulsively readable.]]> 78 Glenn Thrush 0679645101 Joya 5
Two forces of nature, Hurricanes Isaac and Stuart, shredded that script.


Literally my favorite comedy.

Stevens and Romney were also the prime movers behind the biggest unnatural disaster in Tampa, the decision to give Clint Eastwood a prime-time slot on the third and final night of the convention, according to people close to the campaign.


Actual comedians.

“We sent him a script and some talking points, and basically what we wanted him to perform was his â€Halftime in Americaâ€� spiel...That’s what we expected him to do. And he showed up without any notes, nothing for the teleprompter, and he asked for a chair, and he was given a chair.â€�


Straight out of Veep.

The campaign had to be careful about putting [Romney] in regular-guy situations—the staple “off the record� visits at diners and hardware stores—because of his tendency to say weird, off-putting things.


He's truly just so unique.

“He should have said there was the Bush way and the Obama way, and neither of them worked—here’s the Romney wayĚý…ĚýIt would have required him to totally change his philosophy—but, hey, that never stopped Mitt Romney.â€�


Like genuinely obsessed.

Romney’s pollster, was confident his GOP-friendly model of the 2012 electorate—falling somewhere between Bush’s 2004 reelection and the 2010 midterms—was the accurate one.


Me when I arrive at the being delusional contest and my opponent is Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign

Certified hood classic 11/10]]> 3.72 2012 The End of the Line: Romney vs. Obama: The 34 Days That Decided the Election
author: Glenn Thrush
name: Joya
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/14
date added: 2024/03/19
shelves: poli-sci-major-approved, we-live-in-a-society, sub-10k-ratings
review:
I LOVED this book when I was like eleven, reread today on my flight.

Two forces of nature, Hurricanes Isaac and Stuart, shredded that script.


Literally my favorite comedy.

Stevens and Romney were also the prime movers behind the biggest unnatural disaster in Tampa, the decision to give Clint Eastwood a prime-time slot on the third and final night of the convention, according to people close to the campaign.


Actual comedians.

“We sent him a script and some talking points, and basically what we wanted him to perform was his â€Halftime in Americaâ€� spiel...That’s what we expected him to do. And he showed up without any notes, nothing for the teleprompter, and he asked for a chair, and he was given a chair.â€�


Straight out of Veep.

The campaign had to be careful about putting [Romney] in regular-guy situations—the staple “off the record� visits at diners and hardware stores—because of his tendency to say weird, off-putting things.


He's truly just so unique.

“He should have said there was the Bush way and the Obama way, and neither of them worked—here’s the Romney wayĚý…ĚýIt would have required him to totally change his philosophy—but, hey, that never stopped Mitt Romney.â€�


Like genuinely obsessed.

Romney’s pollster, was confident his GOP-friendly model of the 2012 electorate—falling somewhere between Bush’s 2004 reelection and the 2010 midterms—was the accurate one.


Me when I arrive at the being delusional contest and my opponent is Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign

Certified hood classic 11/10
]]> <![CDATA[Our Gang: Starring Trick and His Friends]]> 29755 208 Philip Roth 0099389118 Joya 5 4.5 stars. 3.16 1971 Our Gang: Starring Trick and His Friends
author: Philip Roth
name: Joya
average rating: 3.16
book published: 1971
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/19
date added: 2024/03/19
shelves: short, poli-sci-major-approved, sub-10k-ratings
review:
4.5 stars.
]]> <![CDATA[Ike and Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage]]> 14335456
D wight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon had a political and private relationship that lasted nearly twenty years, a tie that survived hurtful slights, tense misunderstandings, and the distance between them in age and temperament. Yet the two men brought out the best and worst in each other, and their association had important consequences for their respective presidencies.

In Ike and Dick, Jeffrey Frank rediscovers these two compelling figures with the sensitivity of a novelist and the discipline of a historian. He offers a fresh view of the younger Nixon as a striving tactician, as well as the ever more perplexing person that he became. He portrays Eisenhower, the legendary soldier, as a cold, even vain man with a warm smile whose sound instincts about war and peace far outpaced his understanding of the changes occurring in his own country.

Eisenhower and Nixon shared striking high intelligence, cunning, and an aversion to confrontation, especially with each other. Ike and Dick, informed by dozens of interviews and deep archival research, traces the path of their relationship in a dangerous world of recurring crises as Nixon’s ambitions grew and Eisenhower was struck by a series of debilitating illnesses. And, as the 1968 election cycle approached and the war in Vietnam roiled the country, it shows why Eisenhower, mortally ill and despite his doubts, supported Nixon’s final attempt to win the White House, a change influenced by a family his grandson David’s courtship of Nixon’s daughter Julie—teenagers in love who understood the political stakes of their union.]]> 448 Jeffrey Frank 1416587012 Joya 0 to-read 3.88 2013 Ike and Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage
author: Jeffrey Frank
name: Joya
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> NEMESIS 64712
Shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis and Bobby Kennedy, two of the world′s richest and most powerful men, disliked one another from the moment they first met. Over several decades, their intense mutual hatred only grew, as did their desire to compete for the affections of Jackie, the keeper of the Camelot flame.

Now, this shocking work by seasoned investigative journalist Peter Evans reveals the culmination of the Kennedy-Onassis-Kennedy love triangle: Onassis was at the heart of the plot to kill Bobby Kennedy. Nemesis meticulously traces Onassis′s trail - his connections, the way that he financed the assassination - and includes a confession kept secret for three decades. With its deeply nuanced portraits of the major figures and events that shaped an era, Nemesis is a work that will not soon be forgotten.]]> 370 Peter Evans 0060580542 Joya 0 to-read 3.83 2004 NEMESIS
author: Peter Evans
name: Joya
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Plot Against America 703
For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh's election is the first in a series of ruptures that threatens to destroy his small, safe corner of America - and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother.]]> 391 Philip Roth 1400079497 Joya 0 to-read 3.79 2004 The Plot Against America
author: Philip Roth
name: Joya
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Year of Rest and Relaxation]]> 44279110
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.]]> 289 Ottessa Moshfegh 0525522131 Joya 5 3.62 2018 My Year of Rest and Relaxation
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Joya
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/25
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: 21st-century, god-tier, white-woman-lit-fic
review:
This book was one of the strangest reading experiences of my life.
]]> <![CDATA[I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman]]> 8765
The woman who brought us "When Harry Met Sally"..., "Sleepless in Seattle", "You've Got Mail", and "Bewitched," and the author of best sellers "Heartburn," "Scribble Scribble," and "Crazy Salad," discusses everything -from how much she hates her purse to how much time she spends attempting to stop the clock: the hair dye, the treadmill, the lotions and creams that promise to slow the aging process but never do. Oh, and she can't stand the way her neck looks. But her dermatologist tells her there's no quick fix for that.

Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, passionate city dweller, and hapless parent. She recounts her anything-but-glamorous days as a White House intern during the JFK years ("I am probably the only young woman who ever worked in the Kennedy White House that the President did not make a pass at") and shares how she fell in and out of love with Bill Clinton - from a distance, of course. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about life as a woman of a certain age.

Utterly courageous, wickedly funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth telling, "I Feel Bad About My Neck" is a book of wisdom, advice, and laugh-out-loud moments, a scrumptious, irresistible treat.]]> 139 Nora Ephron 0307264556 Joya 5 people, goat-authors Fav Wellesley alum 3.72 2006 I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
author: Nora Ephron
name: Joya
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2021/10/27
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: people, goat-authors
review:
Fav Wellesley alum
]]> <![CDATA[Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)]]> 34840076 439 Daniel Ziblatt 1108300839 Joya 0 to-read 3.97 2017 Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)
author: Daniel Ziblatt
name: Joya
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and the Romance of the Century]]> 58340956
A New York Times Bestseller

"A "well rounded and entertaining" ( New York Times ) Hollywood biography about the passionate, turbulent marriage of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.

In 1934, a friend brought fledgling actress Vivien Leigh to see Theatre Royal , where she would first lay eyes on Laurence Olivier in his brilliant performance as Anthony Cavendish. That night, she confided to a friend, he was the man she was going to marry. There was just one problem: she was already married—and so was he.

TRULY, MADLY is the biography of a marriage, a love affair that still captivates millions, even decades after both actors' deaths. Vivien and Larry were two of the first truly global celebrities � their fame fueled by the explosive growth of tabloids and television, which helped and hurt them in equal measure. They seemed to have it all and yet, in their own minds, they were doomed, blighted by her long-undiagnosed mental-illness, which transformed their relationship from the stuff of dreams into a living nightmare.

Through new research, including exclusive access to previously unpublished correspondence and interviews with their friends and family, author Stephen Galloway takes readers on a bewitching journey. He brilliantly studies their tempestuous liaison, one that took place against the backdrop of two world wars, the Golden Age of Hollywood and the upheavals of the 1960s � as they struggled with love, loss and the ultimate agony of their parting.


Ěý]]> 416 Stephen Galloway 1538731975 Joya 0 to-read 3.59 2022 Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and the Romance of the Century
author: Stephen Galloway
name: Joya
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past]]> 60383035 New York Times Ěýbestseller, America’s top historians set the record straight on the most pernicious myths about our nation’s past.
Ěý
The United States is in the grip of a crisis of bad history. Distortions of the past promoted in the conservative media have led large numbers of Americans to believe in fictions over facts, making constructive dialogue impossible and imperiling our democracy.ĚýĚý
Ěý
In Myth America, Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer have assembled an all-star team of fellow historians to push back against this misinformation. The contributors debunk narratives that portray the New Deal and Great Society as failures, immigrants as hostile invaders, and feminists as anti-family warriors—among numerous other partisan lies. Based on a firm foundation of historical scholarship, their findings revitalize our understanding of American history.Ěý
Ěý
Replacing myths with research and reality, Myth America is essential reading amid today’s heated debates about our nation’s past.Ěý

With Essays By

Akhil Reed Amar â€� Kathleen Belew â€� Carol Anderson â€� Kevin Kruse â€� Erika Lee â€� Daniel Immerwahr â€� Elizabeth Hinton â€� Naomi Oreskes â€� Erik M. Conway â€� Ari Kelman â€� Geraldo Cadava â€� David A. Bell â€� Joshua Zeitz â€� Sarah Churchwell â€� Michael Kazin â€� Karen L. Cox â€� Eric Rauchway â€� Glenda Gilmore â€� Natalia Mehlman Petrzela â€� Lawrence B. Glickman •ĚýJulian E. Zelizer]]> 400 Kevin M. Kruse 1541601394 Joya 0 to-read 3.84 2022 Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past
author: Kevin M. Kruse
name: Joya
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden]]> 71872839 The first definitive exploration of theĚýchangingĚýrole of the twenty-first-century First Lady, painting a comprehensive portrait of Jill Biden —from a White House correspondent for The New York Times

SinceĚýthe Clinton era, shifts in media, politics, and pop culture have all redefined expectations of First Ladies, even as the boundaries set upon them have often remained anachronistic. With sharp insights and dozens of firsthand interviews with major players in the Biden, Obama, Trump, Bush, and Clinton orbits, including Jill Biden and Hillary Clinton, New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers traces the evolution of the role of the twenty-first-century First Lady from a ceremonial figurehead to a powerful political operator, which culminates in the tenure of First Lady Jill Biden.
Ěý
Dr. Jill Biden began her journey toward public life in 1975 as a twenty-three-year-old who caught the eye of a widowed Senator Joe Biden. Recovering from the heartbreak of her failed first marriage, she found a man who was still grieving. She knitted his life together after unspeakable tragedy and stood by his side through three presidential campaigns.
Ěý
In some ways, her legacy as First Lady was set before she ever entered the White She is the first presidential spouse in history to work in a paid role outside the White House, a decision that blazes the path for future first spouses. But as a prime guardian of one of the most insular operations in modern politics, she is also a central part of her husband’s presidential legacy.
Ěý
Through deep reporting and newly discovered correspondence, American Woman is the first book to paint aĚýfullĚýpicture of Jill Biden while exploring how she helps answer the evolving question of what the role of the modern First Lady should be.]]> 304 Katie Rogers 0593240561 Joya 0 to-read 3.51 2024 American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden
author: Katie Rogers
name: Joya
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[More: A Memoir of Open Marriage]]> 70251573
"An intimate portrait of a woman on an earnest search to reclaim her passion and her body from the quotidian obligations of her various roles."—Christie Tate, bestselling author of Group and BFF

Molly Roden Winter was a mom of two young children in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with a husband, Stewart, who often worked late. One night when Stewart missed the kids' bedtime, again , she stormed out of the house to clear her head. At impromptu drinks with a friend, she met Matt, an unbelievably hot younger man. When Molly told her husband that Matt had asked her out, she was surprised that he encouraged her to accept.

So begins Molly's unexpected open marriage, and with it a life-changing journey of self-discovery. Molly and Stewart, who also begins to see other people, set ground rules to Don’t date an ex. Don’t date someone you work with. Don't go to anyone's house. And above all, don't fall in love. Spoiler They end up breaking most of their rules, even the most important one.

Molly follows her sexual desire onto dating sites and to public places around New York City. In therapy sessions, fueled by the discovery that her parents had an open marriage, too, she grapples with her past and what it means to be both a mother and her truest self. Molly Roden Winter narrates her journey with warmth and style in this magnetic, intensely personal debut memoir.]]> 304 Molly Roden Winter 0385549458 Joya 0 to-read 3.41 2024 More: A Memoir of Open Marriage
author: Molly Roden Winter
name: Joya
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder]]> 199344846
On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black—black clothes, black mask—rushed down the aisle toward him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are.

What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey toward physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide.

Knife is Rushdie at the peak of his powers, writing with urgency, with gravity, with unflinching honesty. It is also a deeply moving reminder of literature’s capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.]]> 209 Salman Rushdie 0593730240 Joya 0 to-read 3.99 2024 Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
author: Salman Rushdie
name: Joya
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Chalice of the Gods (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Senior Year Adventures, #1)]]> 63035432
Unfortunately, the gods aren’t quite done with him yet. Poseidon breaks the bad news that if Percy expects to get into New Rome University, he will have to fulfill three quests in order to earn the necessary three letters of recommendation from Mount Olympus.

The first task is to help Ganymede, Zeus’s cupbearer, retrieve his golden goblet before it falls into the wrong hands. You see, one sip from it can turn a mortal into a god, and Zeus would not be pleased with that result. Can Percy and his friends Grover and Annabeth find the precious cup in time? And if they do, will they be able to resist its special power?

Readers new to Percy Jackson universe and fans who have been awaiting this reunion for more than a decade will delight equally in this latest hilarious take on Greek mythology by the "storyteller of the gods."]]> 288 Rick Riordan 1368098177 Joya 4 4.27 2023 The Chalice of the Gods (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Senior Year Adventures, #1)
author: Rick Riordan
name: Joya
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/18
date added: 2024/01/18
shelves:
review:
I should have a shelf for 'my little sister made me read it.'
]]> <![CDATA[Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story]]> 5730760 226 C. David Heymann 1416556249 Joya 5 January 2023 ). This shit is crazy. Reads like a Daily Mail article, and is probably as well-sourced as one too. Five stars.]]> 3.48 2009 Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story
author: C. David Heymann
name: Joya
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/16
date added: 2024/01/17
shelves: poli-sci-major-approved, people, short, sub-10k-ratings
review:
I think I might have read this first in 2020 but found it the other day when Dad and I were cleaning the back parlor and gave it a go, as January is evidently the month where I'm in the mood for Kennedy biographies (see: January 2023 ). This shit is crazy. Reads like a Daily Mail article, and is probably as well-sourced as one too. Five stars.
]]> <![CDATA[JFK Jr., George, & Me: A Memoir]]> 20059387 George magazine was about “not just politics as usual,� a day at the office with John F. Kennedy Jr. was not just business as usual. John handpicked Creative Director Matt Berman to bring his vision for a new political magazine to life. Through marathon nights leading up to George's launch; extraordinary meetings with celebrities including Barbra Streisand, Robert De Niro, and Demi Moore; and jokes at each other’s expense, Matt developed a wonderfully collaborative and fun-loving relationship with America’s favorite son.

They were an unlikely team: the poised, charismatic scion of a beloved political family and the shy, self-deprecating, artistic kid. Yet they became close friends and confidants. In this warm, funny, and intimate book, Matt remembers his brilliant friend and colleague—John’s approach to work, life, and fame, and most of all, his ease and grace, which charmed those around him.

More than any book before it, JFK Jr., George, & Me reveals the friendly, witty, down-to-earth guy the paparazzi could never capture. Matt opens the doors of John’s messy office to share previously untold stories, personal notes, and never-before-seen photos from the trenches of a startup magazine that was the brainchild of a superstar. John helped Matt navigate a world filled with celebrities, artists, beauty, style, competition, and stunningly tender egos. In turn, Matt shares the invaluable lessons about business and life that he learned from John. What emerges is a portrait of JFK Jr. as a true friend and mentor.]]> 240 Matt Berman Joya 0 to-read 3.82 2014 JFK Jr., George, & Me: A Memoir
author: Matt Berman
name: Joya
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy]]> 199798216
A quarter of a century after the plane crash that claimed the lives of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn, and sister-in-law Lauren, the magnitude of this tragedy remains fresh. Yet, Carolyn is still an enigmatic figure, a woman whose short life in the spotlight was besieged with misogyny and cruelty.

Amidst today’s cultural reckoning about the way our media treats women, Elizabeth Beller explores the real person behind the tabloid headlines and media frenzy. When she began dating America’s prince, Carolyn was increasingly thrust into an overwhelming spotlight filled with relentless paparazzi who reacted to her reserve with a campaign of harassment and vilification.

To this day, she is still depicted as a privileged princess—icy, vapid, and drug-addicted. She has even been accused of being responsible for their untimely death, allegedly delaying take-off until she finished her pedicure. But now, she is revealed as never before.

A fiercely independent woman devoted to her adopted city and career, Carolyn relied on her impeccable eye and drive to fly up the ranks at Calvin Klein in the glossy, high-stakes fashion world of the 1990s. When Carolyn met her future husband, John was immediately drawn to her strong-willed personality, effortless charm, and high intelligence. Their relationship would change her life and catapult her to dizzying fame, but it was her vibrant life before their marriage and then hidden afterwards, that is truly fascinating.

Based on in-depth research and exclusive interviews with friends, family members, teachers, roommates, and colleagues, this comprehensive biography reveals a multi-faceted woman worthy of our attention regardless of her husband and untimely death.]]> 352 Elizabeth Beller 1982178965 Joya 0 to-read 3.65 2024 Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy
author: Elizabeth Beller
name: Joya
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:
I am going to be soooooo annoying when this comes out
]]> <![CDATA[Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy's Fight for Survival]]> 70237023 416 Omid Scobie 0063258668 Joya 0 to-read 3.25 2023 Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy's Fight for Survival
author: Omid Scobie
name: Joya
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The House of Mirth 17728
Lily Bart, beautiful, witty and sophisticated, is accepted by â€old moneyâ€� and courted by the growing tribe of nouveaux riches. But as she nears thirty, her foothold becomes precarious; a poor girl with expensive tastes, she needs a husband to preserve her social standing and to maintain her in the luxury she has come to expect. Whilst many have sought her, something â€� fastidiousness or integrity- prevents her from making a â€suitableâ€� match.]]> 351 Edith Wharton 1844082938 Joya 5 3.97 1905 The House of Mirth
author: Edith Wharton
name: Joya
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1905
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: pretentious-but-good, god-tier
review:

]]> The Feminine Mystique 17573685 562 Betty Friedan 0393346781 Joya 5 3.92 1963 The Feminine Mystique
author: Betty Friedan
name: Joya
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1963
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: god-tier, we-live-in-a-society
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years]]> 33640253 Remember when presidents spoke in complete sentences instead of in unhinged tweets? David Litt does. In his comic, coming-of-age memoir, he takes us back to the Obama years � and charts a path forward in the age of Trump

More than any other presidency, Barack Obama’s eight years in the White House were defined by young people � twenty-somethings who didn’t have much experience in politics (or anything else, for that matter), yet suddenly found themselves in the most high-stakes office building on earth. David Litt was one of those twenty-somethings. After graduating from college in 2008, he went straight to the Obama campaign. In 2011, he became one of the youngest White House speechwriters in history. Until leaving the White House in 2016, he wrote on topics from healthcare to climate change to criminal justice reform. As President Obama’s go-to comedy writer, he also took the lead on the White House Correspondents� Dinner, the so-called “State of the Union of jokes.�

Now, in this refreshingly honest memoir, Litt brings us inside Obamaworld. With a humoristsâ€� eye for detail, he describes what it’s like to accidentally trigger an international incident or nearly set a president’s hair aflame. He answers questions you never knew you had: Which White House men’s room is the classiest? What do you do when the commander in chief gets your name wrong? Where should you never, under any circumstances, change clothes on Air Force One? With nearly a decade of stories to tell, Litt makes clear that politics is completely, hopelessly absurd.ĚýĚýĚý

But it’s also important. For all the moments of chaos, frustration, and yes, disillusionment, Litt remains a believer in the words that first drew him to the Obama campaign: “People who love this country can change it.� In telling his own story, Litt sheds fresh light on his former boss’s legacy. And he argues that, despite the current political climate, the politics championed by Barack Obama will outlive the presidency of Donald Trump.

Full of hilarious stories and told in a truly original voice,ĚýThanks, ObamaĚýis an exciting debut about what it means â€� personally, professionally, and politically â€� to grow up.]]> 320 David Litt 0062568469 Joya 5 4.05 2017 Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years
author: David Litt
name: Joya
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: god-tier, poli-sci-major-approved, people, sub-10k-ratings
review:

]]> Macbeth 8852
This shocking tragedy - a violent caution to those seeking power for its own sake - is, to this day, one of Shakespeare’s most popular and influential masterpieces.]]> 249 William Shakespeare 0743477103 Joya 5 god-tier 3.90 1623 Macbeth
author: William Shakespeare
name: Joya
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1623
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/01
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: god-tier
review:

]]> Midnight’s Children 14836 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

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

This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Twenty-five years after its publication, Midnight� s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.]]> 647 Salman Rushdie 0099578514 Joya 5 3.98 1981 Midnight’s Children
author: Salman Rushdie
name: Joya
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: brown-authors, goat-authors, god-tier
review:

]]> Black Water 15974 The Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel from the author of the New York Times bestselling novel We Were the Mulvaneys

Joyce Carol Oates has taken a shocking story that has become an American myth and, from it, has created a novel of electrifying power and illumination. Kelly Kelleher is an idealistic, twenty-six-year-old “good girl� when she meets the Senator at a Fourth of July party. In a brilliantly woven narrative, we enter her past and her present, her mind and her body as she is fatally attracted to this older man, this hero, this soon-to-be-lover. Kelly becomes the very embodiment of the vulnerable, romantic dreams of bright and brave women, drawn to the power that certain men command—at a party that takes on the quality of a surreal nightmare; in a tragic car ride that we hope against hope will not end as we know it must end. One of the acknowledged masters of American fiction, Joyce Carol Oates has written a bold tour de force that parts the black water to reveal the profoundest depths of human truth.]]> 160 Joyce Carol Oates 0452269865 Joya 5 3.57 1992 Black Water
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: Joya
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: god-tier, short, sub-10k-ratings
review:

]]> This Side of Paradise 23637903 •A new table of contents has been included by the publisher.
•This edition has been corrected for spelling and grammatical errors.]]> 176 F. Scott Fitzgerald Joya 5 goat-authors, god-tier 4.00 1920 This Side of Paradise
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Joya
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1920
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: goat-authors, god-tier
review:

]]> To the Lighthouse 59716
As time winds its way through their lives, the Ramsays face, alone and simultaneously, the greatest of human challenges and its greatest triumph—the human capacity for change.]]> 209 Virginia Woolf Joya 5 3.81 1927 To the Lighthouse
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Joya
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1927
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: god-tier, pretentious-but-good, short
review:

]]> Interpreter of Maladies 5439 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. In "A Temporary Matter," published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant.]]> 198 Jhumpa Lahiri 0618101365 Joya 5 4.18 1999 Interpreter of Maladies
author: Jhumpa Lahiri
name: Joya
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1999
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: goat-authors, god-tier, short, brown-authors
review:

]]> The Namesake 33917 Interpreter of Maladies established this young writer as one the most brilliant of her generation. Her stories are one of the very few debut works -- and only a handful of collections -- to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among the many other awards and honors it received were the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the highest critical praise for its grace, acuity, and compassion in detailing lives transported from India to America.

In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. Here again Lahiri displays her deft touch for the perfect detail � the fleeting moment, the turn of phrase � that opens whole worlds of emotion.

The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name.

Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves.]]> 304 Jhumpa Lahiri 0618485228 Joya 5 4.02 2003 The Namesake
author: Jhumpa Lahiri
name: Joya
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: god-tier, brown-authors, goat-authors
review:

]]> Their Eyes Were Watching God 37415 238 Zora Neale Hurston 0061120065 Joya 5 3.98 1937 Their Eyes Were Watching God
author: Zora Neale Hurston
name: Joya
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1937
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: school-books-i-liked, goat-authors, god-tier
review:

]]> In Cold Blood 168642
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.]]> 343 Truman Capote 0679745580 Joya 5 god-tier 4.08 1966 In Cold Blood
author: Truman Capote
name: Joya
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1966
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: god-tier
review:

]]> Animal Farm 170448 Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.]]> 141 George Orwell 0451526341 Joya 5 4.07 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Joya
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1945
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: god-tier, goat-authors, poli-sci-major-approved, short
review:

]]> My Body 57145833
Emily Ratajkowski is an acclaimed model and actress, an engaged political progressive, a formidable entrepreneur, a global social media phenomenon, and now, a writer. Rocketing to world fame at age twenty-one, Ratajkowski sparked both praise and furor with the provocative display of her body as an unapologetic statement of feminist empowerment. The subsequent evolution in her thinking about our culture’s commodification of women is the subject of this book.

My Body is a profoundly personal exploration of feminism, sexuality, and power, of men's treatment of women and women's rationalizations for accepting that treatment. These essays chronicle moments from Ratajkowski’s life while investigating the culture’s fetishization of girls and female beauty, its obsession with and contempt for women’s sexuality, the perverse dynamics of the fashion and film industries, and the gray area between consent and abuse. Nuanced, fierce, and incisive, My Body marks the debut of a writer brimming with courage and intelligence.]]> 239 Emily Ratajkowski 1250817862 Joya 4 people, short 3.99 2021 My Body
author: Emily Ratajkowski
name: Joya
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/04
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: people, short
review:
I really quite liked this, and find Emily not only likable but remarkably observant and smart when it comes to the intersectional nature of oppression and justice in general. However, I think that while she's mindful of intersectionality in politics as a whole, she does fall short when weighing the worth and exploitation of female bodies. The thesis of the book is a well-constructed argument about how her participation in an industry exploitative of her body is the source of her political power and why she's ultimately calculated it's a worthwhile endeavor. But it would be to her benefit to consider that while her body is an object, her ability to reclaim it is the result of her privilege as a white woman, because the body of a white woman takes on political power and autonomy that women of color don't get.
]]> The Winter's Tale 44133 You can find an alternative cover for this ISBN here.

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems and an extensive introduction. The Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's most varied, theatrically self-conscious, and emotionally wide-ranging plays. Much of the play's copiousness inheres in its generic intermingling of tragedy, comedy, romance, pastoral, and the history play. In addition to dates and sources, the introduction attends to iterative patterns, the nature and cause of Leontes' jealousy, the staging and meaning of the bear episode, and the thematic and structural implications of the figure of Time. Special attention is paid to the ending and its tempered happiness. Performance history is integrated throughout the introduction and commentary. Appendices include the theatrical practice of doubling.]]> 306 William Shakespeare 0521293731 Joya 4 school-books-i-liked Farewell to ENG 224!!!!!! 3.70 1623 The Winter's Tale
author: William Shakespeare
name: Joya
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1623
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/01
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: school-books-i-liked
review:
Farewell to ENG 224!!!!!!
]]> Antony and Cleopatra 104837 336 William Shakespeare 0743482859 Joya 4 school-books-i-liked 3.70 1606 Antony and Cleopatra
author: William Shakespeare
name: Joya
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1606
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/01
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: school-books-i-liked
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People]]> 25666062 From the bestselling author of What's the Matter With Kansas, a scathing look at the standard-bearers of liberal politics -- a book that asks: what's the matter with Democrats?

It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course.

But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming.

With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank's Listen, Liberal lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America.]]> 320 Thomas Frank 1627795391 Joya 0 4.17 2016 Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People
author: Thomas Frank
name: Joya
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: poli-sci-major-approved, we-live-in-a-society
review:

]]> French Braid 58065401 From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author--a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family's foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild in our pandemic present.

The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation.

Full of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel of tremendous warmth and humor that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close--yet how unknowable--every family is to itself.]]> 244 Anne Tyler 059332109X Joya 0 to-read 3.51 2022 French Braid
author: Anne Tyler
name: Joya
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing]]> 33926 The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing maps the progress of Jane Rosenal as she sets out on a personal and spirited expedition through the perilous terrain of sex, love, and relationships as well as the treacherous waters of the workplace. With an unforgettable comic touch, Melissa Bank skillfully teases out issues of the heart; puts a new spin on the mating dance; and captures what it's like to be a young woman coming of age in America today.]]> 274 Melissa Bank 0143035479 Joya 0 to-read 3.36 1998 The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing
author: Melissa Bank
name: Joya
average rating: 3.36
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> White Nights 1772910 82 Fyodor Dostoevsky Joya 4 pretentious-but-good 4.16 1848 White Nights
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Joya
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1848
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/21
date added: 2023/11/21
shelves: pretentious-but-good
review:

]]> <![CDATA[American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America]]> 11140803 An illuminating history of North America's eleven rival cultural regions that explodes the red state-blue state myth. North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn't confront or assimilate into an "American" or "Canadian" culture, but rather into one of the eleven distinct regional ones that spread over the continent each staking out mutually exclusive territory.

In American Nations, Colin Woodard leads us on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, and the rivalries and alliances between its component nations, which conform to neither state nor international boundaries. He illustrates and explains why "American" values vary sharply from one region to another. Woodard reveals how intranational differences have played a pivotal role at every point in the continent's history, from the American Revolution and the Civil War to the tumultuous sixties and the "blue county/red county" maps of recent presidential elections. American Nations is a revolutionary and revelatory take on America's myriad identities and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and are molding our future.]]> 371 Colin Woodard 0670022969 Joya 0 to-read 4.16 2011 American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
author: Colin Woodard
name: Joya
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Severance 36348525
Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?

A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale and satire.]]> 291 Ling Ma 0374261598 Joya 0 to-read 3.90 2018 Severance
author: Ling Ma
name: Joya
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics]]> 41817492
World-renowned Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt explores the playwright’s insight into bad (and often mad) rulers. Examining the psyche―and psychoses―of the likes of Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, and Coriolanus, Greenblatt illuminates the ways in which William Shakespeare delved into the lust for absolute power and the disasters visited upon the societies over which these characters rule. Tyrant shows that Shakespeare’s work remains vitally relevant today, not least in its probing of the unquenchable, narcissistic appetites of demagogues and the self-destructive willingness of collaborators who indulge their appetites.]]> 224 Stephen Greenblatt 0393356973 Joya 0 to-read 4.05 2018 Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics
author: Stephen Greenblatt
name: Joya
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Why Not Me? 30268522 From the author of the beloved New York Times bestselling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? and the creator and star of The Mindy Project comes a collection of essays that are as hilarious and insightful as they are deeply personal.

In Why Not Me?, Kaling shares her ongoing journey to find contentment and excitement in her adult life, whether it's falling in love at work, seeking new friendships in lonely places, attempting to be the first person in history to lose weight without any behavior modification whatsoever, or most important, believing that you have a place in Hollywood when you're constantly reminded that no one looks like you.
In "How to Look Spectacular: A Starlet's Confessions", Kaling gives her tongue-in-cheek secrets for surefire on-camera beauty, ("Your natural hair color may be appropriate for your skin tone, but this isn't the land of appropriate-this is Hollywood, baby. Out here, a dark-skinned woman s traditional hair color is honey blonde.") "Player" tells the story of Kaling being seduced and dumped by a female friend in L.A. ("I had been replaced by a younger model. And now they had matching bangs.") In "Unlikely Leading Lady", she muses on America's fixation with the weight of actresses, ("Most women we see onscreen are either so thin that they're walking clavicles or so huge that their only scenes involve them breaking furniture.") And in "Soup Snakes", Kaling spills some secrets on her relationship with her ex-boyfriend and close friend, B.J. Novak ("I will freely admit: my relationship with B.J. Novak is weird as hell.")
Mindy turns the anxieties, the glamour, and the celebrations of her second coming-of-age into a laugh-out-loud funny collection of essays that anyone who's ever been at a turning point in their life or career can relate to. And those who've never been at a turning point can skip to the parts where she talks about meeting Bradley Cooper.]]> 240 Mindy Kaling 0804138168 Joya 5 people, brown-authors 3.93 2015 Why Not Me?
author: Mindy Kaling
name: Joya
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/13
date added: 2023/11/09
shelves: people, brown-authors
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics]]> 112975661 From bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H.W. Brands, a revelatory history of the shocking emergence of vicious political division at the birth of the United States.

To the framers of the Constitution, political parties were a fatal threat to republican virtues. They had suffered the consequences of partisan politics in Britain before the American Revolution, and they wanted nothing similar for America. Yet parties emerged even before the Constitution was ratified, and they took firmer root in the following decade. In Founding Partisans, master historian H. W. Brands has crafted a fresh and lively narrative of the early years of the republic as the Founding Fathers fought one another with competing visions of what our nation would be.

The first party, the Federalists, formed around Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and their efforts to overthrow the Articles of Confederation and make the federal government more robust. Their opponents organized as the Antifederalists, who feared the corruption and encroachments on liberty that a strong central government would surely bring. The Antifederalists lost but regrouped under the new Constitution as the Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson, whose bruising contest against Federalist John Adams marked the climax of this turbulent chapter of American political history.Ěý

The country’s first years unfolded in a contentious spiral of ugly elections and blatant violations of the Constitution. Still, peaceful transfers of power continued, and the nascent country made its way towards global dominance, against all odds. Founding Partisans is a powerful reminder that fierce partisanship is a problem as old as the republic.]]> 452 H.W. Brands 0385549245 Joya 0 to-read 4.00 2023 Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics
author: H.W. Brands
name: Joya
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>