en-US Fri, 04 Jul 2025 11:37:41 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Kaethe 4 4.54 2025
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/07/04
date added: 2025/07/04
shelves: action, adventure, dystopian, war, poverty
review:

]]> 225819521 Shake off the hibernation blues with odd-couple friends Skunk and Badger in this funny and bestselling series, from Amy Timberlake and Jon Klassen!

Skunk and Badger have an easy roommate rhythm—Skunk cooks! Badger cleans!—when they take in two orphaned rat pups, Zeno and Zephyr. Badger is working on an Important Rock Work article for Rock Hound Weekly and needs focus, focus, focus to write it. But how much trouble could two tiny rats really be? Some scheduling, a few strategically placed naps, and all will be well!

But it’s winter, and nothing goes to plan. Hibernation threatens every routine. Articles refuse to write themselves. And rats in the rock room? It will take a North Twist village to raise these rats!

Featuring cozy drawings and full-color pictures by bestselling artist Jon Klassen, Amy Timberlake’s delightfully off-kilter adventure explores the complexity of friendship and the meaning of family in a wintery world where chickens wear parkas and Yard Sheep host spaghetti dinners. And wait! Is that a dinosaur?

Don’t miss Skunk and Badger’s other adventures in:
Skunk and Badger
Egg Marks the Spot]]> 192 Amy Timberlake 1643750070 Kaethe 0 to-read 5.00
author: Amy Timberlake
name: Kaethe
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 48888564 A gothic tale set in a rambling house by the sea in which a maid cares for a mute old woman with a mysterious past, alongside her superstitious staff--from the author of The Silent Companions.

A perfect spooky read!

Consumption has ravaged Louise Pinecroft's family, leaving her and her father alone and heartbroken. But Dr. Pinecroft has plans for a revolutionary experiment: convinced that sea air will prove to be the cure his wife and children needed, he arranges to house a group of prisoners suffering from the disease in the caves beneath his new Cornish home. While he devotes himself to his controversial medical trials, Louise finds herself increasingly discomfited by the strange tales her new maid tells of the fairies that hunt the land, searching for those they can steal away to their realm.

Forty years later, Hester arrives at Morvoren House to take up a position as nurse to the now partially paralyzed and mute Miss Pinecroft. Hester has fled to Cornwall to try to escape her past, but surrounded by superstitious staff enacting bizarre rituals, she soon discovers her new home may be just as dangerous as her last.]]> 336 Laura Purcell 0143135538 Kaethe 0 to-read, gothic 3.48 2019
author: Laura Purcell
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read, gothic
review:

]]> 214351517 This is the story of my mother and her friend Juan, of how she discovered books and he the light of day.

So begins Clara and the Man With Books in His Window. In this beautifully illustrated book, set in rural 1920s Argentina, Hans Christian Andersen Award–winning author María Teresa Andruetto shares the true story of how her mother, Clara, the daughter of a poor laundress, meets Juan, a wealthy and bookish recluse who never leaves his house because he is afraid society will not accept who he really is.

A powerful tale about friendship and about the world available to us when we open a book, but also when we have the courage to be our true selves, Clara and the Man With Books in His Window was selected by the ALIJA and the Fundación Cuatro Gatos as the best book of the year. Now available for the first time in English, it is destined to transfix readers young and old.]]> 56 María Teresa Andruetto 1778402518 Kaethe 5 books-about-books
And of course, this one will appeal to anyone who loves books.

Library copy]]> 3.80
author: María Teresa Andruetto
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.80
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/25
date added: 2025/06/25
shelves: books-about-books
review:
Andruetto's text is served well by Trach's art: both aspects are richly layered.

And of course, this one will appeal to anyone who loves books.

Library copy
]]> 205181077 In this paneled picture book, join a small girl on her hilarious and surprising search for her lost cat--and watch as she helps her neighbors, who have also lost their pets, along the way!Where, oh where is Kitty? She's not upstairs... not in her litter box... not at her food bowl. Hmm...There's only one thing to find this lost cat.As the cat's owner roams town in hopes of finding her pet, she discovers she's not the only one missing their beloved animal. There's also a lost dog...a lost bird...even a lost giraffe!Join the search party in this almost wordless story that celebrates helping our neighbors and gently reminds us that what is lost can always be found.]]> 48 Bob Staake 0593707036 Kaethe 5 picture-books, cats, wordless
I like Staake's use of color, and the muppettyness of the people in the book. Nice custom endpapers, but I do wish someone would find a way to protect children's picture books without taping the jacket to the book. Even when, as here, the back endpapers is the same as the front, so you're not missing anything, but you don't know that unless you work at it. There are just too many books with cool stuff going on that is sadly unavailable to library patrons.

Library copy]]> 3.67 2024
author: Bob Staake
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/25
date added: 2025/06/25
shelves: picture-books, cats, wordless
review:
Almost wordless, really. Reading is not required, which makes it instantly accessible to those who don't yet read, can't read at all, or for those who don't know English.

I like Staake's use of color, and the muppettyness of the people in the book. Nice custom endpapers, but I do wish someone would find a way to protect children's picture books without taping the jacket to the book. Even when, as here, the back endpapers is the same as the front, so you're not missing anything, but you don't know that unless you work at it. There are just too many books with cool stuff going on that is sadly unavailable to library patrons.

Library copy
]]> 218129465
Don’t want to be booped? No problem! A sea anemone in the ocean confidently sets itself some personal boundaries, encouraging young readers on land to do the same.

You and Me, Anemone is a nuanced, thoughtful, playful picture book for young children about the delicate challenge of boundaries—having them, maintaining them, and respecting them in others. The playful, rhythmic, interactive text by award-winning author Rachel Vail pairs the science of sea life with social-emotional learning for terrific classroom potential. Two-time Caldecott Medal winner Chris Raschka’s illustrations—created by painting and stitching on burlap—are a visual and emotional showstopper with a ton of kid appeal. Back matter includes an author’s note and facts about the incredible sea anemone.]]> 32 Rachel Vail 0063414724 Kaethe 5 picture-books 3.67
author: Rachel Vail
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.67
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/25
date added: 2025/06/25
shelves: picture-books
review:
Self-respect, self-advocacy, personal space.
]]> 60912165
Award-winning science writer Emma Young has spent over a decade finding out, and in Super Senses she takes us on an exhilarating sensory journey, revealing how we taste things without using our tongues, why swearing is good for us and why both chocolate and rollercoasters can help you fall in love.

Using the very latest cutting-edge research, she explains the exploits of record-breaking freedivers, whirling dervishes, super-tasters, stock market millionaires, and many more. Discover how touch can ease pain, how taking your pulse can make you fitter and why Abba's Dancing Queen sounds different in Bolivia.

Sharing surprising secrets from blind ballerinas, voodoo priests and even a nurse who can smell Parkinson's disease before it is diagnosed, Super Senses uncovers the science behind these abilities that make us human - and offers fascinating lessons in how we can all learn to use them better.]]> 384 Emma Young 1473690757 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.80
author: Emma Young
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.80
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 10900047 A Library Journal Top Ten Best Books of 2011
A Boston Globe Best Nonfiction Book of 2011

Bestselling author Tony Horwitz tells the electrifying tale of the daring insurrection that put America on the path to bloody war

Plotted in secret, launched in the dark, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was a pivotal moment in U.S. history. But few Americans know the true story of the men and women who launched a desperate strike at the slaveholding South. Now, Midnight Rising portrays Brown's uprising in vivid color, revealing a country on the brink of explosive conflict.

Brown, the descendant of New England Puritans, saw slavery as a sin against America's founding principles. Unlike most abolitionists, he was willing to take up arms, and in 1859 he prepared for battle at a hideout in Maryland, joined by his teenage daughter, three of his sons, and a guerrilla band that included former slaves and a dashing spy. On October 17, the raiders seized Harpers Ferry, stunning the nation and prompting a counterattack led by Robert E. Lee. After Brown's capture, his defiant eloquence galvanized the North and appalled the South, which considered Brown a terrorist. The raid also helped elect Abraham Lincoln, who later began to fulfill Brown's dream with the Emancipation Proclamation, a measure he called "a John Brown raid, on a gigantic scale."

Tony Horwitz's riveting book travels antebellum America to deliver both a taut historical drama and a telling portrait of a nation divided―a time that still resonates in ours.]]> 384 Tony Horwitz 080509153X Kaethe 0 to-read 3.98 2011
author: Tony Horwitz
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2076722
An irresistible blend of history, myth, and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange captures the wonder and drama of first contact. Vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs — these and many others roamed an unknown continent in quest of grapes, gold, converts, even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed, their remarkable exploits left an enduring mark on the land and people encountered by late-arriving English settlers.

Tracing this legacy with his own epic trek — from Florida's Fountain of Youth to Plymouth's sacred Rock, from desert pueblos to subarctic sweat lodges, Tony Horwitz explores the revealing gap between what we enshrine and what we forget. Displaying his trademark talent for humor, narrative, and historical insight, A Voyage Long and Strange allows us to rediscover the New World for ourselves.]]> 445 Tony Horwitz 0805076034 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.95 2008
author: Tony Horwitz
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222292420 Who's got time to think about murder when there's a wedding to plan?

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

But when Elizabeth meets a wedding guest who’s in trouble, kidnap and death are hot on their heels once more. A villain wants access to an uncrackable code, and will stop at nothing to get it. Plunged back into action once more, can the gang solve the puzzle and a murder in time?]]> 368 Richard Osman 0593653254 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.82 2025
author: Richard Osman
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.82
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218819318 “Blumberg makes the will-they-won’t-they dance believable and exciting with sexy banter and plenty of humor throughout.” —Publishers Weekly

Blurring the line between fiction and reality...

Mia Brady never imagined her romance novels would become bestsellers, much less inspire a hit TV show. However, after signing a deal to write the final book of the series, she’s struck by a serious case of writer’s block. Her fans are clamoring for a passionate payoff, but Mia’s own experience with heartbreak—and current lack of real-life romance—is getting in the way. Do friends who become lovers ever truly have a happy ending?

Gavin Lane would like to think so. As Mia’s ride-or-die BFF, he’s been by her side through it all and convinced himself his crush on her is a thing of the past. He’s not about to let his feelings ruin their friendship, and never will. But that doesn’t stop him from pitching a bold idea to help save Mia’s testing out tried-and-true love story tropes…together.

From workplace romance to fish-out-of-water, Mia and Gavin embark on a series of “dates” to spark a little creativity—but are not prepared for the flame that ignites between them. Does their friendship even stand a chance when pure fantasy suddenly becomes a little too real?]]> 352 Chandra Blumberg 1335016570 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.50
author: Chandra Blumberg
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222376665 The next novella in the New York Times bestselling Sworn Soldier series, featuring Alex Easton investigating the dark, mysterious depths of a coal mine in America

Alex Easton does not want to visit America.

They particularly do not want to visit an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia with a reputation for being haunted.

But when their old friend Dr. Denton summons them to help find his lost cousin—who went missing in that very mine—well, sometimes a sworn soldier has to do what a sworn soldier has to do...]]> 192 T. Kingfisher 1250354927 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.61 2025
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223736287 New York Times best-selling author of Stiff and Fuzz, a rollicking exploration of the quest to re-create the impossible complexities of human anatomy.

The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what’s available—sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we’re attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing? Are we there yet?

In Replaceable You, Mary Roach explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings. When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb? Can a donated heart be made to beat forever? Can an intestine provide a workable substitute for a vagina?

Roach dives in with her characteristic verve and infectious wit. Her travels take her to the OR at a legendary burn unit in Boston, a “superclean” xeno-pigsty in China, and a stem cell “hair nursery” in the San Diego tech hub. She talks with researchers and surgeons, amputees and ostomates, printers of kidneys and designers of wearable organs. She spends time in a working iron lung from the 1950s, stays up all night with recovery techs as they disassemble and reassemble a tissue donor, and travels across Mongolia with the cataract surgeons of Orbis International.

Irrepressible and accessible, Replaceable You immerses readers in the wondrous, improbable, and surreal quest to build a new you.]]> 288 Mary Roach 1324050624 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.21 2025
author: Mary Roach
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 228383161 In the second installment of USA Today bestselling author Olivia Dade’s Harlot’s Bay series, a mistaken obituary leads to the reunion of two former high school crushes. Sparks fly in this hilarious grumpy/grumpy romance, packed with Dade’s signature body positivity and a delicious amount of spice.

Karl and Molly were never together. There was a time, right after high school, where it seemed like they might finally cross the line from friends to lovers…but instead, a foolish misunderstanding meant they never spoke again. Molly went to LA and got married. Karl stayed in Harlot’s Bay and bought a bakery.

The only connection the pair has shared over the years is painfully Now divorced, Molly narrates monster romance audiobooks, and Karl is an ever-diligent listener, clinging to his only piece of the one that got away.

Still, Molly hasn’t totally left Harlot’s Bay behind. When she hears that Karl’s obituary has run in the local paper, unexpected grief prompts her to hop on the next flight to Maryland…where she finds Karl very much alive, the victim of nothing but an accidental obituary.

As the pair reunite, they finally hash out their missed connection. True, Molly isn’t quite ready to trust again, but Karl is determined to prove himself worthy of her faith and devotion. And as her remaining time in Harlot’s Bay ticks down, Molly, the habitual cynic, just might find that Karl, the cranky town curmudgeon, is impossible to leave behind a second time.]]> 400 Olivia Dade 0063215977 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.05 2025
author: Olivia Dade
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 230287408
"Miracles, marvels, saints, sinners, love, plague, and treachery! M. T. Anderson has laid out a medieval feast of a novel, stuffed with everything I could have wished for. If I could canonize him for it, I would. But I’ll settle for shouting about how much I love this book."—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love

"M. T. Anderson is one of our greatest and most precious voices. His books aren't just brilliantly witty and vastly entertaining, they're fixed stars of wisdom and sanity in our increasingly unhinged universe. When lost, I use them to steer by."—Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians Trilogy

The year is 1087, and a pox is sweeping through the Italian city of Bari. When a lowly monk is visited by Saint Nicholas in his dreams, he interprets the vision as a call to serve the sick. But his superiors, and the power brokers they serve, have different plans for the tender-hearted Brother Nicephorus.

Enter Tyun, a charismatic treasure hunter renowned for “liberating” holy relics from their tombs. The seven-hundred-year-old bones of Saint Nicholas are rumored to weep a mysterious liquid that can heal the sick, Tyun says. For the humble price of a small fortune, he will steal the bones and deliver them to Bari, curing the plague and restoring glory to the fallen city. And Nicephorus, the “dreamer,” will be his guide.

What follows is a heist for the ages, as Nicephorus is swept away on strange tides, and alongside even stranger bedfellows, to commit sacrilegious theft. Based on real historical accounts, Nicked is a swashbuckling saga, a medieval novel noir, a meditation on the miraculous, and a monastic meet-cute, filled with wide-eyed wonder at the world that awaits beyond our own borders.]]> 240 M.T. Anderson 0593688007 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.00 2024
author: M.T. Anderson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222376623 After a decade, acclaimed science fiction master John Scalzi returns to the galaxy of the Old Man's War series with the long awaited seventh book, The Shattering Peace

THE PEACE IS SHATTERING

For a decade, peace has reigned in interstellar space. A tripartate agreement between the Colonial Union, the Earth, and the alien Conclave has kept the forces of war at bay, even when some would have preferred to return to the fighting and struggle of former times. For now, more sensible heads have prevailed – and have even championed unity.

But now, there is a new force that threatens the hard-maintained peace: The Consu, the most advanced intelligent species humans have ever met, are on the cusp of a species-defining civil war. This war is between Consu factions... but nothing the Consu ever do is just about them. The Colonial Union, the Earth and the Conclave have been unwillingly dragged into the conflict, in the most surprising of ways.

Gretchen Trujillo is a mid-level diplomat, working in an unimportant part of the Colonial Union bureaucracy. But when she is called to take part in a secret mission involving representatives from every powerful faction in space, what she finds there has the chance to redefine the destinies of humans and aliens alike... or destroy them forever.]]> 288 John Scalzi 0765389193 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.46 2025
author: John Scalzi
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59801786
Mercy never has a moment to herself. She’s been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest. 

After yet another exasperating run-in with Mercy, Hart finds himself penning a letter addressed simply to “A Friend”. Much to his surprise, an anonymous letter comes back in return, and a tentative friendship is born.  

If only Hart knew he’s been baring his soul to the person who infuriates him most—Mercy. As the dangers from Tanria grow closer, so do the unlikely correspondents. But can their blossoming romance survive the fated discovery that their pen pals are their worst nightmares—each other?

Set in a world full of magic and demigods, donuts and small-town drama, this enchantingly quirky, utterly unique fantasy is perfect for readers of The House in the Cerulean Sea and The Invisible Library.]]> 416 Megan Bannen 0316394211 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.07 2022
author: Megan Bannen
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55421259 BASED ON THE THRILLING REAL-LIFE STORY OF SOCIALITE SPY NANCY WAKE, comes the newest feat of historical fiction from the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia, featuring the astonishing woman who killed a Nazi with her bare hands and went on to become one of the most decorated women in WWII.

Told in interweaving timelines organized around the four code names Nancy used during the war, Code Name Hélène is a spellbinding and moving story of enduring love, remarkable sacrifice and unfaltering resolve that chronicles the true exploits of a woman who deserves to be a household name.

It is 1936 and Nancy Wake is an intrepid New Zealand expat living in Paris who has bluffed her way into a reporting job for Hearst newspaper. She is fighting to cover the disturbing reports of violence coming out of Vienna and Berlin when she meets the wealthy French industrialist Henri Fiocca. No sooner does Henri sweep Nancy off her feet and convince her to become Mrs. Fiocca than the Germans invade France and she takes yet another name: a code name.

As LUCIENNE CARLIER she smuggles people and documents across borders under the guise of an oblivious mistress. Soon enough the Gestapo hears of a female operative with a remarkable ability to evade capture, and Nancy earns a new nickname: THE WHITE MOUSE. But this one carries with it a five million franc bounty on her head. Forced to escape France and leave Henri behind for the safety of both of them, Nancy enters training with the Special Operations Executives, who transform her into Hélène. Finally, with mission in hand, Nancy is airdropped back into France as the deadly MADAM ANDRÉ. She soon becomes one of the most powerful leaders in the French Resistance, known for her ferocious wit, her signature red lipstick, and her ability to summon weapons straight from the Allied Forces. But no one can protect Nancy if the enemy finds out these four women are one and the same, and the closer to liberation France gets, the more exposed she--and the people she loves--will become.]]> 496 Ariel Lawhon 0525565493 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.38 2020
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222260368 Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.

They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.

Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.

For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.

When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.

Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic look at love and the people and choices that mark us forever.]]> 336 Carley Fortune 0593956478 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.23 2022
author: Carley Fortune
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 219728281 “Perhaps never before has there been a book better timed or more urgent.” —Washington Post

“Michael Lewis has this incredible ability to zoom in on one person's story, and from there reveals something much bigger about our culture. His books leave you seeing the world differently, and his books about federal workers are no exception.” —Katie Couric

As seen on CBS Mornings, CNN Anderson Cooper, ABC News Live, MSNBC Morning Joe, and many more

Who works for the government and why does their work matter? An urgent and absorbing civics lesson from an all-star team of writers and storytellers.

The government is a vast, complex system that Americans pay for, rebel against, rely upon, dismiss, and celebrate. It’s also our shared resource for addressing the biggest problems of society. And it’s made up of people, mostly unrecognized and uncelebrated, doing work that can be deeply consequential and beneficial to everyone.

Michael Lewis invited his favorite writers, including Casey Cep, Dave Eggers, John Lanchester, Geraldine Brooks, Sarah Vowell, and W. Kamau Bell, to join him in finding someone doing an interesting job for the government and writing about them. The stories they found are unexpected, riveting, and inspiring, including a former coal miner devoted to making mine roofs less likely to collapse, saving thousands of lives; an IRS agent straight out of a crime thriller; and the manager who made the National Cemetery Administration the best-run organization, public or private, in the entire country. Each essay shines a spotlight on the essential behind-the-scenes work of exemplary federal employees.

Whether they’re digitizing archives, chasing down cybercriminals, or discovering new planets, these public servants are committed to their work and universally reluctant to take credit. Expanding on the Washington Post series, the vivid profiles in Who Is Government? blow up the stereotype of the irrelevant bureaucrat. They show how the essential business of government makes our lives possible, and how much it matters.]]> 266 Michael Lewis Kaethe 0 currently-reading 4.49 2025
author: Michael Lewis
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 10053149 Graceling tells the story of the vulnerable-yet-strong Katsa, a smart, beautiful teenager who lives in a world where selected people are given a Grace, a special talent that can be anything from dancing to swimming. Katsa’s is killing. As the king’s niece, she is forced to use her extreme skills as his thug. Along the way, Katsa must learn to decipher the true nature of her Grace… and how to put it to good use. A thrilling, action-packed fantasy adventure (and steamy romance!) that will resonate deeply with adolescents trying to find their way in the world. This ebook includes a sample chapter of BITTERBLUE. ]]> 481 Kristin Cashore Kaethe 5
***

August 2, 2009

By an uncanny coincidence I checked this and the Here Lies Arthur book out on the same day. Don't the covers look similar?

***

It's off to a good start. Who doesn't love an assassin with a social conscience? More community organizing, I say! Katsa is maybe a little too idealized and modern, but her manic energy and obtuseness make up for it a bit. Curious to see where the plot goes.

***

That's a satisfying end. Two critical points move along much too quickly, they seem rushed even. I sense at least one sequel to come, and I'll probably read it.

***
June 19, 2015

Re-reading it knowing how the other books unfold made me enjoy it more. Katsa is a cool girl who doesn't like or do anything stereotypically feminine. I'm more tolerant of that trope in a debut when I know that the author will create many more lead women who don't follow that trope.


***

10 January 2023

It's interesting to read Cashore's thoughts on her first published book in the Afterword added a decade on. It must be odd to be both proud of what you've done and also aware of ways you could improve it, knowing what you've learned since then. Everyone of course has the same sorts of thoughts all the time, but most of what most of us have ever done hasn't been so very public.

The Lady Katsa remains an amazing creation. She is so unlikable, so unlike, and so removed from society while within it. She isn't neurotypical, and as an outsider she brings a fresh perspective, one that I find helpful. She's humane, and even quite kind.

Also, given how thoroughly USian culture is steeped in religion, it's remarkable that there is no religion in the book. And interesting that I didn't previously remark that absence. Well, not entirely, because Katsa wouldn't care about religion. There's very little in the way of culture at all, besides the Leonid rings and architecture.


Library copy]]> 4.09 2008
author: Kristin Cashore
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/21
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: strong-smart-female-protagonist, feminism, ya, beloved, adventure, fantasy, fiction, gender, orphans, parenting, politics, ptsd, romance, secret-societies, sex-positive, skepticism, social-issues, swashbuckling
review:
Expires 3/10

***

August 2, 2009

By an uncanny coincidence I checked this and the Here Lies Arthur book out on the same day. Don't the covers look similar?

***

It's off to a good start. Who doesn't love an assassin with a social conscience? More community organizing, I say! Katsa is maybe a little too idealized and modern, but her manic energy and obtuseness make up for it a bit. Curious to see where the plot goes.

***

That's a satisfying end. Two critical points move along much too quickly, they seem rushed even. I sense at least one sequel to come, and I'll probably read it.

***
June 19, 2015

Re-reading it knowing how the other books unfold made me enjoy it more. Katsa is a cool girl who doesn't like or do anything stereotypically feminine. I'm more tolerant of that trope in a debut when I know that the author will create many more lead women who don't follow that trope.


***

10 January 2023

It's interesting to read Cashore's thoughts on her first published book in the Afterword added a decade on. It must be odd to be both proud of what you've done and also aware of ways you could improve it, knowing what you've learned since then. Everyone of course has the same sorts of thoughts all the time, but most of what most of us have ever done hasn't been so very public.

The Lady Katsa remains an amazing creation. She is so unlikable, so unlike, and so removed from society while within it. She isn't neurotypical, and as an outsider she brings a fresh perspective, one that I find helpful. She's humane, and even quite kind.

Also, given how thoroughly USian culture is steeped in religion, it's remarkable that there is no religion in the book. And interesting that I didn't previously remark that absence. Well, not entirely, because Katsa wouldn't care about religion. There's very little in the way of culture at all, besides the Leonid rings and architecture.


Library copy
]]> 122494793 450 Mary Roberts Rinehart 1613164602 Kaethe 4 murder-most-foul, mystery Rebecca, but despite the high body count, this is more fun and less oppressive. Some banter, some ludicrous elements, but compelling and entertaining as all get-out.

I'm learning to value Penzler's picks for neglected crime classics.

Library copy]]> 3.69 1940
author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1940
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/15
date added: 2025/06/15
shelves: murder-most-foul, mystery
review:
One can't help thinking of Rebecca, but despite the high body count, this is more fun and less oppressive. Some banter, some ludicrous elements, but compelling and entertaining as all get-out.

I'm learning to value Penzler's picks for neglected crime classics.

Library copy
]]> 215511662
Then Lily Bei returns, armed with a printing press, her irrepressible spirit, and a sheaf of inconvenient documents that prove the very thing Andrew wants that he is actually the legitimate, first born son of the Earl of Arsell.

What’s Andrew to do, when the woman he’s always desired promises him everything he’s never wanted? Andrew’s track record of saying no to Lily is nonexistent. The only way he can avert impending disaster is by stealing the evidence… while trying desperately not to fall in love (again) with the woman he shouldn’t let into his life.]]> 329 Courtney Milan 1937248763 Kaethe 5
I don't normally need more than eight months to read a book, particularly the work of a favorite author like Milan. But. I've been reading fewer books for a while now, Find nng it harder to get started, harder to become absorbed, harder to stay absorbed, harder to pick one up once I set it aside, and so on. Lots of books haven't made it past two pages. I am Pickler. I am also rather less interested in rereading books I previously enjoyed enormously. So.

Well, I got two pages in and it was a struggle. So I set it aside for a time when I could get more engrossed in it. I didn't want the book to become tainted by my lack of enthusiasm. Which was wise, as it turned put, because I have lost all interest in some authors through this. Fortunately my library started a Library After Dark. It is exactly the book club I need because

1. What reader hasn't wanted to be in a library after it closes?
2. I cannot make myself read an assigned book that doesn't inherently appeal (it's astounding that I managed to graduate with a degree in English Literature).
3. I needed to get out of the house more.
4. Peer pressure works. In my case, not enough for something I don't want to do, but very well for something I do want. Accountability is my friend. And vice versa, in the case of weekly walks.

So. Reading for an hour was enough to get me firmly established in a book, and I wasn't tempted to put the book down to look something up on my phone.

I'm glad I waited, because of course this is a book I love. The idea of Wedgeford is enormously appealing, along with the goofy Wedgeford Trials. And the romance is lovely. And once again, (they're popping up all over, not just in Milan's books) a heroine who is not like other people as far as having an unspecified but identifiable neurodiversity. Oh, and the conundrum with a clever solution. Also, repugnant rich people.

Excellent. Ten out of 5.

Personal copy

]]> 4.12 2024
author: Courtney Milan
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/01
date added: 2025/06/09
shelves:
review:
9 June 2025

I don't normally need more than eight months to read a book, particularly the work of a favorite author like Milan. But. I've been reading fewer books for a while now, Find nng it harder to get started, harder to become absorbed, harder to stay absorbed, harder to pick one up once I set it aside, and so on. Lots of books haven't made it past two pages. I am Pickler. I am also rather less interested in rereading books I previously enjoyed enormously. So.

Well, I got two pages in and it was a struggle. So I set it aside for a time when I could get more engrossed in it. I didn't want the book to become tainted by my lack of enthusiasm. Which was wise, as it turned put, because I have lost all interest in some authors through this. Fortunately my library started a Library After Dark. It is exactly the book club I need because

1. What reader hasn't wanted to be in a library after it closes?
2. I cannot make myself read an assigned book that doesn't inherently appeal (it's astounding that I managed to graduate with a degree in English Literature).
3. I needed to get out of the house more.
4. Peer pressure works. In my case, not enough for something I don't want to do, but very well for something I do want. Accountability is my friend. And vice versa, in the case of weekly walks.

So. Reading for an hour was enough to get me firmly established in a book, and I wasn't tempted to put the book down to look something up on my phone.

I'm glad I waited, because of course this is a book I love. The idea of Wedgeford is enormously appealing, along with the goofy Wedgeford Trials. And the romance is lovely. And once again, (they're popping up all over, not just in Milan's books) a heroine who is not like other people as far as having an unspecified but identifiable neurodiversity. Oh, and the conundrum with a clever solution. Also, repugnant rich people.

Excellent. Ten out of 5.

Personal copy


]]> 55502861
Cecilia Bassingwaite is the ideal Victorian lady. She's also a thief. Like the other members of the Wisteria Society crime sorority, she flies around England drinking tea, blackmailing friends, and acquiring treasure by interesting means. Sure, she has a dark and traumatic past and an overbearing aunt, but all things considered, it's a pleasant existence. Until the men show up.

Ned Lightbourne is a sometimes assassin who is smitten with Cecilia from the moment they meet. Unfortunately, that happens to be while he's under direct orders to kill her. His employer, Captain Morvath, who possesses a gothic abbey bristling with cannons and an unbridled hate for the world, intends to rid England of all its presumptuous women, starting with the Wisteria Society. Ned has plans of his own. But both men have made one grave mistake. Never underestimate a woman.

When Morvath imperils the Wisteria Society, Cecilia is forced to team up with her handsome would-be assassin to save the women who raised her--hopefully proving, once and for all, that she's as much of a scoundrel as the rest of them.]]> 336 India Holton 0593200160 Kaethe 5
I read this and the second book out of order. They're both a bit Princess Bride, the movie, and just silly fun. But I think I prefer this one just a tiny bit: the bit at the very end.

Interesting take on Queen Victoria, too. Possibly my favorite there as well.

***

25 May 2025

"One can be happy in eternal solitude: a book, a cup of tea, and no company; that was Cecilia's idea of heaven."

One can quibble over the beverage, and might prefer to include a pet of some sort, but the concept is accurate.

That bit at the end: I have been married long enough to have read every book in the house that I care to. Now I know what my price is.


Library copy]]> 3.64 2021
author: India Holton
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/25
date added: 2025/06/09
shelves: gothic, books-about-books, humor, romance, victorian, adventure, pirates, castle, fantasy, feminism, fiction, flight, murder-most-foul, strong-smart-female-protagonist, swashbuckling, uk
review:
20 February 2023

I read this and the second book out of order. They're both a bit Princess Bride, the movie, and just silly fun. But I think I prefer this one just a tiny bit: the bit at the very end.

Interesting take on Queen Victoria, too. Possibly my favorite there as well.

***

25 May 2025

"One can be happy in eternal solitude: a book, a cup of tea, and no company; that was Cecilia's idea of heaven."

One can quibble over the beverage, and might prefer to include a pet of some sort, but the concept is accurate.

That bit at the end: I have been married long enough to have read every book in the house that I care to. Now I know what my price is.


Library copy
]]> 198562137
Wilhelmina Hart is part of the infamous class of 2020. Her high school years began with the election of Donald Trump and they ended with COVID. Now Wilhelmina, like so many of her peers, is in limbo, having deferred college because of the pandemic. Compounding the national trauma of 2016 to 2020, Wilhelmina has wrestled with the devastating loss of one of her three beloved aunts shortly after the 2016 election. This is a loss she felt so keenly that she’s spent the last years deep in her personal depression, only obscured by the seemingly endless waves of national trauma. Now on the cusp on the most consequential election in living memory, Wilhelmina may have found a door in her darkness and perhaps the courage to pass through it, if she can decipher the bizarre messages that keep appearing in her life.]]> 382 Kristin Cashore 1101614188 Kaethe 5 4.06 2024
author: Kristin Cashore
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/08
date added: 2025/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 209510250 154 Sam McCullen 7559672787 Kaethe 0 to-read 0.0 2021
author: Sam McCullen
name: Kaethe
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1200795 192 Ellen Fein 0446518131 Kaethe 1 nonfiction
In a nutshell: if the most important thing to you is landing a man, you should be able to manage it by means of deception and great effort. Warning: there is nothing about this that isn't doomed to backfire on you and make you far more miserable than you would be should you become the crazy cat-hoarding lady of popular myth. At least your cats would love the real you.]]> 2.98 1995
author: Ellen Fein
name: Kaethe
average rating: 2.98
book published: 1995
rating: 1
read at: 1998/01/01
date added: 2025/06/05
shelves: nonfiction
review:
The question below the box says: "Is this book told in the past, present, or future tense?" That doesn't apply since this book is pure fantasy: it's bad advice, badly given. Oh, to scrub my brain clean again.

In a nutshell: if the most important thing to you is landing a man, you should be able to manage it by means of deception and great effort. Warning: there is nothing about this that isn't doomed to backfire on you and make you far more miserable than you would be should you become the crazy cat-hoarding lady of popular myth. At least your cats would love the real you.
]]> 218372266 In the tradition of Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women and Robert Kolker’s Hidden Valley Road, Abigail Leonard's immersive, page-turning narrative follows four women from around the world as they embark on the transformative first year of motherhood.

Tsukasa in Japan grapples with memories of a difficult childhood as she tries to chart a new, healthier path for her own daughter while balancing onerous cultural expectations. Chelsea in Kenya endures a devastating loss just before she gives birth and finds that without the traditional support of previous generations, motherhood can be grueling – but it can also provide emotional healing. Anna in Finland navigates a complicated relationship with her child’s father, but the country’s robust family policies allow her to still pursue the kind of parenthood that she envisioned. Sarah in the US leaves the religious community that raised her in order to create a less traditional family of her own only to find she’s largely confronting motherhood alone.
 
Utterly moving and propulsively readable from page one, Leonard interweaves these stories with a critically researched exploration of how parental support programs evolved in each country—and why some provide more help than others. As nations around the world debate programs like paid leave, universal daycare, reproductive healthcare, and family tax incentives, Four Mothers offers a uniquely intimate, moving portrait of what those policies mean for parents on the ground—and considers what modern families really want.

 ]]> 288 Abigail Leonard 1643756532 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.52 2025
author: Abigail Leonard
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 229059637 A bonus epilogue to The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels!

When Cecilia and Pleasance go shopping for a new lamp, shenanigans ensue. Featuring explosions of the literal & sensual kind.]]> 19 India Holton Kaethe 0 to-read 3.95
author: India Holton
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 213664743 Adam Silvera Kaethe 0 to-read 4.57
author: Adam Silvera
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.57
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 208703628 176 Michele Botton 1681123460 Kaethe 4 graphic-novel 3.76 2023
author: Michele Botton
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/24
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: graphic-novel
review:

]]> 67353927
Arguably one of the most recognisable actresses of all time, this unauthorised collection of inspirational quotes demonstrates the spirit of a true style icon, and reflects on charity, fashion, elegance, humanity, beauty and beyond. - 'Every day, you should have one exquisite moment.' 'Elegance is the only beauty that never fades.' 'You have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.' 'Life is a party. Dress for it.']]> 96 Harper by Design 1460763831 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.95
author: Harper by Design
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 35297112
All the famous ladies want a Givenchy dress—actresses, opera singers, princesses and the wife of a president. When Audrey Hepburn has to figure what to wear for her next movie, she approaches Givenchy, but he's too busy to design something just for her. When encourages her to try on clothing from within his collection, they're both stunned by what they discover.
 
Philip Hopman brings us a stylish and compelling picture book about fashion and friendship that fits like a glove!]]> 32 Philip Hopman 0735843147 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.60 2014
author: Philip Hopman
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 9432796 Audrey's family has compiled these 100 stunning images as a tribute to the Hollywood sweetheart. Paying strict attention to aesthetic beauty, artistic expression, and personal significance, they have lovingly selected these photographs to represent the qualities Hepburn herself stood for throughout her life and career.]]> 191 Ellen Fontana 1402778368 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.58 2010
author: Ellen Fontana
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60420549
Discover the key moments of Hepburn's fascinating life and the iconic looks she pioneered. From Sabrina to Breakfast at Tiffany's , Audrey Hepburn is renowned for her acting skill and fashion style, but less well known is her life in Nazi-occupied Holland or her tireless dedication to helping those less fortunate than herself. Elegantly enclosed by a hardback cover and ribbon, Megan's beautiful illustrations follow Hepburn through three distinct her early life in World War II Europe, dreaming of becoming a ballerina; her ingénue years as the rising star of Hollywood and her incredible fashion partnership with Hubert de Givenchy; and her private life beyond the silver screen, building a legacy through her humanitarian work.

Audrey Hepburn is a celebration of a woman whose life was as remarkable as the clothes she wore and the movies she starred in, brought to life on the page by the expert hand of Megan Hess.]]> 192 Megan Hess 1743798369 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.50 2022
author: Megan Hess
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1140753 196 Pierre-Henri Verlhac 1862057753 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.22 2007
author: Pierre-Henri Verlhac
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61155409
When Emma Jansen discovers that the grand Long Island estate where she grew up is set to be demolished, she can't help but return for one last visit. After all, it was a place filled with firsts: learning to ride a bike, sneaking a glass of champagne, falling in love.

But once Emma arrives at the storied mansion, she can't ignore the more complicated memories. Because that's not exactly where Emma grew up. Her mother and father worked for the family that owned the estate, and they lived over the garage like Audrey Hepburn's character in the film Sabrina. Emma never felt fully accepted, except by the family's grandson, Henry—a former love—and by the driver’s son, Leo—her best friend.

As plans for the property are put into motion and the three are together for the first time in over a decade, Emma finds herself caught between two worlds and two loves. And when the house reveals a shattering secret about her own family, she’ll have to decide what kind of life she really wants for herself now and who she wants to be in it.

]]> 368 Brenda Janowitz 1525811487 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.52 2023
author: Brenda Janowitz
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 168565 96 Carol Krenz 1567995314 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.10 1997
author: Carol Krenz
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 262811 0 Audrey Hepburn 1931056528 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.19 1993
author: Audrey Hepburn
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53349964
In her fantasies, Audrey enrolls in a premier ballet school and turns to acting, singing, and dancing. One day she is cast in a film that makes her a star. She eventually sets fame aside to focus on raising a family and working with children in need, which she felt was her most important accomplishment. Little Audrey's Daydream, written by her son and daughter-in-law, offers a beacon of hope during difficult times, showing young readers that, with spirit and determination, dreams can come true.]]> 56 Sean Hepburn Ferrer 1616899913 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.33 2020
author: Sean Hepburn Ferrer
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 24862545
After a terrible day on set where she embarrasses herself in front of the entire cast and worst of all, it’s sexy bad-boy star, Dillon O’Hara, she plonks herself down on her battered couch to watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the trillionth time.

Suddenly, Libby is astonished to find screen icon Audrey Hepburn, complete with little black dress, trademark sunglasses and vintage cigarette holder, sitting beside her and proffering advice.
Has Libby got what it takes to turn her life from a Turkey to a Blockbuster? Perhaps with a little bit of Audrey Hepburn magic, she might just pull it off…

A night in with Audrey Hepburn is the first in a series of three books following the life and loves of Libby Lomax as she blossoms from Z-lister to A-lister and all of the stages in between with a little bit of help from some very special friends.]]> 400 Lucy Holliday 0007582242 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.55 2015
author: Lucy Holliday
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 168560
She dazzled millions as Gigi. Eliza Doolittle. Holly Golightly. But to her most adoring fan, Audrey Hepburn was best known for her role as “Mummy.”

In this heartfelt tribute to his mother, Sean Hepburn Ferrer offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the life of one of Hollywood's brightest stars. Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit is a stunning compilation of nearly 300 photographs, many straight from the family album and never before published; archival documents, personal correspondence, and mementos; even paintings and illustrations from the actress herself.

Sean tells Audrey Hepburn's remarkable story, from her childhood in war-torn Holland to the height of her fame to her autumn years far from the camera and the crush of the paparazzi. Sean introduces us to someone whose grace, charm, and beauty were matched only by her insecurity about her appearance and talent, and who used her hard-won recognition as a means to help children less fortunate than her own. With this unique biography, Sean celebrates his mother's history and humanity—and continues her charitable work by donating proceeds from this book to the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund.]]> 256 Sean Hepburn Ferrer 0671024795 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.29 2003
author: Sean Hepburn Ferrer
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 205589400 An unconventional story about navigating differences and learning to be present.

​When a cat and her human go for walks, the human always decides where they go and what they do. “But what if it were the other way around?” the cat asks one day. So the next time, the human follows the cat. When the cat is in control, she wants to stop more often, and she wants to chase squirrels and climb up trees. Her human finds all these detours ridiculous. But when you walk at a cat’s pace, you can see the most amazing things.

Painted in richly saturated colors, The Cat Way explores the strange path to compromise and cooperation. Walking together might take some patience—but it can also lead to the most incredible surprises.]]> 66 Sara Lundberg 0802856330 Kaethe 0 cats, picture-books 3.64 2024
author: Sara Lundberg
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: cats, picture-books
review:

]]> 217286550 In Regency England, the eccentric Colebrook sisters are amateur detectives who use their wits and invisibility as “old maids” to fight injustice in this delightful and fiercely feminist novel of mystery and adventure from New York Times bestselling author Alison Goodman.

To most of Regency high society, forty-two-year-old Lady Augusta Colebrook, or Gus, and her twin sister, Julia, are just unmarried ladies of a certain age. But the Colebrook twins are far from useless old maids. They are secretly protecting women and children ignored by society and the law.

When Lord Evan—a charming escaped convict who has won Gus’s heart—needs to hide his sister, Hester, from their vindictive brother, Gus and Julia take Hester and her lover into their home. But Lord Evan’s complicated past puts them all in danger. Gus knows they must clear his name of murder if he is to survive the thieftakers who hunt him. No easy task—the fatal duel was twenty years ago and a key witness is nowhere to be found.

In a deadly cat-and-mouse game, Gus, Julia, and Lord Evan must dodge their pursuers and investigate Lord Evan’s past. They will be thrust into the ugly underworld of Georgian gentlemen’s clubs, spies, and ruthless bounty hunters, not to mention the everyday threat of narrow-minded brothers. Will the truth be found in time, or will dangerous secrets from the past destroy family bonds and rip new love and lives apart?]]> 460 Alison Goodman 0593440846 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.25 2025
author: Alison Goodman
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62313333
Lady Augusta Colebrook, “Gus,” is determinedly unmarried, bored by society life, and tired of being dismissed at the age of forty-two. She and her twin sister, Julia, who is grieving her dead betrothed, need a distraction. One soon presents to rescue their friend’s goddaughter, Caroline, from her violent husband.
 
The sisters set out to Caroline’s country estate with a plan, but their carriage is accosted by a highwayman. In the scuffle, Gus accidentally shoots and injures the ruffian, only to discover he is Lord Evan Belford, an acquaintance from their past who was charged with murder and exiled to Australia twenty years ago. What follows is a high adventure full of danger, clever improvisation, heart-racing near misses, and a little help from a revived and rather charming Lord Evan.

Back in London, Gus can’t stop thinking about her unlikely (not to mention handsome) comrade-in-arms. She is convinced Lord Evan was falsely accused of murder, and she is going to prove it. She persuades Julia to join her in a quest to help Lord Evan, and others in need—society be damned! And so begins the beguiling secret life and adventures of the Colebrook twins.]]> 452 Alison Goodman 0593440811 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.14 2023
author: Alison Goodman
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55338982
What makes “cults” so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join—and more importantly, stay in—extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has . . .

Our culture tends to provide pretty flimsy answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of “brainwashing.” But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear—and are influenced by—every single day.

Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish,” revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven’s Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of “cultish” everywhere.]]> 309 Amanda Montell 0062993151 Kaethe 5 that, but there's also a great deal of insight into the appeal of social groups at the edges, non-sensationalized recent history about which I was ill-informed: both the massacre in Jonestown and how that in turn lead to the deaths of nearly eighty Branch Davidians. As well, there's a clear-eyed view of MLM and exercise studios of which I knew nothing.

Quotes that grabbed me and that I have to actually type in because I read an actual print version.

"...she willingly heard the buzzwords and thought-terminators she wanted to hear, and tuned out the rest...I let him address my priorities, and put blinders on for other things..."

"These folks can be thought of as "nerds" because what they're really doing is experimenting in corners...that might not be considered conventionally cool or glamorous. Analogous, I like to think of certain cultists religious types as "spiritual nerds." They're the people who geek out on niche theological theories...who are willing to look outside the box..."

Because there's a bravery to that process I admire.

"In the end, some problematic leaders are really just followers of the larger system. But a truly, destructively cultish leader is one who wishes to overthrow the system and replace it with something that grants them ultimate power."

I recognize that there are people like this, but they feel alien to me in a way that fictional Martians never do.

"The group [Ramtha] was founded in the late '80s....But Ramtha devotees...hear what they want to hear and ignore the rest."

That's a recurring theme, obviously, and so relatable. Many people are forced to make their choices from the lesser of two (or more evils), and not only in elections. But while some of my thoughts were dire, I was often amused as well, as this line, when recalling the bizarre claims of a conspiracy theory:

"...baseless doomsday predictions and ideas of dark forces secretly controlling everything are practically trite."

I am becoming a little devoted to Montell's writing.

Library copy]]> 3.82 2021
author: Amanda Montell
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/23
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: history, language, nonfiction, secret-societies, skepticism, social-issues, truly-terrifying, religion
review:
A clever, engaging, and empathetic look at a gamut of cults from the truly horrifying to the mostly harmless (no worse than any other late stage capitalism company) and the importance language plays in creating and maintaining them all. As a hypermedia you know I am all for a good book about language, so there's that, but there's also a great deal of insight into the appeal of social groups at the edges, non-sensationalized recent history about which I was ill-informed: both the massacre in Jonestown and how that in turn lead to the deaths of nearly eighty Branch Davidians. As well, there's a clear-eyed view of MLM and exercise studios of which I knew nothing.

Quotes that grabbed me and that I have to actually type in because I read an actual print version.

"...she willingly heard the buzzwords and thought-terminators she wanted to hear, and tuned out the rest...I let him address my priorities, and put blinders on for other things..."

"These folks can be thought of as "nerds" because what they're really doing is experimenting in corners...that might not be considered conventionally cool or glamorous. Analogous, I like to think of certain cultists religious types as "spiritual nerds." They're the people who geek out on niche theological theories...who are willing to look outside the box..."

Because there's a bravery to that process I admire.

"In the end, some problematic leaders are really just followers of the larger system. But a truly, destructively cultish leader is one who wishes to overthrow the system and replace it with something that grants them ultimate power."

I recognize that there are people like this, but they feel alien to me in a way that fictional Martians never do.

"The group [Ramtha] was founded in the late '80s....But Ramtha devotees...hear what they want to hear and ignore the rest."

That's a recurring theme, obviously, and so relatable. Many people are forced to make their choices from the lesser of two (or more evils), and not only in elections. But while some of my thoughts were dire, I was often amused as well, as this line, when recalling the bizarre claims of a conspiracy theory:

"...baseless doomsday predictions and ideas of dark forces secretly controlling everything are practically trite."

I am becoming a little devoted to Montell's writing.

Library copy
]]> 13651 387 Ursula K. Le Guin Kaethe 0 to-read 4.24 1974
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 74445 234 John O'Donohue 006092943X Kaethe 0 to-read 4.30 1996
author: John O'Donohue
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22822881
It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of the world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain.

Cynthia Barnett's  Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It weaves together science—the true shape of a raindrop, the mysteries of frog and fish rains—with the human story of our ambition to control rain, from ancient rain dances to the 2,203 miles of levees that attempt to straitjacket the Mississippi River. It offers a glimpse of our "founding forecaster," Thomas Jefferson, who measured every drizzle long before modern meteorology. Two centuries later, rainy skies would help inspire Morrissey’s mopes and Kurt Cobain’s grunge. Rain is also a travelogue, taking readers to Scotland to tell the surprising story of the mackintosh raincoat, and to India, where villagers extract the scent of rain from the monsoon-drenched earth and turn it into perfume.

Now, after thousands of years spent praying for rain or worshiping it; burning witches at the stake to stop rain or sacrificing small children to bring it; mocking rain with irrigated agriculture and cities built in floodplains; even trying to blast rain out of the sky with mortars meant for war, humanity has finally managed to change the rain. Only not in ways we intended. As climate change upends rainfall patterns and unleashes increasingly severe storms and drought, Barnett shows rain to be a unifying force in a fractured world. Too much and not nearly enough, rain is a conversation we share, and this is a book for everyone who has ever experienced it.]]> 355 Cynthia Barnett 0804137099 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.82 2015
author: Cynthia Barnett
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2871256 Blood Lite...a collection of entertaining tales that puts the fun back into dark fiction, with ironic twists and tongue-in-cheek wit to temper the jagged edge.

Charlaine Harris reveals the dark side of going green, when a quartet of die-hard environmentalists hosts a fundraiser with a gory twist in An Evening with Al Gore...

In an all-new Dresden Files story from Jim Butcher, when it comes to tracking deadly paranormal doings, there's no such thing as a Harry's Day Off for the Chicago P.D.'s wizard detective, Harry Dresden...

Sherrilyn Kenyon turns a cubicle-dwelling MBA with no life into a demon-fighting seraph with one hell of an afterlife in Where Angels Fear to Tread. NOTE: This story has been re-released in the Dark Bites anthology.

Celebrity necromancer Jaime Vegas is headlining a sold-out séance tour, but behind the scenes, a disgruntled ghost has a bone to pick, in Kelley Armstrong's The Ungrateful Dead.

Plus tales guaranteed to get under your skin - in a good way - from:
* Janet Berliner
* Don D'Ammassa
* Nancy Holder
* Nancy Kilpatrick
* J. A. Konrath
* F. Paul Wilson
* Joe R. Lansdale
* Will Ludwigsen
* Sharyn McCrumb
* Mark Onspaugh
* Mike Resnick
* Steven Savile
* D. L. Snell
* Eric James Stone
* Jeff Strand
* Lucien Soulban
* Matt Venne
* Christopher Welch

So let the blood flow and laughter reign - because when it comes to facing our deepest, darkest fears, a little humor goes a long way!]]> 388 Kevin J. Anderson 1416567836 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.69 2008
author: Kevin J. Anderson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 90590129 In this celebration of the comfort and community to be found in a warm, well-made cup of chai, Kevin Wilson offers readers his famous chai recipes alongside meditations on how to live a simple yet full life.

Dubbed “the CEO of Chai” by Bon Appétit magazine, Kevin Wilson is an expert on all things chai. When Wilson was a teenager, his family in Sri Lanka applied to come to America, but his was the only visa approved. A world away from his country and so many of his loved ones, he stayed connected to his culture and his family through chai. One day Wilson made a TikTok about how to make the perfect cup of chai—carefully crushing cardamom, cloves, peppercorns, and cinnamon bark, boiling them in milk, adding tea leaves, and stirring until he saw what he describes as “the color of a happy brown boy.” The video went viral and earned Wilson many fans who come for the useful guidance on how to make chai but stay for his wise meditations on how the perfect “cuppa” can soothe and sustain us—even in the most trying of times. In this book, Wilson shares his most popular recipes and introduces readers to making chai as a spiritual practice that involves patience and attunement to meld just the right combination of spices.
    In The Way of Chai Wilson beautifully describes how something as simple as a well-made cup of tea can bring us solace amid our struggles. While a steaming cup of chai can’t solve everything, it can help us tap into the power of patience, clarity, and intention.]]> 222 Kevin Wilson 0593538579 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.08
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30334176
Day after day, the American bomber boys watched their comrades burn to death in blazing bombers, or observed their comrades being thrown out of exploding aircraft without parachutes and sink with their crippled aircraft in the freezing North Sea. But by the following spring they had destroyed the Nazi’s fighting spirit and saw Germany broken in two.

In this authoritative history, Kevin Wilson reveals the blood and heroism of the 8th Air Force. At the same time, he opens up the lives of the Women's Army Corps and Red Cross girls who served in England with them and feared for the men in the skies, and he hasn't flinched from recounting the devastation of bombing or the testimony of shocked German civilians.

Drawing on first-hand accounts from diaries, letters, and his personal audio recordings, the author has brought to life the ebullient Americans' interaction with their British counterparts, unveiling stories of humanity and heartbreak. Thanks to America's bomber boys and girls, the tide of World War II shifted forever.]]> 560 Kevin Wilson 1681773198 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.00 2016
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 12846442
Twenty-five years, countless live gigs and millions of album sales down the track, KEVIN BLOODY WILSON has not only found his niche, he’s grabbed an esky and a deckchair and made himself really bloody comfortable in it! These days his recordings can be found everywhere from Outback Australia to Antarctica, from big-rig road trains to the console of Prince Charles’ Aston Martin. And, remarkably, many albums have achieved platinum status with absolutely no traditional media support.

DILLIGAF (Do I Look Like I Give a F***) will catapult you on a remarkable, side-splitting roller-coaster ride alongside a unique Australian icon. If you buckle up and enjoy the journey, you won't ever want it to stop. But when it's over, you almost certainly will be changed forever with the positive, inspirational and pretension-hating spirit of the DILLIGAF philosophy coursing through your veins.

KEVIN BLOODY WILSON has been listed in the Who’s Who, his entire body of work has been preserved for future generations with the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra and he is now a highly sought after speaker and motivator for sporting and corporate Australia. It seems ironic, that nearly 27 years ago, Kevin Bloody Wilson was being arrested for performing his songs in public, yet on Australia Day 2010 he was officially nominated for the Australian of the Year for doing exactly the same thing.]]> 306 Gavin Miller 1617928135 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.08 2010
author: Gavin Miller
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 35887255
Filled with imagination and humor, Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine is an exuberant collection of captivating and charmingly bizarre stories that promise to burrow their way into your heart and soul.

 ]]> 278 Kevin Wilson 0062450689 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.80 2018
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 4015864
Southern gothic at its best, laced with humor and pathos, these wonderfully inventive stories explore the relationship between loss and death and the many ways we try to cope with both.]]> 224 Kevin Wilson 0061579025 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.06 2009
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218671843 An unexpected road trip across America brings a family together, in this raucous and moving new novel from the bestselling author of Nothing to See Here.

Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it’s just been Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While she sometimes admits it’s a bit lonely and a less exciting life than she imagined for herself, it’s mostly OK. Mostly.

Then one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she’s his half sister. Reuben—left behind by their dad thirty years ago—has hired a detective to track down their father and a string of other half siblings. And he wants Mad to leave her home and join him for the craziest kind of road trip imaginable to find them all.

As Mad and Rube—and eventually the others—share stories of their father, who behaved so differently in each life he created, they begin to question what he was looking for with each new incarnation. Who are they to one another? What kind of man will they find? And how will these new relationships change Mad’s previously solitary life on the farm?

Infused with deadpan wit, zany hijinks, and enormous heart, Run for the Hills is a sibling story like no other—a novel about a family forged under the most unlikely circumstances and united by hope in an unknown future.]]> 256 Kevin Wilson 0063317516 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.88 2025
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 29229956
When Isabelle Poole meets Dr. Preston Grind, she’s fresh out of high school, pregnant with her art teacher's baby, and totally on her own. Izzy knows she can be a good mother but without any money or relatives to help, she’s left searching.Dr. Grind, an awkwardly charming child psychologist, has spent his life studying family, even after tragedy struck his own.  Now, with the help of an eccentric billionaire, he has the chance to create a “perfect little world”—to study what would happen when ten children are raised collectively, without knowing who their biological parents are.  He calls it The Infinite Family Project and he wants Izzy and her son to join.

This attempt at a utopian ideal starts off promising, but soon the gentle equilibrium among the families unspoken resentments between the couples begin to fester; the project's funding becomes tenuous; and Izzy’s growing feelings for Dr. Grind make her question her participation in this strange experiment in the first place.Written with the same compassion and charm that won over legions of readers with The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson shows us with grace and humor that the best families are the ones we make for ourselves.]]> 0 Kevin Wilson 0062450352 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.66 2017
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 10149142
Their children called it mischief.

Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist’s work lies in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjusted children. Just ask Buster and Annie Fang. For as long as they can remember, they starred (unwillingly) in their parents’ madcap pieces. But now that they are grown up, the chaos of their childhood has made it difficult to cope with life outside the fishbowl of their parents’ strange world.

When the lives they’ve built come crashing down, brother and sister have nowhere to go but home, where they discover that Caleb and Camille are planning one last performance -– their magnum opus -– whether the kids agree to participate or not. Soon, ambition breeds conflict, bringing the Fangs to face the difficult decision about what’s ultimately more important: their family or their art.]]> 320 Kevin Wilson 0061579033 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.62 2011
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 42519313
Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth.

Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other—and stay cool—while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her—urgently and fiercely. Couldn’t this be the start of the amazing life she’d always hoped for?]]> 288 Kevin Wilson 0062913484 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.95 2019
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60415700
Sixteen-year-old Frankie Budge—aspiring writer, indifferent student, offbeat loner—is determined to make it through yet another sad summer in Coalfield, Tennessee, when she meets Zeke, a talented artist who has just moved into his grandmother’s unhappy house and who is as lonely and awkward as Frankie is. Romantic and creative sparks begin to fly, and when the two jointly make an unsigned poster, shot through with an enigmatic phrase, it becomes unforgettable to anyone who sees it. The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.

The posters begin appearing everywhere, and people wonder who is behind them. Satanists, kidnappers—the rumors won’t stop, and soon the mystery has dangerous repercussions that spread far beyond the town. The art that brought Frankie and Zeke together now threatens to tear them apart.

Twenty years later, Frances Eleanor Budge—famous author, mom to a wonderful daughter, wife to a loving husband—gets a call that threatens to upend everything: a journalist named Mazzy Brower is writing a story about the Coalfield Panic of 1996. Might Frances know something about that? And will what she knows destroy the life she’s so carefully built?

A bold coming-of-age story, written with Kevin Wilson’s trademark wit and blazing prose, Now Is Not The Time to Panic is a nuanced exploration of young love, identity, and the power of art. It’s also about the secrets that haunt us—and, ultimately, what the truth will set free.]]> 246 Kevin Wilson 0062913506 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.68 2022
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]> 432 Emily Henry Kaethe 0
Last night I dreamed that I was once again back in book-publishing or -selling, and I met Emily Henry doing something work-related. She was lovely. In the dream Great Big Beautiful Life had been embargoed and only released [that day] so I hadn't read much of it yet. But whatever complimentary thing I said about her writing seemed to puzzle and mildly alarm her. (It's been a while, but I don't recall upsetting any authors I ever spoke to.) Ah, well, the bus driver was kind about me holding him up, and I got to pet the driver's snoozing grey cat who was very sweet and not at all alarmed by me.

It was a pleasant start to my day, and I so rarely remember dreaming at all, let alone people or scenes, that I wanted to note it. No doubt I will enjoy this one as much as I had been in the dream.

***



]]> 3.99 2025
author: Emily Henry
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves:
review:
22 May 2025

Last night I dreamed that I was once again back in book-publishing or -selling, and I met Emily Henry doing something work-related. She was lovely. In the dream Great Big Beautiful Life had been embargoed and only released [that day] so I hadn't read much of it yet. But whatever complimentary thing I said about her writing seemed to puzzle and mildly alarm her. (It's been a while, but I don't recall upsetting any authors I ever spoke to.) Ah, well, the bus driver was kind about me holding him up, and I got to pet the driver's snoozing grey cat who was very sweet and not at all alarmed by me.

It was a pleasant start to my day, and I so rarely remember dreaming at all, let alone people or scenes, that I wanted to note it. No doubt I will enjoy this one as much as I had been in the dream.

***




]]> 30653955
Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with experts within and outside the medical establishment, and personal stories from regular women to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today. In addition to offering a clear-eyed explanation of the root causes of this insidious and entrenched bias and laying out its effects, she suggests concrete steps we can take to cure it.]]> 400 Maya Dusenbery 0062470809 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.16 2018
author: Maya Dusenbery
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 26203640 The latest edition of the communication guide that has sold more than 1,000,000 copies
 
An enlightening look at how peaceful communication can create compassionate connections with family, friends, and other acquaintances, this international bestseller uses stories, examples, and sample dialogues to provide solutions to communication problems both at home and in the workplace. Guidance is provided on identifying and articulating feelings and needs, expressing anger fully, and exploring the power of empathy in order to speak honestly without creating hostility, break patterns of thinking that lead to anger and depression, and communicate compassionately. Included in the new edition is a chapter on conflict resolution and mediation.]]> 264 Marshall B. Rosenberg Kaethe 4
This is a very simple concept, dare I say "brilliantly simple," that is very hard to practice. The book feels a wee bit padded, but most of the material is examples of the concept iin realistic situations that most of is would find challenging, anyway.

Worthwhile.

Library copy]]> 4.49 1999
author: Marshall B. Rosenberg
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.49
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/18
date added: 2025/05/18
shelves:
review:
18 May 2025

This is a very simple concept, dare I say "brilliantly simple," that is very hard to practice. The book feels a wee bit padded, but most of the material is examples of the concept iin realistic situations that most of is would find challenging, anyway.

Worthwhile.

Library copy
]]> 224003864 From the beloved New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book and hailed as “a national treasure” by The Washington Post, Joyride is a masterful memoir of finding her creative calling and purpose that invites us to approach life with wonder, curiosity, and an irrepressible sense of delight.

“The story of my life is the story of my stories,” writes Susan Orlean in this extraordinary, era-defining memoir from one of the greatest practitioners of narrative nonfiction of our time. Joyride is a magic carpet ride through Orlean’s life and career, where every day is an opportunity for discovery and every moment holds the potential for wonder. Throughout her storied career, her curiosity draws her to explore the most ordinary and extraordinary of places, from going deep inside the head of a regular ten-year-old boy for a legendary profile (“The American Man Age Ten”) to reporting on a woman who owns twenty-seven tigers, from capturing the routine magic of Saturday night to climbing Mt. Fuji.

Not only does Orlean’s account of a writing life offer a trove of indispensable gleanings for writers, it’s also an essential and practical guide to embracing any creative path. She takes us through her process of dreaming up ideas, managing deadlines, connecting with sources, chasing every possible lead, confronting writer’s block and self-doubt, and crafting the perfect lede—a Susan specialty.

While Orlean has always written her way into other people’s lives in order to understand the human experience, Joyride is her most personal book ever—a searching journey through finding her feet as a journalist, recovering from the excruciating collapse of her first marriage, falling head-over-heels in love again, becoming a mother while mourning the decline of her own mother, sojourning to Hollywood for films based on her work including Adaptation and Blue Crush, and confronting mortality. Joyride is also a time machine to a bygone era of journalism, from Orlean’s bright start in the golden age of alt-weeklies to her career-making days working alongside icons such as Robert Gottlieb, Tina Brown, David Remnick, Anna Wintour, Sonny Mehta, and Jonathan Karp—forces who shaped the media industry as we know it today.

Infused with Orlean’s signature warmth and wit, Joyride is a must-read for anyone who hungers to start, build, and sustain a creative life. Orlean inspires us to seek out daily inspiration and rediscover the marvels that surround us.]]> 368 Susan Orlean 1982135166 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.58 2025
author: Susan Orlean
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43107933
Jackson Brodie has relocated to a quiet seaside village, in the occasional company of his recalcitrant teenage son and an aging Labrador, both at the discretion of his ex-partner Julia. It’s picturesque, but there’s something darker lurking behind the scenes.

Jackson’s current job, gathering proof of an unfaithful husband for his suspicious wife, is fairly standard-issue, but a chance encounter with a desperate man on a crumbling cliff leads him into a sinister network—and back across the path of his old friend Reggie. Old secrets and new lies intersect in this breathtaking novel by one of the most dazzling and surprising writers at work today.]]> 352 Kate Atkinson Kaethe 0 abandoned
I have now picked this up, read a bit and then not read any more. Three times in 5 years. I think I can just go ahead and give it a miss from here on out. It's not Atkinson, it's me.

Library copy]]> 3.90 2019
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/17
shelves: abandoned
review:
17 May 2025

I have now picked this up, read a bit and then not read any more. Three times in 5 years. I think I can just go ahead and give it a miss from here on out. It's not Atkinson, it's me.

Library copy
]]> 83823694 The beloved, multi-award-winning duo of Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen tackle a perennial question.

When Santa arrives at a child’s house on Christmas Eve, does he go down the chimney feetfirst or headfirst? What if he gets stuck? What if there’s no chimney? Maybe he slides under the door, as thin as a piece of paper? Or is it possible he pours himself through the faucet? What happens once he’s inside? Whether it’s shape-shifting or impromptu laundry use, Mac Barnett’s iconic talent for earnest deadpan humor and Jon Klassen’s irresistibly funny art honor the timeless question with answers both ridiculous and plausible, mounting in hilarity as the night continues. Channeling a child’s fanciful explanations (and begging for further speculation), this latest collaboration by a New York Times best-selling team will find a secure spot among family holiday traditions.]]> 32 Mac Barnett 1536234443 Kaethe 5
This book is possibly more appealing to adults than kids, although asking kids for their ideas, before reading the book, would probably appeal to both. Santa is a topic about which I particularly enjoying hearing children theorize. But for me, [spoilers removed].

***
14 May 2025

I wasn't going to add anything specific, but I discovered that my 6-month-old first draft was so abbreviated and/or rushed, such as to leave it nearly incomprehensible to me. I hope it's a bit better now anyway.

Library copy]]> 4.27 2023
author: Mac Barnett
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/14
date added: 2025/05/14
shelves: picture-books, xmas, deer, beloved
review:
29 December, 2024

This book is possibly more appealing to adults than kids, although asking kids for their ideas, before reading the book, would probably appeal to both. Santa is a topic about which I particularly enjoying hearing children theorize. But for me, [spoilers removed].

***
14 May 2025

I wasn't going to add anything specific, but I discovered that my 6-month-old first draft was so abbreviated and/or rushed, such as to leave it nearly incomprehensible to me. I hope it's a bit better now anyway.

Library copy
]]> 59806032 48 Mac Barnett 133867384X Kaethe 5
The little skull and bone mobile hanging beneath the bridge fills me with morbid delight. Normally I skip the front flap copy because spoilers. This time I read it, possibly just because I was admiring the mobile close-up at the bottom. The jacket copy was fine, too, not spoilery at all. Lovely bone-strewn endpapers, by the way.

Nice troll, too.

Library copy

14 May 2025 edited to fix a typo and clarify the second and third sentences. ]]> 4.35 2022
author: Mac Barnett
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/13
date added: 2025/05/14
shelves: retellings, format-picture-books, goats, beloved
review:
27 May 2023

The little skull and bone mobile hanging beneath the bridge fills me with morbid delight. Normally I skip the front flap copy because spoilers. This time I read it, possibly just because I was admiring the mobile close-up at the bottom. The jacket copy was fine, too, not spoilery at all. Lovely bone-strewn endpapers, by the way.

Nice troll, too.

Library copy

14 May 2025 edited to fix a typo and clarify the second and third sentences.
]]> 54846475 Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves
A female cop with her first big case
A brutal murder
Welcome to…
THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves The Thursday Murder Club.

When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case.

As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late?]]> 368 Richard Osman 1984880977 Kaethe 5
Having just read the first book of the new Osman series, and knowing there won't be another new book fast, I decided to go back and read this series over again.

The best part about aging, for me anyway, is that a cluttered memory makes it hard to remember details from books, so I do actually get to read a book I have already loved (here a mere 2 years ago) again, and for the first time.

Probably a great many people have made this observation. And it's a bit lowering to realize I might have previously made it, and forgotten.

Library copy]]> 4.08 2020
author: Richard Osman
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/14
date added: 2025/05/14
shelves: amateur, murder-most-foul, beloved, uk
review:
14 May 2025

Having just read the first book of the new Osman series, and knowing there won't be another new book fast, I decided to go back and read this series over again.

The best part about aging, for me anyway, is that a cluttered memory makes it hard to remember details from books, so I do actually get to read a book I have already loved (here a mere 2 years ago) again, and for the first time.

Probably a great many people have made this observation. And it's a bit lowering to realize I might have previously made it, and forgotten.

Library copy
]]> 219623252 Who's got time to think about murder when there's a wedding to plan?

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

But when Elizabeth meets a wedding guest who’s in trouble, kidnap and death are hot on their heels once more. A villain wants access to an uncrackable code, and will stop at nothing to get it. Plunged back into action once more, can the gang solve the puzzle and a murder in time?]]> 368 Richard Osman 1405975628 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.50 2025
author: Richard Osman
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57991307 Alternate cover edition can be found here

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.

But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?]]> 361 Richard Osman 1984880985 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.84 2020
author: Richard Osman
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 34002075 A New York Times bestseller!

This is a story about a duck and mouse who get swallowed by a wolf, and then decide to live in his belly.

Early one morning a mouse met a wolf
and was quickly gobbled up.

When a woeful mouse is swallowed by a wolf, he quickly learns he is not alone: a duck has already set up digs, and, boy, has that duck got it figured out! Turns out it’s pretty nice in there, with delicious food and elegant table settings, courtesy of the wolf’s unchecked gluttony. And there’s something even better: no more fear of being eaten by a wolf! In fact, life is pretty good, until a hunter shows up. . . . With a nod to traditional fables and a wink to the reader, the award-winning Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen offer a tale of cooperation and creative cuisine that is sure to go down easy.]]> 40 Mac Barnett 076367754X Kaethe 5
I don't know how I missed this, unless it was just always checked out. I may like it more than Sam and Dave.

Library copy]]> 4.24 2017
author: Mac Barnett
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/13
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: wolves, mice, ducks, picture-books
review:
13 May 2025

I don't know how I missed this, unless it was just always checked out. I may like it more than Sam and Dave.

Library copy
]]> 20566436
Sam and Dave are on a mission. A mission to find something spectacular. So they dig a hole. And they keep digging. And they find . . . nothing. Yet the day turns out to be pretty spectacular after all. Attentive readers will be rewarded with a rare treasure in this witty story of looking for the extraordinary — and finding it in a manner you’d never expect.]]> Mac Barnett Kaethe 5 you must read this. The PandaBatWolf and I both agree. Now.

You're welcome.

Library copy.

Edited in May 2025 to add emphasis]]> 4.19 2014
author: Mac Barnett
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/13
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: middle-grade, adventure, fantasy, fiction, picture-books, friendship, kids, trippy, dogs, beloved
review:
I do not have a clever theory about what is going on here. But it's cool, whatever it is. Two boys decide to dig a hole. They dig a really big hole. Things get weird. No matter what age you are, no matter whether you don't normally read picture books,you must read this. The PandaBatWolf and I both agree. Now.

You're welcome.

Library copy.

Edited in May 2025 to add emphasis
]]> 28963662
New York Times best-selling creators Mac Barnett and Adam Rex reveal the nitty gritty process of making a book . . . with a few unexpected twists along the way! Budding writers and artists will laugh at the mix of reality and the absurd as the story makes its way to a shelf, and a reader.
]]> 44 Mac Barnett 1423152204 Kaethe 5
We are longstanding Adam Rex fans, and I've enjoyed his previous work with Barnett, so yeah, I grabbed this off the library shelf. I'm not following a lot of children's book bloggers any more, so I'm not walking into the library with a list of items, I'm just taking whatever looks appealing on display or the New Shelf. Sometimes I recall someone we used to love and see what's on the shelf, but usually I find myself in a bookstore or library unable to recall the name of any author or the title of any book that I've ever enjoyed. Is that just me, or does it happen to other people, too? Or perhaps other people have other book-shopping quirks that I can't even imagine? Feel free to share. Anyway, Barnett breaks down the whole process of writing, illustrating, and publishing a book in a way that is both accurate and amusing, not least because of Rex's great art. I have no idea if kids in general would enjoy this, but certainly the already bookish ones would.

***

23 May 2021

This is part of my 365 Kids Books challenge. For a fuller explanation see my review for 101 Amazing Facts about Australia You can see all the books on their own shelf. The Reviewers seemed to run correctly last week, but didn't run this week at all, and the Readers list hasn't been fixed at all. I guess algorithm don't care. Looking at the beta pages, algorithm loves stars.

Really I don't have anything to add to what I originally wrote. Still awesome. I still really love the MacAdam books. Metafiction in picture books is the best.



Library copy]]> 4.05 2016
author: Mac Barnett
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/13
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: books-about-books, humor, picture-books, nonfiction, beloved, 365-kids, meta
review:
7 November 2016

We are longstanding Adam Rex fans, and I've enjoyed his previous work with Barnett, so yeah, I grabbed this off the library shelf. I'm not following a lot of children's book bloggers any more, so I'm not walking into the library with a list of items, I'm just taking whatever looks appealing on display or the New Shelf. Sometimes I recall someone we used to love and see what's on the shelf, but usually I find myself in a bookstore or library unable to recall the name of any author or the title of any book that I've ever enjoyed. Is that just me, or does it happen to other people, too? Or perhaps other people have other book-shopping quirks that I can't even imagine? Feel free to share. Anyway, Barnett breaks down the whole process of writing, illustrating, and publishing a book in a way that is both accurate and amusing, not least because of Rex's great art. I have no idea if kids in general would enjoy this, but certainly the already bookish ones would.

***

23 May 2021

This is part of my 365 Kids Books challenge. For a fuller explanation see my review for 101 Amazing Facts about Australia You can see all the books on their own shelf. The Reviewers seemed to run correctly last week, but didn't run this week at all, and the Readers list hasn't been fixed at all. I guess algorithm don't care. Looking at the beta pages, algorithm loves stars.

Really I don't have anything to add to what I originally wrote. Still awesome. I still really love the MacAdam books. Metafiction in picture books is the best.



Library copy
]]> 41295548 A Dutiful Daughter

Sophie Appersett is quite willing to marry outside of her class to ensure the survival of her family. But the darkly handsome Mr. Edward Sharpe is no run of the mill London merchant. He's grim and silent. A man of little emotion--or perhaps no emotion at all. After two months of courtship, she's ready to put an end to things. After all, even a dutiful daughter has her limits.

A Taciturn Tradesman

Ned has come a long way since his days working as a draper's assistant. He's wealthy, ambitious, and eager to take a wife. But the courtship advice issued in The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette isn't all it's cracked up to be. Though he's followed it to the letter, Miss Appersett still doesn't wish to see him again. Frustrated and hurt, he's more than happy to oblige her.

A Christmas Courtship

Severing ties with her former beau isn't as straightforward as Sophie envisioned. Her parents are outraged. And then there's Charles Darwin, Prince Albert, and that dratted gaslight. What's a girl to do except invite Mr. Sharpe to the annual Christmas party at Appersett House and give him one more chance to win her? But this time there'll be no false formality. This time they'll get to know each other for who they really are.]]> 175 Mimi Matthews 0999036467 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.93 2018
author: Mimi Matthews
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218043065 No one betrays the Academy. But now Euphemia must break the rules for her enemy, or let the rules break her heart.

On the outskirts of London sits a seemingly innocuous institution with a secretive aim—train young women to distract, disrupt, and discredit the patriarchy. Outraged by a powerful politician’s systematic attack on women’s rights, the Academy summons its brightest—and most bitter—pupil to infiltrate the odious man’s inner circle. A deal is bring down the viscount, and Miss Euphemia Flite will finally earn her freedom.

But betting shop owner Gabriel Royce has other plans. The viscount is the perfect pawn to insulate Gabriel’s underworld empire from government interference. He’s not about to let some crinoline-clad miss destroy his carefully constructed enterprise—no matter how captivating he finds her threats.

From the rookeries of St. Giles to the ballrooms of Mayfair, Euphemia and Gabriel engage in a battle of wits and wills that’s complicated by a blossoming desire. Soon Euphemia realizes it’s not the broken promises to her Academy sisters she should fear. . . . It’s the danger to her heart.]]> 396 Mimi Matthews 0593639308 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.40 2025
author: Mimi Matthews
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223338545 A witty, spectacular, and timely tale of modern-day witches waging war on the patriarchy, from fan favorite Kirsten Miller, the author of The Change and Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books.

There are places on earth where nature’s powers gather. Girls raised there are bequeathed strange gifts. A few have powers so dark that they fear to use them. Such a place is Wild Hill, on the tip of Long Island. For centuries, the ghost of a witch murdered by colonists claimed the beautiful and fertile Wild Hill…until a young Scottish woman with strange gifts arrived. Sadie Duncan was allowed to stay.

Five generations of Sadie’s descendants called Wild Hill home, each generation more powerful than the last. Then, in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy, the last of the Duncans, once prophesized to be the most powerful of their kind, abandoned their ancestral home.

One of them, Brigid Laguerre moved to California and turned her dark gift into fame and fortune. Her sister, Phoebe, settled on a ranch in Texas, where women visit in secret for her tonics and cures. Phoebe’s daughter, Sybil, has become a famous chef. Seemingly powerless, Sibyl has never been told of the Duncan bloodline.

Now Brigid, Phoebe, and Sibyl have been brought to Wild Hill to discover their family legacy. The Old One, furious at the path mankind has taken, has chosen three powerful witches to turn the tide. The Duncans will fulfill their destinies—but only if they can set aside their grievances and come together as a family.]]> 368 Kirsten Miller 0063282852 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.58 2025
author: Kirsten Miller
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 137603650 0 Kaethe 0 to-read 5.00
author: Will Elder (Artist) Bernie Krigstein (Artist)
name: Kaethe
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40961861 A New York Times bestseller!

Part of the Shapes Trilogy, the books that inspired Shape Island from Apple TV+

Multi-award-winning, New York Times best-selling duo Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen deliver the final wry and resonant tale about Triangle, Square, and Circle.<?b>

This book is about Circle. This book is also about Circle’s friends, Triangle and Square. Also it is about a rule that Circle makes, and how she has to rescue Triangle when he breaks that rule. With their usual pitch-perfect pacing and subtle, sharp wit, Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen come full circle in the third and final chapter of their clever shapes trilogy.]]> 48 Mac Barnett 0763696080 Kaethe 5 picture-books, beloved
Nicely done with the menace. But the ending is the best! Seriously, my favorite ending in ages.

This next isn't really a spoiler, but I wouldn't want to contaminate anyone's answer. And I am curious.

[spoilers removed]

***

11 May 2025

Really a spoiler: [spoilers removed]

Also, not really a spoiler, but something funny about a reread after 5 years:

[spoilers removed]

Library copy]]> 3.97 2019
author: Mac Barnett
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/11
date added: 2025/05/11
shelves: picture-books, beloved
review:
24 April 2019 (unless it was July 2020)

Nicely done with the menace. But the ending is the best! Seriously, my favorite ending in ages.

This next isn't really a spoiler, but I wouldn't want to contaminate anyone's answer. And I am curious.

[spoilers removed]

***

11 May 2025

Really a spoiler: [spoilers removed]

Also, not really a spoiler, but something funny about a reread after 5 years:

[spoilers removed]

Library copy
]]> 31247841 Part of the Shapes Trilogy, the books that inspired Shape Island from Apple TV+

Multi-award-winning, New York Times best-selling duo Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen conspire again on a slyly funny tale about some very sneaky shapes.

Meet Triangle. He is going to play a sneaky trick on his friend, Square. Or so Triangle thinks. . . . With this first tale in a new trilogy, partners in crime Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen will have readers wondering just who they can trust in a richly imagined world of shapes. Visually stunning and full of wry humor, here is a perfectly paced treat that could come only from the minds of two of today’s most irreverent — and talented — picture book creators.]]> 46 Mac Barnett 076369603X Kaethe 5
Set amidst a dystopian hellscape of repetition and conformity, Barnett and Klassen's story evokes a quiet terror in the unwary reader. Look into Triangle's mad, staring, eyes and see the sort of dread that comes to us all after thirty-six hours of bad coffee and no sleep.

The prose has been sucked dry of blood, or color, or warmth, or life: there is no trace of anything humane left. The prose is so terse, so spare, Cormac McCarthy is beating out his own despairing brains with the crumbling remains of Hemingway. No one else will ever approach so near to the void, where the only solace is that you have no back to turn on your best friend before he stabs you in it.

Most artists set their haunted houses amidst dark and shadowy sets, where the difficulty of seeing permits the mind to fill in the half-glimpsed with all that is worst in the imagination. Barnett and Klassen have set their nightmare against a stark, white, relentless background: this world is devoid of a single softening shadow, the universe itself is as inescapable and cruel as the ubiquitous eye of Big Brother.

In the end you are left exhausted, with nothing left except Triangle and Square, the two-dimensional shapes of pain.


***

11 May 2023

A conundrum: in this book Square knows what Triangle fears. But in CIrcle, published two years later, Triangle denies having that fear. What is truth, anyway?



Library copy]]> 3.88 2017
author: Mac Barnett
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/11
date added: 2025/05/11
shelves: picture-books, horror, beloved
review:
3 August 2017

Set amidst a dystopian hellscape of repetition and conformity, Barnett and Klassen's story evokes a quiet terror in the unwary reader. Look into Triangle's mad, staring, eyes and see the sort of dread that comes to us all after thirty-six hours of bad coffee and no sleep.

The prose has been sucked dry of blood, or color, or warmth, or life: there is no trace of anything humane left. The prose is so terse, so spare, Cormac McCarthy is beating out his own despairing brains with the crumbling remains of Hemingway. No one else will ever approach so near to the void, where the only solace is that you have no back to turn on your best friend before he stabs you in it.

Most artists set their haunted houses amidst dark and shadowy sets, where the difficulty of seeing permits the mind to fill in the half-glimpsed with all that is worst in the imagination. Barnett and Klassen have set their nightmare against a stark, white, relentless background: this world is devoid of a single softening shadow, the universe itself is as inescapable and cruel as the ubiquitous eye of Big Brother.

In the end you are left exhausted, with nothing left except Triangle and Square, the two-dimensional shapes of pain.


***

11 May 2023

A conundrum: in this book Square knows what Triangle fears. But in CIrcle, published two years later, Triangle denies having that fear. What is truth, anyway?



Library copy
]]> 35793026 A New York Times bestseller!

Part of the Shapes Trilogy, the books that inspired Shape Island from Apple TV+

The beguiling second entry in the innovative shape trilogy by multi-award-winning, New York Times best-selling duo Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen.

This book is about Square. Square spends every day taking blocks from a pile below the ground to a pile above the ground. This book is also about Square’s friend Circle. Circle thinks Square is an artistic genius. But is he really? With the second story in a trilogy of tales about Triangle, Square, and Circle, Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen nudge readers toward a more well-rounded way of looking at things. Understated and striking in its simplicity, this funny, thoughtful offering from two of today’s most talented picture-book creators emphasizes the importance of keeping your eyes — and your mind — open to wonder where others see only rubble and rocks.]]> 40 Mac Barnett 0763696072 Kaethe 5 beloved, picture-books
In which we discover that Square has a job. And that Circle is familiar with at least one art form.

The questions I have now:

What kind of education, if any, has Square received?
Does Circle live in a better school district?
Who hired Square to do his job?
Does he get benefits with that?
Has Circle always been legless and able to float, or is some sort of hover technology an aid for Circle's disability?
Did the creators make Circle a girl because she is well-educated and perfect? Or are these characteristics all assigned to the shape to emphasize "otherness?"
Do Square, Triangle, and Circle inhabit a two-dimensional world, as implied by their two-dimensional shape names, or is that just a funny side effect of other choices?
Why?
Or, why not?

Library copy]]> 4.14 2018
author: Mac Barnett
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/11
date added: 2025/05/11
shelves: beloved, picture-books
review:
11 May, 2025

In which we discover that Square has a job. And that Circle is familiar with at least one art form.

The questions I have now:

What kind of education, if any, has Square received?
Does Circle live in a better school district?
Who hired Square to do his job?
Does he get benefits with that?
Has Circle always been legless and able to float, or is some sort of hover technology an aid for Circle's disability?
Did the creators make Circle a girl because she is well-educated and perfect? Or are these characteristics all assigned to the shape to emphasize "otherness?"
Do Square, Triangle, and Circle inhabit a two-dimensional world, as implied by their two-dimensional shape names, or is that just a funny side effect of other choices?
Why?
Or, why not?

Library copy
]]> 13589118
Owl and Rabbit are good friends and live in two small houses next to each other. They are perfectly happy . . . until Rabbit's garden gets in the way of Owl's view. So Owl builds his house a little taller. Only that blocks the sun from Rabbit's vegetables. So Rabbit builds his house taller. And soon it's a house-building frenzy and the two now not-so-good friends have the two tallest houses in the world!

All it takes is a gust of wind to remind them that maybe living smaller and together is a much better way to remain friends.

The creator of Meet Me at the Moon has delivered another wonderful animal fable for today's world.]]> 40 Gianna Marino 0670013145 Kaethe 4 4.06 2012
author: Gianna Marino
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/11
date added: 2025/05/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 55021002
Pamela is a newly retired teacher with time on her hands. She’s finding it hard to muster enthusiasm for what’s exhausting postdivorce dating rituals and an uneasy relationship with her emotionally stunted, live-at-home son. But for Pamela, there’s a surprise in store that could challenge the status quo and, against all expectations, make life interesting again.

Kate Atkinson’s Shine, Pamela! Shine! is part of Out of Line, an incisive collection of funny, enraging, and hopeful stories of women’s empowerment and escape. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Audible narration by Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones)]]> 22 Kate Atkinson 1542020603 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.15 2020
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.15
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52239878 68 Kate Atkinson 0857527126 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.36 2019
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 14629344 Winner of the 2014 John Collier Jr. Award
Winner of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen Prize

Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century cross-cuts the ranks of important books on social history, consumerism, contemporary culture, the meaning of material culture, domestic architecture, and household ethnoarchaeology. It is a distant cousin of Material World and Hungry Planet in content and style, but represents a blend of rigorous science and photography that these books can claim. Using archaeological approaches to human material culture, this volume offers unprecedented access to the middle-class American home through the kaleidoscopic lens of no-limits photography and many kinds of never-before acquired data about how people actually live their lives at home.

Based on a rigorous, nine-year project at UCLA, this book has appeal not only to scientists but also to all people who share intense curiosity about what goes on at home in their neighborhoods. Many who read the book will see their own lives mirrored in these pages and can reflect on how other people cope with their mountains of possessions and other daily challenges. Readers abroad will be equally fascinated by the contrasts between their own kinds of materialism and the typical American experience. The book will interest a range of designers, builders, and architects as well as scholars and students who research various facets of U.S. and global consumerism, cultural history, and economic history.]]> 180 Jeanne E. Arnold 1931745617 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.85 2012
author: Jeanne E. Arnold
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 228394608
Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for decades, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he's pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale—"for the algorithm"—Misha discovers that it's not that simple.

As he is haunted by his past, and past mistakes, Misha must risk everything to find a way to do what's right—before it's too late.]]> Chuck Tingle Kaethe 0 to-read 4.67 2024
author: Chuck Tingle
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 28963596
A strange, sly retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s "Snow Queen," by T. Kingfisher, author of "Bryony and Roses" and "The Seventh Bride."]]> 226 T. Kingfisher Kaethe 0 to-read 4.21 2016
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36618062
If they succeed, rewards and pardons await, but that requires a long journey through enemy territory, directly into the capital. It also requires them to refrain from killing each other along the way! At turns darkly comic and touching, Clockwork Boys puts together a broken group of people trying to make the most of the rest of their lives as they drive forward on their suicide mission.]]> 230 T. Kingfisher Kaethe 0 to-read 4.15 2017
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 42747739 426 T. Kingfisher 1614504636 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.06 2018
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58432366 T. Kingfisher Kaethe 0 to-read 4.15 2020
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 127306440
Retired soldier Alex Easton returns in a horrifying new adventure.

After their terrifying ordeal at the Usher manor, Alex Easton feels as if they just survived another war. All they crave is rest, routine, and sunshine, but instead, as a favor to Angus and Miss Potter, they find themself heading to their family hunting lodge, deep in the cold, damp forests of their home country, Gallacia.

In theory, one can find relaxation in even the coldest and dampest of Gallacian autumns, but when Easton arrives, they find the caretaker dead, the lodge in disarray, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence. The villagers whisper that a breath-stealing monster from folklore has taken up residence in Easton’s home. Easton knows better than to put too much stock in local superstitions, but they can tell that something is not quite right in their home. . . or in their dreams.]]> 151 T. Kingfisher 1250830850 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.78 2024
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
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]]> 226943506 In an isolated desert town, a young woman seeking a fresh start is confronted by ancient gods, malevolent supernatural forces, and eccentric neighbours. A witty horror-tinged fantasy, perfect for fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Chuck Tingle, and Rachel Harrison.

When Selena travels to the remote desert town of Quartz Creek in search of her estranged Aunt Amelia, she is desperate and short of options. Fleeing an unhappy marriage, she has exactly twenty-seven dollars to her name, and her only friend in the world is her dog, Copper.

On arrival, Selena learns Amelia is dead. But the inhabitants of Quartz Creek are only too happy to have a new resident. Out of money and ideas, Selena sees no harm staying in her aunt's lovely house for a few weeks, tending to her garden and enjoying the strange, desolate beauty of the desert. The people are odd, but friendly, and eager to help Selena settle into her new home.

But Quartz Creek's inhabitants share their town with others, old gods and spirits whose claim to the land long predates their human neighbours. Selena finds herself pursued by disturbing apparitions, visitations that come in the night and seem to want something from her.

Aunt Amelia owed a debt. Now her god has come to collect.]]> 271 T. Kingfisher 1662525095 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.29 2025
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2025
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]]> 231126842 Something darker than the devil stalks the North Carolina woods in Wolf Worm, a new gothic masterpiece from New York Times bestselling author T. Kingfisher.

The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects, or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use. But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work than the Carolina woods. What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife? Why are animals acting so strangely, and what is behind the peculiar local whispers about “blood thiefs?”

With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh, and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator as well.

"Kingfisher is not afraid to twist the knife."―The Washington Post]]> 288 T. Kingfisher 1250829828 Kaethe 0 to-read 5.00 2026
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Kaethe
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2026
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]]> 231425241 T. Kingfisher Kaethe 0 to-read 3.00 2026
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2026
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]]> 50028259
The fact is, when we tailor our approach to suit our own particular challenges and habits, we're then able to create the order that will make our lives happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. 

Gretchen Rubin has found that getting control of our stuff makes us feel more in control of our lives. By getting rid of things we don't use, don't need, or don't love, we free our minds (and our shelves) for what we truly value. 

With a sense of fun, and a clear idea of what's realistic for most people, Gretchen Rubin suggests dozens of manageable steps for creating a more serene, orderly environment—one that helps us to create the lives we want.]]> 239 Gretchen Rubin 1984822802 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.77 2019
author: Gretchen Rubin
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> 3332406 0 Cari Best 1605149454 Kaethe 0 to-read 4.35 2008
author: Cari Best
name: Kaethe
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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]]> 870476 248 Emily Jenkins 0805057013 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.61 1998
author: Emily Jenkins
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> 374684 304 Emily Jenkins 042518627X Kaethe 0 to-read 3.64 2002
author: Emily Jenkins
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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]]> 148264 14 Emily Jenkins 0374305854 Kaethe 4 3.30 2006
author: Emily Jenkins
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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]]> 11340016 36 Emily Jenkins 1595722785 Kaethe 0 to-read 3.68 2011
author: Emily Jenkins
name: Kaethe
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/10
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]]>