Mx's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 07 Jul 2025 22:38:11 -0700 60 Mx's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg To Rest Our Minds and Bodies 217270806
A debut novel from a voice as unique as it is relatable, To Rest Our Minds and Bodies queries the nature of one’s experience, mapping the disintegration of a young woman’s sense of self and engagement with the physical world, in prose that is keenly observant, delightfully wry, and utterly despairing. An anti- Bildungsroman for the pandemic generation.]]> 234 Harriet Armstrong 1739778367 Mx 0 4.25 To Rest Our Minds and Bodies
author: Harriet Armstrong
name: Mx
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/07
shelves: to-read, wishlist, debut-works
review:

]]> Every One Still Here 228242199 Liadan Ní Chuinn 1803513284 Mx 0 4.42 Every One Still Here
author: Liadan Ní Chuinn
name: Mx
average rating: 4.42
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/07
shelves: to-read, short-stories, wishlist
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Best Friends (Sweet Valley Twins, #1)]]> 290400 Growing apart...

Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield feel special because they're identical twins. For twelve years they've dressed alike, shared a room, and done everything together. But when they start Sweet Valley Middle School, everything begins to change.

Elizabeth wants to work on the class newspaper, but Jessica doesn't. Jessica would rather join the Unicorns, a snobby all-girls club. Even though Elizabeth isn't interested in the same things as her twin, she tries to tag along. But is she losing her best friend?]]> 112 Francine Pascal 0553156551 Mx 0 to-read, youth 3.91 1986 Best Friends (Sweet Valley Twins, #1)
author: Francine Pascal
name: Mx
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/06
shelves: to-read, youth
review:

]]> Blindsight (Firefall, #1) 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

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

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

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

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

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

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

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]> 384 Peter Watts 0765312182 Mx 0 recommend-text, upcoming 4.01 2006 Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
author: Peter Watts
name: Mx
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/04
shelves: recommend-text, upcoming
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World]]> 62790909 Bestselling journalist Antony Loewenstein uncovers the widespread commercialisation and brutal deployment globally of Israel’s occupation-enforcing technologies.

For more than 50 years, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has given the Israeli state invaluable experience in controlling an ‘enemy’ population, the Palestinians. It’s here that they have perfected the architecture of control, using the occupied Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that they then export around the world.

The Palestine Laboratory shows in depth and for the first time how Israel has become a leader in developing spying technology and defence hardware that fuels some of the globe’s most brutal conflicts — from the Pegasus software that hacked Jeff Bezos’s and Jamal Khashoggi’s phones, and the weapons sold to the Myanmar army that has murdered thousands of Rohingyas, to the drones being used by the European Union to monitor refugees in the Mediterranean who are left to drown.

In a global investigation that uncovers secret documents, based on revealing interviews and on-the-ground reporting, Antony Loewenstein shows how, as ethno-nationalism grows in the 21st century, Israel has built the ultimate tools for despots and democracies.]]> 320 Antony Loewenstein 1922310409 Mx 0 4.45 2023 The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World
author: Antony Loewenstein
name: Mx
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/21
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, oceania-literature, recommend-text
review:

]]> The Annals of Imperial Rome 448718 Michael Grant's tranlation of The Annals is a fine one. It captures the emotional patriotism of Tacitus's moral tone, offset by a lucid understanding that Rome is doomed, and conveys with vigor the lives of the great emperors who laid the foundations of modern Europe.]]> 447 Tacitus Mx 0 3.99 116 The Annals of Imperial Rome
author: Tacitus
name: Mx
average rating: 3.99
book published: 116
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/20
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, wishlist, history-time
review:

]]> Coriolanus 108171 Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare returned to Rome for one of his final tragedies, and the change could not have been more dramatic. Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare's harshest and most challenging studies of power, politics and masculinity, based around the life of Caius Marcius.

Based on the Roman chronicles of Plutarch's Lives and Livy's History of Rome, the play is set in the early years of the Roman Republic. Its famous opening scene, particularly admired by Bertolt Brecht, portrays its citizens as starving and rebellious, and horrified by the arrogant and dismissive attitude of Caius Marcius, one of Rome's most valiant but also political naive soldiers. Spurred on by his ambitious mother Volumnia, Caius takes the city of Corioles, is renamed Coriolanus in honour of his victory, and is encouraged to run for senate. However, his contempt for the citizens, who he calls "scabs" and "musty superfluity" ultimately leads to his exile and destructive alliance with his deadly foe, Aufidius. Despite its relative unpopularity, Coriolanus is a fascinating study of both public and personal life. Its language is dense and complex, as its representation of the tensions built into the fabric of Roman political life. Yet it also contains extraordinarily intimate scenes between Coriolanus and both his mother, who ultimately proves "most mortal" to her own son, and his enemy Aufidius, whose "rapt heart" is happier to see Coriolanus than his own wife. One of Shakespeare's darker and more disturbing plays. --Jerry Brotton

]]> 202 William Shakespeare 019832006X Mx 0 playwrights, upcoming 3.70 1608 Coriolanus
author: William Shakespeare
name: Mx
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1608
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/20
shelves: playwrights, upcoming
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Silk Road: A Living History]]> 218660082 208 Christopher Wilton-Steer 2490952579 Mx 0 5.00 The Silk Road: A Living History
author: Christopher Wilton-Steer
name: Mx
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/20
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, history-time, photography
review:

]]> How to Dodge a Cannonball 217388187 A cutting, revealing caricature of the American Civil War, told through the eyes of a white teenager who joins an all-Black regiment of soldiers, for fans of Colson Whitehead and James McBride.

Razor-sharp and hilarious, How to Dodge a Cannonball tells the story of Anders, a white teenager who volunteers to be a Union Army flag-twirler to escape his abusive mother. In desperate acts of self-preservation, he defects—twice—before joining a Black regiment at Gettysburg, claiming to be an octoroon. In his new and entirely incredulous unit, Anders becomes entangled with questionable military men and an arms dealer working for both sides. But more importantly, he bonds with the other soldiers, finding friendship and a family he desperately needs. After deploying to New York City to suppress the draft riots and to Nevada to suppress Native Americans, Anders begins to see the war through the eyes of his newfound brothers.

Dayle’s satire spares no one, whether he’s writing about Anders' naivete and unexpected love interest, the quirks of Confederate and ​Union soldiers, those out to make a quick buck off the tragedy of war, or the theater of war itself (spoiler: literally theater​ as the novel includes a one-act play the troop obsesses over while they wait for action).

Uproariously funny and revelatory, How to Dodge a Cannonball is an inimitable take on which America is worth fighting for.]]> 336 Dennard Dayle 1250345677 Mx 0 3.71 2025 How to Dodge a Cannonball
author: Dennard Dayle
name: Mx
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/19
shelves: to-read, history-time, recommend-text
review:

]]> Faust, and the Urfaust 864286
Goethe's Faust is a classic of European literature. Based on the fable of the man who traded his soul for superhuman powers and knowledge, it became the life's work of Germany's greatest poet. Beginning with an intriguing wager between God and Satan, it charts the life of a deeply flawed individual, his struggle against the nihilism of his diabolical companion Mephistopheles.

Part One presents Faust's pact with the Devil and the harrowing tragedy of his love affair with the young Gretchen. Part Two shows Faust's experience in the world of public affairs, including his encounter with Helen of Troy, the emblem of classical beauty and culture. The whole is a symbolic and panoramic commentary on the human condition and on modern European history and civilisation.

This new translation of both parts of Faust preserves the poetic character of the original, its tragic pathos and hilarious comedy. In addition, John Williams has translated the Urfaust, a fascinating glimpse into the young Goethe's imagination, and a selection from the draft scenarios for the Walpurgis Night witches' sabbath - material so ribald and blasphemous that Goethe did not dare publish it.]]> 468 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1840221151 Mx 0 upcoming, audiobooks 3.96 1832 Faust, and the Urfaust
author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
name: Mx
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1832
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/13
shelves: upcoming, audiobooks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference]]> 218372426 From the author of the New York Times bestsellers Humankind and Utopia for Realists—“a more politically radical Malcolm Gladwell” (The New York Times)—comes a bold manifesto daring us to harness our talents and transform our idealism into action, all with the goal of making the world a wildly better place.

A career consists of 2,000 workweeks, and how you spend that time is one of the most important decisions of your life. Still, millions of people are stuck in in mind-numbing, pointless, or just plain harmful jobs.

There’s an antidote to this waste of talent, and it’s called moral ambition. Moral ambition is the will to be among the best, but with different measures of success. Not a fancy title, fat salary, or corner office, but a career dedicated to the best solutions to the world’s biggest problems— whether that means tackling climate change, making pandemics history or fighting Big Tobacco.

In Moral Ambition, internationally bestselling author Rutger Bregman reveals how our conventional definitions of success are harming us and the planet, and shows how we can shift the focus from personal gain to societal benefit. In the process, he explains, we will join a growing movement of pioneers who are already living out this ethos. They’re the builders, the problem-solvers, the doers who have chosen a path less traveled. A guidebook to finding that path for ourselves, Moral Ambition reminds us that the real measure of success lies not in what we accumulate, but in what we contribute, and shows how we, too, can build a legacy that truly matters.]]> 304 Rutger Bregman 031658035X Mx 0 3.93 2024 Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference
author: Rutger Bregman
name: Mx
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/29
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, politics, wishlist
review:

]]> Neuromancer (Sprawl #1) 33035581
William Gibson revolutionised science fiction in his 1984 debut Neuromancer. The writer who gave us the matrix and coined the term 'cyberspace' produced a first novel that won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards, and lit the fuse on the Cyberpunk movement.

More than three decades later, Gibson's text is as stylish as ever, his noir narrative still glitters like chrome in the shadows and his depictions of the rise and abuse of corporate power look more prescient every day. Part thriller, part warning, Neuromancer is a timeless classic of modern SF and one of the 20th century's most potent and compelling visions of the future.]]> 297 William Gibson 1473217385 Mx 5 adaptations 3.59 1984 Neuromancer (Sprawl #1)
author: William Gibson
name: Mx
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1984
rating: 5
read at: 2021/10/17
date added: 2025/05/14
shelves: adaptations
review:
wildly inventive and highly engaging
]]> The City & the City 6811283 Named one of the best books of the year by The Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, and Publishers Weekly

When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. To investigate, Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to its equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the vibrant city of Ul Qoma.

But this is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a seeing of the unseen. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one.

As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them more than their lives. What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.]]> 329 China Miéville 034549752X Mx 0 upcoming 3.93 2009 The City & the City
author: China Miéville
name: Mx
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves: upcoming
review:

]]> The Long Walk 9014 370 Richard Bachman 0451196716 Mx 0 case-studies, upcoming 4.10 1978 The Long Walk
author: Richard Bachman
name: Mx
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/06
shelves: case-studies, upcoming
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves]]> 216970860 From Atlantic critic and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sophie Gilbert, a blazing critique of how early-aughts pop culture turned women and girls against each other—and themselves—with disastrous consequences

When did feminism lose its way? This question feels increasingly urgent in a moment of reactionary cultural and legislative backlash, when widespread uncertainty about the movement’s power, focus, and currency threatens decades of progress. 

Sophie Gilbert, a staff writer at The Atlantic and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism, provides one answer, identifying an inflection point in the late 1990s and early 2000s when the energy of third-wave and “riot girl” feminism collapsed into a regressive period of hyper-objectification, sexualization, and infantilization. Gilbert mines the darker side of nostalgia, training her keen analytic eye on the most revealing cultural objects of the era, across music, film, television, fashion, tabloid journalism, and more. And what she recounts is harrowing, from the unattainable aesthetic of Victoria’s Secret ads and explicit music videos to a burgeoning internet culture vicious towards women in the spotlight and damaging for those who weren’t. Gilbert tracks many of the period’s dominant themes back to the explosion of internet porn, tracing its widespread influence as it began to pervade our collective consciousness. 

Gilbert paints a devastating picture of an era when a distinctly American confluence of excess, materialism, and power-worship collided with the culture’s reactionary, puritanical, and chauvinistic currents. Amid a collective reconsideration of the way women are treated in public, Girl on Girl is a blistering indictment of the matrix of misogyny that undergirded the cultural production of the early twenty-first century, and how it continues to shape our world today.]]> 352 Sophie Gilbert 0593656296 Mx 0 to-read, non-fiction 4.08 2025 Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves
author: Sophie Gilbert
name: Mx
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/06
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth]]> 216282964 It’s not the dream that matters, it’s the telling of the dream – the words you choose, the risks you take in externalising your mind

This is a dreamlike portrait of a body in struggle to connect with itself and others. As the narrator contends with chronic pain, and with a pandemic raging in the background, she sets out to examine the literal and symbolic role of the mouth in the life of a writer.

Merging dreams and dailies, Pathemata recounts the narrator’s tragicomic search to alleviate her suffering, a search that eventually becomes a reckoning with various forms of loss – the loss of intimacy, the loss of her father and the loss of a pivotal friend and mentor. In exacting, distilled prose, her account blurs the lines between embodied, unconscious and everyday life.

With characteristic precision, humour and compassion, Nelson explores the limits of language to describe experience, while also offering a portrait of an unnerving and isolating time in our shared history. A stunning, original experiment in interiority by the adored author of Bluets and The Argonauts, Pathemata is a personal and poetic reckoning with pain and loss, both physical and emotional, as well as an uncanny meditation on love, affliction and resilience.]]> 80 Maggie Nelson Mx 0 to-read, memoirs 4.12 Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth
author: Maggie Nelson
name: Mx
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves: to-read, memoirs
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Death in Venice and Other Tales]]> 53064 384 Thomas Mann 0141181737 Mx 0 upcoming, case-studies 3.92 1998 Death in Venice and Other Tales
author: Thomas Mann
name: Mx
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves: upcoming, case-studies
review:

]]> Orlando 28501521
Virginia Woolf's most unusual and fantastic creation, Orlando is a funny, exuberant tale that examines the very nature of sexuality.]]> 239 Virginia Woolf 1784870854 Mx 0 3.90 1928 Orlando
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Mx
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: recommend-text, currently-reading, queer, case-studies, eng-studies-002
review:

]]> Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story 886113 978 Alexander Shulgin 0963009605 Mx 0 4.41 1990 Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story
author: Alexander Shulgin
name: Mx
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: non-fiction, history-time, upcoming, memoirs
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Nature of Drugs Vol. 1: History, Pharmacology, and Social Impact]]> 55837522 368 Alexander Shulgin 0999547216 Mx 0 4.34 The Nature of Drugs Vol. 1: History, Pharmacology, and Social Impact
author: Alexander Shulgin
name: Mx
average rating: 4.34
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, recommend-text
review:

]]> Tihkal: The Continuation 271921 804 Alexander Shulgin 0963009699 Mx 0 to-read, non-fiction, memoirs 4.42 1997 Tihkal: The Continuation
author: Alexander Shulgin
name: Mx
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, memoirs
review:

]]> Jacob's Advice 53276160
In early 2015, following the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, Larry is joined by his sceptical older cousin, Nick Newman. Divorced, separated from his son and desperately trying to understand his own place in the world, Nick is drawn inextricably into Larry’s slipstream as they walk the fractured, uneasy, magical streets of Paris.

Then, in November, terrorism strikes the city again. With Paris and the cousins still reeling from the trauma, Larry receives the information he’s urgently been seeking: a long-held family secret that will change both their lives forever.

Set against a backdrop of extremism, nationalism and the resurgence of antisemitism, Jacob’s Advice is a timely exploration of identity, race, family and the inescapable nature of the past.]]> 369 Jude Cook 1783528990 Mx 0 recommend-text, upcoming 4.13 Jacob's Advice
author: Jude Cook
name: Mx
average rating: 4.13
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: recommend-text, upcoming
review:

]]> Byron Easy 17242822
What has led him to this point? Where are his friends, his family, his wife? What has happened to his dreams? And what disturbing plan awaits him at the end of his journey?

Byron Easy is an epic, baroque, sprawling masterpiece of a novel—a unique portrait of love and marriage, of the flux of memory, and of England in the dying days of the twentieth century from a young British writer of exceptional promise.]]> 512 Jude Cook 0434021938 Mx 0 3.04 2013 Byron Easy
author: Jude Cook
name: Mx
average rating: 3.04
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: to-read, oceania-literature, adaptations
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Shepherd's Life: A People's History of the Lake District]]> 22856150 320 James Rebanks 0385682840 Mx 0 to-read, history-time 4.12 2015 The Shepherd's Life: A People's History of the Lake District
author: James Rebanks
name: Mx
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: to-read, history-time
review:

]]> The Borrowed Hills 201811980 “Viscerally vivid…half Tarantino, half pitch-black northern realism.” —Guardian, A Best Book of 2024 * “Resonant and powerful...a saga of intergenerational retribution.” —New York Times

A stunning and “spiky debut” (The Times, London) novel set in the rugged, rural landscape of northwest England, where two sheep farmers lose their flocks and decide to reverse their fortunes by stealing sheep from a rich farm in the south—for fans of Annie Proulx and Cormac McCarthy.

In early 2001, a lethal disease breaks out on the hill farms of northwest England, emptying the valleys of sheep and filling the skies with smoke as they burn the carcasses. Two neighboring shepherds lose everything and set their sights on a wealthy farm in the south with its flock of prizewinning animals. So begins the dark tale of Steve Elliman and William Herne.

As their sheep rustling leads to more and more difficult decisions, the struggles of the land are never far away. Steve’s only distraction is his growing fascination with William’s enigmatic and independent wife, Helen. When their mountain home comes under the sway of a lawless outsider, Colin Tinley, Steve must save himself and Helen in a savage conflict that threatens the ancient ways of the Lakeland fells.

Told in the hardscrabble voice of a forgotten England, Scott Preston creates an uncompromising vision of farmers lost in brutal devotion to their flocks, the aching love affairs that men and women use to sustain themselves, and the painful consequences of a breathtaking heist gone bad. The Borrowed Hills “strides confidently across its pages, like the seasoned work of a veteran” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), a thrilling and gritty adventure that reimagines the American Western for Britain’s moors and mountains where survival is in the blood.]]> 304 Scott Preston 1668050676 Mx 0 3.78 2024 The Borrowed Hills
author: Scott Preston
name: Mx
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: wishlist, debut-works, upcoming
review:

]]> Lamb to the Slaughter 171948 Parson's Pleasure is a country tale, A Piece of Cake, a wartime reminiscence, Lamb to the Slaughter a story of vengeful murder, and the remaining two, The Bookseller and The Butler, are on favorite themes of greed and snobbery.]]> 87 Roald Dahl 0146000552 Mx 0 to-read 4.23 1953 Lamb to the Slaughter
author: Roald Dahl
name: Mx
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Asterios Polyp 4070095
Meet Asterios middle-aged, meagerly successful architect and teacher, aesthete and womanizer, whose life is wholly upended when his New York City apartment goes up in flames. In a tenacious daze, he leaves the city and relocates to a small town in the American heartland. But what is this “escape” really about?

As the story unfolds, moving between the present and the past, we begin to understand this confounding yet fascinating character, and how he’s gotten to where he is. And isn’t. And we meet a sweet, smart, first-generation Japanese American artist with whom he had made a blissful life. But now she’s gone. Did Asterios do something to drive her away? What has happened to her? Is she even alive? All the questions will be answered, eventually.

In the meantime, we are enthralled by Mazzucchelli’s extraordinarily imagined world of brilliantly conceived eccentrics, sharply observed social mores, and deftly depicted asides on everything from design theory to the nature of human perception.

Asterios Polyp is David Mazzucchelli’s a great American graphic novel.]]> 324 David Mazzucchelli 0307377326 Mx 0 4.21 2009 Asterios Polyp
author: David Mazzucchelli
name: Mx
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: wishlist, adaptations, upcoming
review:

]]> <![CDATA[In the Nation’s Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz]]> 60647607
This book, from longtime New York Times Washington reporter Philip Taubman, restores the modest Shultz to his central place in American history. Taubman reveals Shultz's gift for forging relationships with people and then harnessing the rapport to address national and international challenges, under his motto "trust is the coin of the realm"―as well as his difficulty standing up for his principles, motivated by a powerful sense of loyalty that often trapped him in inaction. Based on exclusive access to Shultz's personal papers, housed in a sealed archive at the Hoover Institution, In the Nation's Service offers a remarkable insider account of the behind-the-scenes struggles of the statesman who played a pivotal role in unwinding the Cold War.]]> 496 Philip Taubman 1503631125 Mx 0 4.16 2023 In the Nation’s Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz
author: Philip Taubman
name: Mx
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, history-time, recommend-text
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Surrender to Night: Collected Poems of Georg Trakl]]> 42935830 An essential collection of the visionary poet Georg Trakl’s finest work in a new translation by poet Will Stone

Georg Trakl is recognised as one of the most important European poets of the twentieth century. His visionary poetry has influenced not only later poets but also composers, artists and filmmakers. The full measure of Trakl’s genius can be appreciated in this extensive Collected Poems, intuitively translated by poet Will Stone, which features the key collections including the posthumously published Sebastian in Dream, 1915. Supplementary to these are the poems originally published in the literary journal Der Brenner as well as a discerning selection of Trakl’s uncollected work.

Trakl’s trademark tonal qualities, his melancholy stamp, the often apocalyptic but eerily beautiful language gradually infect the reader. His poems are awash with images, symbolic colours and signs; mysterious dream-like figures appear and vanish, and an alternative world is born out of the unconscious. The most sensitive observer of Trakl’s poetry was his contemporary, Rainer Maria Rilke, who concluded: ‘For me, the Trakl poem is an object of sublime existence…’]]> 304 Georg Trakl 1782275177 Mx 0 4.13 2009 Surrender to Night: Collected Poems of Georg Trakl
author: Georg Trakl
name: Mx
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read, wishlist, poetic-works
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Skeleton Plays Violin: Book Three of Our Trakl (The German List)]]> 31939420 understand Trakl’s poems, they had the tone of a “truly ingenious person,” which pleased him.

A Skeleton Plays Violin comprises the final volume in a trilogy of works by Trakl published by Seagull Books. This selection gathers Trakl’s early, middle, and late work, none of it published in book form during his lifetime. The work here ranges widely, from his haunting prose pieces to his darkly beautiful poems documenting the first bloody weeks of World War I on the Eastern Front.  

Book Three of Our Trakl—the series that began with Trakl’s first book Poems and his posthumously published Sebastian Dreaming—also includes translations of unpublished poems and significant variants. Interpolated throughout this comprehensive and chronological selection is a biographical essay that provides more information about Trakl’s gifted and troubled life, especially as it relates to his poetry, as well as the necessary context of his relationship with his favorite sibling, his sister Grete, whose role as a muse to her brother is still highly controversial. Trakl’s life was mysterious and fascinating, a fact reflected in his work. A Skeleton Plays Violin should not be missed.
 ]]> 256 Georg Trakl 0857424297 Mx 0 4.67 A Skeleton Plays Violin: Book Three of Our Trakl (The German List)
author: Georg Trakl
name: Mx
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read, poetic-works, wishlist
review:

]]> Sad Tiger 213341733 Winner of the Prix Femina and the Goncourt des Lycéens in 2023 and the Strega Prize in 2024, the book that shook France to its core.

“Sad Tiger forces you to see, to really see, what it means to be a child abused by an adult.” (Annie Ernaux)

Like Annie Ernaux or Sheila Heti, Neige Sinno has created a powerful new literary autobiographical form.

Through its radical honesty, and also through its thoughtful interrogations into the nature of life and literature, Neige Sinno shares with her readers her journey from someone who considered her life to have been stolen from her to someone who over the twenty years that elapsed from her reporting the rape to writing this book, somehow got her life back, all without ever being able to erase or even change what had happened to her as a child.

“Reading Sad Tyger is like descending into an abyss with your eyes open. It forces you to see, to really see, what it means to be a child abused by an adult, for years. Everyone should read it. Especially teenagers.” —Annie Ernaux

This international literary phenomenon—the title inspired by William Blake’s poem The Tyger—is a forensic exploration into how to speak about the unspeakable. Repeatedly exposed to sexual violence as a child, Neige Sinno tells of a family life built around lies and deception. She was seven or eight years old when her stepfather started abusing her. At fourteen or fifteen the abuse stopped. At nineteen, she decides to break her silence which leads to a public trial and prison for her stepfather, and Sinno starts a new life in Mexico, far away from France.

It is through the craft of her narrative and her powerful direct analysis of the deep-seated taboo that Sinno explores the different facets of memory, her own, her mother’s, as well as her abusive stepfather’s; and of abuse itself in all its monstrosity and banality. How do we become who we are? What remains unsaid in families? How is society implicated? This harrowing auto-fictional account of the author's sexual abuse as a child is mediated through analysis of various literary texts, including works by Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Christine Angot, and Virginie Despentes.

In this unparalleled work that contains a thousand questions, a thousand jewel-like insights, there is an abiding how to protect others from the rape, the incest that she herself endured? In the midst of so much darkness, an answer reads crystal by speaking up and asking questions. A striking, shocking, and necessary masterpiece.

Winner of the US and UK Goncourt Prizes, 2024
Winner of the Goncourt Prizes in Belgium, Slovakia, India, Turkey, Tunisia, and South Korea, 2023
Winner of the European Strega Prize, 2024
Winner of the Goncourt des Lyceens, 2023
Winner of the Femina Prize, 2023
Winner of the Le Monde Literary Prize, 2023
Winner of the Inrockuptibles Prize, 2023
Shortlisted for the Medicis Prize, 2023
Shortlisted for the Decembre Prize, 2023]]> 198 Neige Sinno 1644214687 Mx 0 to-read, non-fiction, memoirs 4.38 2023 Sad Tiger
author: Neige Sinno
name: Mx
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, memoirs
review:

]]> Authority: Essays 211934956 A bold, provocative collection of essays on one of the most urgent questions of our What is authority when everyone has an opinion on everything?

Since her canonical 2017 essay “On Liking Women,” the Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Andrea Long Chu has established herself as a public intellectual straight out of the 1960s. With devastating wit and polemical clarity, she defies the imperative to leave politics out of art, instead modeling how the left might brave the culture wars without throwing in with the cynics and doomsayers. Authority brings together Chu’s critical work across a wide range of media—novels, television, theater, video games—as well as an acclaimed tetralogy of literary essays first published in n+1. As a critic, Chu places The Phantom of the Opera within a centuries-old conflict between music and drama; questions the enduring habit of reading Octavia Butler’s science fiction as a parable of slavery; teases out the ideology behind Hillary Clinton’s (fictional) sex life; and charges fellow critics like Maggie Nelson and Zadie Smith with a complacent humanism.

Criticism is in a crisis of authority—or rather, that’s what critics have been saying ever since the Enlightenment. In a magisterial new essay, Chu offers a revised intellectual history of this supposed crisis, tracing the surprisingly political contours of criticism from its origins in eighteenth-century aesthetics all the way to its present form in the age of social media. Rather than succumbing to an endless cycle of trumped-up emergencies, Authority makes a compelling case for how to do criticism in light of the genuine crises, from authoritarianism to genocide, that confront us today.]]> 288 Andrea Long Chu 0374600333 Mx 0 to-read, non-fiction, essays 3.79 2025 Authority: Essays
author: Andrea Long Chu
name: Mx
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, essays
review:

]]> Poor Man's Orange 2040557
It’s the early 50s. The Darcy family have made a home for themselves in Surrey Hills, NSW. The elder daughter, Roie, is pregnant with her second child to her husband Charlie and Rosie’s sister, Dolour, finds comfort in doting over her niece Moira. Father Hughie and Mumma live downstairs, as irrepressible as ever. Continuing the history of the Irish Darcys begun in Missus and continued in The Harp in the South , this third installment of a trilogy reacquaints readers with the vicissitudes of slum life in a Sydney suburb. An unforgettable family and a cast of unforgettable characters enliven a story that is sometimes tragic but often humorous in a time of poverty and destitution, hope and promise.]]> 274 Ruth Park 0312000545 Mx 0 to-read 4.21 1949 Poor Man's Orange
author: Ruth Park
name: Mx
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1949
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Scrublands (Martin Scarsden, #1)]]> 37655505
A year later, troubled journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend to write a feature on the anniversary of the tragedy. But the stories he hears from the locals about the priest and incidents leading up to the shooting don't fit with the accepted version of events his own newspaper reported in an award-winning investigation. Martin can't ignore his doubts, nor the urgings of some locals to unearth the real reason behind the priest's deadly rampage.

Just as Martin believes he is making headway, a shocking new development rocks the town, which becomes the biggest story in Australia. The media descends on Riversend and Martin is now the one in the spotlight. His reasons for investigating the shooting have suddenly become very personal.

Wrestling with his own demons, Martin finds himself risking everything to discover a truth that becomes darker and more complex with every twist. But there are powerful forces determined to stop him, and he has no idea how far they will go to make sure the town's secrets stay buried.

A compulsive thriller that will haunt you long after you have turned the final page.]]> 496 Chris Hammer 1760632988 Mx 0 3.87 2018 Scrublands (Martin Scarsden, #1)
author: Chris Hammer
name: Mx
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read, oceania-literature, debut-works
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stories of Ireland: A collection of short stories from one of Ireland's greatest ever writers (Penguin European Writers)]]> 217482433 'A solid gold treat from top to tail. A tremendous set of stories by the great Irish playwright' John Self, The Observer

A fake! A quack! A charlatan! Get a grip on yourself, woman! We’ll say another rosary and then I’ll leave you home.’

Stories of Ireland is a brilliant, colourful compendium of mid-century Irish experience from one of Ireland’s greatest ever writers, Brian Friel. Demonstrating all of Friel’s peerless instinct for voice, scene, and the uncanny mystery found in the everyday, these tales tell of beauty, struggle and from the drowning of a man in the bog-black waters of Lough Keeragh, to the camaraderie of teenage potato gathers in County Tyrone, and from the careful work of the German War Graves Commission in Glenn na fuiseog, to trawlermen’s talk of sunken gold off the coast of Donegal.

Selected by Friel himself, and introduced by acclaimed author Louise Kennedy, this charming, heartful collection truly offers some of the best stories ever written.

'Some of the best stories ever written. They are everything short stories should be – deft, skilfully written, funny and quite often breathlessly sad' Edna O'Brien]]> 181 Brian Friel 1405972246 Mx 0 4.15 Stories of Ireland: A collection of short stories from one of Ireland's greatest ever writers (Penguin European Writers)
author: Brian Friel
name: Mx
average rating: 4.15
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: short-stories, wishlist, recommend-text, upcoming
review:

]]> <![CDATA[One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This]]> 213870084 From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in the heart of an Empire which doesn’t consider you fully human.

On Oct 25th, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet was viewed over 10 million times. 

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This chronicles the deep fracture which has occurred for Black, brown, indigenous Americans, as well as the upcoming generation, many of whom had clung to a thread of faith in western ideals, in the idea that their countries, or the countries of their adoption, actually attempted to live up to the values they espouse. 

This book is a reckoning with what it means to live in the west, and what it means to live in a world run by a small group of countries—America, the UK, France and Germany.  It will be The Fire Next Time for a generation that understands we’re undergoing a shift in the so-called ‘rules-based order,’ a generation that understands the west can no longer be trusted to police and guide the world, or its own cities and campuses. It draws on intimate details of Omar’s own story as an emigrant who grew up believing in the western project, who was catapulted into journalism by the rupture of 9/11. 

This book is his heartsick breakup letter with the west. It is a breakup we are watching all over the U.S., on college campuses, on city streets, and the consequences of this rupture will be felt by all of us. His book is for all the people who want something better than what the west has served up. This is the book for our time.]]> 208 Omar El Akkad 0593804147 Mx 0 4.67 2025 One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
author: Omar El Akkad
name: Mx
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: non-fiction, wishlist, upcoming
review:

]]> Brother Brontë 211934958 Two women fight to save their dystopian border town—and literature—in this gonzo near-future adventure.

The year is 2038, and the formerly bustling town of Three Rivers, Texas, is a surreal wasteland. Under the authoritarian thumb of its tech industrialist mayor, Pablo Henry Crick, the town has outlawed reading and forced most of the town’s mothers to work as indentured laborers at the Big Tex Fish Cannery, which poisons the atmosphere and lines Crick’s pockets.

Scraping by in this godforsaken landscape are best friends Prosperina and Neftalí—the latter of whom, one of the town’s last literate citizens, hides and reads the books of the mysterious renegade author Jazzmin Monelle Rivas, whose last novel, Brother Brontë, is finally in Neftalí’s possession. But after a series of increasingly violent atrocities committed by Crick’s forces, Neftalí and Prosperina, with the help of a wounded bengal tigress, three scheming triplets, and an underground network of rebel tías, rise up to reclaim their city—and in the process, unlock Rivas’s connection to Three Rivers itself.

An adventure that only the acclaimed Fernando A. Flores could dream up, Brother Brontë is a mordant, gonzo romp through a ruined world that, in its dysfunction, tyranny, and disparity, nonetheless feels uncannily like our own. With his most ambitious book yet, Flores once again bends what fiction can do, in the process crafting a moving and unforgettable story of perseverance.]]> 352 Fernando A. Flores 0374604169 Mx 0 3.41 2025 Brother Brontë
author: Fernando A. Flores
name: Mx
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: wishlist, adaptations, upcoming
review:

]]> Points of Rebellion 1659819 Points of rebellion 97 William O. Douglas Mx 0 4.00 1970 Points of Rebellion
author: William O. Douglas
name: Mx
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, history-time, politics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource]]> 217869789 An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller

From the New York Times bestselling author and MSNBC and podcast host, a powerful wide-angle reckoning with how the assault from attention capitalism on our minds and our hearts has reordered our politics and the very fabric of our society

“An ambitious analysis of how the trivial amusements offered by online life have degraded not only our selves but also our politics.” —New York Times

“Brilliant book… Reading it has made me change the way I work and think.”—Rachel Maddow

We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, “With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.” Hayes argues that we are in the midst of an epoch-defining transition whose only parallel is what happened to labor in the nineteenth attention has become a commodified resource extracted from us, and from which we are increasingly alienated. The Sirens’ Call is the big-picture vision we urgently need to offer clarity and guidance.

Because there is a breaking point. Sirens are designed to compel us, and now they are going off in our bedrooms and kitchens at all hours of the day and night, doing the bidding of vast empires, the most valuable companies in history, built on harvesting human attention. As Hayes writes, “Now our deepest neurological structures, human evolutionary inheritances, and social impulses are in a habitat designed to prey upon, to cultivate, distort, or destroy that which most fundamentally makes us human.” The Sirens’ Call is the book that snaps everything into a single holistic framework so that we can wrest back control of our lives, our politics, and our future.]]> 336 Christopher L. Hayes 0593653114 Mx 0 3.99 2025 The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
author: Christopher L. Hayes
name: Mx
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, recommend-text
review:

]]> Maldoror 297332
One of the earliest and most extraordinary examples of Surrealist writing, 'Les Chants de Maldoror' unveils a world, half vision, half nightmare, of angels and gravediggers, hermaphrodites and homosexuals, madmen and strange children. As a sublime misfit wandering through a dream universe, Maldoror observes human evil and kindness, and through Lautreaumont's metaphysical anguish, the outrage and violence of our own age is expressed in many ways.

'Maldoror' has now won acceptance as a classic of French literature, but because of the lack of good translation has remained virtually unknown to the American reader. Poet and novelist Alexis Lykiard has captured all the macabre beauty of the original without any sacrifice of meaning or accuracy.]]> 218 Comte de Lautréamont 0690514255 Mx 0 4.12 1869 Maldoror
author: Comte de Lautréamont
name: Mx
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1869
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: poetic-works, upcoming, wishlist, recommend-uni
review:

]]> Emerald City (Plays) 195961 90 David Williamson 0868191701 Mx 0 3.36 1987 Emerald City (Plays)
author: David Williamson
name: Mx
average rating: 3.36
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read, oceania-literature, playwrights, adaptations
review:

]]> The Club 4355276 The Club is about the hangers-on, the end of loyalty, the coming of professionalism, big business and massive transfer fees. It's about each and every club in the League and about soccer, rugby and baseball too," writes the Melbourne Sun's football commentator, Lou Richards, himself a former Aussie Rules champion who has seen it all. He and fellow fanatic, Professor Ian Turner of Monash University, introduce David Williamson's latest probe into the confrontations of Australian life. If you have ever belonged to a sports club, if you have ever been part of any organisation in which the will to win prevails and the trial of strength goes on in the clubroom long after the players have left the field - then you will know the men of The Club.]]> 90 David Williamson 0868190136 Mx 0 3.44 1977 The Club
author: David Williamson
name: Mx
average rating: 3.44
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read, oceania-literature, playwrights
review:

]]> The Removalists 2296532 The Removalists, David Williamson's multiple prize-winning black comedy, captured audiences first in 1971 with its passionate recognition of the bottled-up aggression inside Australian society. The basic authoritarianism, the confrontation between the sexes which so often passes for human relationships—these were the discoveries which audiences applauded in the young playwright. This was the first in a remarkable series of plays—Don's Party, The Department, The Club, Travelling North—which have since established David Williamson as one of Australia's most important writers.

How deeply the violence he describes in The Removalists is rooted in the Australian character is discussed in the first section of the book, where the eminent criminal lawyer Frank Galbally writes about the police, that acute observer of Australian mores, the late Ian Turner, writes on football and our social habits—and there is a glimpse of the convict history that made us what we are.]]> 128 Williamson David. 0868190381 Mx 0 3.56 1972 The Removalists
author: Williamson David.
name: Mx
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read, oceania-literature, playwrights
review:

]]> Querelle of Brest 12061349 320 Jean Genet Mx 0 3.80 1947 Querelle of Brest
author: Jean Genet
name: Mx
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1947
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read, case-studies, adaptations, recommend-uni, wishlist
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power]]> 169354 The Prize recounts the panoramic history of oil -- and the struggle for wealth and power that has always surrounded oil. This struggle has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, and transformed the destiny of men and nations.

The Prize is as much a history of the twentieth century as of the oil industry itself. The canvas of history is enormous -- from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania through two great world wars to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm.]]> 928 Daniel Yergin 0671799320 Mx 0 4.43 1991 The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
author: Daniel Yergin
name: Mx
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, recommend-text
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Things from the Flood (Tales from the Loop, #2)]]> 31094296
Simon Stålenhag is back. In his new artbook Things from the Flood, Stålenhag continues the stories of Tales from the Loop, memories of a Nordic childhood infused with strange machines and weird creatures from other dimensions. In Things from the Flood, Stålenhag moves his focus from the '80s to the '90s, the decade of great change when the outside world truly came to Scandinavia. These are tales of the trials of youth, of schoolyard hazings, of first kisses, of finding yourself—and robots.

In addition, this edition includes includes three separate prints (format 260×230 mm) as well as a full-color map (format 520x340mm).]]> 130 Simon Stålenhag 9187222299 Mx 0 to-read 4.29 2016 Things from the Flood (Tales from the Loop, #2)
author: Simon Stålenhag
name: Mx
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tales from the Loop (Tales from the Loop, #1)]]> 27404461
Simon Stålenhag’s paintings of Swedish 1980s suburbia, populated by fantastic machines and strange beasts, have spread like wildfire on the Internet. The 2015 Kickstarter for the English version of the book raised over $320,000. Stålenhag’s portrayal of a childhood against a backdrop of old Volvo cars and coveralls, combined with strange and mystical machines, creates a unique atmosphere that is both instantly recognizable and utterly alien.

In this top-quality artbook, Simon Stålenhag’s first set of paintings are collected in book form—together with texts that tell the stories of the youth who lived in the shadows of the machines. In addition, three separate prints (format 260×230 mm) as well as a full-color map (format 520x340mm) of the land of The Loop are included in the book.]]> 128 Simon Stålenhag 9187222213 Mx 0 4.27 2014 Tales from the Loop (Tales from the Loop, #1)
author: Simon Stålenhag
name: Mx
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: case-studies, graphic-novels, upcoming
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Electric State (Tales from the Loop, #3)]]> 36836025
Simon Stålenhag is the internationally acclaimed author, concept designer, and artist behind Tales from the Loop and Things from the Flood. His highly imaginative images and stories depicting illusive sci-fi phenomena in mundane, hyper-realistic Scandinavian landscapes have made Stålenhag one of the most sought-after visual storytellers in the world. In The Electric State, Stålenhag turns his unique vision to America.]]> 143 Simon Stålenhag 9187222671 Mx 0 4.38 2017 The Electric State (Tales from the Loop, #3)
author: Simon Stålenhag
name: Mx
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read, case-studies, graphic-novels, recommend-text
review:

]]> New Collected Poems 1513935 352 Eavan Boland 0393065790 Mx 0 4.29 2005 New Collected Poems
author: Eavan Boland
name: Mx
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read, poetic-works, recommend-text
review:

]]> Agency (Jackpot #2) 34943643 New York Times bestselling The Peripheral, a gifted "app-whisperer" is hired by a mysterious San Francisco start-up and finds herself in contact with a unique and surprisingly combat-savvy AI.]]> 413 William Gibson 1101986956 Mx 0 to-read 3.81 2020 Agency (Jackpot #2)
author: William Gibson
name: Mx
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Weasels in the Attic 60534034 From the acclaimed author of The Hole and The Factory, a thrilling and mysterious work that explores fertility, masculinity, and marriage in contemporary Japan.

In these three interconnected stories, Hiroko Oyamada revisits the same set of characters at different junctures in their lives. In the back room of a pet fish store full of rare and exotic fish, old friends discuss dried shrimp and a strange new relationship. A couple who recently moved into a rustic home in the mountains discovers an unsettling solution to their weasel infestation. And a dinner party during a blizzard leads to a night in a room filled with aquariums and unpleasant dreams. Like Oyamada’s previous novels, Weasels in the Attic sets its sights on the overlooked aspects of contemporary Japanese society, and does so with a surreal sensibility that is entirely her own.]]> 96 Hiroko Oyamada 0811231186 Mx 0 to-read 3.42 2022 Weasels in the Attic
author: Hiroko Oyamada
name: Mx
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Inheritors 48635386 Inheritors paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of its characters as they grapple with the legacies of loss, imperialism, and war.

Written from myriad perspectives and in a wide range of styles, each of these interconnected stories is designed to speak to the others, contesting assumptions and illuminating the complicated ways we experience, interpret, and pass on our personal and shared histories. A retired doctor, for example, is forced to confront the horrific moral consequences of his wartime actions. An elderly woman subjects herself to an interview, gradually revealing a fifty-year old murder and its shattering aftermath. And in the last days of a doomed war, a prodigal son who enlisted against his parents' wishes survives the American invasion of his island outpost, only to be asked for a sacrifice more daunting than any he imagined.]]> 288 Asako Serizawa 0385545371 Mx 0 to-read 3.80 2020 Inheritors
author: Asako Serizawa
name: Mx
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Melanesia: Travels in Black Oceania]]> 218157685 An immersive journey through the tumultuous past and fascinating present of Australia’s nearest neighbours
“We are the original people of the region … This is a black region, it’s not a white region.”—Ralph Regenvanu, Ni-Vanuatu anthropologist and politician


Stretching from Fiji in the east to New Guinea in the west, Melanesia is astonishingly diverse. Its islands are home to some 1200 language groups, many of them still isolated from the outside world. In Australia, this complex region tends to make the news only in times of military coups in Fiji, Kanak unrest in New Caledonia, rioting in Solomon Islands. Melanesia offers readers a deeper insight into the people and places behind these headlines, combining travelogue, history and astute political analysis.


By land and sea, Hamish McDonald travels from one end of Melanesia to the other. Speaking with locals from all walks of life, he uncovers the histories, values, aspirations and tensions that have shaped their communities. He examines the impact of the Indians recruited to work in Fiji; the white “blackbirders” who kidnapped Islanders for the Australian cane fields; the Americans during World War II; the Indonesians in New Guinea. And he considers the big changes unfolding today, as shifting demographics and the growing influence of China produce a new balance of power across the region.


Vividly written, Melanesia is essential reading for anyone looking to understand this fascinating part of the world and its growing international significance.


‘A wonderful journey through history and geography that greatly expands our understanding of people whose lives will shape Australians’ future’—Ross Garnaut


'Through a comprehensive exploration of Melanesia's rich history and an engaging portrayal of its present, McDonald will enlighten readers and inspire a deeper appreciation of the diverse factors shaping the region today. His insightful analysis makes this an essential read for anyone interested in regional politics and culture or the future of Melanesia and its global relevance.' — Books+Publishing ]]> 410 Hamish McDonald 1743823908 Mx 0 4.00 Melanesia: Travels in Black Oceania
author: Hamish McDonald
name: Mx
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, oceania-literature
review:

]]> Holiday in Cambodia 18128525
In Holiday in Cambodia Laura Jean McKay explores the electric zone where local and foreign lives meet.

Three backpackers board a train, ignoring the danger signs - and find themselves in the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

Elderly sisters are visited by their vampire niece from Australia and set out to cure her.

A singer creates a sensation in swinging 1969, on the eve of an American bombing campaign.

These are bold and haunting stories by a remarkable new talent.]]> 216 Laura Jean McKay 1863956069 Mx 0 3.54 2013 Holiday in Cambodia
author: Laura Jean McKay
name: Mx
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: to-read, oceania-literature, short-stories, recommend-text
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity]]> 85767 Gender Trouble has become one of the key works of contemporary feminist theory, and an essential work for anyone interested in the study of gender, queer theory, or the politics of sexuality in culture. This is the text where Judith Butler began to advance the ideas that would go on to take life as "performativity theory," as well as some of the first articulations of the possibility for subversive gender practices, and she writes in her preface to the 10th anniversary edition released in 1999 that one point of Gender Trouble was "not to prescribe a new gendered way of life [...] but to open up the field of possibility for gender [...]" Widely taught, and widely debated, Gender Trouble continues to offer a powerful critique of heteronormativity and of the function of gender in the modern world.]]> 236 Judith Butler 0415389550 Mx 0 4.07 1989 Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
author: Judith Butler
name: Mx
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: philosophy, politics, non-fiction, upcoming
review:

]]> The Gulag Archipelago 246422 660 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 0060803320 Mx 0 non-fiction, upcoming 4.34 1973 The Gulag Archipelago
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Mx
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: non-fiction, upcoming
review:

]]> The Café with No Name 214204244 From one of Austria’s most beloved and best-selling authors, comes this vibrant tale of love, loss, and renewal set against the transformations of 1960s Vienna. 

Summer 1966. Robert Simon is in his early thirties and has a to open a café. Raised in a home for war orphans run by the Sisters of Charity, Robert is warm-hearted, hard-working, and determined. When the corner café in the Carmelite market square closes, Robert realizes that his chance has come. 

The place, dark and dilapidated, is in a poor neighborhood of the Austrian capital, but for some time now a new wind has been blowing, and the air is filled with an inexplicable energy and a desire for renewal. In the newspapers with which fishmongers wrap the char and trout from the Danube, one can read about great things to come, a bright future beginning to rise from the quagmire of the past. Enlivened by these promises, Robert refurbishes the café, painting the walls, varnishing the furniture, and polishing the stove plates. Rewarding Robert’s efforts and in search of a congenial place to gather, talk, read, or just sit and be, customers arrive, bringing their stories of passions, friendships, abandonments, and bereavements. Some are in search of company, others long for love, or just a place where they can feel understood. As the city is transformed, Robert's cafe becomes at once a place of refuge and one from which to observe and rejoice. 

Combining the enchantment of warm prose with tender humor, Robert Seethaler has written a charming parable of human existence animated by unforgettable characters and a kaleidoscope of human stories. ]]> 192 Robert Seethaler Mx 0 to-read, history-time 3.49 2023 The Café with No Name
author: Robert Seethaler
name: Mx
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read, history-time
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)]]> 22733729
Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe.]]> 518 Becky Chambers 1500453307 Mx 0 recommend-text, upcoming 4.15 2014 The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)
author: Becky Chambers
name: Mx
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: recommend-text, upcoming
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Stars, Like Dust (Galactic Empire, #1)]]> 41822
He soon discovers that, many light-years away, his father, the highly respected Rancher of Widemos, has been murdered. Stunned, grief-stricken, and outraged, Biron is determined to uncover the reasons behind his father’s death, and becomes entangled in an intricate saga of rebellion, political intrigue, and espionage.

The mystery takes him deep into space where he finds himself in a relentless struggle with the power-mad despots of Tyrann. Now it is not just a case of life or death for Biron, but a question of freedom for the galaxy.]]> 293 Isaac Asimov 0553293435 Mx 0 to-read 3.74 1951 The Stars, Like Dust (Galactic Empire, #1)
author: Isaac Asimov
name: Mx
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Galactic Patrol (Lensman, #3) 209506 273 E.E. "Doc" Smith 1882968115 Mx 0 to-read 3.98 1937 Galactic Patrol (Lensman, #3)
author: E.E. "Doc" Smith
name: Mx
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1)]]> 8935689
Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.]]> 467 Iain M. Banks 1857231384 Mx 0 to-read, case-studies 3.86 1987 Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Mx
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read, case-studies
review:

]]> The Knowing 178079952 Camille lives in the country.

She’s forgotten her phone.

She’s taking the train to work.

She’s got period pain.

She can’t escape herself … or her toxic boss, Holly. And it’s Valentine’s Day.

The Knowing is a day in the life of a woman who goes to work as usual while dreaming of more.
From the author of A Room Called Earth, a brilliant new novel about the mess that comes before salvation.
]]> 256 Madeleine Ryan 1761380192 Mx 0 to-read, oceania-literature 3.46 2025 The Knowing
author: Madeleine Ryan
name: Mx
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read, oceania-literature
review:

]]> Love Unedited 221897028 It was the impossibility of him that kept her coming back.

Edna gave up everything when she fell in love with an acclaimed writer, leaving Australia and moving to New York, where the publishing and literary scene was the backdrop to their secret story.

When Molly, an Australian editor working in New York, discovers a novel by an anonymous author, she is drawn intimately into the story. She becomes determined to find the author and know how the story ends - not imagining that she will uncover shocking truths about her own life along the way.

A compelling literary mystery about desire, creativity, food, longing and the ever-shifting power dynamics of love.


'A unique blend of literary fiction, metafiction and romance, Love Unedited is a character-based novel that explores the minutiae of love and relationships in intimate and compelling detail . . . Celebrating life's highs and lows, this multi-layered novel is an ode to love in its various forms' Books+Publishing]]> 222 Caro Llewellyn 1761569554 Mx 0 to-read, adaptations 3.31 Love Unedited
author: Caro Llewellyn
name: Mx
average rating: 3.31
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read, adaptations
review:

]]> Diving into Glass 44013167
Caro was no stranger to tragedy. Her father Richard contracted polio at the age of twenty and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Dignified, undaunted and ingenious, he was determined to make every day count, not least seducing his nurse while still confined to an iron lung, then marrying her.

But when Caro was herself blindsided by illness, cut loose from everything she depended on, she couldn’t summon any of the grace and courage she’d witnessed growing up. She was furious, toxic, humiliated. Only by looking back at her father’s extraordinary example was she able to rediscover her own grit and find a way forward, rebuilding her life shard by shard.

An emotionally brutal memoir of family, vulnerability and purpose, Diving into Glass is a searing, often funny portrait of the realities of disability and an intimate account of two lives filled with vigour and audacity.

'Caro Llewellyn's portrait of her father is a tour de force. It is entirely unpredictable and consistently exhilarating. I read it in one transfixed sitting.’ Janet Malcolm

‘Disturbing, compelling, portentous, obsessive, repetitious, persistent, prophetic, packed with shocks of recognition.’ Annie Proulx

‘Indefatigable and unsinkable, Llewellyn keeps her story on pace as if her very life, and her father’s legacy, depended on it. Inspiring and uplifting.’ Mary Norris, author of Between You & Me

‘Llewellyn has landed herself alongside the great memoirists of our time. A riveting marvel.’ Elizabeth Flock, author of The Heart is a Shifting Sea]]> 336 Caro Llewellyn 0143793780 Mx 0 to-read, non-fiction, memoirs 3.38 Diving into Glass
author: Caro Llewellyn
name: Mx
average rating: 3.38
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, memoirs
review:

]]> <![CDATA[You Must Buy Your Wife At Least As Much Jewelry As You Buy Your Horse and Other Poems and Observations Humorous and Otherwise from the Life on the Range]]> 20761282 398 Dalton Wilcox Mx 0 to-read, wishlist 4.90 2012 You Must Buy Your Wife At Least As Much Jewelry As You Buy Your Horse and Other Poems and Observations Humorous and Otherwise from the Life on the Range
author: Dalton Wilcox
name: Mx
average rating: 4.90
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> On the Beach 9267193 On the Beach is a remarkably convincing portrait of how ordinary people might face the most unimaginable nightmare.]]> 320 Nevil Shute Mx 0 3.72 1957 On the Beach
author: Nevil Shute
name: Mx
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1957
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, oceania-literature, case-studies, wishlist
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Your Life Is Manufactured: How We Make Things, Why It Matters and How We Can Do It Better]]> 221193153 From an award-winning and internationally-renowned expert, a wonderfully illuminating journey through the world of manufacturing and its transformational influence on our lives - and the world around us.


'Revelatory.' S UNDAY TIMES

'Fascinating.' THE TIMES

'Well-observed and enjoyably written.' FINANCIAL TIMES


'An extraordinarily good read.'
PROFESSOR DAVID SPIEGELHALTER, author of The Art of Statistics


'An illuminating and at times mind-boggling exploration of a global choreography that means I won't look at my kettle the same way again.'
ZOE LAUGHLIN, presenter of BBC Four's How to Make


***

We live in a manufactured world. Unless you are floating naked through space, you are right now in direct contact with multiple manufactured products. How often do we stop to where do the things we buy actually come from?


There exists a nearly invisible, awe-inspiring global system of manufacturing that enables virtually every aspect of our existence. The things we surround ourselves with take surprising and often byzantine journeys to reach us - be it the thousands of litres of water needed to make a single pair of jeans or the components of our smartphones travelling over six times around the world to reach us.


From mega-factory floors, engineering laboratories and seaports to distribution hubs, supermarkets and our own homes, Tim Minshall traces these journeys to reveal the hidden world of manufacturing.


Charting how this world came to be, Your Life is Manufactured reveals the seismic impact manufacturing has had on our lives and the natural world, exploring how it could offer us a path to a truly sustainable, more equitable future. In doing so, Minshall grants us the ability to make better choices for ourselves, our communities and the planet.


***


'This brilliant book shows that manufacturing is foundational to our lives, not only now but also if there is to be any hope for a sustainable future. I learned something new on every page.'
PROFESSOR DIANE COYLE, author of Cogs and Monsters


'Reading this book is like being given a personal tour of the world's factories by a real-life Willy Wonka. Brimming with insight, curiosity and wit, Tim is a masterful storyteller of the manufactured world.'
DR ANNA PLOSZAJSKI, author of A Scientist's Search for Meaning Through Making]]> 368 Tim Minshall 0571381049 Mx 0 to-read, non-fiction 3.70 Your Life Is Manufactured: How We Make Things, Why It Matters and How We Can Do It Better
author: Tim Minshall
name: Mx
average rating: 3.70
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:

]]> Status Anxiety 23425
Anyone who’s ever lost sleep over an unreturned phone call or the neighbor’s Lexus had better read Alain de Botton’s irresistibly clear-headed new book, immediately. For in its pages, a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents explores the notion that our pursuit of status is actually a pursuit of love, ranging through Western history and thought from St. Augustine to Andrew Carnegie and Machiavelli to Anthony Robbins.

Whether it’s assessing the class-consciousness of Christianity or the convulsions of consumer capitalism, dueling or home-furnishing, Status Anxiety is infallibly entertaining. And when it examines the virtues of informed misanthropy, art appreciation, or walking a lobster on a leash, it is not only wise but helpful.]]> 306 Alain de Botton 0375725350 Mx 0 3.89 2004 Status Anxiety
author: Alain de Botton
name: Mx
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: non-fiction, psychology, recommend-text, upcoming
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Akata Witch (The Nsibidi Scripts, #1)]]> 7507944 Akata Witch transports the reader to a magical place where nothing is quite as it seems. Born in New York, but living in Aba, Nigeria, twelve-year old Sunny is understandably a little lost. She is albino and thus, incredibly sensitive to the sun. All Sunny wants to do is be able to play football and get through another day of school without being bullied. But once she befriends Orlu and Chichi, Sunny is plunged in to the world of the Leopard People, where your worst defect becomes your greatest asset. Together, Sunny, Orlu, Chichi and Sasha form the youngest ever Oha Coven. Their mission is to track down Black Hat Otokoto, the man responsible for kidnapping and maiming children. Will Sunny be able to overcome the killer with powers stronger than her own, or will the future she saw in the flames become reality?]]> 349 Nnedi Okorafor 0670011967 Mx 0 to-read 4.02 2011 Akata Witch (The Nsibidi Scripts, #1)
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Mx
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Binti (Binti, #1) 25667918 For the first time in hardcover, the winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award!

With a new foreword by N. K. Jemisin

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.

If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself -- but first she has to make it there, alive.

The Binti Series
Book 1: Binti
Book 2: Binti: Home
Book 3: Binti: The Night Masquerade]]> 96 Nnedi Okorafor 0765384469 Mx 0 to-read 3.81 2015 Binti (Binti, #1)
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Mx
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Death of the Author 214329001 The future of storytelling is here.

Life has thrown Zelu some curveballs over the years, but when she's suddenly dropped from her university job and her latest novel is rejected, all in the middle of her sister's wedding, her life is upended. Disabled, unemployed and from a nosy, high-achieving, judgmental family, she's not sure what comes next.

In her hotel room that night, she takes the risk that will define her life - she decides to write a book VERY unlike her others. A science fiction drama about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. And everything changes.

What follows is a tale of love and loss, fame and infamy, of extraordinary events in one world, and another. And as Zelu's life evolves, the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

Because sometimes a story really does have the power to reshape the world.]]> 448 Nnedi Okorafor 0063391155 Mx 0 to-read, recommend-text 4.04 2025 Death of the Author
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Mx
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read, recommend-text
review:

]]> The pitfalls of liberalism 127247276 8 Stokely Carmichael Mx 0 4.82 The pitfalls of liberalism
author: Stokely Carmichael
name: Mx
average rating: 4.82
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read, politics, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America]]> 128786297 1967 198 Stokely Carmichael Mx 0 0.0 1967 Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America
author: Stokely Carmichael
name: Mx
average rating: 0.0
book published: 1967
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, politics
review:

]]> WHY WE CAN'T WAIT 129187820 Dr. Martin Luther King’s classic exploration of the events and forces behind the Civil Rights Movement—including his Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963.“There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.”In 1963, Birmingham, Alabama, was perhaps the most racially segregated city in the United States. The campaign launched by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights movement on the segregated streets of Birmingham demonstrated to the world the power of nonviolent direct action.In this remarkable book—winner of the Nobel Peace Prize—Dr. King recounts the story of Birmingham in vivid detail, tracing the history of the struggle for civil rights back to its beginnings three centuries ago and looking to the future, assessing the work to be done beyond Birmingham to bring about full equality for African Americans. Above all, Dr. King offers an eloquent and penetrating analysis of the events and pressures that propelled the Civil Rights movement from lunch counter sit-ins and prayer marches to the forefront of American consciousness.Since its publication in the 1960s, Why We Can’t Wait has become an indisputable classic. Now, more than ever, it is an enduring testament to the wise and courageous vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.Includes photographs and an afterword by Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.]]> 0 Martin Luther King Jr. Mx 0 0.0 1964 WHY WE CAN'T WAIT
author: Martin Luther King Jr.
name: Mx
average rating: 0.0
book published: 1964
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, wishlist, politics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism]]> 2326295
Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level.

"Democracy Incorporated" is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come."]]> 376 Sheldon S. Wolin 0691135665 Mx 0 4.18 2006 Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
author: Sheldon S. Wolin
name: Mx
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, politics, wishlist
review:

]]> Perspective(s) 134115463 La situation exige discrétion, loyauté, sensibilité artistique et sens politique. L’Europe est une poudrière. Cosimo de Médicis doit faire face aux convoitises de sa cousine Catherine, reine de France, alliée à son vieil ennemi, le républicain Piero Strozzi. Les couvents de la ville pullulent de nostalgiques de Savonarole tandis qu'à Rome, le pape condamne les nudités de le chapelle Sixtine.
Perspective(s) est un polar historique épistolaire. Du broyeur de couleurs à la reine de France en passant par les meilleurs peintres, sculpteurs et architectes, chacun des correspondants joue sa carte. Tout le monde est suspect.]]> 304 Laurent Binet 2246829356 Mx 0 to-read 3.70 2023 Perspective(s)
author: Laurent Binet
name: Mx
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Girls & Boys 37925478
But then their world starts to unravel and things take a disturbing turn.

A tragic, violent look at parenthood and trauma.]]> 96 Dennis Kelly 1786823144 Mx 0 4.19 2018 Girls & Boys
author: Dennis Kelly
name: Mx
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: playwrights, wishlist, upcoming
review:

]]> Prima Facie 60913708
After several acclaimed productions in Australia and winning the Australian Writers' Guild Award for Drama, the play received its European premiere at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End in April 2022.]]> 98 Suzie Miller 1839040645 Mx 0 4.67 Prima Facie
author: Suzie Miller
name: Mx
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read, favorites, playwrights
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Only Daughter (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic)]]> 33159888 In this chilling psychological thriller, one woman's dark past becomes another's deadly future

In 2003, sixteen-year-old Rebecca Winter disappeared.

She'd been enjoying her summer break: working at a fast-food restaurant, crushing on an older boy and shoplifting with her best friend. Mysteriously ominous things began to happena presence in her room at night, periods of blackouts, a feeling of being watchedthough Bec remained oblivious of what was to come.

Eleven years later she is replaced.

A young woman, desperate after being arrested, claims to be the decade-missing Bec.

Soon the impostor is living Bec's life. Sleeping in her bed. Hugging her mother and father. Learning her best friends' names. Playing with her little brothers.

But Bec's welcoming family and enthusiastic friends are not quite as they seem. As the impostor dodges the detective investigating her case, she begins to delve into the life of the real Bec Winterand soon realizes that whoever took Bec is still at large, and that she is in imminent danger.

"]]> 353 Anna Snoekstra 141049781X Mx 0 3.75 2016 Only Daughter (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic)
author: Anna Snoekstra
name: Mx
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read, oceania-literature, debut-works, adaptations
review:

]]> Trust Your Eyes 13542982
Thomas's brother, Ray, takes care of him, cooking for him, dealing with the outside world on his behalf, and listening to his intricate and increasingly paranoid theories. When Thomas tells Ray what he has seen, Ray humors him with a half-hearted investigation. But Ray soon realizes he and his brother have stumbled onto a deadly conspiracy.

And now they are in the crosshairs...]]> 496 Linwood Barclay 0451237900 Mx 0 upcoming 4.09 2012 Trust Your Eyes
author: Linwood Barclay
name: Mx
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: upcoming
review:

]]> Main Street 11376 Main Street, the story of an idealistic young woman's attempts to reform her small town, brought Lewis immediate acclaim when it was published in 1920. It remains one of the essential texts of the American scene. Lewis Mumford observed: "In Main Street an American had at last written of our life with something of the intellectual rigor and critical detachment that had seemed so cruel and unjustified [in Charles Dickens and Matthew Arnold]. Young people had grown up in this environment, suffocated, stultified, helpless, but unable to find any reason for their spiritual discomfort. Mr. Lewis released them."

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota and graduated from Yale in 1907. In 1930 he became the first American recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Main Street (1920) was his first critical and commercial success. Lewis's other noted books include Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), Dodsworth (1929), and It Can't Happen Here (1935).']]> 454 Sinclair Lewis 0375753141 Mx 0 to-read, adaptations 3.78 1920 Main Street
author: Sinclair Lewis
name: Mx
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1920
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read, adaptations
review:

]]> Night Film 10112885
For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova's dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself.

Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova's eerie, hypnotic world. The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.]]> 599 Marisha Pessl 140006788X Mx 0 3.75 2013 Night Film
author: Marisha Pessl
name: Mx
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read, adaptations, wishlist
review:

]]> All Over but the Shoutin' 1755672
The extraordinary gifts for evocation and insight and the stunning talent for story- telling that earned Rick Bragg a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1996 are here brought to bear on the wrenching story of his own family's life. It is the story of a war-haunted, hard-drinking father and a strong-willed, loving mother who struggled to protect her sons from the effects of poverty and ignorance that had constricted her own life. It is the story of the life Bragg was able to carve out for himself on the strength of his mother's encouragement and belief. And it is the story of his attempts to both atone for and avenge the mistakes and cruelties of his past.

All Over but the Shoutin' is a gripping account of people struggling to make sense and solidity of life's capricious promises. A classic piece of Americana, it is made vividly, movingly particular by Rick Bragg's searching vision, generous humor, and richly nuanced voice.]]> 329 Rick Bragg 0679442588 Mx 0 4.16 1997 All Over but the Shoutin'
author: Rick Bragg
name: Mx
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read, adaptations, non-fiction, memoirs
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture]]> 8565083 The acclaimed author of the groundbreaking bestseller Schoolgirls reveals the dark side of pink and pretty: the rise of the girlie-girl, she warns, is not that innocent.

Sweet and sassy or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as the source of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages. But how dangerous is pink and pretty, anyway? Being a princess is just make-believe; eventually they grow out of it . . . or do they?

In search of answers, Peggy Orenstein visited Disneyland, trolled American Girl Place, and met parents of beauty-pageant preschoolers tricked out like Vegas showgirls. The stakes turn out to be higher than she ever imagined. From premature sexualization to the risk of depression to rising rates of narcissism, the potential negative impact of this new girlie-girl culture is undeniable—yet armed with awareness and recognition, parents can effectively counterbalance its influence in their daughters' lives.]]> 245 Peggy Orenstein 0061711527 Mx 0 3.66 2011 Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture
author: Peggy Orenstein
name: Mx
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/13
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]]> The Liars' Club 1056457
But there are other lies. Darker, more hidden. Her mother's unimaginable past threatens the family's very sanity. Mary Karr looks back through younger eyes to exorcise those demons: a mad, puritanical grandmother; a vast inheritance squandered in one year flat; endless emptied bottles; and the darknesses inflicted on an eight-year-old girl. This voice explodes with antic, wit, stripped of self-pity. Miraculously, it makes a journey into joy. Here is a "terrific family of liars redeemed by a slow unearthing of truth."]]> 320 Mary Karr 0670850535 Mx 0 to-read, non-fiction, memoirs 3.93 1995 The Liars' Club
author: Mary Karr
name: Mx
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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shelves: to-read, non-fiction, memoirs
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]]> The Glass Castle 240126 288 Jeannette Walls 0743247531 Mx 0 4.28 2005 The Glass Castle
author: Jeannette Walls
name: Mx
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> Running with Scissors 676758
Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus. So at the age of twelve, Burroughs found himself amidst Victorian squalor living with the doctor’s bizarre family, and befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed. The story of an outlaw childhood where rules were unheard of, and the Christmas tree stayed up all year round, where Valium was consumed like candy, and if things got dull an electroshock- therapy machine could provide entertainment. The funny, harrowing and bestselling account of an ordinary boy’s survival under the most extraordinary circumstances.]]> 304 Augusten Burroughs 0312283709 Mx 0 to-read, memoirs, non-fiction 3.66 2002 Running with Scissors
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Mx
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories]]> 40016
This volume contains six stories from those collections as well as another superb selection, "My Kinsman, Major Molineux." In addition to the latter tale and the title story, this edition includes "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," "The Birthmark," "Rappaccini's Daughter," "Roger Malvin's Burial" and "The Artist of the Beautiful." Here are tales rich in atmosphere and suspense, with plots centering on subjects as diverse as witchcraft, revenge, the power of guilt, and a passion for the beautiful, all recounted in the distinctive voice of one of America's great writers.
--back cover

Dr. Heidegger's experiment --
The birthmark --
Young Goodman Brown --
Rappaccini's daughter --
Roger Malvin's burial --
The artist of the beautiful --
My kinsman, Major Molineux.]]> 111 Nathaniel Hawthorne 0486270602 Mx 0 3.86 1844 Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories
author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
name: Mx
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1844
rating: 0
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]]> Mildred Pierce 12876676
Out of these elements, Cain created a novel (later made into a film noir classic) of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence—and a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable.]]> 387 James M. Cain Mx 0 to-read, case-studies 4.07 1941 Mildred Pierce
author: James M. Cain
name: Mx
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1941
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women]]> 825468 The Mommy Myth contends that this "new momism" has been shaped by out-of-date mores and that no matter how hard they try, women will never achieve it. In this must-read for every woman, Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels shatter the myth of the perfect mom.]]> 400 Susan J. Douglas 0743259998 Mx 0 3.72 2004 The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women
author: Susan J. Douglas
name: Mx
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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]]> The Secret History 61366711 629 Donna Tartt 0241621909 Mx 0 4.33 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Mx
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare]]> 372740
The story begins when Gabriel Syme, a poet and member of a special group of philosophical policemen, attends a secret meeting of anarchists, whose leaders are named for the days of the week, and all of whom are sworn to destroy the world. Their chief is the mysterious Sunday - huge, boisterous, full of vitality, a wild personage who may be a Chestertonian vision of God or nature or both. When Syme, actually an undercover detective, is unexpectedly elected to fill a vacancy on the anarchists' Central Council, the plot takes the first of many surprising twists and turns.]]> 199 G.K. Chesterton 0836205944 Mx 0 to-read, adaptations 4.06 1908 The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
author: G.K. Chesterton
name: Mx
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1908
rating: 0
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]]> Sharp Objects 66559
Sent to investigate the disappearance of two little girls, Camille finds herself reluctantly installed in the family mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and a precocious thirteen-year-old half-sister she barely knows. Haunted by a family tragedy, troubled by the disquieting grip her young sister has on the town, Camille struggles with a familiar need to be accepted.

But as clues turn into dead ends, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims and realises: she will have to unravel the puzzle of her own past if she's to survive this homecoming.]]> 254 Gillian Flynn 0307341542 Mx 0 to-read, case-studies 3.89 2006 Sharp Objects
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Mx
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> Reviving Ophelia 39301 304 Mary Pipher 0399139443 Mx 0 3.62 1994 Reviving Ophelia
author: Mary Pipher
name: Mx
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Manhood in America: A Cultural History]]> 11200347 sources,he demonstrates that American men have been eternally frustrated by their efforts to keep up with constantly changing standards. Kimmel contends that men must follow the lead of the women's movement; it is only by mining their past for its best qualities and worst excesses that men will free
themselves from the constraints of the masculine ideal.

The third edition discusses such timely topics as post-9/11 politics, "self-made" masculinities (including those of Internet entrepreneurs), presidential campaigns, and gender politics. It also covers contemporary debates about fatherlessness, the biology of male aggression, and pop psychologists
like John Gray and Dr. Laura. Outlining the various ways in which manhood has been constructed and portrayed in America, this engaging history is ideal as a main text for courses on masculinity or as a supplementary text for courses in gender studies and cultural history.]]> 392 Michael S. Kimmel 0199781559 Mx 0 3.85 1996 Manhood in America: A Cultural History
author: Michael S. Kimmel
name: Mx
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Last Vampire (The Last Vampire, #1)]]> 137972 176 Christopher Pike 0340877456 Mx 0 to-read 3.93 1994 The Last Vampire (The Last Vampire, #1)
author: Christopher Pike
name: Mx
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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shelves: to-read
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]]> Remember Me (Remember Me, #1) 84076 272 Christopher Pike 0340877480 Mx 0 to-read 4.06 1989 Remember Me (Remember Me, #1)
author: Christopher Pike
name: Mx
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/13
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]]> In Siberia 16114007
From the front-inside dustjacket:

“A few years ago it became possible, for the first time, for a foreigner to travel Siberia almost at will. ‘In Siberia’ describes Colin Thubron’s 15,000 mile journey through this astonishing country – one twelfth of the land surface of the whole earth.

Up the great Yenisei River to the Arctic, into the mountains abutting Mongolia, eatward to the Amur, the Pacific and the abandoned Gulags of Kolyma, he journeyed by train, river and truck among the people most damaged by the collapse of Communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union. He travelled among Buddhists and animists, radical Christian sects, reactionary Communists and the remmnants of a so-called Jewish state; from the site of the last Czar’s murder and Rasputin’s village to the ice-bound graves of ancient Scythians, to Baikal, deepest and oldest of the world’s lakes.

Vivid, compassionate, underpinned with humour, this is the account of a people moving through the ruins of Communism into more private, diverse and often stranger worlds.”]]> 287 Colin Thubron Mx 0 4.40 1999 In Siberia
author: Colin Thubron
name: Mx
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1999
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]]> Among The Russians 6088019 220 Colin Thubron 0434779865 Mx 0 4.00 1983 Among The Russians
author: Colin Thubron
name: Mx
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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]]> Gay New York 1184231 496 George Chauncey 0465026338 Mx 0 4.48 1994 Gay New York
author: George Chauncey
name: Mx
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: non-fiction, queer, history-time, upcoming
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