en-US Mon, 30 Jun 2025 22:12:10 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 6036978 352 Alastair Fuad-Luke 050028766X Tamara 3 green, travel, non-fiction
Nonetheless, I now have a few more destinations to add to my wishlist: Paperbark Camp in Australia, Shenandoah National Park Lodgings near D.C. and the Inverness Youth Hostel in the UK.

This guide also came with a eco-products section that gave some good ideas about how to travel light & green. ]]> 2.67 2008
author: Alastair Fuad-Luke
name: Tamara
average rating: 2.67
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2008/12/25
date added: 2025/06/30
shelves: green, travel, non-fiction
review:
Reading eco-travel books always make me wish I were rich & more cultured.

Nonetheless, I now have a few more destinations to add to my wishlist: Paperbark Camp in Australia, Shenandoah National Park Lodgings near D.C. and the Inverness Youth Hostel in the UK.

This guide also came with a eco-products section that gave some good ideas about how to travel light & green.
]]> 201632466 The much-anticipated new picture book from the best-selling, award-winning creators of A Child of Books.

Dictionary wishes she could tell a story like other books. So one day, she decides to bring her words to life. How exciting it is to finally have an adventure on her very own pages! But what will she do when her characters collide and everything gets all in a jumble, causing the most enormous tantrum to explode? This isn’t what she wanted at all! Luckily her friend Alphabet knows exactly what to do and sings a song that brings calm and order to Dictionary’s pages once again.]]> 56 Oliver Jeffers 1536235504 Tamara 0 to-read 4.33
author: Oliver Jeffers
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.33
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59314703
On her return home, Sewanee discovers one of the world’s most beloved romance novelists wanted her to perform her last book—with Brock McNight, the industry’s hottest, most secretive voice. Sewanee doesn’t buy what romance novels are selling—not after her own dreams were tragically cut short—and she stopped narrating them years ago. But her admiration of the late author, and the opportunity to get her grandmother more help, makes her decision for her.

As Sewanee begins work on the book, resurrecting her old romance pseudonym, she and Brock forge a real connection, hidden behind the comfort of anonymity. Soon, she is dreaming again, but secrets are revealed, and the realities of life come crashing down around her once more.

If she can learn to risk everything for desires she has long buried, she will discover a world of intimacy and acceptance she never believed would be hers.

From the author of My Oxford Year, Julia Whelan’s uplifting novel tells the story of a former actress turned successful audiobook narrator—who has lost sight of her dreams after a tragic accident—and her journey of self-discovery, love, and acceptance when she agrees to narrate one last romance novel.]]> 432 Julia Whelan 0063095564 Tamara 0 to-read 3.99 2022
author: Julia Whelan
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 777923
In the months that follow, Jenny plunges into a life she never single motherhood. At least with the sleep deprivation, sore boobs, and fits of crying (both hers and the baby's), there's not much time to dwell on her broken heart. And things are looking Jenny learns how to do everything one-handed, makes friends in a mommy group, and even gets to know a handsome, helpful neighbor. But Dean is never far from Jenny's thoughts or, it turns out, her doorstep, and in the end she must choose between the old life she thought she wanted and the new life she's been lucky to find.]]> 249 Katherine Center 1400066379 Tamara 0 to-read 3.60 2006
author: Katherine Center
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203680931 A “wonderfully joyful read” (Good Housekeeping) a funny, uplifting story about the power of friendship and finding love in unexpected places from the author of The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot: When twentysomething Bella learns that 90-year-old Eddie has never been kissed, she makes it her mission to help him find love.
Eddie Winston is 90 years old. He has lived and loved, but he has never been kissed.

A true gentleman and incurable romantic, Eddie spends his days volunteering at a charity shop, where he sorts through the donations of the living and the dead, preserving letters and tokens of love. It is here that he meets Bella, a troubled young woman who, at 24 years old, has just lost the love of her life.

When Bella learns that Eddie is yet to have his first kiss, she resolves to help Eddie Winston finally find love, sparking an adventure that will take them to unexpected places and, they hope, bring Eddie Winston to the moment he has waited for all his life.

A tale of friendship and kindness that reminds us that those we love are never forgotten and it is never too late to try again.]]> 304 Marianne Cronin 0063383519 Tamara 0 to-read 4.29 2024
author: Marianne Cronin
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 63945340 From the author of the acclaimed novel Temporary, an intimate exploration of time, a fable about love, an epic daydream for a broken-hearted world

Annie, Edward, and their young daughter, Rose, live in a cramped apartment. One night, without warning, they find a beautiful terrace hidden in their closet. It wasn't there before, and it seems to only appear when their friend Stephanie visits. A city dweller's dream come true! But every extra bit of space has a hidden cost, and the terrace sets off a seismic chain of events, forever changing the shape of their tiny home, and the shape of the world.

Terrace Story follows the characters who suffer these repercussions and reverberations: the little family of three, their future now deeply uncertain, and those who orbit their fragile universe. The distance and love between these characters expands limitlessly, across generations. How far can the mind travel when it's looking for something that is gone? Where do we put our loneliness, longing, and desire? What do we do with the emotions that seem to stretch beyond the body, beyond the boundaries of life and death?

Based on the National Magazine Award-winning story, Hilary Leichter's profound second novel asks how we nurture love when death looms over every moment. From one of our most innovative and daring writers, Terrace Story is an astounding meditation on loss, a reverie about extinction, and a map for where to go next.]]> 208 Hilary Leichter 0063265818 Tamara 0 to-read 3.55 2023
author: Hilary Leichter
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53327892 An #ownvoices novel in verse about an Indian American girl whose life is turned upside down when her mother is diagnosed with leukemia.

Reha feels torn between two worlds: school, where she’s the only Indian American student, and home, with her family’s traditions and holidays. But Reha’s parents don’t understand why she’s conflicted—they only notice when Reha doesn’t meet their strict expectations. Reha feels disconnected from her mother, or Amma, although their names are linked—Reha means “star” and Punam means “moon”—but they are a universe apart.

Then Reha finds out that her Amma is sick. Really sick.

Reha, who dreams of becoming a doctor even though she can’t stomach the sight of blood, is determined to make her Amma well again. She’ll be the perfect daughter, if it means saving her Amma’s life.]]> 224 Rajani LaRocca 006304742X Tamara 4 fiction, teen Short and sweet. 4.40 2021
author: Rajani LaRocca
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: fiction, teen
review:
Short and sweet.
]]> 223199392 Two good neighbors make the best of a bad Valentine’s Day in a funny and improbably romantic short story by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Just for the Summer.

It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and Charlotte and Seth are not looking for romance. Armed with emotional-support bear spray, Charlotte is in self-imposed isolation and on guard from men. Having a stalker can do that to a person’s nerves. Just across the hall and giving off woodsy vibes is Seth, a recently divorced arborist. As in today recently. Heights, he’s fine with. Trust? Not so much. But when disaster traps them one flight up and no way down, an outrageously precarious predicament forces a tree-loving guy and a rattled girl next door to embrace their captivity. Soon their defenses are breaking away. Considering how close they both are to the edge, Charlotte and Seth could be in danger of falling—in love.]]> 96 Abby Jimenez 1662529082 Tamara 0 to-read 4.09 2025
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 205804545 A blend of mindset science, original research, and cultural insights for cultivating a positive “wintertime mindset,” to vanquish winter blues and find joy and comfort in dark times year-round.

Do you dread the end of Daylight Saving Time and grouch about the long, chilly season of gray skies and ice? Do you find yourself in a slump every January and February? What if there were a way to rethink this time of year? Psychologist and winter expert Kari Leibowitz’s galvanizing How to Winter uses mindset science to help readers embrace winter as a season to be enjoyed, not endured—and in turn, learn powerful lessons that can impact our mental wellbeing throughout the year.

Kari Leibowitz moved above the Arctic Circle – where the sun doesn’t rise for two months each winter –expecting to research the season’s negative effects on mental health, only to find that inhabitants actually looked forward to it with delight and enthusiasm. Leibowitz has since travelled to places on earth with some of the coldest, darkest, longest and most intense winters, and discovered the power of “wintertime mindset”— viewing the season as full of opportunity and wonder. Impactful strategies for cultivating this wintertime mindset can teach us not just about braving the gray, cold months of the year, but also the darker and more difficult seasons of life.

• In Tromsø, Norway, people live in rhythm with nature, adapting to the months-long Polar Night by honoring seasonal fluctuations in energy, slowing down, and resting more.
• On the Isle of Lewis, off the coast of Scotland, communal gatherings around roaring fires embrace darkness and provide connection during long nights.
• In Yamagata, Japan, families sink into steaming onsen baths, banishing the chill of winter with healthful soaks that improve sleep and reduce risk of heart attack.

Inspired by cutting-edge psychological and behavioral science research as well as cultures worldwide that find warmth and joy in winter’s extremes, How to Winter provides readers with concrete tools for making winter wonderful wherever they live and harnessing the power of small mindset changes with big impact to help readers embrace every season of life.]]> 304 Kari Leibowitz 0593653750 Tamara 0 to-read 4.03 2024
author: Kari Leibowitz
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220161224 The acclaimed author of The People We Keep returns with a luminous new story of redemption, breaking generational curses, and the power of family in its truest form.

After an emergency leaves her short on rent, thirty-year-old Freya Arnalds bails on her lackluster life as bartender in Maine and returns to her suburban hometown of Somers, New York, to live in the house she inherited from her estranged parents. Despite attempts to lay low, Freya encounters childhood friends, familial enemies, and old flames—as well as her fifteen-year-old niece, Aubrey, who is secretly living in the derelict home. As they reconnect, Freya and Aubrey lean on each other, working to restore the house and come to terms with the devastating events that pulled them apart years ago.

Set in the birthplace of the American circus, this deeply moving novel is an exploration of broken families, the weight of the past, and the complicated journey of finding home.]]> 432 Allison Larkin 1668008416 Tamara 0 to-read 4.12 2025
author: Allison Larkin
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59903149
1. I'm diagnosed with autism 20 years after telling a doctor I had it.

2. My terrible Catholic childhood.

3. My friendship with an elderly man who runs the corner shop and is definitely not trying to groom me. I get groomed.

4. Homelessness.

5. Stripping.

6. More stripping but with more nervous breakdowns.

7. I hate everyone at uni and live with a psycho etc.

8. REDACTED as too spicy.

9. After everyone tells me I don't look autistic, I try to cure my autism and get addicted to Xanax.

10. REDACTED as too embarrassing.]]> 288 Fern Brady 1914240448 Tamara 0 to-read 4.42 2023
author: Fern Brady
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 158649919
Deborah Jackson Taffa was raised to believe that some sacrifices were necessary to achieve a better life. Her grandparents—citizens of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo tribe—were sent to Indian boarding schools run by white missionaries, while her parents were encouraged to take part in governmental job training off the reservation. Assimilation meant relocation, but as Taffa matured into adulthood, she began to question the promise handed down by her elders and by American society: that if she gave up her culture, her land, and her traditions, she would not only be accepted, but would be able to achieve the “American Dream.”

Whiskey Tender traces how a mixed tribe native girl—born on the California Yuma reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico—comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent’s desires for her to transcend the class and “Indian” status of her birth through education, and despite the Quechan tribe’s particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Taffa’s childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation.

Taffa offers a sharp and thought-provoking historical analysis laced with humor and heart. As she reflects on her past and present—the promise of assimilation and the many betrayals her family has suffered, both personal and historical; trauma passed down through generations—she reminds us of how the cultural narratives of her ancestors have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of the “melting pot” of America, revealing all that is sacrificed for the promise of acceptance.]]> 304 Deborah Jackson Taffa 0063288516 Tamara 0 to-read 4.10 2024
author: Deborah Jackson Taffa
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 176442759 From “one of the UK’s most interesting authors” (Kirkus Reviews), Patricia Highsmith meets White Lotus in this surprising and suspenseful modern gothic story following a couple running from both secretive pasts and very present dangers while honeymooning on a Greek island.

Still reeling from the chaos of their wedding, Evelyn and Richard arrive on a tiny Greek island for their honeymoon. It’s the end of the season and a storm is imminent. Determined to make the best of it, they check into the sun-soaked doors of the Villa Rosa. Already feeling insecure after seeing the “beautiful people,” the seemingly endless number of young models and musicians lounging along the Mediterranean, Evelyn is wary of the hotel’s owner, Isabella, who seems to only have eyes for Richard.

Isabella ostensibly disapproves of every request Evelyn makes, seemingly annoyed at the fact that they are there at all. Isabella is also preoccupied with her chance to enthrall the only other guests—an American producer named Marcus and his partner Debbie—with the story of “the sleepwalkers,” a couple who had stayed at the hotel recently and drowned.

Everyone seems to want to talk about the sleepwalkers, save for Hamza, a young Turkish man Evelyn had seen with some “beautiful people,” as well as the “dapper little man”—the strange yet fashionable owner of the island’s lone antiques and gift shop she sees everywhere.

But what at first seemed eccentric, decorative, or simply ridiculous, becomes a living nightmare. Evelyn and Richard are separated the night of the storm and forced to face dark truths, but it’s their confessions around the origins of their relationship and the years leading up to their marriage that might save them.

Exhilarating, suspenseful, and also very funny, The Sleepwalkers asks urgent questions about relationships, sexuality, and the darkest elements of contemporary society—where our most terrible secrets are hidden in plain sight.]]> 304 Scarlett Thomas 1668032988 Tamara 3 fiction 3.09 2024
author: Scarlett Thomas
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.09
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: fiction
review:
Accurately recommended for fans of White Lotus. It was good, but choppy and in the end I'm not really sure what happened?
]]> 200028726 From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.]]> 240 Catherine Newman 0063345161 Tamara 5 fiction
Like the book version of the TV show Better Things in all the best ways.

Bonus points for featuring a main character going through menopause. ]]> 3.53 2024
author: Catherine Newman
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: fiction
review:
Fierce love + flawed humans. I kept picturing this family as a litter of kittens, falling into playful romps every day and sleeping in a pile together every night.

Like the book version of the TV show Better Things in all the best ways.

Bonus points for featuring a main character going through menopause.
]]> 233722
But nobody counted on crank calls, uncontrollable two-year-olds, wild pets, and parents who don't always tell the truth. And then there's Stacey, who's acting more and more mysterious. Having a baby-sitters club isn't easy, but Kristy and her friends aren't giving up until they get it right!]]> 153 Ann M. Martin 0590224735 Tamara 5
These characters are just one huge security blanket. They go through actual real-life shit together - losing a grandparent, asserting independence with strict parents, dealing with a chronic medical condition, struggling in school, changing friendship dynamics, getting used to stepparents, and so much more. Not to mention the actual babysitting adventures, which brought back so many memories for me who used to babysit a LOT as a kid and teen. (BTW, does anyone allow 11-year-olds to babysit now? Why in the world did anyone trust me with their 3 month old when I was only eleven???)

This re-read was everything I needed it to be and more.

P.S. The Netflix series that was TRAGICALLY cancelled made me love these characters even more. Alicia Silverstone as Kristy's mom is one of my favorite casting decisions of all time. ]]> 3.99 1986
author: Ann M. Martin
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: childrens-lit, fiction, my-childhood
review:
My sister-not-in-law gave me a vintage copy of this for Christmas and I had no idea how much I would love re-reading it. This series was everything to me as a 10-13 year old. I read every book in the series multiple times and even memorized all 100+ titles in order for no good reason (and that is saying something, because I am horrible at memorizing things.)

These characters are just one huge security blanket. They go through actual real-life shit together - losing a grandparent, asserting independence with strict parents, dealing with a chronic medical condition, struggling in school, changing friendship dynamics, getting used to stepparents, and so much more. Not to mention the actual babysitting adventures, which brought back so many memories for me who used to babysit a LOT as a kid and teen. (BTW, does anyone allow 11-year-olds to babysit now? Why in the world did anyone trust me with their 3 month old when I was only eleven???)

This re-read was everything I needed it to be and more.

P.S. The Netflix series that was TRAGICALLY cancelled made me love these characters even more. Alicia Silverstone as Kristy's mom is one of my favorite casting decisions of all time.
]]> 52535437 Antiracist Baby introduces the youngest readers and the grown-ups in their lives to the concept and power of antiracism. Providing the language necessary to begin critical conversations at the earliest age, Antiracist Baby is the perfect gift for readers of all ages dedicated to forming a just society.]]> 24 Ibram X. Kendi 0593110412 Tamara 3 picture-books 4.03 2020
author: Ibram X. Kendi
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2020/11/28
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: picture-books
review:
How do you teach babies about racism? Well, you have to start somewhere. This is the most dense board book I've ever read, and though I don't think a baby will "get it" (I'm not sure even I do!), it helps to start the conversation, and acts as an effective reminder to parents & caregivers that they are the most important teachers and role models in their baby's life.
]]> 50743767
In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter "the real world". She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone.

It started with an itch - first on her feet, then up her legs, like 1,000 invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her 23rd birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for The New York Times.

When Jaouad finally walked out of the cancer ward - after three and a half years of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant - she was, according to the doctors, cured. But as she would soon learn, a cure is not where the work of healing ends; it’s where it begins. She had spent the past 1,500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal - to survive. And now that she’d done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live.

How would she reenter the world and live again? How could she reclaim what had been lost? Jaouad embarked - with her new best friend, Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt - on a 100-day, 15,000-mile road trip across the country. She set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her during her years in the hospital: a teenage girl in Florida also recovering from cancer; a teacher in California grieving the death of her son; a death-row inmate in Texas who’d spent his own years confined to a room. What she learned on this trip is that the divide between sick and well is porous, that the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms throughout our lives. Between Two Kingdoms is a profound chronicle of survivorship and a fierce, tender, and inspiring exploration of what it means to begin again.]]> 352 Suleika Jaouad 0399588582 Tamara 4 memoir-bio
The harrowing descriptions of her mouth sores will live with me forever.

Being sick and caregiving for someone who is sick are two things I am horrible at. I can't stand to be in pain or witness someone else's pain. I don't know how she or her family survived, even though she does her best to describe how it happened.

I often was reminded of John Green's essay about viral meningitis and how hard it is to remember how it feels to be sick once you're well, and how hard it is to remember being well when you are sick.]]> 4.40 2021
author: Suleika Jaouad
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: memoir-bio
review:
This was maybe not the book I should have read while trying to fall asleep during the first two weeks of Trump's second term in office.

The harrowing descriptions of her mouth sores will live with me forever.

Being sick and caregiving for someone who is sick are two things I am horrible at. I can't stand to be in pain or witness someone else's pain. I don't know how she or her family survived, even though she does her best to describe how it happened.

I often was reminded of John Green's essay about viral meningitis and how hard it is to remember how it feels to be sick once you're well, and how hard it is to remember being well when you are sick.
]]> 212924015
After nearly losing the election to a geriatric but wildly popular donkey named Maurizio, newly installed Mayor Delizia Miccuci can’t help but feel like the sun has finally set on the rural Italian village of Lazzarini Boscarino. Tourists only stop by to ask for directions, Nonna Amara’s cherished ristorante is long shuttered, and the town hall is disgustingly overrun with glis glis poo—even Postman Duccio has been disgraced. All that’s left is Bar Celebrità, a rustic establishment where weary locals gather to quibble over decades-long disputes, submit their poor stomachs to bartender Giuseppina’s volcanic espresso, and wonder what will become of the place where together they’ve spent their entire lives.

Little do the villagers know that, mere miles away in the forest, local truffle hunter Giovanni Scarpazza has just happened upon something that could change everything. Swollen to massive proportions, soaking the atmosphere in its pungent fumes, potentially worth six figures in certain international circles, a truffle—un tartufo, that is—sits beneath the soil with the power to either be the greatest gift or the foulest curse the village has ever seen—they’re not completely sure which since Giuseppina’s psychic was a bit unclear on the matter.

Tartufo is much more than a charming romp through the foothills of Tuscany. Written in the same enchanting style and raucous humor that defines Hollow Kingdom and Feral Creatures, Buxton’s newest story is a reflection on the interconnectedness of life in all its manifestations—and how holding on to harmony in the face of hardship can grow something beautiful and rare beneath the surface.]]> 352 Kira Jane Buxton 1538770814 Tamara 0 to-read 3.73 2025
author: Kira Jane Buxton
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 34051011
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters—strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis—survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.]]> 496 Min Jin Lee Tamara 0 to-read 4.35 2017
author: Min Jin Lee
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40899464
Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents’ farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief.

Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative that weaves together two women’s stories into a tapestry of perseverance, loyalty, love and honor. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silenced…and how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it.]]> 448 Kelly Rimmer 1525831518 Tamara 0 to-read 4.51 2019
author: Kelly Rimmer
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57468764 A slice-of-life rom-com about pizza and first crushes that readers will gobble up!

Maya Reynolds has practically grown up in her family's Brooklyn pizza shop, Soul Slice, and is a true city girl. When her family moves to a small town in Pennsylvania to open another pizza place, everything changes.

Being the new girl is hard enough. At Soul Slice 2.0, Maya is assigned delivery duty. And her first delivery is a disaster. Can you make a worse impression than tripping... and falling face-first into a rude boy's pizza order?

When that same rude -- and, okay, cute -- boy shows up at her school, Maya's convinced nothing can go right. But she may be in for some surprises. Could good friends, secret crushes, and creative pizza toppings turn Maya's new home into her own slice of heaven?]]> 272 Rhiannon Richardson 1338784382 Tamara 4 fiction, teen
Loved the pizza making (that pizza sounds DELICIOUS) and interior design details paired with real-life struggles like the pressures of working for your parent's small business and the loneliness of moving to a new city. ]]> 3.88 2022
author: Rhiannon Richardson
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: fiction, teen
review:
I am very disappointed that this book wasn't titled, "Soul Slice". I get the "Pizza My Heart" pun, but it makes the book seem cutesier and fluffier than it is. And while I hate the enemy-turned-romantic-love-interest trope, I can forgive it in middle schoolers.

Loved the pizza making (that pizza sounds DELICIOUS) and interior design details paired with real-life struggles like the pressures of working for your parent's small business and the loneliness of moving to a new city.
]]> 200987258
Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.

But Beverly’s daughter Lindsay sneaks in by night and secretly fills Lula Dean’s little free library with banned books wrapped in “wholesome” dust jackets. The Girl’s Guide to the Revolution is wrapped in the cover of The Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette. A jacket that belongs to Our Confederate Heroes ends up on Beloved. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.

That’s when all the townspeople who’ve been borrowing from Lula’s library begin to reveal themselves. It’s a diverse and surprising bunch—including the local postman, the prom queen, housewives, a farmer, and the former DA—all of whom have been changed by what they’ve read. When Lindsay is forced to own up to what she’s done, the showdown that’s been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town...and change it forever.]]> 298 Kirsten Miller 0063348691 Tamara 0 to-read 4.05 2024
author: Kirsten Miller
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 198530925
They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.

Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.

Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.

When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?

The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.

Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.

It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.]]> 400 Rainbow Rowell 0063380196 Tamara 4 fiction 3.63 2024
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: fiction
review:
I don't love romance novels, but somehow Rainbow Rowell always hits the right notes. This one wasn't my favorite. The characters were real and raw, but a bit grating, especially when they REFUSED to listen to each other. Her dialogue was genius as always, though, so I forgive it.
]]> 52623750 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593189481.

An intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.]]> 241 Katherine May Tamara 4 memoir-bio, non-fiction
Side note: I was fascinated by the cold plunge chapter but also NO THANK YOU.]]> 3.82 2020
author: Katherine May
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: memoir-bio, non-fiction
review:
While most of my wintering occurs in the actual season of winter, especially as a now avid gardener, I love the idea that wintering can also occur in different seasons of life. Let's all give ourselves a break every once in a while to rest and recalibrate, mkay?

Side note: I was fascinated by the cold plunge chapter but also NO THANK YOU.
]]> 43562313 From New York Times bestselling author Mary H.K. Choi comes a funny and emotional story about two estranged sisters switching places and committing insurance fraud to save one of their lives.

Jayne Baek is barely getting by. She shuffles through fashion school, saddled with a deadbeat boyfriend, clout-chasing friends, and a wretched eating disorder that she’s not fully ready to confront. But that’s New York City, right? At least she isn’t in Texas anymore, and is finally living in a city that feels right for her.

On the other hand, her sister June is dazzlingly rich with a high-flying finance job and a massive apartment. Unlike Jayne, June has never struggled a day in her life. Until she’s diagnosed with uterine cancer.

Suddenly, these estranged sisters who have nothing in common are living together. Because sisterly obligations are kind of important when one of you is dying.]]> 400 Mary H.K. Choi Tamara 0 to-read 3.95 2021
author: Mary H.K. Choi
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5310515 199 Rebecca Stead 0385737424 Tamara 4 teen, childrens-lit, fiction
2010 - Deceptively simple, with subtle layers that keep you flipping the pages.

Favorite Quotes:

The truth is that my book doesn't say how old Meg is, but I am twelve, so she feels twelve to me. When I first got the book I was eleven, and she felt eleven.

Mom says each of us has a veil between ourselves and the rest of the world, like a bride wears on her wedding day, except this kind of veil is invisible. We walk around happily with these invisible veils hanging down over our faces. The world is kind of blurry, and we like it that way. But sometimes our veils are pushed away for a few moments, like there's a wind blowing it from our faces. And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean.]]> 4.08 2009
author: Rebecca Stead
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: teen, childrens-lit, fiction
review:
2024 - Listened on audio during a trip to Youngstown for the holidays.

2010 - Deceptively simple, with subtle layers that keep you flipping the pages.

Favorite Quotes:

The truth is that my book doesn't say how old Meg is, but I am twelve, so she feels twelve to me. When I first got the book I was eleven, and she felt eleven.

Mom says each of us has a veil between ourselves and the rest of the world, like a bride wears on her wedding day, except this kind of veil is invisible. We walk around happily with these invisible veils hanging down over our faces. The world is kind of blurry, and we like it that way. But sometimes our veils are pushed away for a few moments, like there's a wind blowing it from our faces. And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean.
]]> 71872896 The beloved bestselling author of Here for It presents a collection of heartening, thoughtful, and laugh-out-loud essays about the lifelong search for community and returning home.

After going viral "reading" the chaotic political news, having one-too-many awkward social encounters, and coming to terms with his intersecting identities, R. Eric Thomas is ready to live his best life--or, if not, at least his best-ish life.

Now, in this collection of insightful and hilarious essays, Thomas finds himself doing things completely out of character, starting with moving back to his perpetually misunderstood hometown of Baltimore. They say you can't go home again, but what if you and home have changed beyond recognition? From attending his twenty-year high school reunion and discovering another person's face on his name badge, to splattering an urgent care room with blood à la The Shining, to being terrorized by a plague of gay frogs who've overtaken his backyard, Thomas shares the nitty, and sometimes gritty, details of wrestling with your past life while in the middle of a new one. With wit, heart, and hope for the future, Congratulations, The Best Is Over! is the not-so-gentle reminder we all need that even when life doesn't go according to plan, we can still find our way back home.]]> 240 R. Eric Thomas 0593496264 Tamara 0 to-read 4.03 2023
author: R. Eric Thomas
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199534613
Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off.]]> 304 Rufi Thorpe 0063356589 Tamara 4 fiction 3.85 2024
author: Rufi Thorpe
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: fiction
review:
This worked on so many levels for me. I like stories that describe other professions in great detail, stories that feature unlikely friendships, stories that make me understand people who are very different from me, stories that are set in the present moment, stories with unconventional romantic arcs, and stories with a unique voice... And this had it all!
]]> 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Tamara 0 to-read 4.09 2024
author: Alison Espach
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 51542370
As the town spends the week preparing for a mysterious Forgiveness Festival, Pew is shuttled from one household to the next. The earnest and seemingly well-meaning townspeople see conflicting identities in Pew, and many confess their fears and secrets to them in one-sided conversations. Pew listens and observes while experiencing brief flashes of past lives or clues about their origins. As days pass, the void around Pew’s presence begins to unnerve the community, whose generosity erodes into menace and suspicion. Yet by the time Pew’s story reaches a shattering and unsettling climax at the Forgiveness Festival, the secret of their true nature—as a devil or an angel or something else entirely—is dwarfed by even larger truths.

Pew, Catherine Lacey’s third novel, is a foreboding, provocative, and amorphous fable about the world today: its contradictions, its flimsy morality, and the limits of judging others based on their appearance. With precision and restraint, one of our most beloved and boundary-pushing writers holds up a mirror to her characters’ true selves, revealing something about forgiveness, perception, and the faulty tools society uses to categorize human complexity.]]> 224 Catherine Lacey 0374230927 Tamara 4 fiction
I'm super curious how more religious people than me translate this story. Hopeful? Hopeless? Scary? Comforting?]]> 3.72 2020
author: Catherine Lacey
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/11/30
shelves: fiction
review:
One long poetic question with no answers on sight.

I'm super curious how more religious people than me translate this story. Hopeful? Hopeless? Scary? Comforting?
]]> 61484954 A middle-grade novel by James Bird about homelessness and hope.

When home is a car, life is unpredictable. School, friends, and three meals a day aren't guaranteed. Not every town has a shelter where a family can sleep for a night or two, and places with parking lots don't welcome overnight stays.

Opin, his brother Emjay, and their mother are trying to get to Los Angeles, where they hope an uncle and a new life are waiting. Emjay has taken to disappearing for days, slowing down the family's progress and adding to their worry.

Then Opin finds a stray dog who needs him as much as he needs her, and his longing for a stable home intensifies, as his brother's reckless ways hit a new high. Opin makes a new friend in the shelter, but shelters don’t allow dogs…

Will anything other than a real home ever be enough?]]> 311 James Bird 1250877644 Tamara 0 to-read 4.16 2023
author: James Bird
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 7819102  
Whether you already subsist on veggie burgers, enjoy them occasionally, or ardently wish there was an alternative to the rubbery, over-processed frozen burgers sold in cardboard boxes, Veggie Burgers Every Which Way is the book for you—one you’ll want to cook from over and over again.
 
Author Lukas Volger, who has been making and eating veggie burgers since he was a teenager, has assembled more than thirty unique, delicious veggie burger recipes, including:
   
More than half the burger recipes are vegan and/or gluten-free, as are many of the extras, which include buns, sides, toppings, and condiments. Everyday ingredients ensure that all the burgers and extras are a breeze to assemble. The wide variety of tastes and flavors will excite every palate and suit every craving and occasion. And dozens of mouthwatering photographs leave no doubt that great-tasting veggie burgers can look spectacular, too!
 ]]> 192 Lukas Volger 1615190198 Tamara 3
Best Possibilities include:
Corn Burgers with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Goat Cheese
Spinach-Chickpea Burgers
Cashew-Leek Burgers with Bulgur and Lentils

Note: Also includes bun, topping and side dish recipes. Many of the recipes are gluten free and/or vegan. ]]> 3.85 2010
author: Lukas Volger
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2010/08/25
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: vegetarianish-cookbooks, non-fiction
review:
Someone should open a restaurant and serve all these burgers. I would go back until I had tried all of them. But, as it is, I probably won't make any of them on my own.

Best Possibilities include:
Corn Burgers with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Goat Cheese
Spinach-Chickpea Burgers
Cashew-Leek Burgers with Bulgur and Lentils

Note: Also includes bun, topping and side dish recipes. Many of the recipes are gluten free and/or vegan.
]]> 61273812 You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work, and patriarchy.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful, like the work of Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Gina Frangello, is an unflinching look at what it means to live and write our own lives. It is a story about a mother’s fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman’s love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is an argument for possibility. With a poet’s attention to language and an innovative approach to the genre, Smith reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new. Something beautiful.]]> 320 Maggie Smith 1982185856 Tamara 4 memoir-bio, audiobooks
I've never been married and I've never had kids, but Maggie Smith shares her experience in a way that is extremely relatable. And her focus on clinging to the joy of life despite all the shit that comes with it is why she is so easy to love.

I do wish there were fewer refrains and callbacks - they often felt forced. But I appreciate the concept nevertheless.]]> 4.02 2023
author: Maggie Smith
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/21
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: memoir-bio, audiobooks
review:
So very rare that I get to read a book that references places I know very well, which is a treat.

I've never been married and I've never had kids, but Maggie Smith shares her experience in a way that is extremely relatable. And her focus on clinging to the joy of life despite all the shit that comes with it is why she is so easy to love.

I do wish there were fewer refrains and callbacks - they often felt forced. But I appreciate the concept nevertheless.
]]> 202907408 A year in the life of the unforgettable Catalina Ituralde, a wickedly wry and heartbreakingly vulnerable student at an elite college, forced to navigate an opaque past, an uncertain future, tragedies on two continents, and the tantalizing possibilities of love and freedom

When Catalina is admitted to Harvard, it feels like the fulfillment of destiny: a miracle child escapes death in Latin America, moves to Queens to be raised by her undocumented grandparents, and becomes one of the chosen. But nothing is simple for Catalina, least of all her complicated, contradictory, ruthlessly probing mind. Now a senior, she faces graduation to a world with no place for the undocumented. Her sense of doom intensifies her curiosities and desires. She infiltrates the school’s elite subcultures—internships and literary journals, posh parties, and secret societies—which she observes with the eye of an anthropologist and an interloper’s skepticism: She is both fascinated and repulsed.

Craving a great romance, Catalina finds herself drawn to a fellow student, an actual budding anthropologist eager to teach her about the Latin American world she was born into but never knew, even as her life back in Queens begins to unravel. And every day, the clock ticks closer to the abyss of life after graduation. Can she save her family? Can she save herself? What does it mean to be saved?]]> 224 Karla Cornejo Villavicencio 0593449096 Tamara 0 to-read 3.56 2024
author: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 90564440
Ursa possesses a very special gift. She can travel through memory and revisit her past. After she flees her hometown for the counterculture glory of 1950’s California, the intoxicating potential of her unique ability eventually draws a group of women into her orbit and into a ramshackle Victorian mansion in the woods outside Santa Cruz. Yet Ursa’s powers come with a cost. Soon this cultish community of sisterhood takes an ominous turn, prompting her son, Ray, and his pregnant lover, Cherry, to flee their home for Los Angeles and reinvent themselves far from Ursa’s insidious influence. But escaping their past won’t be so easy. A series of mysterious events forces Cherry to abandon their baby, leaving Ray to raise Opal alone.

Now a teenager and still heartbroken over the abandonment of the mother she never knew, Opal must journey into her own past to reveal the generations of secrets that gave rise to the shimmering source of her family's painful legacy.

From the forests of Santa Cruz, to the 1980s glam of Melrose Avenue to a solitary mansion among the oil derricks off La Cienega Boulevard, and brimming with the double-edged capacity of memory to both heal and harm, Time’s Mouth is a poignant and evocative excavation of the bonds that bind families together.]]> 416 Edan Lepucki 1640095721 Tamara 4 fiction
Also - [spoilers removed]]]> 3.79 2023
author: Edan Lepucki
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/11
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: fiction
review:
Magical realism, a cult (or commune) set in a redwood forest, a house built in the middle of an oil field, complicated family dynamics. What's not to love?

Also - [spoilers removed]
]]> 204811915 People) of a novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world.

With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?”

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known—“unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them—reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”]]> 326 Elizabeth Strout 0593446097 Tamara 0 to-read 3.95 2024
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25467698
Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start... until she starts seeing the “wrong things.” They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.

That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.

Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.]]> 396 Emily Henry 0698408152 Tamara 3 fiction
PS This was one of the first descriptions of an assault that created agency for the character rather than solely victimizing them. Big kudos. I hope to see more of this.]]> 3.54 2016
author: Emily Henry
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/17
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: fiction
review:
Hmmmm...I've decided this would make a better movie than a book.

PS This was one of the first descriptions of an assault that created agency for the character rather than solely victimizing them. Big kudos. I hope to see more of this.
]]> 52744120 From the author of The Whispers comes a heartrending tale of friendship, hard-won truths, and the healing power of forgiveness.


When a twelve-year-old boy dies mysteriously at the deserted Hollow Pines Plantation, he finds himself “stuck” with no idea how long he’s been there or how to move on. Things never change much for the lost souls at Hollow Pines and time is strange when you’re dead. But when visitors from the living world arrive for the first time in a long while, the boy feels a spark of hope. These visitors are around his age, and they seem to understand more than others that the plantation is not just spooky or eerie, it’s a sad place where the unspeakable happened again and again. And if these kids could understand the truth about Hollow Pines, maybe they could help him uncover the dark secrets of his past and help him find a way to finally move on. But Hollow Pines doesn’t like visitors. And with a malevolent spirit lurking in the shadows and painful memories buried deep, and for good reason, the boy wonders if he’ll ever find his way home or be stuck at Hollow Pines forever.]]> Greg Howard Tamara 3 childrens-lit, fiction 4.28 2022
author: Greg Howard
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: childrens-lit, fiction
review:
Sometimes kids lit writing is just a little too simple and straightforward for my taste, and I think that's why I didn't connect with this one. The story and sense of place kept me reading until the end, though.
]]> 205307705 The heroic tale of a tiny dragon with a heart of gold and a taste for baked treats! A scrumptious picture book for fans of funny fairytales and fantastic beasts.

Ember has always been different from the other dragons. His fearsome roar sounds more like a polite sneeze, and when he breathes fire, the villagers just pat his head and say awwww.

Ember fears he’ll never collect a respectable hoard of gold until a chance encounter with a baker causes his fortunes to turn (and his stomach to grumble). As the little dragon soon discovers, the gold you make is way better than the gold you steal—and gold that is shared? That’s best of all.

Magic shimmers on every page of author-illustrator Devin Elle Kurtz's feel-good story that celebrates baked goods, dragons, and generosity in equal measure. Filled with adorable illustrations, this is a perfect read aloud for bedtime or brunchtime!]]> 42 Devin Elle Kurtz 0593710967 Tamara 0 to-read 4.50 2024
author: Devin Elle Kurtz
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 127280850
2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.]]> 392 Emilia Hart 1250842727 Tamara 0 to-read 4.02 2023
author: Emilia Hart
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 24615946
In Furiously Happy, a humor memoir tinged with just enough tragedy and pathos to make it worthwhile, Jenny Lawson examines her own experience with severe depression and a host of other conditions, and explains how it has led her to live life to the fullest:

"I've often thought that people with severe depression have developed such a well for experiencing extreme emotion that they might be able to experience extreme joy in a way that ‘normal people' also might never understand. And that's what Furiously Happy is all about."

Jenny’s readings are standing room only, with fans lining up to have Jenny sign their bottles of Xanax or Prozac as often as they are to have her sign their books. Furiously Happy appeals to Jenny's core fan base but also transcends it. There are so many people out there struggling with depression and mental illness, either themselves or someone in their family—and in Furiously Happy they will find a member of their tribe offering up an uplifting message (via a taxidermied roadkill raccoon). Let's Pretend This Never Happened ostensibly was about embracing your own weirdness, but deep down it was about family. Furiously Happy is about depression and mental illness, but deep down it's about joy—and who doesn't want a bit more of that?]]> 6 Jenny Lawson 1427264783 Tamara 3 audiobooks, memoir-bio
(Her spell check jokes became quite tiresome after a while, but maybe because I often fall into those jokes with myself and am the only one who finds them funny.)]]> 3.99 2015
author: Jenny Lawson
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2016/04/12
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves: audiobooks, memoir-bio
review:
Enjoyed her frankness and relatability.

(Her spell check jokes became quite tiresome after a while, but maybe because I often fall into those jokes with myself and am the only one who finds them funny.)
]]> 19051364 A practical guide to generating less waste, featuring meaningful and achievable strategies from the blogger behind The Green Garbage Project, a yearlong experiment in living garbage-free.Trash is a big, dirty problem. The average American tosses out nearly 2,000 pounds of garbage every year that piles up in landfills and threatens our air and water quality. You do your part to reduce, reuse, and recycle, but is it enough? In The Zero-Waste Lifestyle, Amy Korst shows you how to lead a healthier, happier, and more sustainable life by generating less garbage. Drawing from lessons she learned during a yearlong experiment in zero-waste living, Amy outlines hundreds of easy ideas—from the simple to the radical—for consuming and throwing away less, with low-impact tips on the best ways •  Buy eggs from a local farm instead of the grocery store •  Start a worm bin for composting •  Grow your own loofah sponges and mix up eco-friendly cleaning solutions •  Purchase gently used items and donate them when you’re finished •  Shop the bulk aisle and keep reusable bags in your purse or car •  Bring your own containers for take-out or restaurant leftovers   By eliminating unnecessary items in every aspect of your life, these meaningful and achievable strategies will help you save time and money, support local businesses, decrease litter, reduce your toxic exposure, eat well, become more self-sufficient, and preserve the planet for future generations.]]> 422 Amy Korst 1607743493 Tamara 3 non-fiction, green A lot of things I already knew? Check.
Makes use of checklists? Check.
Author lives in a city with much more elaborate recycling capabilities? Check.

Quite similar to .

Mostly excited about 's shampoo bars (which is now located at Easton).

Am working up the courage to take my own containers to the deli counter at Raisin Rack for sliced cheese.

Good to know that the experts also have found no viable alternative to Q-tips and dental floss. ]]> 3.62 2012
author: Amy Korst
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2013/02/10
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: non-fiction, green
review:
Some useful tips? Check.
A lot of things I already knew? Check.
Makes use of checklists? Check.
Author lives in a city with much more elaborate recycling capabilities? Check.

Quite similar to .

Mostly excited about 's shampoo bars (which is now located at Easton).

Am working up the courage to take my own containers to the deli counter at Raisin Rack for sliced cheese.

Good to know that the experts also have found no viable alternative to Q-tips and dental floss.
]]> 199793628 From the bestselling author of the Truly Devious books, Maureen Johnson, comes a new stand-alone YA about a teen who uncovers a mystery while working as a tour guide on an island and must solve it before history repeats itself.

The fire wasn’t Marlowe Wexler’s fault. Dates should be hot, but not hot enough to warrant literal firefighters. Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist.

With her house-sitting career up in flames, it seems the universe owes Marlowe a new summer job, and that’s how she ends up at Morning House, a mansion built on an island in the 1920s and abandoned shortly thereafter. It’s easy enough, giving tours. Low risk of fire. High chance of getting bored talking about stained glass and nut cutlets and Prohibition.

Oh, and the deaths. Did anyone mention the deaths?]]> 384 Maureen Johnson 0063255952 Tamara 0 to-read 3.70 2024
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55577668 A charming, fiercely alive and disarmingly funny debut novel in the vein of John Green, Rachel Joyce, and Jojo Moyes—a brave testament to the power of living each day to the fullest, a tribute to the stories that we live, and a reminder of our unlimited capacity for friendship and love.

An extraordinary friendship. A lifetime of stories that begins at the end . . . 

Seventeen-year-old Lenni Pettersson lives on the Terminal Ward at the Glasgow Princess Royal Hospital. Though the teenager has been told she’s dying, she still has plenty of living to do. Joining the hospital’s arts and crafts class, she meets the magnificent Margot, an 83-year-old, purple-pajama-wearing, fruitcake-eating rebel, who transforms Lenni in ways she never imagined.

As their friendship blooms, a world of stories opens for these unlikely companions who, between them, have been alive for one hundred years. Though their days are dwindling, both are determined to leave their mark on the world. With the help of Lenni’s doting palliative care nurse and Father Arthur, the hospital’s patient chaplain, Lenni and Margot devise a plan to create one hundred paintings showcasing the stories of the century they have lived—stories of love and loss, of courage and kindness, of unexpected tenderness and pure joy.

Though the end is near, life isn’t quite done with these unforgettable women just yet.

Delightfully funny and bittersweet, heartbreaking yet ultimately uplifting, The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot reminds us of the preciousness of life as it considers the legacy we choose to leave, how we influence the lives of others even after we’re gone, and the wonder of a friendship that transcends time.]]> 326 Marianne Cronin 006309276X Tamara 0 to-read 4.27 2021
author: Marianne Cronin
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49945618
Eleven-year-old Amelia Ashford— Millie to her friends (if she had any, that is)—doesn’t realize just how much adventure awaits her when she’s given the opportunity of a to spend the night in Amelia Earhart’s childhood home with five other girls. Make that five strangers. But Millie’s mom is a pilot like the famous Amelia, and Millie would love to have something to write to her about…if only she had her address.

Once at Amelia’s house in Atchison, Kansas, Millie stumbles upon a display of Amelia’s famous flight goggles. She can’t believe her good luck, since they’re about to be relocated to a fancy museum in Washington, DC. But her luck changes quickly when the goggles disappear, and Millie was the last to see them. Soon, fingers are pointing in all directions, and someone falls strangely ill. Suddenly, a fun night of scavenger hunts and sweets takes a nosedive and the girls aren’t sure who to trust. With a blizzard raging outside and a house full of suspects, the girls have no choice but to band together. It’s up to the Amelia Six to find the culprit and return the goggles to their rightful place. Or the next body to collapse could be one of theirs.]]> 272 Kristin L. Gray 1534418873 Tamara 0 to-read 4.50 2020
author: Kristin L. Gray
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55223004 Alternate cover edition of ASIN B08GJVLGGX.

A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green Tamara 4 memoir-bio, non-fiction
I took a long break about halfway through and I'm glad I did, because I came back to it with a much better mentality. John Green is a fascinating human.]]> 4.31 2021
author: John Green
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves: memoir-bio, non-fiction
review:
The essay on Amy Krouse Rosenthal had me quite unexpectedly crying in a waiting room. The world lost so much when she died.

I took a long break about halfway through and I'm glad I did, because I came back to it with a much better mentality. John Green is a fascinating human.
]]> 62313319
With no word for “gay” in Arabic, Luma may not have known what to call the feelings she had growing up in Jordan during the 1980s, but she knew well enough to keep them secret. It was clear that not only would her family have trouble accepting her, but trapped in a conservative religious society, she could’ve also been killed if anyone discovered her sexuality. Luma spent her teenage years increasingly desperate to find a way out, and finally found one when she was accepted into college in the United States. Once there, Luma begins the ago­nizing process of applying for political asylum, which ensures her safety—but causes her family to break ties with her.

Becoming a refugee in America is a rude awakening, and Luma must rely on the grace of friends and strangers alike as she builds a new life and finally embraces her full self. Slowly, she’s able to forge a new path forward with both her biological and chosen families, eventually founding Fugees Family, a nonprofit dedicated to the education and support of refu­gee children in the United States.

As hopeful as it is heartrending, From Here is a coming-of-age memoir about one young woman’s search for belonging and the many meanings of home for those who must leave theirs.]]> 320 Luma Mufleh 0593354451 Tamara 0 to-read 4.48 2023
author: Luma Mufleh
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53675791 Maple is in fifth grade—again. Now everyone will find out she struggles with reading—or will they? An engaging read for anyone who has ever felt different.

Maple Mehta-Cohen has been keeping a secret: she can’t read all that well. She has an impressive vocabulary and loves dictating stories into her recorder—especially the adventures of a daring sleuth who’s half Indian and half Jewish like Maple herself—but words on the page just don’t seem to make sense to her.

Despite all Maple’s clever tricks to hide her troubles with reading, her teacher is on to her, and now Maple has to repeat fifth grade. Maple is devastated—what will her friends think? Will they forget about her? She uses her storytelling skills to convince her classmates that she's staying back as a special teacher’s assistant (because of budget cuts, you know). But as Maple navigates the loss of old friendships, the possibility of new ones, and facing her reading challenges head-on, her deception becomes harder to keep up.

Can Maple begin to recognize her own strengths, and to love herself—and her brain—just the way she is? Readers who have faced their own trials with school and friendships will enjoy this heartwarming story and its bright, creative heroine.]]> 288 Kate McGovern 1536215589 Tamara 4 childrens-lit, fiction
P.S. Not really relevant at all, but I thought I was about halfway through the book when all of a sudden everything wrapped up and it ended. Darn Kindle reading. This would never have happened if I'd been reading it in print. I guess what I'm saying was that I was ready to camp out with these characters for way longer. ]]> 4.09 2021
author: Kate McGovern
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/26
date added: 2024/08/27
shelves: childrens-lit, fiction
review:
Gosh, I really felt for Maple. And I always appreciate a focus on navigating friendships.

P.S. Not really relevant at all, but I thought I was about halfway through the book when all of a sudden everything wrapped up and it ended. Darn Kindle reading. This would never have happened if I'd been reading it in print. I guess what I'm saying was that I was ready to camp out with these characters for way longer.
]]> 195660519
Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest—one of the last to be contacted by missionaries in the 1950s—Nemonte Nenquimo had a singular upbringing. She was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. She played barefoot in the forest and didn’t walk on pavement, or see a car, until she was a teenager and left to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. But after Nemonte’s ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture, she listened.

Nemonte returned to the forest and traditional ways of life and became one of the most forceful voices in climate change activism. She spearheaded an alliance of Indigenous nations across the Upper Amazon and led her people to a landmark victory against Big Oil, protecting over a half million acres of primary rainforest.

We Will Be Jaguars is an astonishing memoir by an equally astonishing woman. Nemonte digs into generations of oral history, uprooting centuries of conquest, and hacking away at racist notions of Indigenous peoples. Ultimately, she reveals a life story as rich, harsh, and vital as the Amazon rainforest herself.]]> 368 Nemonte Nenquimo 1419763776 Tamara 0 to-read 4.47 2024
author: Nemonte Nenquimo
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55196813
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly's orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it's too late?

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]> 304 Nita Prose 0593356152 Tamara 0 to-read 3.71 2022
author: Nita Prose
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 65678550
Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood's quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town's first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming that the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill's residents—roused by Chona's kindess and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin—banded together to keep the boy safe.

As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear how much the people of Chicken Hill have to struggle to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community. When the truth is revealed about the skeleton, the boy, and the part the town’s establishment played in both, McBride shows that it is love and community—heaven and earth—that ultimately sustain us.]]> 400 James McBride 0593422945 Tamara 3 fiction 3.83 2023
author: James McBride
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: fiction
review:
Took quite a while for me to get into, but am glad I stuck with it.
]]> 38085814
They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.]]> 288 Raynor Winn 0241349648 Tamara 0 to-read 3.96 2018
author: Raynor Winn
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53240817
Then Amari discovers a ticking briefcase in her brother’s old closet. A briefcase meant for her eyes only. There was far more to Quinton, it seems, than she ever knew. He’s left her a nomination for a summer tryout at the secretive Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. Amari is certain the answer to finding out what happened to him lies somewhere inside, if only she can get her head around the idea of mermaids, dwarves, yetis and magicians all being real things, something she has to instantly confront when she is given a weredragon as a roommate.

Amari must compete against some of the nation’s wealthiest kids—who’ve known about the supernatural world their whole lives and are able to easily answer questions like which two Great Beasts reside in the Atlantic Ocean and how old is Merlin? Just getting around the Bureau is a lesson alone for Amari with signs like ‘Department of Hidden Places this way, or is it?’ If that all wasn’t enough, every Bureau trainee has a talent enhanced to supernatural levels to help them do their jobs – but Amari is given an illegal ability. As if she needed something else to make her stand out.

With an evil magican threatening the whole supernatural world, and her own classmates thinking she is an enemy, Amari has never felt more alone. But if she doesn’t pass the three tryouts, she may never find out what happened to Quinton.]]> 416 B.B. Alston Tamara 0 to-read 4.34 2021
author: B.B. Alston
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55711726 The People We Keep is about a young songwriter longing to find a home in the world.

Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at Margo’s diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows” her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers.

As April moves through the world, meeting people who feel like home, she chronicles her life in the songs she writes and discovers that where she came from doesn’t dictate who she has to be.

This lyrical, unflinching tale is for anyone who has ever yearned for the fierce power of found family or to grasp the profound beauty of choosing to belong.]]> 368 Allison Larkin 1982171294 Tamara 0 to-read 4.07 2021
author: Allison Larkin
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 99300
Written from a feminist perspective, often focusing on the inferior status accorded to women by society, the tales include "turned," an ironic story with a startling twist, in which a husband seduces and impregnates a naïve servant; "Cottagette," concerning the romance of a young artist and a man who's apparently too good to be true; "Mr. Peebles' Heart," a liberating tale of a fiftyish shopkeeper whose sister-in-law, a doctor, persuades him to take a solo trip to Europe, with revivifying results; "The Yellow Wallpaper"; and three other outstanding stories.

These charming tales are not only highly readable and full of humor and invention, but also offer ample food for thought about the social, economic, and personal relationship of men and women — and how they might be improved.

Collects:
—The Yellow Wallpaper
—Three Thanksgivings
—The Cottagette
—Turned
—Making a Change
—If I Were a Man
—Mr. Peebles' Heart]]> 129 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 0486298574 Tamara 5
100% creepy and yet 100% realistic. Ack.

The afterword in my edition (ISBN 0860682013) likens this to The Awakening, published 3 years later, and I can definitely see the similarities.

Favorite Quote:

John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.
]]> 4.05 1892
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1892
rating: 5
read at: 2010/04/25
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: book-club, womens-studies, fiction
review:
I really should have read this 10 years ago. I can so easily see myself in this situation, slowly going crazy while staring at the imperfections of ugly yellow wallpaper, surrounded by people who believe inaction to be the best remedy.

100% creepy and yet 100% realistic. Ack.

The afterword in my edition (ISBN 0860682013) likens this to The Awakening, published 3 years later, and I can definitely see the similarities.

Favorite Quote:

John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.

]]> 195263506 256 Maleeha Siddiqui 1339010267 Tamara 0 to-read 4.11 2024
author: Maleeha Siddiqui
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 16270141
As June approaches--when Laura must return to the United States--Alexei asks Laura to marry him. She's only nineteen and doesn't think she's ready to settle down. But what if Alexei is the love of her life? How can she leave him behind? If she has a chance to change his life, to rescue him from misery, shouldn't she take it?]]> 256 Natalie Standiford 0545334810 Tamara 0 to-read 3.23 2013
author: Natalie Standiford
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 78134469 When a twelve-year-old decides that she must get herself and her mother out of a bad situation, an eerie connection to a coyote pack helps her see who she’s meant to be—and who she can truly save. The Benefits of Being an Octopus meets The Nest in this contemporary middle grade novel about family class, and resilience, with a magical twist.

Twelve-year-old Fud feels trapped. She lives a precarious life in a cramped trailer with her mom and her mom’s alcoholic ex-boxer boyfriend, Larry. Fud can see it’s only a matter of time until Larry explodes again, even if her mom keeps on making excuses for his behavior. If only Fud could find a way to be as free as the coyotes roaming the Wyoming countryside: strong, smart, independent, and always willing to protect their own.

When Larry comes home with a rusted-out houseboat, Fud is horrified to hear that he wants to fix it up for them to live on permanently. All she sees is a floating prison. Then new-neighbor Leigh tells Fud about Miss Black Gold, a beauty pageant sponsored by the local coal mine. While Fud doesn’t care much about gowns or talents or prancing around on stage, she cares very much about getting herself and her mom away from Larry before the boat is finished. And to do that, she needs money, in particular that Miss Black Gold prize money.

One problem: the more Fud has fantasized about escape, the more her connection to the coyotes lurking outside her window has grown. And strange things have started happening—is Fud really going color-blind? Are her eyebrows really getting bushier? And why does it suddenly seem like she can smell everything?

Jessica Vitalis crafts a moving and voice-driven novel about family and resilience, with a fantastical twist. Coyote Queen is perfect for readers of The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise and The Elephant in the Room.]]> 272 Jessica Vitalis 0063314401 Tamara 0 to-read 4.26 2023
author: Jessica Vitalis
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195430705
Frankie O’Neill and Anne Ryan would seem to have nothing in common. Frankie is a lonely ornithologist struggling to salvage her dissertation on the spotted owl following a rift with her advisor. Anne is an Irish musician far from home and family, raising her five-year-old, Aiden, who refuses to speak.

At Beauty Bay, a community of summer homes nestled on the shores of June Lake, in the remote foothills of Mount Adams, it’s off-season with most houses shuttered for the fall. But Frankie, adrift, returns to the rundown caretaker’s cottage that has been in the hardworking O'Neill family for generations—a beloved place and a constant reminder of the family she has lost. And Anne, in the wake of a tragedy that has disrupted her career and silenced her music, has fled to the neighboring house, a showy summer home owned by her husband's wealthy family.

When Frankie finds an injured baby crow in the forest, little does she realize that the charming bird will bring all three lost souls—Frankie, Anne, and Aiden—together on a journey toward hope, healing, and rediscovering joy. Crow Talk is an achingly beautiful story of love, grief, friendship, and the healing power of nature in the darkest of times.]]> 368 Eileen Garvin 0593473884 Tamara 0 to-read 4.07 2024
author: Eileen Garvin
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 200869482
But the story of the garden doesn’t always enact larger patterns of privilege and exclusion. It’s also a place of rebel outposts and communal dreams. From the improbable queer utopia conjured by Derek Jarman on the beach at Dungeness to the fertile vision of a common Eden propagated by William Morris, new modes of living can and have been attempted amidst the flower beds, experiments that could prove vital in the coming era of climate change.

The result is a humming, glowing tapestry, a beautiful and exacting account of the abundant pleasures and possibilities of not as a place to hide from the world but as a site of encounter and discovery, bee-loud and pollen-laden.]]> 336 Olivia Laing 0393882004 Tamara 0 to-read 3.85 2024
author: Olivia Laing
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58437521 From one of the most dazzling and iconic writers of our time and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity, privacy, and meaning in a world where our memories are no longer our own—featuring characters from A Visit from the Goon Squad.

It’s 2010. Staggeringly successful and brilliant tech entrepreneur Bix Bouton is desperate for a new idea. He’s forty, with four kids, and restless when he stumbles into a conversation with mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, Own Your Unconscious—that allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes. But not everyone.

In spellbinding linked narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Egan introduces these characters in an astonishing array of styles—from omniscient to first person plural to a duet of voices, an epistolary chapter, and a chapter of tweets. In the world of Egan’s spectacular imagination, there are “counters” who track and exploit desires and there are “eluders,” those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House.

Intellectually dazzling and extraordinarily moving, The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away. With a focus on social media, gaming, and alternate worlds, you can almost experience moving among dimensions in a role-playing game.​ Egan delivers a fierce and exhilarating testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy and redemption.]]> 352 Jennifer Egan 1476716765 Tamara 4 fiction
I put this in the same category as Olive Kitteridge in that it more feels like a lot of connected short stories than a novel, especially given all the different writing styles at play from chapter to chapter.

But it hit some of my favorite themes - memory, modern technology, complicated and nuanced relationships...

Maybe I'll reread someday to give it the attention it deserved.]]> 3.61 2022
author: Jennifer Egan
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/07/27
shelves: fiction
review:
I did not do this justice. I was only reading it at night before bed and kept losing the thread because I'd fall asleep and forget what was happening. I couldn't remember who all the characters were and what time we were in. But if I had a different reading experience, dare I say I might have Loved this?

I put this in the same category as Olive Kitteridge in that it more feels like a lot of connected short stories than a novel, especially given all the different writing styles at play from chapter to chapter.

But it hit some of my favorite themes - memory, modern technology, complicated and nuanced relationships...

Maybe I'll reread someday to give it the attention it deserved.
]]> 181110047 224 Jennifer Blecher 006314073X Tamara 0 to-read 3.70
author: Jennifer Blecher
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.70
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 9598144

From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 976 Marcel Proust 0307755371 Tamara 0 fiction, for-school 4.27 1923
author: Marcel Proust
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1923
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/23
shelves: fiction, for-school
review:

]]> 195820983
“There’s no single answer that will solve all our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers—at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.”

Originally published in Essence magazine in the year 2000, Octavia E. Butler’s essay “A Few Rules for Predicting the Future” offers an honest look into the inspiration behind her science fiction novels and the importance of studying history and taking responsibility for our actions if we are to move forward. 

Organized into four main rules, this short essay reminds readers to learn from the past, respect the law of consequences, be aware of their perspectives, and count on the surprises. Citing the warning signs of fascism, the illusive effects of fear and wishful thinking, and the unpredictable nature of what is yet to come, Butler shares realistic but hopeful suggestions to shape our future into something good. An inspiring and motivational gift for students and recent graduates, fans of Butler's work, and anyone seeking a brighter day tomorrow, this exquisite gift book includes stunning Afrofuturist artwork by Manzel Bowman alongside the full text of the original essay.

LITERARY Octavia E. Butler was a pioneering science fiction writer whose novels, written decades ago, remain eerily relevant, reflecting on themes of racial injustice, women’s rights, environmental collapse, and political corruption. In 1995, she became the first science fiction author to win a MacArthur Genius grant, and her books are taught in over 200 colleges and universities nationwide. This book shares Butler's timely but lesser-known essay and is a must-read for fans of her classic sci-fi works.
 
CELEBRATE BLACK This book spotlights one of the greatest authors of Afrofuturism, a genre and philosophy that explores and reimagines Black culture, creativity, and liberation through fiction, art, music, film, and other media. Octavia E. Butler’s forward-thinking essay is paired with contemporary illustrations by Manzel Bowman, whose evocative images are also inspired by Afrofuturist visions.
 
INSPIRING A unique gift for students, recent graduates, and anyone celebrating life milestones or looking forward in life, this beautifully designed hardcover book is sure to inspire. Octavia E. Butler’s essay is also an important, evergreen reminder for writers, creatives, dreamers, and activists who want to envision and work toward a brighter future.

Perfect ]]> 56 Octavia E. Butler 1797229052 Tamara 0 to-read 4.34 2000
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50903653 272 Sean Dietrich 0310355753 Tamara 0 to-read 4.47 2020
author: Sean Dietrich
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Tamara 0 to-read 4.14 2024
author: Liz Moore
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 182484307
Clayton Stumper is an enigma.

He might be twenty-five years old, but he dresses like your grandad and drinks sherry like your aunt.

Abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by the sharpest minds in the British Isles and finds himself amongst the last survivors of a fading institution.

When the esteemed crossword compiler, Pippa Allsbrook, passes away, she bestows her final puzzle to him: a promise to reveal the mystery of his parentage and prepare him for his future.

Yet as Clay begins to unpick the clues, he uncovers something even the Fellowship have never been able to solve – and it’s a secret that will change everything…]]> 362 Samuel Burr 0593470095 Tamara 0 to-read 3.79 2024
author: Samuel Burr
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 176443093
Patric Gagne realized she made others uncomfortable before she started kindergarten. Something about her caused people to react in a way she didn’t understand. She suspected it was because she didn’t feel things the way other kids did. Emotions like fear, guilt, and empathy eluded her. For the most part, she felt nothing. And she didn’t like the way that “nothing” felt.

She did her best to pretend she was like everyone else, but the constant pressure to conform to a society she knew rejected anyone like her was unbearable. So Patric stole. She lied. She was occasionally violent. She became an expert lock-picker and home-invader. All with the goal of replacing the nothingness with...something.

In college, Patric finally confirmed what she’d long suspected. She was a sociopath. But even though it was the very first personality disorder identified—well over 200 years ago—sociopathy had been neglected by mental health professionals for decades. She was told there was no treatment, no hope for a normal life. She found herself haunted by sociopaths in pop culture, madmen and evil villains who are considered monsters. Her future looked grim.

But when Patric reconnects with an old flame, she gets a glimpse of a future beyond her diagnosis. If she’s capable of love, it must mean that she isn’t a monster. With the help of her sweetheart (and some curious characters she meets along the way) she embarks on a mission to prove that the millions of Americans who share her diagnosis aren’t all monsters either.

This is the inspiring story of her journey to change her fate and how she managed to build a life full of love and hope.]]> 368 Patric Gagne 166800318X Tamara 4 being-human, memoir-bio
(A lot of reviews I read question the author's experience and authenticity. I'm choosing to believe this is someone's lived experience and that it was written as intended - to help people understand themselves and those around them better. It's not to say this is every sociopath's lived experience. Welcome to being human - we're all the same and we're all wildly different.)]]> 3.73 2024
author: Patric Gagne
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/04
date added: 2024/07/05
shelves: being-human, memoir-bio
review:
I am fascinated by the idea that someone does not have access to a full range of emotions, because my emotions seem to be in a permanent state of overdrive. But I am also thankful for them, especially after reading Gagne's account of how hard it is to navigate a world without them. Her lack of emotions was no less stressful or frustrating or at times debilitating. People are fascinating.

(A lot of reviews I read question the author's experience and authenticity. I'm choosing to believe this is someone's lived experience and that it was written as intended - to help people understand themselves and those around them better. It's not to say this is every sociopath's lived experience. Welcome to being human - we're all the same and we're all wildly different.)
]]> 60574227
Set in failing small town in central Ohio, The Heart of It All asks how one manages, in an America of increasing unsurety, to find a sense of family and community.

Focusing on the members of three families: the Baileys, a white family who have put down deep roots in the community; the Marwats, an immigrant family that owns the town’s largest employer; and the Shaws, especially young Anthony, an outsider whose very presence gently shakes the town’s understanding of itself.

A gorgeous, stirring novel in the classic vein of Richard Ford, Marilynne Robinson, Richard Russo, and Kent Haruf, The Heart of It All asks the reader to consider an America both divided and bound by its differences.]]> 272 Christian Kiefer 1685890814 Tamara 0 to-read 3.95 2023
author: Christian Kiefer
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58283070 From master of suspense author Margaret Peterson Haddix comes another page-turning stand-alone adventure perfect for fans of Cog and Bad Magic.

No matter what anyone tells you, I'm real.

That's what the note says that Max finds under his keyboard.

He knows that his best friend, Josie, wrote it. He'd know her handwriting anywhere. But why she wrote it--and what it means--remains a mystery.

Ever since they met in kindergarten, Max and Josie have been inseparable. Until the summer after fifth grade, when Josie disappears, leaving only a note, and whispering something about "whatnot rules."

But why would Max ever think that Josie wasn't real? And what are whatnots?

As Max sets to uncover what happened to Josie--and what she is or isn't--little does he know that she's fighting to find him again, too. But there are forces trying to keep Max and Josie from ever seeing each other again. Because Josie wasn't supposed to be real.

This middle grade thriller from Margaret Peterson Haddix delves into the power of privilege, the importance of true friendship, and the question of humanity and identity. Because when anyone could be a whatnot, what makes a person a real friend--or real at all?]]> 304 Margaret Peterson Haddix 0062838490 Tamara 0 to-read 3.75 2022
author: Margaret Peterson Haddix
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 179548545
Abandoned by first her father and then her mother, as a girl Tessa is left to live with her abusive stepfather and stepbrother. She survives by finding reserves of strength in herself, and by the surprising, transformative love of another teenage girl, Mel, who sees through Tessa’s tough exterior to the vulnerable, scarred, loving woman inside. When she suddenly loses Mel, too, Tessa stumbles into a saving grace of a different kind with Henry and his mama, Angie, becoming a mother and finding herself in a familial existence that somehow carries her into adulthood—until the day she runs into Mel, who has just returned to Perris after years away.

Filled with violence, tragedy, tenderness, longing, and the unvarnished courage of women living in a mostly unseen America, Perris, California is the utterly gripping story of Tessa’s journey from trauma to healing, and it introduces us to one of the most indelible female characters since Bone Boatwright in Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina or Ruth Langmore in Ozark .]]> 368 Rachel Stark 0593656202 Tamara 0 to-read 3.87 2024
author: Rachel Stark
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195820807
Emma hadn't planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially when they get to rent an adorable cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka.

It's supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma's toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they're suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected--including catching real feelings for each other. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?]]> 432 Abby Jimenez 1538704439 Tamara 0 to-read 4.34 2024
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 196774482
If you were on a walk and found a ball, you could take it home and play with it. You are likely to find many other wonderful things as you explore the world—maybe even a new friend—and that makes you very lucky.

Award-winning creators Kevin Henkes and Laura Dronzek’s collaborations are always exceptional, full of vivid and deceptively simple observations of the world around us. Finding Things features a succinct text and exquisite, emotionally rich illustrations, and encourages readers to be creative and to find purpose and connections in what surrounds them. A terrific read-aloud to treasure and share, as well as a great title for visual literacy and emerging readers, Finding Things is also a wonderful choice for social and emotional learning.]]> 32 Kevin Henkes 0063245663 Tamara 0 to-read 3.43 2024
author: Kevin Henkes
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 123186552
PEN Graphic Novel Award winner Travis Dandro takes a left turn from his detailed autobiography and returns with the charming tales of Winnie-the-Pooh. In 2015, the A. A. Milne childrens’ classic, long since viewed as the benchmark for intelligent and whimsical storytelling, slipped into the public domain. The beloved series now gets the comics treatment from a gifted artist at the peak of his cartooning prowess.

Dandro expands the world of Hundred Acre Wood in all directions, creating stunning full-page tableaus where Pooh and everybody’s favorite characters―Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, and of course, Christopher Robin―to romp, argue, fail, and love. Indebted to the unforgettable pen-and-ink drawings of E. H. Shephard, this addition to the canon of timeless literature for all ages encompasses all of Winnie-the-Pooh’s original adventures, alongside a brand-new story from Dandro created exclusively for this volume.]]> 248 A.A. Milne 1770466967 Tamara 0 to-read 4.38 2024
author: A.A. Milne
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61214136
From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of Peter Rabbit , Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living. After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process.

Clover spends so much time with the dying that she has no life of her own, until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send Clover on a road trip to uncover a forgotten love story—and perhaps, her own happy ending. As she finds herself struggling to navigate the uncharted roads of romance and friendship, Clover is forced to examine what she really wants, and whether she’ll have the courage to go after it.

Probing, clever, and hopeful, The Collected Regrets of Clover is perfect for readers of The Midnight Library and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine as it turns the normally taboo subject of death into a reason to celebrate life.]]> 320 Mikki Brammer 1250284392 Tamara 0 to-read 4.14 2023
author: Mikki Brammer
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52610674 Beloved writer Sean Dietrich—also known as Sean of the South—will warm your heart with this rich and nostalgic tale of a small-town sheriff, a mysterious little girl, and a good-hearted community pulling together to help her.

Folks in Moab live for ice cream socials, baseball, and the local paper’s weekly gossip column. For decades, Sheriff Winston Browne has watched over Moab with a generous eye, and by now he’s used to handling the daily dramas that keep life interesting for Moab’s quirky residents.

But just after Winston receives some terrible, life-altering news, a seemingly mute runaway with no clear origin arrives in Moab.  The residents do what they believe is right and take her in—until two suspicious strangers arrive and begin looking for her. Suddenly Winston has a child in desperate need of protection—as well as a secret of his own to keep.

With the help of Moab’s goodhearted townsfolk, the humble and well-meaning Winston Browne still has some heroic things to do. He finds romance, family, and love in unexpected places. He stumbles upon adventure, searches his soul, and grapples with the past. In doing so, he just might discover what a life well-lived truly looks like.

Sometimes ordinary people do the most extraordinary things of all.

Praise for the Incredible Winston Browne:

“Sean Dietrich has written a home run of a novel with The Incredible Winston Browne. Every bit as wonderful as its title implies, it’s the story of Browne—a principled, baseball-loving sheriff—a precocious little girl in need of help, and the community that rallies around them. This warm, witty, tender novel celebrates the power of friendship and family to transform our lives. It left me nostalgic and hopeful, missing my grandfathers, and eager for baseball season to start again. I loved it.” —Ariel Lawhon, New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia

“Make no mistake. [The Incredible Winston Browne] is a classic story, told by an expert storyteller.” —Shawn Smucker, author of Light from Distant Stars


Stand-alone historical novel set in the 1950s
Includes discussion questions for book clubs
Also from Sean Dietrich: Stars of Alabama]]> 352 Sean Dietrich 0785226400 Tamara 0 to-read 4.30 2021
author: Sean Dietrich
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1464412 Wabi Sabi, a little cat in Kyoto, Japan, had never thought much about her name until friends visiting from another land asked her owner what it meant.

At last, the master
Says, "That's hard to explain." And
That is all she says.

This unsatisfying answer sets Wabi Sabi on a journey to uncover the meaning of her name, and on the way discovers what wabi sabi is: a Japanese philosophy of seeing beauty in simplicity, the ordinary, and the imperfect.

Using spare text and haiku, Mark Reibstein weaves an extraordinary story about finding real beauty in unexpected places. Caldecott Medal-winning artist Ed Young complements the lyrical text with breathtaking collages. Together, they illustrate the unique world view that is wabi sabi.

A New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book for 2008!

]]> 40 Mark Reibstein 0316118257 Tamara 0 to-read 4.17 2008
author: Mark Reibstein
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49471138 A slick, twisty YA page-turner about the daughter of a con artist who is taken hostage in a bank heist.

Nora O’Malley’s been a lot of girls. As the daughter of a con-artist who targets criminal men, she grew up as her mother’s protégé. But when mom fell for the mark instead of conning him, Nora pulled the ultimate con: escape.

For five years Nora’s been playing at normal. But she needs to dust off the skills she ditched because she has three problems:

#1: Her ex walked in on her with her girlfriend. Even though they’re all friends, Wes didn’t know about her and Iris.

#2: The morning after Wes finds them kissing, they all have to meet to deposit the fundraiser money they raised at the bank. It’s a nightmare that goes from awkward to deadly, because:

#3: Right after they enter bank, two guys start robbing it.

The bank robbers may be trouble, but Nora’s something else entirely. They have no idea who they’re really holding hostage…]]> 356 Tess Sharpe 0593111095 Tamara 0 to-read 4.04 2021
author: Tess Sharpe
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 9118135
As Dr. Marina Singh embarks upon an uncertain odyssey into the insect-infested Amazon, she will be forced to surrender herself to the lush but forbidding world that awaits within the jungle.

Charged with finding her former mentor Dr. Annick Swenson, a researcher who has disappeared while working on a valuable new drug, she will have to confront her own memories of tragedy and sacrifice as she journeys into the unforgiving heart of darkness.

Stirring and luminous, "State of Wonder" is a world unto itself, where unlikely beauty stands beside unimaginable loss beneath the rain forest's jeweled canopy.]]> 353 Ann Patchett 0062049801 Tamara 4 fiction
And yet I didn't. I liked the rough and obscenely practical voice of Dr. Swenson, Marina's "stranger in a strange land" point of view, the oppressive heat of the Amazon, the excitement of a possible medical miracle...

This was by far not a perfect book. But I think maybe it was the serendipity of "right book, right time". I miss vacations and the thrill of discovering something unknown-to-me that hits me in the face like a sudden storm.

[spoilers removed]

Favorite Quotes

Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it.

Such is your bravery. Such is my good fortune.

She made the sounds of a person who was trying to wrestle an enormous sorrow to the ground.

Every drop of rain hit the ground with such force it bounced back up again, giving the earth the appearance of something boiling.

Gentlemen, close your books and listen. We have nothing less than the world to consider.]]> 3.88 2011
author: Ann Patchett
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2012/07/22
date added: 2024/05/05
shelves: fiction
review:
There are many reasons to dislike this one. Unlikeable characters. Implausible plot. Uncomfortable setting.

And yet I didn't. I liked the rough and obscenely practical voice of Dr. Swenson, Marina's "stranger in a strange land" point of view, the oppressive heat of the Amazon, the excitement of a possible medical miracle...

This was by far not a perfect book. But I think maybe it was the serendipity of "right book, right time". I miss vacations and the thrill of discovering something unknown-to-me that hits me in the face like a sudden storm.

[spoilers removed]

Favorite Quotes

Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it.

Such is your bravery. Such is my good fortune.

She made the sounds of a person who was trying to wrestle an enormous sorrow to the ground.

Every drop of rain hit the ground with such force it bounced back up again, giving the earth the appearance of something boiling.

Gentlemen, close your books and listen. We have nothing less than the world to consider.
]]> 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Tamara 4 fiction
Recommended for fans of Little Women and Winter Solstice.]]> 3.92 2023
author: Ann Patchett
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/03
date added: 2024/05/05
shelves: fiction
review:
Seriously, who wouldn't want to live in a cherry orchard??? Ann Patchett gets an A+ from me for "sense of place". (I still think often about State of Wonder and the BUGS for this same reason.)

Recommended for fans of Little Women and Winter Solstice.
]]> 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

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

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

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

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Tamara 0 to-read 4.20 2024
author: Emily Henry
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 176443731
The natural world is full of patterns to enjoy for those who can ground themselves, be mindful, and truly see.]]> 48 Gabi Snyder 1665905409 Tamara 0 to-read 4.20
author: Gabi Snyder
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61827543 Tea-shop owner. Matchmaker. Detective?

Sixty-year-old self-proclaimed tea expert Vera Wong enjoys nothing more than sipping a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy ‘detective’ work on the internet (AKA checking up on her son to see if he’s dating anybody yet).

But when Vera wakes up one morning to find a dead man in the middle of her tea shop, it’s going to take more than a strong Longjing to fix things. Knowing she’ll do a better job than the police possibly could – because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands – Vera decides it’s down to her to catch the killer.

Nobody spills the tea like this amateur sleuth.]]> 339 Jesse Q. Sutanto 0593549228 Tamara 4 fiction
(Complaint: Most talented people do not become overnight successes, mkay? It's fun to fantasize about, but it is extremely unrealistic and I could not contain my eye rolls.)]]> 4.01 2023
author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/16
date added: 2024/04/19
shelves: fiction
review:
A pleasant and light maybe-murder read. Vera was immensely frustrating, but her determination and stubbornness made all the action happen, so I'll forgive it.

(Complaint: Most talented people do not become overnight successes, mkay? It's fun to fantasize about, but it is extremely unrealistic and I could not contain my eye rolls.)
]]> 164444179 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593492918.

Evie Porter has everything a nice Southern girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence, a tight group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.

The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job.

Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job isn’t like the others. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes—especially after what happened last time.

Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there’s still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn’t be higher—but then, Evie has always liked a challenge. . . .]]> 340 Ashley Elston Tamara 0 to-read 3.97 2024
author: Ashley Elston
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62047984
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 319 R.F. Kuang 000853277X Tamara 3 fiction
Needless to say it didn't work for me, but I had to know how it ended, so there was an unputdownable-ness that deserves some credit. And it wasn't badly written or plotted, I just hated living in this world, I guess.]]> 3.69 2023
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/20
date added: 2024/04/07
shelves: fiction
review:
I squirmed, cringed, and winced the entire ride. Plus I have a hate hate relationship with writers writing about writing which was the whole point of this book so that's on me.

Needless to say it didn't work for me, but I had to know how it ended, so there was an unputdownable-ness that deserves some credit. And it wasn't badly written or plotted, I just hated living in this world, I guess.
]]> 51349115 32 Elizabeth Withey 1459818555 Tamara 0 to-read 4.15
author: Elizabeth Withey
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.15
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58551320
A guerra é, porventura, o mais perene produto em série alguma vez inventado. Num mundo armadilhado como nunca antes, este poema ilustrado de José Jorge Letria e André Letria é como um archote que se lança sobre a memória adormecida.]]> 64 José Jorge Letria 1771647264 Tamara 0 to-read 4.25 2018
author: José Jorge Letria
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60758301
Amelia MacGuffin is no detective. She’s eleven, quiet, and unlike her four younger siblings, she has no special talents. But Amelia loves her town. Her family has lived there forever. Her parents run the Pacific General Store, and she and her best friends, Birdie and Delphine, are about to start middle school. If Amelia doesn’t find the staff, the Dragonfly Day Festival will be canceled.

The town needs that tourist money to survive. Unless she cracks the case, Amelia’s family will lose everything--including the adorable stray dog they’ve fallen in love with. She only has seven days to solve Urchin Beach’s crime of the century. It’s not a lot of time, but Amelia has her list of suspects. It might be the new kids next door. Or the grumpy mystery writer who lives in the town’s creepiest mansion. Or perhaps even someone closer to home.



Amelia wants to save the town. She wants to save the dog. She wants both, so much.



But first, she has to catch a thief.]]> 256 Martha Brockenbrough 1338818589 Tamara 0 to-read 3.84 2023
author: Martha Brockenbrough
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 63017290 Neurodivergent Maudie is ready to spend an amazing summer with her dad, but will she find the courage to tell him a terrible secret about life with her mom and new stepdad? This contemporary novel by the award-winning author of The Someday Birds is a must-read for fans of Leslie Connor and Ali Standish.

Maudie always looks forward to the summers she spends in California with her dad. But this year, she must keep a troubling secret about her home life--one that her mom warned her never to tell. Maudie wants to confide in her dad about her stepdad's anger, but she's scared.

When a wildfire strikes, Maudie and her dad are forced to evacuate to the beach town where he grew up. It's another turbulent wave of change. But now, every morning, from their camper, Maudie can see surfers bobbing in the water. She desperately wants to learn, but could she ever be brave enough?

As Maudie navigates unfamiliar waters, she makes friends--and her autism no longer feels like the big deal her mom makes it out to be. But her secret is still threatening to sink her. Will Maudie find the strength to reveal the awful truth--and maybe even find some way to stay with Dad--before summer is over?]]> 336 Sally J. Pla Tamara 0 to-read 4.53 2023
author: Sally J. Pla
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54110452 The Tristan Gooley Weather Book, bestselling author Tristan Gooley turns his gaze up to the sky, bringing his signature brand of close observation and eye-opening deduction to the fascinating world of weather. Every cloud, every change in temperature, every raindrop, every sunbeam, every breeze reveals something about our weather—if you know what to look for. Before you know it, you’ll be able to forecast impending storms, sunny days, and everything in between, all without needing to consult your smartphone.
 
But The Tristan Gooley Weather Book goes far beyond mere weather prediction, changing the very way we think about weather itself. Weather is not something that blankets an area; rather, it is something that changes constantly as you walk through woods or turn down a street. The weather is never identical on two sides of a tree—or even beneath it. Take, for example, Gooley’s remarkable discovery that breezes accelerate beneath a tree. To Gooley, this is “weather,” a tiny microclimate that explains why people sit beneath a tree to cool down—not only for the shade but, subconsciously, for cooler breeze. And so Gooley shows us not only what the weather will be like five days from now, but also what to expect about the weather around every corner.
 
By carefully observing the subtle interplay of wind, cloud, fog, temperature, rain and many other phenomena, we not only form a deeper understanding of weather patterns, but we also unlock secrets about our environment. Weather forms our landscape, and landscape forms our weather. Everything we see in the sky reflects where we are. When we learn to read weather’s signs, Gooley shows us, the weather becomes our map, revealing to us how it has made our towns, cities, woods, and hills what they are. You’ll never see your surroundings the same way again.]]> 400 Tristan Gooley 1615197540 Tamara 0 to-read 3.92 2021
author: Tristan Gooley
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59029659 An achingly honest and frequently hilarious coming-of-age novel about an Arab American trans swimmer fighting to keep their head above water in a landlocked Midwestern town.

River McIntyre has grown up down the street from Sea Planet, an infamous marine life theme park slowly going out of business in small-town Ohio. When a chance encounter with a happy, healthy queer person on the annual field trip lands River literally in the shark tank, they must admit the truth: they don’t know who they are—only what they’ve been told to be. This sets off a wrenching journey of self-discovery, from internalized homophobia and gender dysphoria, through layers of coming out, affirmation surgery, and true freakin’ love.]]> 336 Cory McCarthy 0593353706 Tamara 0 to-read 4.35 2022
author: Cory McCarthy
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 37822657
A big fantasy reader, Jilly connects with another fan, Derek, who is a Deaf Black ASL user. She goes to Derek for advice but doesn't always know the best way to ask for it and makes some mistakes along the way. Jilly has to step back to learn to be an ally, a sister, and a friend, understanding that life works in different ways for different people, and that being open to change can make you change in the best possible ways.]]> 256 Alex Gino 0545956242 Tamara 0 to-read 4.01 2018
author: Alex Gino
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 123266558
1970s, Southern Alabama.

Sixty-two-year-old Jeremiah Lewis Taylor, or “Nub,” has spent his whole life listening to those he loves tell him he’s no good—first his ex-wife, now his always-disapproving daughter. Sure, his escapades have made him, along with his cousin and perennial sidekick, Benny, just a smidge too familiar with small-town law enforcement, but he’s never harmed anyone—except perhaps himself. Nub never meant to change his ways, but when he and fifteen-year-old Waffle House waitress Minnie form an unlikely friendship, he realizes for the first time that there may be some good in him after all.

Six-foot-five Minnie has been dealt a full deck of bad luck—her father is a convicted murderer serving a life sentence, her mother is dead and buried, and she has a Grand Ole Opry–worthy singing voice with no place to perform. Oh, and there’s the small fact that she’s unexpectedly pregnant, courtesy of a no-good high-school boy. Gradually, Nub realizes the gift he’s been a second chance to make a difference.]]> 400 Sean Dietrich 1400235634 Tamara 0 to-read 4.44
author: Sean Dietrich
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.44
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 162337122
A Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises—especially to ourselves—by the bestselling and beloved author of The Guncle.

It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves.

But this reunion is different. They’re not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.

A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of selfhood and the people who keep us going, coupled with Steven Rowley’s signature humor and heart, The Celebrants is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth and the beautiful ways in which friendship helps us celebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.]]> Steven Rowley Tamara 3 fiction 3.68 2023
author: Steven Rowley
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/11
date added: 2024/03/11
shelves: fiction
review:
The characters felt like random strangers pretending to be best friends? An interesting idea, but I never felt invested.
]]> 39893619 A graphic novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real.

Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade.

As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds—and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?]]> 256 Jerry Craft Tamara 4 graphic-novels, teen
(I'm kinda terrible at reading graphic novels because I focus on the text and forget to read the illustrations. The cadence is hard for me to follow. But a second reading flowed much more smoothly, so maybe I'll get the hang of it eventually? PS Love all the subtle details in the illustrations that feel like inside jokes.)]]> 4.13 2019
author: Jerry Craft
name: Tamara
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/03/10
shelves: graphic-novels, teen
review:
I see myself in these characters, both good and bad. There's a lot to unpack here.

(I'm kinda terrible at reading graphic novels because I focus on the text and forget to read the illustrations. The cadence is hard for me to follow. But a second reading flowed much more smoothly, so maybe I'll get the hang of it eventually? PS Love all the subtle details in the illustrations that feel like inside jokes.)
]]> 173476170 Bunny can’t sleep because Dad forgot to check on him, so he sets out to check on Dad.

Bunny should be sleeping, but instead, he is waiting for Dad to come check on him. Dad always checks on him, but tonight, Dad is late.

Soon Dad will come. He will come in the night
to check on his little Bunny. Come on, Dad!
Check on me, check on me, check on me!

Bunny can’t wait anymore— he needs his dad! Slipping out of bed, Bunny packs a wagon of everything Dad might need: some water, a blanket, a snack, and their favorite book to share. Down the hall and through the dark, Bunny finds Dad fast asleep, oblivious to all the supplies Bunny offers him.

At last, Bunny resorts to a tap on the nose to wake Dad up. Dad checks on Bunny, and Bunny checks on Dad, who is happy to see him, if still groggy. They read their special book, and all is right with the world again.

Bestselling author Amy Hest teams up with Renata Liwska, illustrator of Deborah Underwood’s The Quiet Book, for a bedtime book as adorable and warm as two sleepy bunnies. Sure to soothe children dubious about staying in their rooms alone at night, Bunny Should Be Sleeping reminds young readers that they are safe and loved even when the house is dark and quiet.]]> 40 Amy Hest 0823453413 Tamara 4 picture-books 3.89 2024
author: Amy Hest
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/03/06
shelves: picture-books
review:
Dear God, how does Renata Liwska draw the sweetest softest creatures in the whole wide world?
]]> 61903859
Social justice work, we often assume, is raised voices and raised fists. It requires leading, advocating, fighting, and organizing wherever it takes place--in the streets, slums, villages, inner cities, halls of political power, and more. But what does social justice work look like for those of us who don't feel comfortable battling in the trenches?

Sensitive souls--including those who consider themselves highly emotional, empathic, or introverted--have much to contribute to bringing about a more just and equitable world. Such individuals are wise, thoughtful, and conscientious; they feel more deeply and see things that others don't. We need their contributions. Yet, sustaining justice work can be particularly challenging for the sensitive, and it requires a deep level of self-awareness, intentionality, and care.

In Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul, writer Dorcas Cheng-Tozun (Enneagram 4, INFJ, nonprofit/social enterprise professional, and multiple-burnout survivor) offers six possible pathways for sensitive

- relational activists whose interactions and conversations build the social capital necessary for change

- artists and creators whose work inspires, sheds light, makes connections, and brings issues into the public consciousness

- Record archivists who preserve essential information and hold our collective memory and history

- inventors, programmers, and engineers who center empathy as they develop society-changing products and technologies

- educators, mentors, and elders who build skills and knowledge within movements and shepherd the next generation of changemakers

- data-driven individuals who utilize information as a persuasive tool to effect change and propose options for improvement

Alongside inspiring, real-life examples of highly sensitive world-changers, Cheng-Tozun expands the possibilities of how to have a positive social impact, affirming the particular gifts and talents that sensitive souls offer to a hurting world.]]> 249 Dorcas Cheng-Tozun 1506483445 Tamara 4 being-human, non-fiction
I love that the quiet and often overlooked behind-the-scenes work of researchers, inventors, record-keepers, librarians, educators, artists, mentors, friends, and connectors are championed here.

Phew, so many quotes to transcribe!

A few tidbits:
-- Nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely as violent campaigns to achieve their goals
-- In order to secure major political change, at least 3.5 percent of the population must actively participate in protests
-- The surest way to ensure that you have a reserve of compassion and empathy for others is to attend to your own feelings.
-- Recovery time for people-related stress is very long compared to milder forms of stress
-- The more challenging aspects of being highly sensitive may diminish as we age, and the ability to appreciate beauty and connect spiritually increases with age. We take things less personally, experience less hurt, and more easily forget negative experiences as we age.
-- A 2018 study found that 35 percent of American adults have a low level of trust in others
-- Relational activism - supporting and encouraging a person already involved in a cause
-- Start in listening mode
-- Interacting face-to-face with an out-group reduced prejudice 94 percent of the time
-- Reading fiction consistently leads to greater empathy
-- Record keeping promotes accountability, counters corruption, and protects human rights
-- 14 million adults in the United States do not have access to a bank account or financial institution
-- Invest in one-on-one relationships, small group teaching, facilitating trainings, writing curriculum, designing presentations, offering consulting services, or creating websites
-- Scholarly and academic publications are much less focused on policy recommendations than they were 100 years ago
-- The average paper in a peer-reviewed journal is read completely by no more than 10 people
-- There is little to be gained for scholars who submit an op-ed to a popular newspaper or give presentations to the general public
-- In 1993, the NRA successfully lobbied for Congress to cut off government funding for any activity that might promote gun control; this was finally revoked in 2019]]> 3.97 2023
author: Dorcas Cheng-Tozun
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/03
date added: 2024/03/05
shelves: being-human, non-fiction
review:
I had no idea how much this book was going to resonate with me. This made me feel understood, valued, and energized. It's so comforting knowing that there are other people like me who are introverted, highly sensitive and/or empathic changing the world every day.

I love that the quiet and often overlooked behind-the-scenes work of researchers, inventors, record-keepers, librarians, educators, artists, mentors, friends, and connectors are championed here.

Phew, so many quotes to transcribe!

A few tidbits:
-- Nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely as violent campaigns to achieve their goals
-- In order to secure major political change, at least 3.5 percent of the population must actively participate in protests
-- The surest way to ensure that you have a reserve of compassion and empathy for others is to attend to your own feelings.
-- Recovery time for people-related stress is very long compared to milder forms of stress
-- The more challenging aspects of being highly sensitive may diminish as we age, and the ability to appreciate beauty and connect spiritually increases with age. We take things less personally, experience less hurt, and more easily forget negative experiences as we age.
-- A 2018 study found that 35 percent of American adults have a low level of trust in others
-- Relational activism - supporting and encouraging a person already involved in a cause
-- Start in listening mode
-- Interacting face-to-face with an out-group reduced prejudice 94 percent of the time
-- Reading fiction consistently leads to greater empathy
-- Record keeping promotes accountability, counters corruption, and protects human rights
-- 14 million adults in the United States do not have access to a bank account or financial institution
-- Invest in one-on-one relationships, small group teaching, facilitating trainings, writing curriculum, designing presentations, offering consulting services, or creating websites
-- Scholarly and academic publications are much less focused on policy recommendations than they were 100 years ago
-- The average paper in a peer-reviewed journal is read completely by no more than 10 people
-- There is little to be gained for scholars who submit an op-ed to a popular newspaper or give presentations to the general public
-- In 1993, the NRA successfully lobbied for Congress to cut off government funding for any activity that might promote gun control; this was finally revoked in 2019
]]> 61273104
Penelope is perfect for the job of student-librarian. Friendly? Check. Helpful? Check. Book lover? Check. There’s just one snag. Penelope is...LOUD. Bookcases may topple and the ground may quake at the sound of her voice, but Penelope is determined to prove she’s perfect for the job and stay true to herself. Can a little librarian with a big voice find a place where she belongs?]]> 40 Jenna Beatrice 1665910542 Tamara 0 to-read 3.86 2023
author: Jenna Beatrice
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52759465
In a perfect world, we would all be able to fit a year’s worth of waste in a mason jar. But for most of us​,​ doing so can be immensely intimidating or simply not feasible.

But even if you can’t be perfectly zero waste, you can still have a profound impact on our environment, climate, and health by making some simple changes to your lifestyle and habits. Author Melanie Mannarino shares 100 simple tips for being less wasteful in a variety of
- At Home , with advice not only for the kitchen and food, but also for cleaning and home organization
- Travel , from commuting to vacations
- Fashion , including finding sustainable brands and caring for your clothing
- Community , helping you identify ways to make a broader impact beyond your home

Beyond limiting your personal waste, learn about how you can reduce your “unseen” waste by making more eco-friendly choices, such as purchasing clothes with more sustainable fabrics and adopting a “Meatless Monday” regimen to help decrease your carbon footprint.

If you’re someone who wants to reduce waste in your daily life and make a positive impact on the planet ​without​ making​​ drastic changes in your habits, then look no further. This highly accessible and practical guide will have you living a greener, more sustainable life that is (almost) zero waste in no time!]]> 192 Melanie Mannarino 1982142235 Tamara 0 to-read 3.57 2020
author: Melanie Mannarino
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13236022
Author and radical artist Nicolas Lampert combines historical sweep with detailed examinations of individual artists and works in a politically charged narrative that spans the conquest of the Americas, the American Revolution, slavery and abolition, western expansion, the suffragette movement and feminism, civil rights movements, environmental movements, LGBT movements, antiglobalization movements, contemporary antiwar movements, and beyond.

A People's Art History of the United States introduces us to key works of American radical art alongside dramatic retellings of the histories that inspired them. Stylishly illustrated with over two hundred images, this book is nothing less than an alternative education for anyone interested in the powerful role that art plays in our society.]]> 384 Nicolas Lampert 1595583246 Tamara 0 to-read 3.97 2012
author: Nicolas Lampert
name: Tamara
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>