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Pippi Longstocking (Pippi Långstrump, #1)

Astrid Lindgren

Tommy and his sister Annika have a new neighbor, and her name is Pippi Longstocking. She has crazy red pigtails, no parents to tell her what to do, a horse that lives on her porch, and a flair for the outrageous that seems to lead to one adventure after another!

['Classics', 'Childrens', 'Fiction', 'Middle Grade', 'Young Adult', 'Fantasy', 'Humor']

190,997

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19302.Pippi_Longstocking

Stargirl (Stargirl, #1)

Jerry Spinelli

A celebration of nonconformity; a tense, emotional tale about the fleeting, cruel nature of popularity--and the thrill and inspiration of first love. Ages 12+Leo Borlock follows the unspoken rule at Mica Area High School: don't stand out--under any circumstances! Then Stargirl arrives at Mica High and everything changes--for Leo and for the entire school. After 15 years of home schooling, Stargirl bursts into tenth grade in an explosion of color and a clatter of ukulele music, enchanting the Mica student body.But the delicate scales of popularity suddenly shift, and Stargirl is shunned for everything that makes her different. Somewhere in the midst of Stargirl's arrival and rise and fall, normal Leo Borlock has tumbled into love with her.In a celebration of nonconformity, Jerry Spinelli weaves a tense, emotional tale about the fleeting, cruel nature of popularity--and the thrill and inspiration of first love.

['Young Adult', 'Fiction', 'Contemporary', 'Realistic Fiction', 'Romance', 'Middle Grade', 'Childrens']

320,033

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22232.Stargirl

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Anonymous

Miraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as much as four thousand years, the poem of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, is the world’s oldest epic, predating Homer by many centuries. The story tells of Gilgamesh’s adventures with the wild man Enkidu, and of his arduous journey to the ends of the earth in quest of the Babylonian Noah and the secret of immortality. Alongside its themes of family, friendship and the duties of kings, the Epic of Gilgamesh is, above all, about mankind’s eternal struggle with the fear of death.The Babylonian version has been known for over a century, but linguists are still deciphering new fragments in Akkadian and Sumerian.

['Classics', 'Poetry', 'Fiction', 'Mythology', 'Literature', 'Fantasy', 'School']

96,746

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19351.The_Epic_of_Gilgamesh

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Jean-Dominique Bauby

‘Locked-in syndrome: paralysed from head to toe, the patient, his mind intact, is imprisoned inside his own body, unable to speak or move. In my case, blinking my left eyelid is my only means of communication.’In December 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French ‘Elle’ and the father of two young children, suffered a massive stroke and found himself paralysed and speechless, but entirely conscious, trapped by what doctors call ‘locked-in syndrome’. Using his only functioning muscle – his left eyelid – he began dictating this remarkable story, painstakingly spelling it out letter by letter.His book offers a haunting, harrowing look inside the cruel prison of locked-in syndrome, but it is also a triumph of the human spirit.

['Nonfiction', 'Memoir', 'Biography', 'Biography Memoir', 'Autobiography', 'France', 'Medicine']

69,437

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/193755.The_Diving_Bell_and_the_Butterfly

The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison

The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's first novel, a book heralded for its richness of language and boldness of vision. Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom. Pecola's life does change—in painful, devastating ways. What its vivid evocation of the fear and loneliness at the heart of a child's yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment. The Bluest Eye remains one of Toni Morrisons's most powerful, unforgettable novels- and a significant work of American fiction.

['Fiction', 'Classics', 'Historical Fiction', 'African American', 'Race', 'Literature', 'Novels']

227,902

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11337.The_Bluest_Eye

Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories

Truman Capote

Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's.In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape—her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm.It's New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail hour till breakfast at Tiffany's... And nice girls don't, except, of course, Holly Golightly. Pursued by Mafia gangsters and playboy millionaires, Holly is a fragile eyeful of tawny hair and turned-up nose, a heart-breaker, a perplexer, a traveler, a tease. She is irrepressibly 'top banana in the shock department', and one of the shining flowers of American fiction.Also included are three of Capote's best-known stories:• House of Flowers - Ottilie is entranced by a beautiful young man, and leaves her life and friends to live with him and his old grandmother, who seems to hate her.• A Diamond Guitar - Hear the story of the prized possession of a younger prison inmate, a rhinestone-studded guitar.• A Christmas Memory - A poignant tale of two innocents—a small boy and the old woman who is his best friend—whose sweetness contains a hard, sharp kernel of truth.

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Short Stories', 'Romance', 'American', 'Literature', 'Audiobook']

250,580

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251688.Breakfast_at_Tiffany_s_and_Three_Stories

Anthem

Ayn Rand

Anthem is Ayn Rand's classic tale of a dystopian future of the great "We"—a world that deprives individuals of a name or independence—that anticipates her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. They existed only to serve the state. They were conceived in controlled Palaces of Mating. They died in the Home of the Useless. From cradle to grave, the crowd was one—the great WE.In all that was left of humanity, there was only one man who dared to think, seek, and love. He lived in the dark ages of the future. In a loveless world, he dared to love the woman of his choice. In an age that had lost all trace of science and civilization, he had the courage to seek and find knowledge. But these were not the crimes for which he would be hunted. He was marked for death because he had committed the unpardonable sin: He had stood forth from the mindless human herd. He was a man alone. He had rediscovered the lost and holy word—I."I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals, and I loathe humanity, for its failure to live up to these possibilities." —Ayn Rand

['Fiction', 'Classics', 'Dystopia', 'Philosophy', 'Science Fiction', 'School', 'Literature']

148,979

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/667.Anthem

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers’ prodigious first novel was published to instant acclaim when she was just twenty-three. Set in a small town in the middle of the deep South, it is the story of John Singer, a lonely deaf-mute, and a disparate group of people who are drawn towards his kind, sympathetic nature. The owner of the café where Singer eats every day, a young girl desperate to grow up, an angry drunkard, a frustrated black doctor: each pours their heart out to Singer, their silent confidant, and he in turn changes their disenchanted lives in ways they could never imagine.

['Fiction', 'Classics', 'Literature', 'Novels', 'American', 'Historical Fiction', 'Southern']

105,264

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37380.The_Heart_Is_a_Lonely_Hunter

The Art of Happiness

Dalai Lama XIV

Nearly every time you see him, he's laughing, or at least smiling. And he makes everyone else around him feel like smiling. He's the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet, a Nobel Prize winner, and an increasingly popular speaker and statesman. What's more, he'll tell you that happiness is the purpose of life, and that "the very motion of our life is towards happiness." How to get there has always been the question. He's tried to answer it before, but he's never had the help of a psychiatrist to get the message across in a context we can easily understand. Through conversations, stories, and meditations, the Dalai Lama shows us how to defeat day-to-day anxiety, insecurity, anger, and discouragement. Together with Dr. Cutler, he explores many facets of everyday life, including relationships, loss, and the pursuit of wealth, to illustrate how to ride through life's obstacles on a deep and abiding source of inner peace.

['Nonfiction', 'Philosophy', 'Spirituality', 'Self Help', 'Buddhism', 'Psychology', 'Religion']

111,907

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38210.The_Art_of_Happiness

The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro

Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN 0571225381 here.In the summer of 1956, Stevens, a long-serving butler at Darlington Hall, decides to take a motoring trip through the West Country. The six-day excursion becomes a journey into the past of Stevens and England, a past that takes in fascism, two world wars, and an unrealised love between the butler and his housekeeper.

['Fiction', 'Historical Fiction', 'Classics', 'Literary Fiction', 'Historical', 'Literature', 'Novels']

274,253

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28921.The_Remains_of_the_Day

Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle, #1)

Diana Wynne Jones

An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found hereSophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl's castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there's far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.

['Fantasy', 'Young Adult', 'Fiction', 'Romance', 'Middle Grade', 'Magic', 'Childrens']

306,351

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6294.Howl_s_Moving_Castle

The Thirteenth Tale

Diane Setterfield

All children mythologize their birth...So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist. The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission. As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire. Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves. The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.

['Fiction', 'Mystery', 'Historical Fiction', 'Gothic', 'Books About Books', 'Fantasy', 'Adult']

304,659

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40440.The_Thirteenth_Tale

White Fang

Jack London

White Fang is part dog and part wolf, and the lone survivor of his family. In his lonely world, he soon learns to follow the harsh law of the North--kill or be killed. But nothing in White Fang's life can prepare him for the cruel owner who turns him into a vicious killer. Will White Fang ever know the kindness of a gentle master?

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Adventure', 'Animals', 'Young Adult', 'Historical Fiction', 'Literature']

180,587

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43035.White_Fang

Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

John Grogan

John and Jenny were young and deeply in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same.Marley quickly grew into an uncontrollable ninety-seven-pound steamroller of a Labrador retriever. Expelled from obedience school, even the tranquillisers prescribed by the vet couldn't stop him.Yet through the chaos and the hilarity, he won hearts and remained a steadfast model of devotion to his family, even when they were at their wits' end. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms.

['Nonfiction', 'Memoir', 'Animals', 'Biography', 'Dogs', 'Humor', 'Biography Memoir']

464,188

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12691.Marley_and_Me

Mistress Suffragette

Diana Forbes

A young woman without prospects at a ball in Gilded Age Newport, Rhode Island is a target for a certain kind of “suitor.” At the Memorial Day Ball during the Panic of 1893, impoverished but feisty Penelope Stanton draws the unwanted advances of a villainous millionaire banker who preys on distressed women—the incorrigible Edgar Daggers. Over a series of encounters, he promises Penelope the financial security she craves, but at what cost? Skilled in the art of flirtation, Edgar is not without his charms, and Penelope is attracted to him against her better judgment. Initially, as Penelope grows into her own in the burgeoning early Women’s Suffrage Movement, Edgar exerts pressure, promising to use his power and access to help her advance. But can he be trusted, or are his words part of an elaborate mind game played between him and his wife? During a glittering age where a woman’s reputation is her most valuable possession, Penelope must decide whether to compromise her principles for love, lust, and the allure of an easier life.

['Historical Fiction', 'Fiction', 'Romance', 'New Adult', 'Historical', 'Adult', 'Young Adult']

4,839

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34521870-mistress-suffragette

Still Alice

Lisa Genova

Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard University. Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer's disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what's it's like to literally lose your mind...

['Fiction', 'Contemporary', 'Psychology', 'Book Club', 'Adult Fiction', 'Adult', 'Audiobook']

330,635

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2153405.Still_Alice

She's Come Undone

Wally Lamb

In this extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites us to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years.Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Stranded in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before she really goes under.

['Fiction', 'Contemporary', 'Chick Lit', 'Adult Fiction', 'Coming Of Age', 'Novels', 'Adult']

338,542

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5203.She_s_Come_Undone

A Time to Kill (Jake Brigance, #1)

John Grisham

An alternate cover edition for the ISBN 9780385338608 can be found here. Before The Firm and The Pelican Brief made him a superstar, John Grisham wrote this riveting story of retribution and justice. In this searing courtroom drama, best-selling author John Grisham probes the savage depths of racial violence, as he delivers a compelling tale of uncertain justice in a small southern town, Clanton, Mississippi. The life of a ten-year-old girl is shattered by two drunken and remorseless young men. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime. That is, until her black father acquires an assault rifle and takes matters into his hands. For ten days, as burning crosses and the crack of sniper fire spread through the streets of Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as young defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his client's life, and then his own.

['Fiction', 'Mystery', 'Thriller', 'Crime', 'Suspense', 'Legal Thriller', 'Mystery Thriller']

783,226

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32542.A_Time_to_Kill

Houdini Heart

Ki Longfellow

HOUDINI HEART harkens back to the masters of suspenseful supernatural horror: Poe, Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, but speaks with a wholly fresh voice. Once caught in its pages, there's no escaping Longfellow's terrible tale. Weeks ago, she was one of Hollywood's biggest writers, wed to one of its greatest stars. The doting mother of their golden child. But now? She's alone, tortured by a horrifying secret no woman could bear. Pursued by those she can't outrun, anguished by a guilt she can't endure, and driven close to madness, she flees to the one place she's ever called home: a small town in Vermont where River House still stands. To a child, the splendid hotel was mysterious and magical and all its glamorous guests knew delicious secrets. Cocooned in its walls, she will write one last book. Her atonement? Or her suicide note? But life is never as you dream it, and River House isn't what she'd always imagined it was. Intense, literary, and harrowing, Houdini Heart is a tale of bone-chilling horror, emotional torment, and psychological terror. Gripped by River House, trapped in an aging hotel of mirrors only Houdini could escape, how much can haunt a mind before it too is only a thing once imagined? "A haunting and disturbing journey through the psyche."-Erika Mailman, Author of "The Witch's Trinity"

['Horror', 'Fantasy', 'Fiction', 'Mystery', 'Magical Realism', 'Gothic', 'Literature']

5,697

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11324204-houdini-heart

Around the World in Eighty Days

Jules Verne

One night in the reform club, Phileas Fogg bets his companions that he can travel across the globe in just eighty days. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, he immediately sets off for Dover with his astonished valet Passepartout. Passing through exotic lands and dangerous locations, they seize whatever transportation is at hand—whether train or elephant—overcoming set-backs and always racing against the clock.

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Adventure', 'Science Fiction', 'France', 'Travel', 'Fantasy']

231,683

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54479.Around_the_World_in_Eighty_Days

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chronicles of Narnia, #3)

C.S. Lewis

NARNIA... the world of wicked dragons and magic spells, where the very best is brought out of even the worst people, where anything can happen (and most often does)... and where the adventure begins.The Dawn Treader is the first ship Narnia has seen in centuries. King Caspian has built it for his voyage to find the seven lords, good men whom his evil uncle Miraz banished when he usurped the throne. The journey takes Edmund, Lucy, and their cousin Eustace to the Eastern Islands, beyond the Silver Sea, toward Aslan's country at the End of the World.

['Fantasy', 'Fiction', 'Classics', 'Young Adult', 'Childrens', 'Adventure', 'Christian']

448,922

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/140225.The_Voyage_of_the_Dawn_Treader

King Lear

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s King Lear challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Its figures harden their hearts, engage in violence, or try to alleviate the suffering of others. Lear himself rages until his sanity cracks. What, then, keeps bringing us back to King Lear? For all the force of its language, King Lear is almost equally powerful when translated, suggesting that it is the story, in large part, that draws us to the play.The play tells us about families struggling between greed and cruelty, on the one hand, and support and consolation, on the other. Emotions are extreme, magnified to gigantic proportions. We also see old age portrayed in all its vulnerability, pride, and, perhaps, wisdom—one reason this most devastating of Shakespeare’s tragedies is also perhaps his most moving.The authoritative edition of King Lear from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes:-Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play-Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play-Scene-by-scene plot summaries-A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases-An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language-An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play-Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books-An annotated guide to further readingEssay by Susan SnyderThe Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

['Classics', 'Plays', 'Drama', 'Fiction', 'School', 'Theatre', 'Literature']

208,480

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12938.King_Lear

Middlemarch

George Eliot

Taking place in the years leading up to the First Reform Bill of 1832, Middlemarch explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life: art, religion, science, politics, self, society, human relationships. Among her characters are some of the most remarkable portraits in English literature: Dorothea Brooke, the heroine, idealistic but naive; Rosamond Vincy, beautiful and egoistic: Edward Casaubon, the dry-as-dust scholar: Tertius Lydgate, the brilliant but morally-flawed physician: the passionate artist Will Ladislaw: and Fred Vincey and Mary Garth, childhood sweethearts whose charming courtship is one of the many humorous elements in the novel's rich comic vein.

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Historical Fiction', 'Literature', '19th Century', 'Victorian', 'Novels']

154,792

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19089.Middlemarch

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Haruki Murakami

Japan's most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II. In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria. Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.

['Fiction', 'Magical Realism', 'Japan', 'Japanese Literature', 'Fantasy', 'Contemporary', 'Novels']

265,142

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11275.The_Wind_Up_Bird_Chronicle

Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen

A wonderfully entertaining coming-of-age story, Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austen's "Gothic parody." Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist.The story's unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry's mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.Executed with high-spirited gusto, Northanger Abbey is a lighthearted, yet unsentimental commentary on love and marriage.

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Romance', 'Gothic', 'Historical Fiction', 'Literature', '19th Century']

373,201

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50398.Northanger_Abbey

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Michael Pollan

What should we have for dinner? For omnivore like ourselves, this simple question has always posed a dilemma. When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods on offer might shorten your life. Today, buffered by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. The omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.The Omnivore's Dilemma is groundbreaking book, in which one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species. Should we eat a fast-food hamburger? Something organic? Or perhaps something we hunt, gather, or grow ourselves? To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us. Ultimately, this is a book as much about visionary solutions as it is about problems, and Pollan contends that, when it comes to food, doing the right thing often turns out to be the tastiest thing an eater can do. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore’s Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same.

['Nonfiction', 'Food', 'Science', 'Health', 'History', 'Nutrition', 'Environment']

199,833

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3109.The_Omnivore_s_Dilemma

Different Seasons

Stephen King

This Book is in Good Condition. Used Copy With Light Amount of Wear. 100% Guaranteed. NO MARKINGS AT ALL!! SHIPS OUT FAST FROM AMAZON'S WAREHOUSE!!

['Horror', 'Fiction', 'Short Stories', 'Thriller', 'Mystery', 'Fantasy', 'Drama']

196,795

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39662.Different_Seasons

Sarah's Key

Tatiana de Rosnay

Paris, July 1942: Ten-year-old Sarah is brutally arrested with her family in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, the most notorious act of French collaboration with the Nazis. but before the police come to take them, Sarah locks her younger brother, Michel, in their favorite hiding place, a cupboard in the family's apartment. She keeps the key, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's sixtieth anniversary, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist, is asked by her Paris-based American magazine to write an article about this black day in France's past. Julia has lived in Paris for nearly twenty-five years, married a Frenchman, and she is shocked both by her ignorance about the event and the silence that still surrounds it. In the course of her investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connects her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from the terrible days spent shut in at the Vel' d'Hiv' to the camps and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.Writing about the fate of her country with a pitiless clarity, Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and denial surrounding this painful episode in French history.(front flap)

['Historical Fiction', 'Fiction', 'Holocaust', 'Historical', 'World War II', 'France', 'War']

462,312

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/556602.Sarah_s_Key

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Victor Hugo

This extraordinary historical French gothic novel, set in Medieval Paris under the twin towers of its greatest structure and supreme symbol, the cathedral of Notre-Dame, is the haunting drama of Quasimodo, the disabled bell-ringer of Notre-Dame, as he struggles to stand up to his ableist guardian Claude Frollo, who also wants to commit genocide against Paris' Romani population.The novel has been described as a key text in French literature[1] and has been adapted for film over a dozen times, in addition to numerous television and stage adaptations, such as a 1923 silent film with Lon Chaney, a 1939 sound film with Charles Laughton, and a 1996 Disney animated film with Tom Hulce (both as Quasimodo).The novel sought to preserve values of French culture in a time period of great change, which resulted in the destruction of many French Gothic structures. The novel made Notre-Dame de Paris a national icon and served as a catalyst for renewed interest in the restoration of Gothic form.

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Historical Fiction', 'France', 'Literature', 'French Literature', 'Gothic']

192,720

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30597.The_Hunchback_of_Notre_Dame

Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

Fyodor Dostoevsky

A collection of powerful stories by one of the masters of Russian literature, illustrating the author's thoughts on political philosophy, religion and above all, humanity: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead (150th Anniversary Edition)The compelling works presented in this volume were written at distinct periods in Dostoyevsky's life, at decisive moments in his groping for a political philosophy and a religious answer. From the primitive peasant who kills without understanding that he is destroying life to the anxious antihero of Notes from Underground—who both craves and despises affection—the writer's often-tormented characters showcase his evolving outlook on our fate.Thomas Mann described Dostoyevsky as "an author whose Christian sympathy is ordinarily devoted to human misery, sin, vice, the depths of lust and crime, rather than to nobility of body and soul" and Notes from Underground as "an awe- and terror- inspiring example of this sympathy."

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Russia', 'Philosophy', 'Russian Literature', 'Literature', 'Novels']

75,966

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17876.Notes_from_Underground_White_Nights_The_Dream_of_a_Ridiculous_Man_and_Selections_from_The_House_of_the_Dead

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

Eric Schlosser

Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but here Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning.Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from California's subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many fast food's flavors are concocted. Along the way, he unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths -- from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate. (back cover)

['Nonfiction', 'Food', 'Health', 'Sociology', 'Politics', 'History', 'Science']

204,717

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1097.Fast_Food_Nation

Veronika Decides to Die

Paulo Coelho

In his latest international bestseller, the celebrated author of The Alchemist addresses the fundamental questions asked by millions: What am I doing here today? and Why do I go on living?Twenty-four-year-old Veronika seems to have everything she could wish for: youth and beauty, plenty of attractive boyfriends, a fulfilling job, and a loving family. Yet something is lacking in her life. Inside her is a void so deep that nothing could possibly ever fill it. So, on the morning of November 11, 1997, Veronika decides to die. She takes a handful of sleeping pills expecting never to wake up.Naturally Veronika is stunned when she does wake up at Villete, a local mental hospital, where the staff informs her that she has, in fact, partially succeeded in achieving her goal. While the overdose didn't kill Veronika immediately, the medication has damaged her heart so severely that she has only days to live.The story follows Veronika through the intense week of self-discovery that ensues. To her surprise, Veronika finds herself drawn to the confinement of Villete and its patients, who, each in his or her individual way, reflect the heart of human experience. In the heightened state of life's final moments, Veronika discovers things she has never really allowed herself to feel before: hatred, fear, curiosity, love, and sexual awakening. She finds that every second of her existence is a choice between living and dying, and at the eleventh hour emerges more open to life than ever before.In Veronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho takes the reader on a distinctly modern quest to find meaning in a culture overshadowed by angst, soulless routine, and pervasive conformity. Based on events in Coelho's own life, Veronika Decides to Die questions the meaning of madness and celebrates individuals who do not fit into patterns society considers to be normal. Poignant and illuminating, it is a dazzling portrait of a young woman at the crossroads of despair and liberation, and a poetic, exuberant appreciation of each day as a renewed opportunity.

['Fiction', 'Contemporary', 'Philosophy', 'Novels', 'Psychology', 'Romance', 'Mental Health']

209,619

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1431.Veronika_Decides_to_Die

Breakfast of Champions

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found hereIn Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.

['Fiction', 'Classics', 'Science Fiction', 'Humor', 'Literature', 'Novels', 'American']

249,901

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4980.Breakfast_of_Champions

I Know This Much Is True

Wally Lamb

On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother, Thomas, entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut, public library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable. . . .One of the most acclaimed novels of our time, Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True is a story of alienation and connection, devastation and renewal, at once joyous, heartbreaking, poignant, mystical, and powerfully, profoundly human.

['Fiction', 'Contemporary', 'Novels', 'Literary Fiction', 'Adult Fiction', 'Mental Illness', 'Adult']

306,455

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/227711.I_Know_This_Much_Is_True

I, Robot (Robot, #0.1)

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov's I, Robot launches readers on an adventure into a not-so-distant future where man and machine , struggle to redefinelife, love, and consciousness—and where the stakes are nothing less than survival. Filled with unforgettable characters, mind-bending speculation, and nonstop action, I, Robot is a powerful reading experience from one of the master storytellers of our time. I, ROBOT They mustn't harm a human being, they must obey human orders, and they must protect their own existence...but only so long as that doesn't violate rules one and two. With these Three Laws of Robotics, humanity embarked on perhaps its greatest adventure: the invention of the first positronic man. It was a bold new era of evolution that would open up enormous possibilities—and unforeseen risks. For the scientists who invented the earliest robots weren't content that their creations should ' remain programmed helpers, companions, and semisentient worker-machines. And soon the robots themselves; aware of their own intelligence, power, and humanity, aren't either. As humans and robots struggle to survive together—and sometimes against each other—on earth and in space, the future of both hangs in the balance. Human men and women confront robots gone mad, telepathic robots, robot politicians, and vast robotic intelligences that may already secretly control the world. And both are asking the same questions: What is human? And is humanity obsolete? In l, Robot Isaac Asimov changes forever our perception of robots, and human beings and updates the timeless myth of man's dream to play god. with all its rewards—and terrors.--front flap

['Science Fiction', 'Fiction', 'Classics', 'Short Stories', 'Science Fiction Fantasy', 'Fantasy', 'Robots']

328,711

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41804.I_Robot

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce

The portrayal of Stephen Dedalus's Dublin childhood and youth, his quest for identity through art and his gradual emancipation from the claims of family, religion and Ireland itself, is also an oblique self-portrait of the young James Joyce and a universal testament to the artist's 'eternal imagination'. Both an insight into Joyce's life and childhood, and a unique work of modernist fiction, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel of sexual awakening, religious rebellion and the essential search for voice and meaning that every nascent artist must face in order to blossom fully into themselves.

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Literature', 'Irish Literature', 'Ireland', 'Novels', '20th Century']

145,088

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7588.A_Portrait_of_the_Artist_as_a_Young_Man

The Power of Myth

Joseph Campbell

The Power Of Myth launched an extraordinary resurgence of interest in Joseph Campbell and his work. A preeminent scholar, writer, and teacher, he has had a profound influence on millions of people. To him, mythology was the "song of the universe, the music of the spheres." With Bill Moyers, one of America's most prominent journalists, as his thoughtful and engaging interviewer, The Power Of Myth touches on subjects from modern marriage to virgin births, from Jesus to John Lennon, offering a brilliant combination of intelligence and wit.

['Nonfiction', 'Mythology', 'Philosophy', 'History', 'Religion', 'Psychology', 'Spirituality']

49,573

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35519.The_Power_of_Myth

A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1)

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth. Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.

['Fantasy', 'Fiction', 'Young Adult', 'Classics', 'Science Fiction Fantasy', 'Magic', 'High Fantasy']

293,964

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13642.A_Wizard_of_Earthsea

The Secret History

Donna Tartt

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.

['Fiction', 'Mystery', 'Classics', 'Contemporary', 'Thriller', 'Literary Fiction', 'Mystery Thriller']

579,022

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29044.The_Secret_History

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

Harold Bloom

Published in 1960 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, To Kill a Mockingbird is required reading for many middle and high school students. The coming-of-age tale of its young narrator, Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, of Maycomb, Alabama, is interwoven with explorations of the issues of prejudice, innocence, compassion, and hypocrisy. This accessible study guide is a compilation of important current criticism on Harper Lee's first and only novel gleaned from key publications.

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Historical Fiction', 'Literature', 'High School', 'School', 'Literary Criticism']

7,508

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24374.Harper_Lee_s_To_Kill_a_Mockingbird

Bridget Jones's Diary (Bridget Jones, #1)

Helen Fielding

Meet Bridget Jones —a 30-something Singleton who is certain she would have all the answers if she could:a. lose 7 poundsb. stop smokingc. develop Inner Poise"129 lbs. (how is it possible to put on 4 pounds in the middle of the night? Could flesh have somehow solidified becoming denser and heavier? Repulsive, horrifying notion), alcohol units 4 (excellent), cigarettes 21 (poor but will give up totally tomorrow), number of correct lottery numbers 2 (better, but nevertheless useless)...""Bridget Jones' Diary" is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud daily chronicle of Bridget's permanent, doomed quest for self-improvement — a year in which she resolves to: reduce the circumference of each thigh by 1.5 inches, visit the gym three times a week not just to buy a sandwich, form a functional relationship with a responsible adult - and learn to program the VCR.Over the course of the year, Bridget loses a total of 72 pounds but gains a total of 74. She remains, however, optimistic. Through it all, Bridget will have you helpless with laughter, and — like millions of readers the world round — you'll find yourself shouting, "Bridget Jones is me!"

['Fiction', 'Chick Lit', 'Romance', 'Humor', 'Contemporary', 'Comedy', 'Adult']

952,870

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/227443.Bridget_Jones_s_Diary

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Max Brooks

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, "By excluding the human factor, aren't we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn't the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as 'the living dead'?"Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.

['Horror', 'Fiction', 'Zombies', 'Science Fiction', 'Fantasy', 'Post Apocalyptic', 'Dystopia']

502,272

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8908.World_War_Z

The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #6)

C.S. Lewis

The secret passage to the house next door leads to a fascinating adventureNARNIA...where the woods are thick and cold, where Talking Beasts are called to life...a new world where the adventure begins.Digory and Polly meet and become friends one cold, wet summer in London. Their lives burst into adventure when Digory's Uncle Andrew, who thinks he is a magician, sends them hurtling to...somewhere else. They find their way to Narnia, newborn from the Lion's song, and encounter the evil sorceress Jadis before they finally return home.

['Fantasy', 'Classics', 'Fiction', 'Young Adult', 'Childrens', 'Middle Grade', 'Adventure']

506,282

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/65605.The_Magician_s_Nephew

Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

Daniel Quinn

An Adventure of the Mind and SpiritThe narrator of this extraordinary tale is a man in search for truth. He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined?

['Fiction', 'Philosophy', 'Spirituality', 'Classics', 'Fantasy', 'Environment', 'Novels']

93,410

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40611328-ishmael

Trainspotting (Mark Renton, #2)

Irvine Welsh

The bestselling novel by Irvine Welsh that provided the inspiration for Danny Boyle’s hit film'Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye've produced. Choose life.

['Fiction', 'Contemporary', 'Classics', 'Scotland', 'Novels', 'Literature', 'Crime']

161,947

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135836.Trainspotting

White Oleander

Janet Fitch

Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes--each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned--becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

['Fiction', 'Contemporary', 'Coming Of Age', 'Drama', 'Adult Fiction', 'Chick Lit', 'Literary Fiction']

345,313

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32234.White_Oleander

11/22/63

Stephen King

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. Unless...In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sets out on an insane — and insanely possible — mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping, the sound of Elvis, and the taste of root beer.In this haunting world, Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian. And, as the ominous date of 11/22/63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald...

['Fiction', 'Historical Fiction', 'Science Fiction', 'Time Travel', 'Fantasy', 'Horror', 'Thriller']

502,848

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10644930-11-22-63

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Lisa See

In nineteenth-century China, in a remote Hunan county, a girl named Lily, at the tender age of seven, is paired with a laotong, “old same,” in an emotional match that will last a lifetime. The laotong, Snow Flower, introduces herself by sending Lily a silk fan on which she’s painted a poem in nu shu, a unique language that Chinese women created in order to communicate in secret, away from the influence of men.As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages on fans, compose stories on handkerchiefs, reaching out of isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. Together, they endure the agony of foot-binding, and reflect upon their arranged marriages, shared loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their deep friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.

['Historical Fiction', 'Fiction', 'China', 'Historical', 'Asia', 'Book Club', 'Adult']

364,118

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40873273-snow-flower-and-the-secret-fan

The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, #3)

Philip Pullman

Will is the bearer of the knife. Now, accompanied by angels, his task is to deliver that powerful, dangerous weapon to Lord Asriel - by the command of his dying father.But how can he go looking for Lord Asriel when Lyra is gone? Only with her help can he fathom the myriad plots and intrigues that beset him. The two great powers of the many worlds are lining up for war, and Will must find Lyra, for together they are on their way to battle, an inevitable journey that will even take them to the world of the dead...

['Fantasy', 'Young Adult', 'Fiction', 'Childrens', 'Adventure', 'Science Fiction', 'Audiobook']

346,172

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18122.The_Amber_Spyglass

The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Rick Warren

A #1 New York Times bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life will help you understand why you are alive and reveal God's amazing plan for you both here and now, and for eternity. Rick Warren will guide you through a personal forty-day spiritual journey that will transform your answer to life's most important question: What on earth am I here for? Knowing God's purpose for creating you will reduce your stress, focus your energy, simplify your decisions, give meaning to your life, and most important, prepare you for eternity. Movie stars and political leaders aren't the only ones turning to Rick Warren for spiritual guidance. Millions of people from NBA and LPGA players to corporate executives to high school students to prison inmates meet regularly to discuss The Purpose Driven Life.

['Christian', 'Nonfiction', 'Religion', 'Self Help', 'Spirituality', 'Christianity', 'Faith']

263,912

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56495.The_Purpose_Driven_Life

The Prince and the Pauper

Mark Twain

This treasured historical satire, played out in two very different socioeconomic worlds of 16th-century England, centers around the lives of two boys born in London on the same day: Edward, Prince of Wales and Tom Canty, a street beggar. During a chance encounter, the two realize they are identical and, as a lark, decide to exchange clothes and roles--a situation that briefly, but drastically, alters the lives of both youngsters. The Prince, dressed in rags, wanders about the city's boisterous neighborhoods among the lower classes and endures a series of hardships; meanwhile, poor Tom, now living with the royals, is constantly filled with the dread of being discovered for who and what he really is.

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Historical Fiction', 'Literature', 'Childrens', 'Adventure', 'Young Adult']

116,091

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62446.The_Prince_and_the_Pauper

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts

Gary Chapman

Simple ideas, lasting love Falling in love is easy. Staying in love—that’s the challenge! How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts, and just plain boredom of everyday life? In the #1 New York Times bestseller The 5 Love Languages, you’ll discover the secret that has transformed millions of relationships worldwide. Whether your relationship is flourishing or failing, Dr. Gary Chapman’s proven approach to showing and receiving love will help you experience deeper and richer levels of intimacy with your partner—starting today. The 5 Love Languages is as practical as it is insightful. Updated to reflect the complexities of relationships today, this new edition reveals intrinsic truths and applies relevant, actionable wisdom in ways that work. Includes the Couple's Personal Profile assessment so you can discover your love language and that of your loved one.

['Nonfiction', 'Self Help', 'Relationships', 'Psychology', 'Marriage', 'Christian', 'Personal Development']

395,531

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23878688-the-5-love-languages

The Martian

Andy Weir

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills — and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit — he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

['Science Fiction', 'Fiction', 'Audiobook', 'Adventure', 'Space', 'Adult', 'Thriller']

1,038,208

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18007564-the-martian

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

Written initially to guide his son, Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography is a lively, spellbinding account of his unique and eventful life, now a classic of world literature that is sure to inspire and delight readers everywhere.Few men could compare to Benjamin Franklin. Virtually self-taught, he excelled as an athlete, a man of letters, a printer, a scientist, a wit, an inventor, an editor, and a writer, and he was probably the most successful diplomat in American history. David Hume hailed him as the first great philosopher and great man of letters in the New World.

['Biography', 'History', 'Nonfiction', 'Classics', 'Autobiography', 'Memoir', 'American History']

81,547

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52309.The_Autobiography_of_Benjamin_Franklin

The Merchant of Venice

William Shakespeare

In this lively comedy of love and money in sixteenth-century Venice, Bassanio wants to impress the wealthy heiress Portia but lacks the necessary funds. He turns to his merchant friend, Antonio, who is forced to borrow from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender. When Antonio's business falters, repayment becomes impossible--and by the terms of the loan agreement, Shylock is able to demand a pound of Antonio's flesh. Portia cleverly intervenes, and all ends well (except of course for Shylock).

['Classics', 'Plays', 'Fiction', 'Drama', 'School', 'Literature', 'Theatre']

180,443

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24128.The_Merchant_of_Venice

The Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins

"The Selfish Gene" caused a wave of excitement among biologists and the general public when it was first published in 1976. Its vivid rendering of a gene's eye view of life, in lucid prose, gathered together the strands of thought about the nature of natural selection into a conceptual framework with far-reaching implications for our understanding of evolution. Time has confirmed its significance. Intellectually rigorous, yet written in non-technical language, "The Selfish Gene" is widely regarded as a masterpiece of science writing, and its insights remain as relevant today as on the day it was published.

['Science', 'Nonfiction', 'Biology', 'Evolution', 'Philosophy', 'Psychology', 'Popular Science']

170,116

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61535.The_Selfish_Gene

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Michael Chabon

Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America - the comic book. Drawing on their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist, the Monitor, and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men. With exhilarating style and grace, Michael Chabon tells an unforgettable story about American romance and possibility.

['Fiction', 'Historical Fiction', 'Novels', 'Literature', 'Historical', 'Literary Fiction', 'Contemporary']

197,673

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3985.The_Amazing_Adventures_of_Kavalier_Clay

The Chain Between Worlds (The Lost Artefacts #1)

Johnathon Nicolaou

Runner up in the 2021 TCK Publishing Reader’s Choice Awards: Fantasy GenreAt the age of five Lincoln was abandoned inexplicably at an orphanage by his father with nothing but a promise to return and an old wrist chain. 11 years later when seemingly ordinary 16-year-old Lincoln runs away from yet another foster home, heading to his favoured spot in New York City, he is attacked by a dog, a monstrous three headed dog the size of a truck. Becoming marked, a string of attacks follow, only ending when he is saved by El, Ben, and AJ, a group of enhanced people known as Ascendants. Discovering the world is not as it seems, with Sorcerers, Nature Spirits and demonic monsters all hiding in plain sight, he learns that he is a long-lost Ascendant himself; discovering that the chain his father left him was at the centre of a conspiracy that resulted in his abandonment and his father’s subsequent disappearance.

['Fantasy', 'Young Adult', 'Urban Fantasy', 'Fiction', 'Young Adult Fantasy']

915

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60288648-the-chain-between-worlds

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Best known for the 1892 title story of this collection, a harrowing tale of a woman's descent into madness, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote more than 200 other short stories. Seven of her finest are reprinted here.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.The yellow wallpaper Three Thanksgivings The cottagette Turned Making a change If I were a man Mr. Peebles' heart.

['Classics', 'Short Stories', 'Fiction', 'Feminism', 'Horror', 'Literature', 'School']

83,246

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/99300.The_Yellow_Wallpaper_and_Other_Stories

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

William L. Shirer

Hitler boasted that The Third Reich would last a thousand years. It lasted only 12. But those 12 years contained some of the most catastrophic events Western civilization has ever known.No other powerful empire ever bequeathed such mountains of evidence about its birth and destruction as the Third Reich. When the bitter war was over, and before the Nazis could destroy their files, the Allied demand for unconditional surrender produced an almost hour-by-hour record of the nightmare empire built by Adolph Hitler. This record included the testimony of Nazi leaders and of concentration camp inmates, the diaries of officials, transcripts of secret conferences, army orders, private letters—all the vast paperwork behind Hitler's drive to conquer the world.The famed foreign correspondent and historian William L. Shirer, who had watched and reported on the Nazis since 1925, spent five and a half years sifting through this massive documentation. The result is a monumental study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in the history of mankind.This worldwide bestseller has been acclaimed as the definitive book on Nazi Germany; it is a classic work.The accounts of how the United States got involved and how Hitler used Mussolini and Japan are astonishing, and the coverage of the war-from Germany's early successes to her eventual defeat-is must reading

['History', 'Nonfiction', 'World War II', 'War', 'Politics', 'Germany', 'Historical']

126,437

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/767171.The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Third_Reich

The Prince of Tides

Pat Conroy

Pat Conroy has created a huge, brash thunderstorm of a novel, stinging with honesty and resounding with drama. 'Spanning forty years, this is the story of turbulent Tom Wingo, his gifted and troubled twin sister Savannah, and the dark and violent past of the extraordinary family into which they were born.

['Fiction', 'Classics', 'Romance', 'Southern', 'Contemporary', 'Literary Fiction', 'Drama']

204,623

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16735.The_Prince_of_Tides

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)

George R.R. Martin

A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. Two great leaders—Lord Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon—who hold sway over an age of enforced peace are dead, victims of royal treachery. Now, from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, preparing to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war. It is a tale in which brother plots against brother and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside. Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel...and the coldest hearts. For when kings clash, the whole land trembles.Here is the second volume in George R.R. Martin magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Game of Thrones and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R.R. Martin stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.

['Fantasy', 'Fiction', 'Epic Fantasy', 'High Fantasy', 'Science Fiction Fantasy', 'Adult', 'Adventure']

890,493

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10572.A_Clash_of_Kings

The Hunger Games Trilogy Boxset (The Hunger Games, #1-3)

Suzanne Collins

The extraordinary, ground breaking New York Times bestsellers The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, along with the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay, are available for the first time ever in a beautiful boxset edition. Stunning, gripping, and powerful. The trilogy is now complete!

['Young Adult', 'Fiction', 'Fantasy', 'Dystopia', 'Science Fiction', 'Romance', 'Adventure']

212,068

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7938275-the-hunger-games-trilogy-boxset

Cold Mountain

Charles Frazier

Cold Mountain is a novel about a soldier’s perilous journey back to his beloved near the Civil War's end. At once a love story & a harrowing account of one man’s long walk home, Cold Mountain introduces a new talent in American literature.Based on local history & family stories passed down by Frazier’s great-great-grandfather, Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded Confederate soldier, Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war & back home to his prewar sweetheart, Ada. His odyssey thru the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada’s struggle to revive her father’s farm, with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby. As their long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, Inman & Ada confront the vastly transformed world they’ve been delivered.Frazier reveals insight into human relations with the land & the dangers of solitude. He also shares with the great 19th century novelists a keen observation of a society undergoing change. Cold Mountain recreates a world gone by that speaks to our time.

['Historical Fiction', 'Fiction', 'Historical', 'Romance', 'Civil War', 'War', 'Classics']

237,467

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10920.Cold_Mountain

A Room of One's Own

Virginia Woolf

A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on the 24th of October, 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled Women and Fiction, and hence the essay, are considered nonfiction. The essay is seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.

['Classics', 'Nonfiction', 'Feminism', 'Essays', 'Philosophy', 'Writing', 'Literature']

180,372

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18521.A_Room_of_One_s_Own

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Kim Edwards

On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down's Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. But Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. So begins this story that unfolds over a quarter of a century - in which these two families, ignorant of each other, are yet bound by the fateful decision made that long-ago winter night. Norah Henry, who knows only that her daughter died at birth, remains inconsolable; her grief weighs heavily on their marriage. And Paul, their son, raises himself as best he can, in a house grown cold with mourning. Meanwhile, Phoebe, the lost daughter, grows from a sunny child to a vibrant young woman whose mother loves her as fiercely as if she were her own.

['Fiction', 'Contemporary', 'Historical Fiction', 'Adult Fiction', 'Adult', 'Book Club', 'Drama']

591,912

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10441.The_Memory_Keeper_s_Daughter

Outliers: The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell

Learn what sets high achievers apart -- from Bill Gates to the Beatles -- in this #1 bestseller from "a singular talent" (New York Times Book Review).In this stunning book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

['Nonfiction', 'Psychology', 'Business', 'Self Help', 'Sociology', 'Science', 'Audiobook']

732,486

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3228917-outliers

Lady Chatterley's Lover

D.H. Lawrence

Lawrence's frank portrayal of an extramarital affair and the explicit sexual explorations of its central characters caused this controversial book, now considered a masterpiece, to be banned as pornography until 1960.

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Romance', 'Literature', 'Banned Books', 'Novels', 'Erotica']

118,070

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32049.Lady_Chatterley_s_Lover

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Eckhart Tolle

To make the journey into the Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. From the very first page of Eckhart Tolle's extraordinary book, we move rapidly into a significantly higher altitude where we breathe a lighter air. We become connected to the indestructible essence of our Being, “The eternal, ever present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death.” Although the journey is challenging, Eckhart Tolle uses simple language and an easy question-and-answer format to guide us.A word-of-mouth phenomenon since its first publication, The Power of Now is one of those rare books with the power to create an experience in readers, one that can radically change their lives for the better.

['Self Help', 'Nonfiction', 'Spirituality', 'Philosophy', 'Psychology', 'Personal Development', 'Audiobook']

318,850

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6708.The_Power_of_Now

The Witches

Roald Dahl

This is not a fairy-tale. This is about real witches. Real witches don't ride around on broomsticks. They don't even wear black cloaks and hats. They are vile, cunning, detestable creatures who disguise themselves as nice, ordinary ladies. So how can you tell when you're face to face with one? Well, if you don't know yet you'd better find out quickly-because there's nothing a witch loathes quite as much as children and she'll wield all kinds of terrifying powers to get rid of them.

['Fantasy', 'Childrens', 'Fiction', 'Classics', 'Middle Grade', 'Young Adult', 'Witches']

377,648

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6327.The_Witches

To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf

The serene and maternal Mrs. Ramsay, the tragic yet absurd Mr. Ramsay, and their children and assorted guests are on holiday on the Isle of Skye. From the seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse, Woolf constructs a remarkable, moving examination of the complex tensions and allegiances of family life and the conflict between men and women.As time winds its way through their lives, the Ramsays face, alone and simultaneously, the greatest of human challenges and its greatest triumph—the human capacity for change.

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Literature', 'Novels', 'British Literature', '20th Century', 'Feminism']

167,889

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59716.To_the_Lighthouse

Infidel

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

One of today’s most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following the murder of Theo van Gogh by an Islamist who threatened that she would be next. She made headlines again when she was stripped of her citizenship and resigned from the Dutch Parliament.Infidel shows the coming of age of this distinguished political superstar and champion of free speech as well as the development of her beliefs, iron will, and extraordinary determination to fight injustice. Raised in a strict Muslim family, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four troubled, unstable countries ruled largely by despots. She escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim women and the reform of Islam as a member of Parliament. Under constant threat, demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from family and clan, she refuses to be silenced.Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali’s story tells how a bright little girl evolves out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no other book could be more timely or more significant.

['Nonfiction', 'Memoir', 'Biography', 'Religion', 'Africa', 'Politics', 'Islam']

88,621

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/81227.Infidel

صالة أورفانيللي

أشرف العشماوي

لكل قصة بداية وحكاية ونهاية ، وحياة كل إنسان رواية هو بطلها ومن خلالها يتشكل العالم من حولنا. ببناء مدهش يقدم أشرف العشماوي أحدث رواياته، قصص أبطاله الثلاثة تحكي حياتهم لكنها تشكل فصول الحكاية الأكبر، حكاية صالة المزاد التي يقتحم بها المؤلف عالمًا روائيًا جديدًا، كاشفاً خباياه وكواليسه وطرق الخداع التي تُجرى فيه، ودور يهود مصر في السيطرة عليه منذ العهد الملكي حتى السبعينيات . تتشابك خيوط حكايات الأبطال وتتعقد علاقاتهم الإنسانية، ليجذب العشماوي أطرافها بسلاسة فتنساب لتحكي أدق تفاصيل النفوس وتصطدم بصراعات تُفضي لجرائم ، وعندما تقترب الخيوط من نهاياتها ومع دَقة المزاد الثالثة الشهيرة التي تعلن موت رغبة وميلاد أخرى تتفجر المفاجآت لتتسع أذهاننا لتساؤلات بقدر ما تتفتح أعيننا على حقائق .. هل حياتنا تشبه المزاد؟ وماذا يتبقى من إنسانيتنا لو أصبح كل منا قطعة معروضة في صالة مزادات ينتظر دوره؟.

['Fiction', 'Novels', 'Politics', 'Drama', 'Egypt', 'Egyptian Literature']

3,199

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56492991

Amelia Bedelia (Amelia Bedelia, #1)

Peggy Parish

From dressing the chicken to dusting the furniture, Amelia Bedelia does exactly what Mr. and Mrs. Rogers tell her. ...But somehow things never turn out quite right.

['Childrens', 'Picture Books', 'Fiction', 'Humor', 'Classics', 'Kids', 'Juvenile']

88,333

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/774001.Amelia_Bedelia

The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1)

Robert Jordan

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.Moiraine Damodred arrives in Emond’s Field on a quest to find the one prophesized to stand against The Dark One, a malicious entity sowing the seeds of chaos and destruction. When a vicious band of half-men, half beasts invade the village seeking their master’s enemy, Moiraine persuades Rand al’Thor and his friends to leave their home and enter a larger unimaginable world filled with dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light.

['Fiction', 'Fantasy', 'Epic Fantasy', 'High Fantasy', 'Science Fiction Fantasy', 'Audiobook', 'Adventure']

498,490

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/228665.The_Eye_of_the_World

Wisdom Revolution (The Machinist, The Monk, And The Mesmerizer Chronicles, #1)

Misba

Few humans in the future find the secrets of what words and sounds can do, for the Apocalypse and war led them to evolve in mind and physique. Two of them end World War III with just a speech. Some say they did mass hypnosis. Others say it was their voice and will.Fifty years later in South Asia, KUSHA, a twenty-three-year-old machine-geek with social awkwardness and amnesia, tries to get the Devil’s Book with secrets of voice.In a society that worships the evolved High Grades with voice, how you speak and which words you talk with is important. As someone who finds all solutions in books, Kusha thinks the secrets in the three-foot-long ancient book will teach her to speak mesmerizingly. She believes it will help her evolve. So, she decides to attend the auction where the book will be sold. But there's a problem. Her idol of voice and everyone's beloved war heroes, YUAN and RUEM, are also after it for power.They want to code fate, rewriting the material world. When they are not camping near the temples that rose from beneath the oceans after the Apocalypse, they are playing classical orchestra or Himalayan Thumri or ... maybe, reciting Bedouin or Bengali poetry. They are undead, immortal mesmerizers. And being a philosopher, Kusha admires their ethics as she fights them—the fight that starts with the book. The fight that creates a chain reaction leading her to an epic journey.She faces an unfair system, and if she wants to change it, she has to be a Goddess. And no drugs, hypnosis, or codes can help her to become what she needs to be. There’s no shortcut to evolution.It’s about love with no rules, friendship in the veil of enmity, and a war in the name of secret wisdom.

['Post Apocalyptic', 'Fantasy']

89

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58406478-wisdom-revolution

On the Beach

Nevil Shute

After a nuclear World War III has destroyed most of the globe, the few remaining survivors in southern Australia await the radioactive cloud that is heading their way and bringing certain death to everyone in its path. Among them is an American submarine captain struggling to resist the knowledge that his wife and children in the United States must be dead. Then a faint Morse code signal is picked up, transmitting from somewhere near Seattle, and Captain Towers must lead his submarine crew on a bleak tour of the ruined world in a desperate search for signs of life. On the Beach is a remarkably convincing portrait of how ordinary people might face the most unimaginable nightmare.

['Fiction', 'Science Fiction', 'Post Apocalyptic', 'Classics', 'Dystopia', 'Apocalyptic', 'Australia']

41,700

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38180.On_the_Beach

Ivanhoe

Walter Scott

For this novel, Scott moved far away from the setting of his own turbulent time. He went back to the late 12th century, and to England rather than the Scottish settings of all his previous novels. He connected his writing Ivanhoe with his concerns about contemporary events.Scott drew together the apparently opposing themes of historical reality and chivalric romance, social realism and high adventure, past and present.

['Classics', 'Fiction', 'Historical Fiction', 'Adventure', 'Historical', 'Literature', 'Romance']

92,512

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6440.Ivanhoe

Dome: Rebellion (Dome, #1)

Johnathon Nicolaou

100 years in the future… The world is a post apocalyptic wasteland. What was once thriving with life is now a desolate wilderness. The earth is scorched, the air is toxic, and the world is ruled by mutant monsters. All that remains of humanity lives within a Dome – the only barrier between the last descendants of mankind and the deadly terrors of the outside world.Dominic, a military cadet at the top of his class, has been demoted to Lowtown, the poorest section of the Dome, after his mentor, Doc, was evicted for committing treason. Forced to lead a bitter new life as a lowly resource worker Dominic’s world is turned upside down when Doc’s journal is left at his doorstep, months after his execution. Embedded within those pages is the shocking truth that the Dome hierarchy has been taking advantage of its citizens, risking human extinction in the process. Now Dominic must follow in Doc’s footsteps, risking eviction himself if he wishes to save the Dome and humanity from total annihilation.

['Dystopia']

111

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/65151985-dome

Like Water for Chocolate

Laura Esquivel

Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit.The number one bestseller in Mexico and America for almost two years, and subsequently a bestseller around the world, Like Water For Chocolate is a romantic, poignant tale, touched with moments of magic, graphic earthiness, bittersweet wit - and recipes. A sumptuous feast of a novel, it relates the bizarre history of the all-female De La Garza family. Tita, the youngest daughter of the house, has been forbidden to marry, condemned by Mexican tradition to look after her mother until she dies. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, and he is seduced by the magical food she cooks. In desperation, Pedro marries her sister Rosaura so that he can stay close to her, so that Tita and Pedro are forced to circle each other in unconsummated passion. Only a freakish chain of tragedies, bad luck and fate finally reunite them against all the odds.

['Fiction', 'Magical Realism', 'Romance', 'Historical Fiction', 'Classics', 'Fantasy', 'Food']

354,293

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6952.Like_Water_for_Chocolate

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales

Jon Scieszka

A revisionist storyteller provides his mad, hilarious versions of children's favorite tales in this unique and riotous collection.A long time ago, people used to tell magical stories of wonder and enchantment. Those stories were called Fairy Tales.Those stories are not in this book. The stories in this book are Fairly Stupid Tales.I mean, what else would you call a story like "Goldilocks and the Three Elephants"? This girl walking through the woods smells Peanut Porridge Cooking. She decides to break into the Elephants' house, eat the porridge, sit in the chairs, and sleep in the beds. But when she gets in the house she can't climb up on Baby Elephant's chair because it's much too big. And she can't climb on Papa Elephant's chair because it's much much too big. So she goes home. The End.And if you don't think that's fairly stupid, you should read "Little Red Riding Shorts" or maybe "The Stinky Cheese Man."In fact, you should definitely go read the stories now, because the rest of this description just kind of goes on and on and doesn't really say anything. I stuck it here so it would fill up the page and make it look like I really knew what I was talking about. So stop now. I mean it. Quit reading this. Open the book. If you read this last sentence, it won't tell you anything.Signed,Jack (Narrator)Up the HillFairy Tale Forest1992 Story List: - Chicken Licken- The Princess and the Bowling Ball- The Really Ugly Duckling- The Other Frog Prince- Little Red Running Shorts- Jack's Bean Problem (including Giant Story / Jack's Story)- Cinderummpelstiltskin (Or The Girl Who Really Blew It)- The Tortoise and the Hair- The Stinky Cheese ManSURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: It has been determined that these tales are fairly stupid and probably dangerous to your health.Edition MSRP: $17⁹⁹ US (ISBN 0-670-84487-X)

['Picture Books', 'Childrens', 'Fiction', 'Humor', 'Fantasy', 'Fairy Tales', 'Short Stories']

94,346

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/407429.The_Stinky_Cheese_Man_and_Other_Fairly_Stupid_Tales

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Elizabeth George Speare

Orphaned Kit Tyler knows, as she gazes for the first time at the cold, bleak shores of Connecticut Colony, that her new home will never be like the shimmering Caribbean island she left behind. In her relatives' stern Puritan community, she feels like a tropical bird that has flown to the wrong part of the world, a bird that is now caged and lonely. The only place where Kit feels completely free is in the meadows, where she enjoys the company of the old Quaker woman known as the Witch of Blackbird Pond, and on occasion, her young sailor friend Nat. But when Kit's friendship with the "witch" is discovered, Kit is faced with suspicion, fear, and anger. She herself is accused of witchcraft!

['Historical Fiction', 'Young Adult', 'Fiction', 'Classics', 'Historical', 'Childrens', 'Middle Grade']

147,606

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/703292.The_Witch_of_Blackbird_Pond

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

Erik Larson

Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such drama that readers may find themselves checking the book's categorization to be sure that 'The Devil in the White City' is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing. - John Moe

['Nonfiction', 'History', 'True Crime', 'Crime', 'Historical', 'Mystery', 'Audiobook']

640,464

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/397483.The_Devil_in_the_White_City

Artemis Fowl (Artemis Fowl, #1)

Eoin Colfer

Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is a millionaire, a genius, and above all, a criminal mastermind. But even Artemis doesn't know what he's taken on when he kidnaps a fairy, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit. These aren't the fairies of bedtime stories—they're dangerous! Full of unexpected twists and turns, Artemis Fowl is a riveting, magical adventure.

['Fantasy', 'Young Adult', 'Fiction', 'Middle Grade', 'Childrens', 'Science Fiction', 'Adventure']

536,590

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249747.Artemis_Fowl

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Christopher Hitchens

God Is Not Great makes the ultimate case against religion. In a series of acute readings of the major religious texts, Christopher Hitchens demonstrates the ways in which religion is man-made, dangerously sexually repressive, and distorts the very origins of the cosmos. Above all, Hitchens argues that the concept of an omniscient God has profoundly damaged humanity, and proposes that the world might be a great deal better off without "him."

['Nonfiction', 'Religion', 'Philosophy', 'Atheism', 'Science', 'History', 'Politics']

103,037

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43369.God_Is_Not_Great

To Live and Drink in L.A.

Ben Peller

If David Sedaris, Chelsea Handler, and Charles Bukowski had ever consummated a threesome, the result would most likely be Shawn Michals, the protagonist of TO LIVE AND DRINK IN L.A. This series of semi-autobiographical stories follows Shawn as he moves from the Midwest to Los Angeles, and deals with topics such as his stubborn refusal to own either a car or a cellphone, his use of pro wrestling to deal with his manic-depressive mother's suicide, finding meaning in menial jobs, and many other adventures. Like Shawn often does, readers of this work may find themselves in uncharted territory, while at the same time discovering how one can learn lessons and experience growth in the most unlikely of places, even in a city many people believe to be shallower than a puddle. If a phone call from a telemarketer can lead to spearheading a march on the Pentagon, as it does for Shawn, anything is possible in the City of Angels. Cheers. "Ben Peller has a fine eye and a wonderful ear, but most of all and best of all, he writes with his heart." - Bob Greene, best-selling author of BE TRUE TO YOUR SCHOOL

['Memoir', 'Coming Of Age', 'Own', 'Classics', 'Short Stories', 'Nonfiction']

448

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11393301-to-live-and-drink-in-l-a

The BFG

Roald Dahl

Captured by a giant! The BFG is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and jumbly. It's lucky for Sophie that he is. Had she been carried off in the middle of the night by the Bloodbottler, the Fleshlumpeater, the Bonecruncher, or any of the other giants-rather than the BFG-she would have soon become breakfast. When Sophie hears that they are flush-bunking off in England to swollomp a few nice little chiddlers, she decides she must stop them once and for all. And the BFG is going to help her!

['Fantasy', 'Childrens', 'Fiction', 'Classics', 'Middle Grade', 'Young Adult', 'Humor']

457,076

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6319.The_BFG

Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

Flora Rheta Schreiber

Here is the unbelievable yet true story of Sybil Dorsett, a survivor of terrible childhood abuse who as an adult was a victim of sudden and mysterious blackouts. What happened during those blackouts has made Sybil's experience one of the most famous psychological cases in the world.

['Nonfiction', 'Psychology', 'Biography', 'Mental Health', 'Mental Illness', 'Memoir', 'Classics']

88,648

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67920.Sybil

The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter, #2)

Thomas Harris

A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname—Buffalo Bill—is stalking women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it, for the bodies are discovered in different states. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the FBI Academy, is surprised to be summoned by Jack Crawford, chief of the Bureau's Behavioral Science section. Her assignment: to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter—Hannibal the Cannibal—who is kept under close watch in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.Dr. Lecter is a former psychiatrist with a grisly history, unusual tastes, and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of "The Silence of the Lambs"—an ingenious, masterfully written book and an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.

['Horror', 'Fiction', 'Thriller', 'Mystery', 'Crime', 'Classics', 'Mystery Thriller']

528,489

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23807.The_Silence_of_the_Lambs

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Malcolm Gladwell

The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

['Nonfiction', 'Business', 'Psychology', 'Sociology', 'Self Help', 'Science', 'Economics']

787,665

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2612.The_Tipping_Point

The Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin

A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants spend most of their time without a gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

['Science Fiction', 'Fiction', 'Fantasy', 'Classics', 'Science Fiction Fantasy', 'Feminism', 'Speculative Fiction']

162,076

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18423.The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness

The Cheat Code (Wisdom Revolution, #3)

Misba

After the terrible encounters with the war heroes, the Intuitionist, Kusha, is on the verge of breaking all promises she gave to her friends and family. Worse: both the war heroes might become aware of her power—her intuition, for she is their shortcut, for she is their cheat code. Both the Mesmerizer and the Monk need cheat codes to win at their games. The Devil’s Book awakened the spirit of the Dancing Goddess. While the Monk, Yuan, might discover Prachin Nritya—the oldest of the oldest dance, which he thinks is the first language of humanity—the Intuitionist, Kusha, sees the dancing goddess in her dreams. Her purpose calls her, but she has her life to deal with. She gave her adoptive father a word that she will focus on her Career Exam. She told her friend, Haley, that she would join her in the race that’d help Haley be a citizen. She also has her promises to keep with Magic Mama. In a world of voice where High Grades are proud to never lie, a promise made verbally is stronger than a red seal on handmade paper. Being not evolved, being an improper human, in a very proper world, making promises might become a burden. Kusha wants to keep her promises. She wants to have a normal life, staying a citizen with a good job at Alphatech—a tech industry that offered sponsorship for her Career Exam. But it’s also the Alphatech that the Monk owns. The Alphatech that the Mesmerizer, Ruem, founded with the Monk decades ago. The Alphatech with era’s best research labs that Ruem now wants back for his larger goals. A mess awaits Alphatech, but Kusha needs the job. Even though she doesn’t want to encounter the war heroes again, she might. She can’t let her power fall into the wrong hands. So the Intuitionist must make good use of her situation and get the best outcome.

['Fantasy', 'Post Apocalyptic', 'Science Fiction Fantasy', 'Science Fiction', 'Adult']

423

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59784480-the-cheat-code

The Archon of Peace (Sovereign, #1)

Juddy Anderson C. Punzalan

Serestia, a magical world fashioned by the gods, has been under the control of the Archons for thousands of years, and the kingdoms that divide the land co-exist with these enlightened beings who dwell within their impenetrable walls.Amid the chaos and endless war, a long-awaited prophecy tips the balance and threatens not just the Archons but everyone else. The reincarnations of the legendary Renegade and the Elementalist find themselves pursued by the magical kingdom of Rasfera, the holy kingdom of Ydduj Celeri, and the ancient kingdom of Verheiden.With the help of some friends they meet along the way, the brothers embark on a journey of discovery and purpose in a world shared by Humans, Archons, Ancients, and gods.

['Fantasy', 'High Fantasy', 'Mythology', 'Fiction']

333

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56236618-the-archon-of-peace

The High Auction (Wisdom Revolution, #1)

Misba

In the near future, a machinist, a monk, and a mesmerizer are looking for the Source of the universe, but among the ancient scriptures, they only find the devil …Few humans in the future find the secrets of what words and sounds can do, for the Apocalypse and war led them to evolve in mind and physique. Two of them end World War III with just a speech. Some say they did a mass-hypnosis. Others say it was their voice and will. Fifty years later in South-Asia, KUSHA, a twenty-three-year-old machine-geek with social awkwardness and amnesia, tries to get the Devil’s Book with secrets of voice. In a society that worships the evolved High-Grades with voice, how you speak and which words you talk with is important. As someone who finds all solutions in books, Kusha thinks the secrets in the three-foot-long, ancient book will teach her to speak mesmerizingly. She believes it will help her evolve. So, she decides to attend the auction where the book will be sold. But there's a problem. Her idol of voice and everyone's beloved war heroes, YUAN and RUEM, are also after it for power.

['Fantasy', 'Science Fiction Fantasy', 'Post Apocalyptic', 'Science Fiction', 'Adult', 'Adventure', 'Dark']

5,644

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60215314-the-high-auction

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Lionel Shriver

The gripping international bestseller about motherhood gone awry.Eva never really wanted to be a mother - and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

['Fiction', 'Contemporary', 'Thriller', 'Horror', 'Crime', 'Drama', 'Adult']

186,581

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/80660.We_Need_to_Talk_About_Kevin

The Killer Angels (The Civil War Trilogy, #2)

Michael Shaara

In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation's history, two armies fought for two dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Shattered futures, forgotten innocence, and crippled beauty were also the casualties of war. The Killer Angels is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—a dramatic re-creation of the battleground for America's destiny.

['Historical Fiction', 'Fiction', 'Civil War', 'War', 'Historical', 'Military Fiction', 'Classics']

82,868

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/682804.The_Killer_Angels

My Side of the Mountain (Mountain, #1)

Jean Craighead George

Every kid thinks about running away at one point or another; few get farther than the end of the block. Young Sam Gribley gets to the end of the block and keeps going--all the way to the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. There he sets up house in a huge hollowed-out tree, with a falcon and a weasel for companions and his wits as his tool for survival. In a spellbinding, touching, funny account, Sam learns to live off the land, and grows up a little in the process. Blizzards, hunters, loneliness, and fear all battle to drive Sam back to city life. But his desire for freedom, independence, and adventure is stronger. No reader will be immune to the compulsion to go right out and start whittling fishhooks and befriending raccoons. Jean Craighead George, author of more than 80 children's books, including the Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves, created another prizewinner with My Side of the Mountain--a Newbery Honor Book, an ALA Notable Book, and a Hans Christian Andersen Award Honor Book. Astonishingly, she wrote its sequel, On the Far Side of the Mountain, 30 years later, and a decade after that penned the final book in the trilogy, Frightful's Mountain, told from the falcon's point of view. George has no doubt shaped generations of young readers with her outdoor adventures of the mind and spirit. (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter

['Fiction', 'Young Adult', 'Classics', 'Childrens', 'Adventure', 'Middle Grade', 'Survival']

73,473

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41667.My_Side_of_the_Mountain

The Oldest Dance (Wisdom Revolution, #2)

Misba

As one of the war heroes searches the oldest language in the ancient art of dance, he might discover the Intuitionist's power of finding answers to any questions.Missing memories might pile up if you encounter the Mesmerizer who stopped World War III with a four-minute speech, especially if he asks you to forget. Even if it’s the one and only purpose you have, you will forget it. For he has the voice. Kusha forgot what she found on the night of the High Auction.But the laws of the universe are painfully fair sometimes. Purpose always calls you, either through your dreams, or daydreams, even in nightmares … perhaps, through intuition? So the Intuitionist, Kusha, runs through the questions the universe throws at her. Each question leads her to her purpose. Her life as an unevolved, Ungraded citizen seems rich compared to those of her friends outside the walls who aren't even citizens. She wants to help her friends, but her questions, her past, her missing memories lead her to myths she never should tangle with. Most importantly, she never should encounter the war heroes who seek the Source among the devil’s scriptures and an old form of dance. Not when the dance calls her in dreams after what happened on the night of the auction.Welcome to Episode 2 of Wisdom Revolution.

['Fantasy', 'Science Fiction Fantasy', 'Post Apocalyptic', 'Science Fiction', 'Adventure', 'Utopia', 'Dark']

5,541

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60215458-the-oldest-dance

Franny and Zooey

J.D. Salinger

‘Everything everybody does is so—I don’t know—not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and—sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much only in a different way.’First published in The New Yorker as two sequential stories, ‘Franny’ and ‘Zooey’ offer a dual portrait of the two youngest members of J. D. Salinger’s fictional Glass family.Franny Glass is a pretty, effervescent college student on a date with her intellectually confident boyfriend, Lane. They appear to be the perfect couple, but as they struggle to communicate with each other about the things they really care about, slowly their true feelings come to the surface. The second story in this book, ‘Zooey’, plunges us into the world of her ethereal, sophisticated family. When Franny’s emotional and spiritual doubts reach new heights, her older brother Zooey, a misanthropic former child genius, offers her consolation and brotherly advice.Written in Salinger’s typically irreverent style, these two stories offer a touching snapshot of the distraught mindset of early adulthood and are full of the insightful emotional observations and witty turns of phrase that have helped make Salinger’s reputation what it is today.

['Fiction', 'Classics', 'Short Stories', 'Literature', 'American', 'Novels', 'Literary Fiction']

211,259

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5113.Franny_and_Zooey

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

Jung Chang

The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author.An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.

['Nonfiction', 'History', 'China', 'Biography', 'Memoir', 'Asia', 'Historical']

107,977

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1848.Wild_Swans