Fast, enjoyable read. Was there a sequel?

Interesting. I liked reading about the research studies better than I did the celebrity exempla, but the basic point that willpower is finite and fuelled by glucose is compelling.

Dated (pre-9/11) read on the problems of the post-Cold War phase. Some prescient given current events, some ... well, not especially prescient, but Kaplan's writing is usually deep and interesting enough.

I was not the target age for this when it was released, but it was a fave of former students. I found it to be an innovative and goodhearted book.

Touching story, good writing, and lovely recipes. I enjoyed.

🤔

Reads like butter. Don't expect too much happiness, though ;)

I read hard! And I hate misogny--hard!

Fewer curves than expected--& yet most appropriate to the scenic railway one's likely already on if one took in Perry Mason with mother's milk & the hardboiled with one's vitamins. & since one's adolescent fascination with Astaire AND Charisse seems to be back--zombie strength--if one's hip to jokes after The Band Wagon (1953) one'll inevitably be spoiled here. But again: is that such a bad thing? 🤔😉

I just loved this--great classic potboiler with about half maritime stuff and half shipboard drama. Lovely writing. I'll be seeking out more Gann. (On a side note, if you like movies that stay true to the book, the author adapted a 1958 star vehicle manqué with Rock Hudson and Cyd Charisse. Cyd's acting in particular gets a bad rap, but her character and the movie in general I found impressively faithful to the novel's premise).

Living doll she may have been, & if you haven't seen Cyd's best movies, hop to it--this joint memoir with her husband, one of the best of his generation of crooners, is still obviously FFO unless you dig old MGM (not me ...I just love Cyd, although the earlier Tony sections are great too if like me you also dig pre-rock pop). That said, there's some interesting ballet stuff, & her deep work ethic and attitude as she aged continue to inspire ❤️

Paranoid book for paranoid times--both like the movie and not.

Easy to read thriller with an interesting (timely) premise.

Fantastic, gripping yarn with a depth that belies its length; fascinating too for its (post)colonial scope. Don't be put off by substandard tv movie adaptations--this is on some other level entirely.

yep that's we :D

What makes this one so compelling is its exercise in trading places, even in empathy. Time well spent--I've ended up holding on to my copy.

😍

Kept me guessing. Still not sure if I missed things on the initial read or if there really were a couple of loose ends to be tied up at the end, but it was suspenseful enough for a light read.

the odd bit of startlingly good writing in this one (but very much mirrors the movie in terms of what it chooses to explain)

Shoddy little noir 'really about' the father-mother-daughter dynamic, turns out as a male fantasy either way. Diverting, possibly worth the dollar I paid for it at Dollar Tree ...

😍

Affecting, kind of reads as if Shirley Jackson was a Timothy Keller person. Good audiobook for driving. If you're not a Christian and/ or not from NYC and always wanting to read about life there ... I plead guilty on ONE of those counts ... you might or might not be hoping for something more inclusive if Passarella writes another book ;)

My grandma did not think much of this book due to its treatment of the Navy, but some of my fascination with this era surely links to the war my grandpa served in. This does have some serious points about war's meaning (or lack) wrapped up in the booze and occasional, well, rapiness on a do nothing auxiliary ship stuck in nameless Pacific backwaters. Not defending it, just think if we want to know we have to take a look :/

Very interesting account of human psychology in wartime by someone who was a POW. Also about as Randian as one might expect ...

I've posted a couple of times about this one. I ended up finding its account of pre/ post Soviet ruptures very affecting.

I have been enjoying listening to this series, launched with *In the Heat of the Night*, most of which Scribd has on audiobook. I suppose that one might quibble with the ongoing 1970s dialogue on cultural encounter: I personally am old enough to appreciate that. This installment takes Virgil Tibbs to ... well, I won't spoil it, parts East--and the denouement is surprisingly touching.

... yep.

It's taken me a long time to appreciate this book (possibly because I tend to spread readings over years). I realized, however, that the courtyard of the Soviet-style apartment complex is itself a character with a unique beauty: something I can appreciate through some similar childhood memories

Again somewhere on the "not a true YA" continuum: quick, obviously highly entertaining yarn--bit Auntie Mame ish (NYC mother and young son who sees revenants)--that I just barrelled through on tape. I will say that, of the King I've read, I always feel that the suspense is terrific and some of the culminating excesses are a letdown: here, the denouement/ end reveal in particular. It was still great fun: I barely realized that I was exercising!

Solid literary values, not exploitative, at least not at the prose level. Readers will have their own feelings about researched-based fictionalization of human trafficking, but I would say that this was moving and aims to raise awareness. Can't say if I'd put it in the young adult category--then again, as someone who did not grow up with today's YA's, this was a graphic antidote to the candy coated depictions of intimacy I've seen in those ...

Highly entertaining, meticulously-crafted noir--with a deep streak! I hope to get back to Goldberg soon.

With plenty of hard luck story memoirs out there, the author's insight and writing make this one truly special.

Hard to believe I haven't posted in two months! School ended, I guess ... I remember reading about this case when it was current (as a kid) in Good Housekeeping; it was pretty sensationalized. This, if you like true crime, is largely an attempt to be sober and serious without drawing conclusions, and I appreciated that.

#tbt ... I read this years ago, and Allen v. Farrow reinforces the identical points, so ...

Everyone should read RG (Five For Sorrow, Ten for Joy, say, or The River)--reading RG fills in women's history let alone exposes one to a master stylist. All so 1950 tho: Michener's South Pacific meets, well, an RG novel. Prepare for borderline portrayals of imaginary islanders & maybe don't read in tandem w/ Lost Horizon or subpar Conrad for all will meld. Be warned too that this is a full-on Tempest ripoff, nothing not promised on p. 1 ;)

There's a racist subplot that may or may not indicate Canadians' attitudes as SJD left Canada post girlhood (The specifics, not the racism: that we obviously had). Anyway: you can read this one as a lover of old-fashioned Victorian novels, as one seeking a historical microcosm, as an expat, as one curious about Canadian culture--and I think in all those ways that you would find it interesting (but see above).

50 pages down: you may not need to be Canadian (one way I identify) or even want to learn something about a young country with an astonishingly developed novel-writing culture, as I have always thought. This one draws one in.

Compared to Victory, whose masterful pleasures I was introduced to in university, this one has a pulpy, serialized feel. The protag ish is also a twit. But the story is memorable--even though I'm just enough of a pleb to admit that I don't always know what's going on in Conrad--and the postcolonial dynamic is admittedly fascinating ...

Haunting, ultra-readable classic whose post-colonial cast is part of the package. Like Random Harvest (a personal fave)--it's as much about the between-the-wars psyche (including of the young men who served) as about anything else.

Thus far excellent.

If you like true crime and are okay reading about the tough-to-take elements in this famous case, there is local detail and connection here (found myself on Google Earth a bit while reading). As the title suggests, this story gets at the senseless in "senseless evil" :/

If you grew up with these characters, or even if you didn't, this is a worthy (not, I don't think, exclusive) interpretation including some truly brilliant passages. At a certain point, it's largely about Hodel and Perchik.

😍

Compulsive read, more carefully wrought than its brevity (and genesis narrative, no pun ...) would suggest. Honestly Godden was an original.

Riveting, deft, balanced--and necessary--reminder, to paraphrase Faulkner, that Communist pasts (plural) may never be quite past. Speaking as one part of whose childhood was spent long-term touring vaguely similar contexts: I read this straight through in two days, never finding myself bored or lulled.

Decent thriller from a pro with some quite effective twists.

As it turns out, the movie was a bit of a travesty of what is basically a rip off of Voltaire's Candide, rolling in Americana. Not for the easily offended, and racial dialogue has, thankfully ... evolved ... but it might be worth the quick read if any of that appeals, and there are laugh-out-loud passages in the last 50-60 pages. Also, Vietnam ...