Category: Reads

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Book Nook: Gods of Howl Mountain, by Taylor Brown

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Blurb “A fresh, authentic, and eloquent new voice in American fiction.” – Robert Morgan, New York Times bestselling author of Gap CreekIn Gods of Howl Mountain, award-winning author Taylor Brown explores a world of folk healers, whiskey-runners, and dark family secrets in the high country of 1950s North Carolina. Bootlegger Rory Docherty has returned home to the fabled mountain of his childhood – a misty wilderness that holds its secrets close and keeps the outside world at gunpoint. Slowed by a wooden leg and haunted by memories of the Korean War, Rory runs bootleg whiskey for a powerful mountain clan in a retro-fitted ’40 Ford … Continue reading Book Nook: Gods of Howl Mountain, by Taylor Brown

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Book Nook: Jesus’ Sun, by Denis Johnson

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Blurb American master Denis Johnson’s nationally bestselling collection of blistering and indelible tales about America’s outcasts and wanderers. Denis Johnson’s now classic story collection Jesus’ Son chronicles a wild netherworld of addicts and lost souls, a violent and disordered landscape that encompasses every extreme of American culture. These are stories of transcendence and spiraling grief, of hallucinations and glories, of getting lost and found and lost again. The insights and careening energy in Jesus’ Son have earned the book a place of its own among the classics of twentieth-century American literature. It was adapted into a critically-praised film in 1999. Review Jesus’ Son was … Continue reading Book Nook: Jesus’ Sun, by Denis Johnson

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Book Nook: Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson

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Blurb A New York Times Notable Book for 2011One of The Economist‘s 2011 Books of the YearOne of NPR’s 10 Best Novels of 2011 From the National Book Award-winning author Denis Johnson (Tree of Smoke) comes Train Dreams, an epic in miniature, and one of Johnson’s most evocative works of fiction. Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West―its otherworldly flora and fauna, its rugged loggers and bridge builders―this extraordinary novella poignantly captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life. It tells the story of Robert Grainer, a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century―an … Continue reading Book Nook: Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson

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Book Nook: Vanderbilt, the Rise and Fall Of An American Dynasty, by Anderson Cooper

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Blurb New York Times bestselling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty—his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts. One of the Washington Post‘s Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2021 When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a pathological desire for money, build two empires—one in shipping and another in railroads—that would make him the … Continue reading Book Nook: Vanderbilt, the Rise and Fall Of An American Dynasty, by Anderson Cooper

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Book Nook: The Great Poets: Robert Burns

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Blurb The 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns (1759 – 1796), one of the most popular of poets, was celebrated in 2009. A pioneer of the Romantic movement, works such as “A Red, Red Rose”, “A Man’s a Man for a’ That”, and the ubiquitous “Auld Lang Syne”, have made him an international figure. Naxos AudioBooks’ popular Great Poets series marked the anniversary with this audio, bringing together all the key works. Review Yeah, you read that write. I’m reading some 18th century Scottish poetry. Consider this the start of my homework for a trip to Scotland next … Continue reading Book Nook: The Great Poets: Robert Burns

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Book Nook: All Systems Red, the Murderbot Diaries #1, by Martha Wells

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Blurb “As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure.” In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid–a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all Murderbot wants is to be … Continue reading Book Nook: All Systems Red, the Murderbot Diaries #1, by Martha Wells

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Book Nook: Artemis, by Andy Weir

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Blurb The best-selling author of The Martian returns with an irresistible new near-future thriller – a heist story set on the moon. Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you’re not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you’ve got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. … Continue reading Book Nook: Artemis, by Andy Weir

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Book Nook: Marvel Comics, The Untold Story, by Sean Howe

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Blurb The defining, behind-the-scenes chronicle of one of the most extraordinary, beloved, and dominant pop cultural entities in America’s history — Marvel Comics – and the outsized personalities who made Marvel including Martin Goodman, Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby.   “Sean Howe’s history of Marvel makes a compulsively readable, riotous and heartbreaking version of my favorite story, that of how a bunch of weirdoes changed the world…That it’s all true is just frosting on the cake.”  —Jonathan Lethem For the first time, Marvel Comics tells the stories of the men who made Marvel: Martin Goodman, the self-made publisher who forayed into comics after … Continue reading Book Nook: Marvel Comics, The Untold Story, by Sean Howe

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Book Nook: Atomic Habits, by James Clear

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Blurb: The #1 New York Times bestseller. Over 15 million copies sold! Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving–every day. James Clear, one of the world’s leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for … Continue reading Book Nook: Atomic Habits, by James Clear

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Book Nook: Mad Honey, by Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan

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Blurb NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Alternatingly heart-pounding and heartbreaking. This collaboration between two best-selling authors seamlessly weaves together Olivia and Lily’s journeys, creating a provocative exploration of the strength that love and acceptance require.”—The Washington Post GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • PEOPLE’S BOOK OF THE WEEK • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy … Continue reading Book Nook: Mad Honey, by Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan