Tuesday, September 30, 2014

May ~ 2012


69. Herland...Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women who reproduce via parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction). The result is an ideal social order, free of war, conflict and domination.

I had to read this for my Women in American History class. It was fairly good, a little predictable in places, but I liked it. It did leave a cliffhanger at the end, but there is a prequel and a sequel, so I'll have to read them soon.



70. Lover Reborn…J.R. Ward
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Ever since the death of his shellan, Tohrment has been unrecognizable from the vampire leader he once was. Physically emaciated and heartbroken beyond despair, he has been brought back to the Brotherhood by a self-serving fallen angel. Now, fighting once again with ruthless vengeance, he is unprepared to face a new kind of tragedy.

When Tohr begins to see his beloved in his dreams—trapped in a cold, isolated netherworld far from the peace and tranquility of the Fade—he turns to the angel in hopes of saving the one he has lost. But because Lassiter tells him he must learn to love another to free his former mate, Tohr knows they are all doomed....

Except then a female with a shadowed history begins to get through to him. Against the backdrop of the raging war with the lessers, and with a new clan of vampires vying for the Blind King’s throne, Tohr struggles between the buried past and a very hot, passion-filled future…but can his heart let go and set all of them free?
 


71. The Passage…Justin Cronin
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When a secret project to create a super-soldier backfires, a virus leads to a plague of vampiric revenants that wipes out most of the population. One of the few bands of survivors is the Colony, a FEMA-established island of safety bunkered behind massive banks of lights that repel the virals, or dracs—but a small group realizes that the aging technological defenses will soon fail. When members of the Colony find a young girl, Amy, living outside their enclave, they realize that Amy shares the virals' agelessness, but not the virals' mindless hunger, and they embark on a search to find answers to her condition.
 
 


72. Mob Rules…Cameron Haley
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Haley's zippy debut introduces Domino Riley, the tough, streetwise lieutenant to 6,000-year-old gang boss Shanar Rashan. ("The LAPD thought he was Turkish. He was actually Sumerian.") When Domino investigates the grisly murder of a low-ranking graffiti mage, a conversation with the victim's ghost reveals that this is no standard gangland rivalry and the sorcerous gang world shadowing the real world is not the only magical game in town. In order to protect her relationship with Rashan's handsome son, Domino is forced to break the careful balance of mob rules, putting herself in increasing danger. A wise-ass jinn in a TV set, a hippie Vietnam vet werewolf, and a warrior-princess piskie round out the highly entertaining cast.
 


73. Skeleton Crew…Cameron Haley
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Bodies are hitting the pavement in L.A. like they always do, but this time they're getting right back up, death be damned. My mobbed-up outfit of magicians may be the strongest in the city, but even they aren't immune to the living dead.
And I've yet to develop a resistance to Adan Rashan.
If I don't team up with the boss's son, we won't just be at each other's throats over control of the outfit. We'll be craving hearts and brains, as well.
Because as long as this nasty spirit from the Between is stopping souls from finding peace, I'm facing the biggest supernatural crisis to ever hit the City of Angels.
 
 


74. The Lost Goddess…Tom Knox
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In the silent caves beneath France, young archaeologist Julia Kerrigan unearths an ancient skull-with a hole bored through the forehead. After she reveals her discovery, her mentor is brutally murdered. Deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, photographer Jake Thurby is offered a mysterious assignment by a beautiful Cambodian lawyer who is investigating finds at the two-thousand-year-old Plain of Jars-finds that shadowy forces want kept secret.
From the temples of Angkor Wat and the wild streets of Bangkok to the prehistoric caves in Western Europe, what links Jake's and Julia's discoveries is a strange, demonic woman whose unquenchable thirst for vengeance-and the horrors she seeks to avenge- are truly shocking.
 



75. Pure…Julianna Baggott
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Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.
 



76. The Healthy Green Drink…Jason Manheim

77. Down These Strange Streets...edited by George R.R. Martin
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All new strange cases of death and magic in the city by some of the biggest names in urban fantasy.

In this all-new collection of urban fantasy stories, editors George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois explore the places where mystery waits at the end of every alley and where the things that go bump in the night have something to fear...

Includes stories by New York Times bestselling authors Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Diana Gabaldon, Simon R. Green, S. M. Stirling, and Carrie Vaughn, as well as tales by Glen Cook, Bradley Denton, M.L.N. Hanover, Conn Iggulden, Laurie R. King, Joe R. Lansdale, John Maddox Roberts, Steven Saylor, Melinda Snodgrass, and Lisa Tuttle.





78. Eat Like A Dinosaur...Paleo Parents
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Don't be fooled by the ever-increasing volume of processed gluten-free goodies on your grocery store shelf! In a world of mass manufactured food products, getting back to basics and cooking real food with and for your children is the most important thing you can do for your family's health and well-being. It can be overwhelming when thinking about where to begin, but with tasty kid-approved recipes, lunch boxes and projects that will steer your child toward meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts and healthy fats, Eat Like a Dinosaur will help you make this positive shift.




79. The Marks of Cain...Tom Knox
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Two strangers, American David Martinez and Englishman Simon Quinn, become involved in two apparently unconnected strands of what's revealed as one unified conspiracy in Knox's problematic second thriller, which like his first, Genesis, casts recent human evolution in an unorthodox light. At the urging of his late grandfather, Martinez sets out to learn his family's true history, while Quinn looks into a series of brutal murders involving victims connected to the Basque regions of Spain and France. Both men find answers in the tumultuous history of the Pyrenees and Namibia, answers with implications so terrible that the Catholic Church is willing to conspire with a murderous Basque terrorist to conceal them. Repeated violent confrontations with supposedly deadly assassins somehow never quite result in the protagonists' deaths. That Knox, the pseudonym of British journalist Sean Thomas, supplies a rational basis for the Nazi genocide may offend some readers.



80. Behind the Bell...Dustin Diamond
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A tell-all account of Dustin Diamond's life as Samuel "Screech" Powers on the TV show Saved by the Bell, including sexual escapades among cast+crew.


81. The Saturday Big Tent Wedding...Alexander McCall Smith
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As Mma Ramotswe investigates the deaths of cows at a cattle post outside Gaborone, she finds herself also pursuing other mysteries closer to home. One of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s apprentices appears to have gotten a girl pregnant, and has run away to avoid marrying her. Meanwhile, Precious sees her beloved old van—sent to the junkyard long ago—trundling around the city again. Has the van been miraculously revived, or is she hallucinating? Further complicating matters are Violet Sephotho’s newly launched campaign for a seat in Botswana’s parliament, and Grace Makutsi’s growing fears that she’ll never be able to marry her fiancĂ© Phuti Radiphuti if she can’t find the perfect pair of wedding shoes. As ever, Precious will draw on her trademark grace and wisdom as she helps unravel all these tangled threads.
I had trouble finishing this book (and the last one of his.) I really liked this series when it first started, but as it went on I just got a bad taste about it. The characters never develop or grow and it seems like the author keeps them acting like ignorant children. It almost seems racist in a way (the characters are from Botswana), keeping them simple and stupid. The latest book in the series just came out, so I may give it one more chance, but I don't know.



82. The Last Templar...Raymond Khoury
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The Knights Templar, a small monastic military order formed in the early 1100s to protect travelers to the Holy Land, eventually grew and became wealthy beyond imagination. In 1307, the French king, feeling jealous and greedy, killed off the Templars, and by 1311, the last master, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake. The whereabouts of the Templars' treasure--and their secrets--have been the subject of legend ever since.

Four horsemen, dressed as Templars, ride their steeds up the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, crashing into a show of Vatican artifacts and stealing a coding device that can unlock the Templars' secrets about the early days of Christianity. Archaeologist Tess Chaykin is a witness to the theft, and her professional juices kick in, prompting her to join forces with FBI investigator Sean Reilly. The action moves back and forth in time between the Templars' last battle and the present-day search for the missing device and the message it will decode. Khoury is a screenwriter, and his story is nothing if not cinematic, as it skips across three continents and climaxes with a storm at sea of biblical proportions. A nice twist at the end spins the Christian history everyone's been chasing.


83. The Templar Salvation...Raymond Khoury
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In 1310, Templar knight Conrad of Tripoli stumbled on a trove of writings documenting the early days and divisions of Christianity. The Catholic Church has kept this material hidden since the fall of Constantinople in 1453, fearful that its release would undermine the church's authority and rock the foundations of Christian belief. In the present, Mansoor Zahed, an Iranian motivated by revenge for the CIA killing of his family in the 1950s, is bent on finding the trove and releasing it to undermine Western religion and stability. Meanwhile, FBI special agent Sean Reilly visits the Vatican on a quest to find a document that may help in his effort to rescue his love interest, Tess Chaykin, who's been kidnapped. The constant suspense, ever-mounting body count, and interesting historical lore will keep readers turning the pages.


84. The Sanctuary...Raymond Khoury
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Naples, 1750. In the dead of night, three men with swords burst into the palazzo of a marquis. Their leader, the Prince of San Severo, accuses the marquis of being an imposter, and demands to know a secret only the marquis harbors. In the fight that ensues, the false marquis escapes over the rooftops of Naples, leaving behind a burning palazzo and a raging prince now obsessed with finding his quarry at any cost.

Baghdad, 2003. An army unit on a routine mission makes a horrifying discovery: a state- of-the-art, concealed lab where dozens—men, women, children—have died, the subjects of gruesome experiments. The mysterious scientist they were after, a man believed to be working on a bioweapon and known only as the hakeem—the doctor—escapes, taking with him the startling truth about his work. A puzzling clue is left behind: a circular symbol of a snake feeding on its own tail.

As the power of the symbol comes to light, revealing the centuries of destruction left in its wake, one unsuspecting woman stands at the center of a conspiracy that could change the world forever. In the masterful hands of international bestseller Raymond Khoury, The Sanctuary delivers the same rapid-fire suspense and provocative scholarship that made The Last Templar a coast-to-coast blockbuster.
Yay...I've found a new author! I really enjoyed these three books and I have the rest of his on hold at the library. He reminds me of Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, and James Rollins.


85. Paleo Comfort Foods...Julie and Charles Mayfield
I like their blog, so wanted to check out their cookbook. Lots of great recipes I need to try!

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