Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The year is 1738; the place, Paris. A baby is born under a fish-monger’s bloody table in a marketplace, and abandoned. Orphaned, passed over to the monks as a charity case, already there is something in the aura of the tiny infant that is unsettling. No one will look after him; he is somehow too demanding, and, even more disturbing, something is missing: as his wet nurse tries to explain, he doesn’t smell the... (more)

Magic Tree House Boxed Set (Volumes 1-4)

Magic Tree House Boxed Set (Volumes 1-4)

by Mary Pope Osborne

Ten years ago, Jack and Annie found a Magic Tree House in the woods and the world of reading was changed forever. Millions of letters later (from children, parents, and teachers around the world!)the exciting and inspiring four books are available together in a keepsake-worthy boxed set. The perfect gift to encourage a struggling new reader or remind old fans of the way they first discovered the magic of books.

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

by Norman Doidge

An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they’ve transformed—people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable. We see a woman born... (more)

The Field Updated Ed: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe

The Field Updated Ed: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe

by Lynne McTaggart

Science has recently begun to prove what ancient myth and religion have always espoused: There may be such a thing as a life force. Lynne McTaggart, indefatigable investigative journalist, reveals a radical new biological paradigm -- that on our most fundamental level, the human mind and body are not distinct and separate from their environment but a packet of pulsating power constantly interacting with this vast... (more)

DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences

DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences

by Rick Strassman

A clinical psychiatrist explores the effects of DMT, one of the most powerful psychedelics known. * A behind-the-scenes look at the cutting edge of psychedelic research. * Provides a unique scientific explanation for the phenomenon of alien abduction experiences. From 1990 to 1995 Dr. Rick Strassman conducted DEA-approved clinical research at the University of New Mexico in which he injected sixty... (more)

Magic Tree House: Book 4

Pirates Past Noon

by Mary Pope Osborne

Illus. in black-and-white. Jack and Annie are in deep trouble when the Magic Tree House whisks them back to the days of desert islands, secret maps, hidden gold--and ruthless pirates! Will Jack and Annie discover a buried treasure? Will they find out the identity of the mysterious M? Or will they walk the plank?

A Drinking Life: A Memoir

by Pete Hamill

An acclaimed author offers an honest self-portrait of coming of age in a culture that considers drinking an essential part of becoming a man and reveals how it nearly destroyed his ability to write. Reprint. 60,000 first printing. Tour. NYT.

Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin

Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin

by Lawrence Weschler

Traces the life and career of the California artist, who currently works with pure light and the subtle modulation of empty space.

Flotsam

by David Wiesner

A bright, science-minded boy goes to the beach equipped to collect and examine flotsam--anything floating that has been washed ashore. Bottles, lost toys, small objects of every description are among his usual finds. But there's no way he could have prepared for one particular discovery: a barnacle-encrusted underwater camera, with its own secrets to share . . . and to keep. In each of his amazing picture books,... (more)

Paint the WindCathy Cash Spellman

Paint the Wind

by Cathy Cash Spellman

A plot teeming with outsize characters and melodramatic incident propels this gaudy Western extravaganza that sweeps from a Louisiana plantation during the Civil War to a wide-open Colorado mining town. Lovely, headstrong Fancy Deverell is saved from marauding Yankees by Atticus, a wise old slave whose offensive shuffling is a hint of stereotypes to come--a hissing Chinaman, a whore with a heart of gold, a laconic... (more)

Bungalow 2

by Danielle Steel

Danielle Steel takes us beyond the dazzle of Hollywood in her compelling new novel—the story of one woman’s journey from suburban mom to award-winning screenwriter...and all the joy, heartbreak, and challenges along the way. Bungalow 2 The phone call came on a hot July day—a day like any other for Marin County mom and freelance writer Tanya Harris. But this call—from Tanya’s agent—was anything but... (more)

The Bride and the Bachelors: Five Masters of the Avant-Garde

The Bride and the Bachelors: Five Masters of the Avant-Garde

by Calvin Tomkins

ANCIENT TEA HORSE ROAD: Travels With the Last of the Himalayan Muleteers

ANCIENT TEA HORSE ROAD: Travels With the Last of the Himalayan Muleteers

by Jeff Fuchs

Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

by David Rieff, Susan Sontag

"I intend to do everything...to have one way of evaluating experience—does it cause me pleasure or pain, and I shall be very cautious about rejecting the painful—I shall anticipate pleasure everywhere and find it too, for it is everywhere! I shall involve myself wholly...everything matters!" So wrote Susan Sontag in May 1949 at the age of sixteen. This, the first of three volumes of her journals and notebooks,... (more)

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World

by John Wood

The Orientalist : Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life

The Orientalist : Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life

by Tom Reiss

A thrilling page-turner of epic proportions, Tom Reiss’s panoramic bestseller tells the true story of a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince in Nazi Germany. Lev Nussimbaum escaped the Russian Revolution in a camel caravan and, as “Essad Bey,” became a celebrated author with the enduring novel Ali and Nino as well as an adventurer, a real-life Indiana Jones with a fatal secret. Reiss pursued Lev’s... (more)

Beloved

by Toni Morrison

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her... (more)

Salt

A World History

by Mark Kurlansky

Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod and The Basque History of the World , here turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the... (more)

Geisha

by Liza Dalby

In this classic best-seller, Liza Dalby, the only non-Japanese ever to have trained as a geisha, offers an insider's look at the exclusive world of female companions to the Japanese male elite. Her new preface considers the geisha today as a vestige of tradition as Japan heads into the 21st century.

The Octogenarian Ski-jumper

by Martin McGovern

This book celebrates the achievements of the famous and not-so-famous, organised according to the age they made their greatest achievement.

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: fascinating

The Story of a Murderer

by Patrick Suskind

by Mary Pope Osborne

by Norman Doidge

by Lynne McTaggart

by Rick Strassman

by Mary Pope Osborne

by Pete Hamill

by Lawrence Weschler

by David Wiesner

by Cathy Cash Spellman

by Danielle Steel

by Calvin Tomkins

by Jeff Fuchs

by David Rieff, Susan Sontag

by John Wood

by Tom Reiss

by Toni Morrison

A World History

by Mark Kurlansky

by Liza Dalby

by Martin McGovern