Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

fter falling off the wagon and becoming what he so clearly and strongly resisted-a consumer-Josh Swensen (aka Larry) finds himself in a hyper-paranoid state of no return. That is, until he's kidnapped and coaxed into resurfacing as his old persona. Before long, Larry is back on the scene with much more on his mind than a gospel Web site-this time Larry wants to affect change in government. What starts out as a... (more)

Whatever Makes You Happy: A Novel

by Lisa Grunwald

What does it take to be happy? How happy is happy enough? And what does “happy” mean, anyway? So asks Sally Farber–wife, mother, daughter, friend, working woman, and lover–in this wise and funny novel about a woman’s search for happiness in some of the right, and a few of the wrong, places. Summer in the city looms long for Sally Farber when she sends her two daughters off to camp for the first time. Suddenly... (more)

One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies

One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies

by Sonya Sones

My name is Ruby. This book is about me. It tells the deeply hideous story of what happens when my mother dies and I'm dragged three thousand miles away from my gorgeous boyfriend, Ray, to live in L.A. with my father, who I've never even met because he's such a scumbag that he divorced my mom before I was born. The only way I've ever even seen him is in the movies, since he's this megafamous actor who's been... (more)

My Mother the Cheerleader

by Robert Sharenow

Acts of courage come in all shapes and sizes. In the tumultuous New Orleans of 1960, thirteen-year-old Louise Collins finds her world turned upside down when a stranger from the North arrives at her mother's boarding-house. Louise's mother spends her mornings at the local elementary school with a group of women known as the Cheerleaders, who harass the school's first black student, six-year-old Ruby Bridges,... (more)

Dragon Moon

by Carole Wilkinson

In the time of the Han Dynasty in ancient China, a young orphan prepares for a difficult journey. Ping has grown to become a skilled Dragon Keeper, but her greatest challenge is yet to come. After rescuing the baby dragon, Kai, from the evil Emperor, she brings him to a safe haven near the border of the Empire. Now, as Kai grows into a restless young dragon, Ping faces a tough decision. She must find a way to take... (more)

Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms

Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms

by Nicolette Hahn Niman

When Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., first asked Nicolette Hahn Niman to head up his environmental organization's "hog campaign," she balked. Investigating hog manure pollution was hardly the glamorous assignment she pictured when leaving everything to work for him in New York. But Kennedy, she discovered, is not a man who takes no for an answer. Thus began Niman's fascinating odyssey into the inner workings of the... (more)

How Free Is Free?: The Long Death of Jim Crow (The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures)

How Free Is Free?: The Long Death of Jim Crow (The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures)

by Leon F. Litwack

In 1985, a black veteran of the civil rights movement offered a bleak vision of a long and troubled struggle. For more than a century, black southerners learned to live with betrayed expectations, diminishing prospects, and devastated aspirations. Their odyssey includes some of the most appalling examples of terrorism, violence, and dehumanization in the history of this nation. But, as Leon Litwack graphically... (more)

The Tourist

by Olen Steinhauer

Milo Weaver used to be a “tourist” for the CIA—an undercover agent with no home, no identity—but he’s since retired from the field to become a middle-level manager at the CIA’s New York headquarters. He’s acquired a wife, a daughter, and a brownstone in Brooklyn, and he’s tried to leave his old life of secrets and lies behind. However, when the arrest of a long-sought-after assassin sets off an investigation into... (more)

Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption

Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption

by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino

Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she slept. She was able to escape, and eventually positively identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald insisted that she was mistaken-- but Jennifer's positive identification was the compelling evidence that put him behind bars. After eleven years, Ronald was allowed to take a DNA test that proved his innocence. He was... (more)

The Dynamite Club: How a Bombing in Fin-de-Siècle Paris Ignited the Age of Modern Terror

The Dynamite Club: How a Bombing in Fin-de-Siècle Paris Ignited the Age of Modern Terror

by John M. Merriman

The fascinating story of a long-forgotten "war on terror" that has much in common with our own On a February evening in 1894, a young radical intellectual named Émile Henry drank two beers at an upscale Parisian restaurant, then left behind a bomb as a parting gift. This incident, which rocked the French capital, lies at the heart of The Dynamite Club, a mesmerizing account of Henry and his cohorts and the war... (more)

The Forgotten Legion

by Ben Kane

An epic Roman novel which follows three men and one woman bound in servitude to the Republic. Romulus and Fabiola are twins, born into slavery after their mother is raped by a drunken nobleman. At thirteen-years-old, they are sold — Romulus to gladiator school, Fabiola into prostitution where she will catch the eye of one of the most powerful men in Rome. Tarquinius is an Etruscan warrior and soothsayer, and an... (more)

Flying

by Eric Kraft

Critics have compared him to Proust, Pynchon, and Fred Astaire--an artful, slyly intelligent, wildly inventive observer of Americana. Now Eric Kraft has landed an ambitious comedy set both in our present and in an alternative 1950s universe-- Flying . It is the tail end of the 1950s, and in the town of Babbington, New York, a young dreamer named Peter Leroy has set out to build a flying motorcycle, using a... (more)

Wickett's Remedy

The author of the bestselling Bee Season returns with an accomplished but peculiarly tensionless historical novel that follows the shifting fortunes of a young Irish-American woman. Raised in tough turn-of-the-century South Boston, Lydia Kilkenny works as a shopgirl at a fancy downtown department store, where she meets shy, hypochondriacal medical student Henry Wickett. After a brief courtship, the two marry... (more)

Looking For Mr. GoodbarJudith Rossner

Looking For Mr. Goodbar

by Judith Rossner

"Complex and chilling portrait of a woman's descent into hell"--The New York Times Book Review

The Inner Circle

by T.C. Boyle

THE GROUPMary McCarthy

THE GROUP

by Mary McCarthy

I have 2 books one is in good the other has a stain on the front cover neither one has a jacket

THE SUMMER OF '39

Joe

by Larry Brown

Nearing fifty, Joe Ransom won't slow down, not in his pickup, not with a gun-and certainly not with women. But all the fast living in Mississippi won't fill the hunger Joe can't name. At fifteen, Gary Jones is already slipping through the cracks. Part of a hopeless, homeless wandering family, he's desperate for a way out. He finds it in Joe. Together they follow a twisting map to redemption-or ruinAn understated,... (more)

Mrs. Bridge

by Evan S. Connell

Before Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique there was Mrs. Bridge , an inspired novel set in the years around World War II that testified to the sapping ennui of an unexamined suburban life. India Bridge, the title character, has three children and a meticulous workaholic husband. She defends her dainty, untouched guest towels from son Douglas, who has the gall to dry his hands on one, and earnestly... (more)

Rain or Shine : A Family Memoir

by Cyra McFadden

The daughter of a rodeo announcer, Cyra McFadden grew up on the circuit, traveling all over the West with her free-spirit, hell-raising parents. "Rain or Shine" is the story of Cyra's complex relationship with her eccentric relatives as she looks back with pride, regret, and humor on family life spent and misspent in the gaudy, gritty world of rodeo. 33 photos.

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Vote For Larry

by Janet Tashjian