Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Tags: this was such a great book.

Filter with multiple tags

plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Still Alice
by Lisa Genova
Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard University. Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into... (more)
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Odette: Story of a British Agent
by Jerrard Tickell
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Surviving Tenko : the story of Margot Turner
by Penny Starns
Margot Turner's tale of survival is so unusual and dramatic that it inspired the 1980s television series Tenko . The cargo ship on which she was evacuated from Singapore in 1942 was shelled, leaving her on a makeshift raft with 16 other survivors. One by one they perished, leaving her alone, burnt black by the sun, and suffering from heat exhaustion and dehydration. Discovered by a Japanese destroyer and... (more)
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Matron Knows Best
by Joan Woodcock
Joan Woodcock always dreamed of becoming a nurse. And in 1966 the dream came true. From her very first day as a naive sixteen-year-old cadet, standing nervously outside the matron's office, this is Joan's story of an eventful career spanning over forty years in NHS nursing. Working on hospital wards, casualty units and out in the community, as well as stints in a prison and a police unit dealing with sexual... (more)
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
The Faithless
by Martina Cole
The new sensational novel from the phenomenal No. 1 bestseller
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
The blue suitcase
by Marianne Wheelaghan
It is 1932, Silesia, Germany, and the eve of Antonia's 12th birthday. Hitler's Brownshirts and Red Front Marxists are fighting each other in the streets. Antonia doesn't care about the political unrest but it's all her family argue about. Then Hitler is made Chancellor and order is restored across the country, but not in Antonia's family. The longer the National Socialists stay in power, the more divided the... (more)
hung togetherAdam Boulton,joey jones
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
hung together
by Adam Boulton,joey jones
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Arnhem
The Battle for Survival
by John & Rennell, Tony Nichol
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Ma, I've got meself locked up in the mad house
by Martha Long
Martha is now in her thirties. Her daughter has left home and she is lonely and vulnerable. The hard knocks have taken their toll on her health, and as she looks into the years still lying ahead of her, she shakes her head, feeling she hasn't the heart or the strength to go on. As she teeters on the brink of a nervous breakdown, a phone call summons ghosts from the past. She discovers that one of the family is... (more)
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
The War on Our Doorstep: London's East End and How the Blitz Changed it Forever
by Harriet Salisbury, The Museum of London Group
London's East Enders are known for being a tough, humorous and lively lot. In the early 20th century, families crowded into single rooms, children played on the streets, and neighbors' doors were never locked in case you needed an escape route from the police. World War II changed everything. During the Blitz, men set off for work never to return and rows of houses were reduced to rubble overnight. Yet the East... (more)
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Tales of the Gypsy Dressmaker
by Thelma Madine
Tales of the Gypsy Dressmaker is the much-anticipated memoir from Thelma Madine, the dressmaker and breakaway star from Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, the most-talked about show on TV in 2011. From 200 ft trains to 20 stone skirts, hundreds of LED lights to thousands of Swarovski crystals, gypsy girls spend their childhoods dreaming of fairytale dresses. Thelma is the woman who makes these dreams come true. Left with... (more)
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Hanging hill
by Mo Hayder
The Victim: A teenage girl has been brutally murdered on her way home from school. The cryptic message 'all like her' is crudely written on her body. The Silence: The dead girl's friends are deeply shocked and upset, but they all refuse to reveal anything about her last movements. Who are they protecting? And what more do they know? The Fear: Headstrong Detective Inspector Zoe Benedict knows exactly how she wants... (more)
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Many Forms of Madness: A Family's Struggle With Mental Illness and the Mental Health System
by Rosemary Radford Ruether
&#34In telling the story of her son's thirty-year struggle with schizophrenia, Rosemary Ruether lays bare the inhumane treatment throughout history of people with mental illness. Despite countless reforms by "idealistic reformers" and an enlightened understanding that mental illness is a physical disease like any other, conditions for people who struggle with mental illness are little improved. Ruether asks... (more)
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Sapper Martin: The Secret Great War Diary of Albert Martin
by Richard van Emden
Albert John ('Jack') Martin was a thirty-two-year-old clerk at the Admiralty when he was called up to serve in the army in September 1916. These diaries, written in secret, hidden from his colleagues and only discovered by his family after his return home, present the Great War with heartbreaking clarity, written in a voice as compelling and distinctive as Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon and all the more... (more)
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Forgotten voices of Dunkirk
by Joshua Levine
It could have been the biggest military disaster suffered by the British in the Second World War, but instead the mass evacuation of Dunkirk became an inspiration and the "Dunkirk spirit" became synonymous with the strength of the British people in adversity. Towards the end of May 1940, over 400,000 Allied troops were trapped in and around the port of Dunkirk without shelter or supplies. Hitler's tanks were just... (more)
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Poland Alone: Britain, SOE and the Collapse of Polish Resistance, 1944
by Jonathan Walker
Poland was the "tripwire" that brought Britain into World War II, but it was largely the fear of the new Nazi-Soviet Pact rather than the cementing of an old relationship that created the formal alliance. But neither Britain, nor Poland’s older ally, France, had the material means to prevent Poland being overrun in 1939. The broadcast, "Poland is no longer alone" had a distinctly hollow ring. During the next four... (more)
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Empty Cradles
by Margaret Humphreys
Empty Cradles is a powerful testament to an ordinary woman's astonishing dedication, compassion and stubborn courage. In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker and mother of two, investigated the case of a woman who claimed that, at the age of four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret Humphreys soon discovered that this woman's story was... (more)
plan to read
reading now
I’ve read it
favorite
want to own
own it
remove book
Brothers in War
One family's great war sacrifice for King and country.
by Michael Walsh
Brothers in War is the immensely powerful and deeply tragic story of the Beechey brothers and how they paid the ultimate price for their country. All eight went to fight in the Great War on such far-flung battlefields as France, Flanders, East Africa, and Gallipoli. Only three would return alive. Even amid the carnage of the trenches, it was a family trauma almost without parallel. Their wives and sweethearts... (more)