This is how the enormous, captivating first book, which is set in the underground of modern Bombay, begins. Lin, an ex-convict with a fake passport who escapes from an Australian maximum security prison in search of a city’s bustling streets where he may vanish, tells the story of Shantaram. The two enter Bombay’s secret society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and performers, Indians and exiles from other nations, who look for what they cannot find elsewhere in this amazing location, accompanied by his guide and devoted buddy Prabaker.
Lin is a guy on the run who has no family, home, or identification. He runs a clinic in one of the city’s most impoverished slums while learning the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. He discovers war, torture in detention, murder, and a string of sinister betrayals as a result of his search. Two people possess the keys that can free Lin from the secrets and intrigues that have bound her. The first is Khader Khan, a mafia figurehead, criminal philosopher, and saint who served as Lin’s tutor in the Golden City’s criminal underworld. The second is Karla, who is attractive, secretive, and motivated by secrets that torture her but endow her with frightening power.
This massive novel encompasses the entirety of human existence, with a deep love for India at its core. It includes burning slums and five-star hotels, passionate love and jail agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood movies, spiritual gurus, and mujaheddin guerrillas. It is unquestionably the literary debut of an amazing voice, based on the author’s life.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.”
“Sometimes you break your heart in the right way, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it.”
“The best revenge, like the best sex, is performed slowly, and with the eyes open.”
“Happiness is a myth. It was invented to make us buy new things.”
The son of a poorly educated boat owner in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam had an exceptional career as a defense scientist that culminated in receiving the highest civilian honor in India, the Bharat Ratna. In his role as director of the nation’s defense R&D program, Kalam showed the enormous potential for dynamism and creativity present in what appeared to be dormant research institutions. This is the tale of Kalam’s ascent from obscurity, his difficulties on the personal and professional fronts, and the development of the Agni, Prithvi, Akash, Trishul, and Nag missiles, which have made India a missile power of note in the world stage. This is a story about internal and international politics as well as science, and it is also the story of independent India’s quest for scientific self-sufficiency and defense autonomy.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Be active! Take on responsibility! Work for the things you believe in. If you do not, you are surrendering your fate to others.”
“We are all born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire and fill the world with the glow of its goodness.”
“To live only for some unknown future is superficial. It is like climbing a mountain to reach the peak without experiencing its sides. The sides of the mountain sustain life, not the peak. This is where things grow, experience is gained and technologies are mastered. The importance of the peak lies only in the fact that it defines the sides.”
“If you want to leave your footprints On the sands of time Do not drag your feet.”
“Let not thy winged days be spent in vain. When once gone no gold can buy them back again.”
Stephanie Land’s aspirations to leave her small village in the Pacific Northwest at the age of 28 and follow her goals of going to college and becoming a writer were derailed when a summer romance resulted in an unplanned pregnancy. To make ends meet, she started working as a housekeeper. Determined to provide her daughter the greatest life possible, Stephanie worked long days, pursued her college degree online, and started writing nonstop.
The movie Maid delves into the dark side of upper-middle-class America and the truth of what it’s like to work for them. Stephanie describes her interactions with her clients, many of whom she knows a lot about but who don’t recognize her from any other cleaner, as “I’d become a nameless ghost.” She starts to find optimism in her own direction as she learns more about the tragic and loving aspects of her clients’ life. She gives the “servant” worker and those living in poverty who are pursuing the American Dream a voice through her journalism. The story of Maid is not just Stephanie’s.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Our space was a home because we loved each other in it.”
“I love you, I whispered to myself. I’m here for you. Reassurance of self-love was all I had.”
“The months of poverty, instability, and insecurity created a panic response that would take years to undo.”
“Like I had been in the wrong for leaving a man who threatened me. I knew there were countless women out there in the same situation as I had been.”
“I could be as reckless as I wanted with my heart, but not with hers.”
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Famous Rock Band is a joint autobiography of Mötley Crüe written by Neil Strauss of the New York Times and the band members Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Vince Neil, and Nikki Sixx. It was first released in 2001 and details the band’s beginnings, as well as their fame and highs and lows. Over 100 images, largely in black and white, are included in the book. In the center of the book, there is a 16-page color section.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“On Ecstasy, Joan Rivers looks like Pamela Anderson, so imagine what Pamela Anderson looked like.”
“We thought we had elevated animal behavior to an art form. But then we met Ozzy.”
“Looking down on it from the helicopter, with a bottle of Jack in my left hand, a bag of pills in my right hand, and a blond head bobbing up and doen in my lap, I felt like the king of the world.”
“There was one dude in a jeans jacket who I swear to God shit in his pants when all of a sudden I was inches away from his face playing drums in the air.”
“The angry man will defeat Himself in battle As well as in life.”
Childhood for David Goggins was a nightmare filled with deprivation, discrimination, and physical abuse. However, Goggins changed himself from a hopeless, obese young man into one of the best endurance athletes in the world via self-control, mental fortitude, and hard training. He was the only man in history to successfully complete the rigorous training required to become a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller. He then broke records in a number of endurance competitions, earning him the title of “The Fittest (Real) Man in America” from Outside magazine.
He discusses his incredible life experience in Can’t Hurt Me and demonstrates that most people only use 40% of their potential. This is what Goggins refers to as The 40% Rule, and his life narrative shows how anyone can use it to overcome sorrow, face fear, and realize their full potential.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.”
“In the military we always say we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training,”
“No one is going to come help you. No one’s coming to save you.”
“I thought I’d solved a problem when really I was creating new ones by taking the path of least resistance.”
“It’s a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day.”
Walden; or, Life in the Woods, first published in 1854, is a vivid depiction of Henry D. Thoreau’s time spent alone in a remote hut at Walden Pond. It is among the most important and captivating works of literature in the United States. This new paperback edition commemorates the 150th anniversary of this timeless book and was introduced by renowned American author John Updike. The majority of Walden’s content, which includes interesting passages like “Reading” and “The Pond in the Winter,” is taken from Thoreau’s notebooks. A trip to Concord, a description of his bean field, and Thoreau’s encounters with an Irish family and a Canadian woodcutter are among his other well-known passages. This is the definitive version of Walden, as close to Thoreau’s original purpose as the evidence permits. This is the appropriate presentation of Thoreau’s monumental role of social critique and dissent for the student and the general reader.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
One of the most notorious figures in American finance during the 1990s was Jordan Belfort, the former boss of the infamous investment firm Stratton Oakmont. A brilliant and cunning stock-chopper, Belfort took his merry gang on a crazy ride out of the canyons of Wall Street and into a sizable office on Long Island. Belfort now tells a story of greed, status, and luxury that no one could have imagined in his astonishing and entertaining tell-all autobiography.
Belfort’s hyped-up, stoned-out traders browbeat clients into a stock purchase that was promised to make huge profits—for the house—at Stratton Oakmont, which is rumored to be the inspiration for the movie Boiler Room. But an insatiable thirst for vice, dubious methods, and a tragic alliance with up-and-coming shoe designer Steve Madden would put Belfort in trouble with the police and plunge him into terrifying darkness of his own.
Here is the extraordinary tale of an everyday individual who went from hustling Italian ices at sixteen to making hundreds of millions of dollars, from the stormy relationship Belfort shared with his model wife as they ran a crazy household with two small children, full-time employees of twenty-two, a pair of bodyguards, and hidden cameras everywhere. Even as the SEC and FBI zeroed in on them. till everything collapsed.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Without action, the best intentions in the world are nothing more than that: intentions.”
“There’s no nobility in poverty.”
“The easiest way to make money is -create something of such value that everybody wants and go out and give and create value, the money comes automatically.”
“I’ve got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?”
“They were drunk on youth, fueled by greed, and higher than kites.”
What happens when you learn that the guy you’ve centered your life around didn’t actually exist? When something that you thought “it could never happen to me” does?
When Jen Waite starts to discover that her devoted husband—the father of her little daughter, her best friend, and the love of her life—fits the standard definition of a psychopath, she asks herself these questions. Waite details every tragic find, every life-ending deception, and what transpires after the dust settles on her broken marriage in a candid, first-person account.
Waite seeks to find the truth and restore confidence in her marriage after receiving a troubling email that makes her believe her husband is having an affair. Instead, she discovers more deceit, unfaithfulness, and treachery than she ever anticipated. Waite incessantly scrutinizes her connection, searching for any instance from the previous five years that wasn’t a part of the elaborate lie and deception scheme. With a dual-timeline narrative structure, we witness Waite’s romance sprout, bloom, and wither all at once, heightening the impact of the pain and disbelief.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“when you come out on the other side of this, the amount of power you walk away with is going to blow your fucking mind.”
“sometimes it takes going through hell to find yourself.”
“It’s like the mask drops when they are called on to be the nurturer in the relationship for once.”
“I’m just pointing out that it is now a pattern of behavior. Are you OK with this happening again in, say, five years? Because it seems like this type of behavior is part of who Marco is.”
“You have to grieve the family and the future you thought you would have.”
In Zen & the Art of Motorbike Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig, a father and his young son travel across the American Northwest on a motorcycle during the summer. The book is an analysis of how we live and a meditation on how to live better.
Robert M. Pirsig wrote a book titled Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, which was initially released in 1974. It is the first of Pirsig’s books to examine his idea of Quality and is a dramatized autobiography.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion.”
“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
“Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive”
“For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses. ”
Raina merely desires to be a typical sixth-grader. However, after leaving Girl Scouts one evening, she trips and hurts her two front teeth badly. This sets off a protracted and stressful process that includes surgery, headgear that is embarrassing, and even a retainer with false teeth attached. Additionally, there are still other issues to contend with, like a significant earthquake, boy confusion, and unfriendly friends. Anyone who attended middle school will be able to relate to this authentic coming-of-age story, especially those who have experienced some dental drama of their own.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Weird…something happens when you smile at people. They smile back”
“But the more I focused on my interests, the more it brought out things I liked about myself”
A tender, poignant story of unwavering love in a family that gave the author the ferocious desire to build out a prosperous life on her own terms despite its obvious imperfections.
Jeannette Walls was raised by parents whose values and obstinate nonconformity served as both a curse and a blessing for them. Four kids were born to Rex and Rose Mary Walls. They initially led a nomadic lifestyle, traveling between Southwest desert settlements and camping in the mountains. When Rex was sober, he captivated his children’s attention by teaching them about physics, geology, and, most importantly, how to live freely. Rex was a captivating, bright man. Rose Mary, a writer and painter who couldn’t stomach having to support her family, referred to herself as an “excitement addict.” Making an artwork that would endure a lifetime was more appealing than preparing a dinner that would be eaten in fifteen minutes.
The Walls eventually returned to the depressing West Virginia mining town, and the family from which Rex Walls had tried everything in his power to flee when the money ran out or the romanticism of the nomadic existence faded. He ingested. He took the cash for groceries and vanished for many days. As the family’s instability worsened, Jeannette and her siblings were left to fend for themselves. They helped one another cope with their parents’ betrayals until they eventually had the means and the determination to leave the house.
Not only does Jeannette Walls’ ability to escape with her wits, courage, and determination astound us, but she also portrays her parents with such warmth and kindness. Hers is a tale of triumph over all adversity as well as a beautiful, touching account of unwavering love in a family that, despite its severe defects, gave her the burning desire to forge a prosperous life on her terms. Jeannette Walls concealed her ancestry for 20 years. She now shares her own narrative.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.”
“One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.”
“I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.”
“Sometimes you need a little crisis to get your adrenaline flowing and help you realize your potential.”
“If you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim”
The first time Tara Westover entered a classroom, she was 17 years old. She was raised by survivalists in the highlands of Idaho, where she stocked up on home-canned peaches and slept with her “head-for-the-hills bag” in case the world ended. She salvaged in her father’s junkyard in the winter and boiled herbs for her mother, a midwife, and healer, in the summer.
Tara saw a doctor or nurse because her father forbids going to hospitals. Herbalism was used to heal burns from explosions as well as gashings and concussions at home. The family was so cut off from society that no one was there to make sure the kids went to school or to step in when Tara’s older brother started acting violently.
The story of the battle for self-invention is told in the book Educated. It is a story about devoted family relationships and the pain associated with breaking them. Westover has created a global coming-of-age story that captures the essence of what education is and what it provides: the viewpoint to see one’s personal life through new eyes and the determination to alter it. Westover has done this with the acute insight that sets all great writers apart.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you.”
“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
“We are all of us more complicated than the roles we are assigned in the stories other people tell”
“I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money.”
“Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were.”
Untamed is a powerful wake-up call as well as an intimate narrative that is simultaneously soulful and hilarious, aggressive and sympathetic. It is the tale of how one woman came to understand that a good mother does not slowly die for her kids, but rather teaches them how to live completely. It is the tale of navigating divorce, creating a new blended family, and realizing that whether a family is fractured or entire depends less on its makeup than on each individual’s capacity to contribute her whole self to the table. And it’s the tale of how every one of us can start to believe in ourselves enough to establish boundaries, come to terms with our bodies, honor our rage and heartache, and unlock new our most real, wildest instincts in order to transform into women who can, at long last, look in the mirror and declare: There She Is.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“When a woman finally learns that pleasing the world is impossible, she becomes free to learn how to please herself.”
“This life is mine alone. So I have stopped asking people for directions to places they’ve never been.”
“Being human is not hard because you’re doing it wrong, it’s hard because you’re doing it right.”
“Blessed are those brave enough to make things awkward, for they wake us up and move us forward.”
“WE CAN DO HARD THINGS.”
A tender, poignant story of unwavering love in a family that gave the author the ferocious desire to carve out a prosperous life on her own terms despite its obvious imperfections.
Jeannette Walls was raised by parents whose values and obstinate nonconformity served as both a curse and a blessing for them. Four kids were born to Rex and Rose Mary Walls. They initially led a nomadic lifestyle, traveling between Southwest desert settlements and camping in the mountains. When Rex was sober, he captivated his children’s attention by teaching them about physics, geology, and, most importantly, how to live freely. Rex was a captivating, bright man. Rose Mary, a writer and painter who couldn’t stomach having to support her family, referred to herself as an “excitement addict.” Making an artwork that would endure a lifetime was more appealing than preparing a dinner that would be eaten in fifteen minutes.
The Walls eventually returned to the depressing West Virginia mining town, and the family from which Rex Walls had tried everything in his power to flee when the money ran out or the romanticism of the nomadic existence faded. He ingested. He took the cash for groceries and vanished for many days. As the family’s instability worsened, Jeannette and her siblings were left to fend for themselves. They helped one another cope with their parents’ betrayals until they eventually had the means and the determination to leave the house.
Not only does Jeannette Walls’ ability to escape with her wits, courage, and determination astound us, but she also portrays her parents with such warmth and kindness. Hers is a tale of triumph over all adversity as well as a beautiful, touching account of unwavering love in a family that, despite its severe defects, gave her the burning desire to forge a prosperous life in her own way.
Jeannette Walls concealed her ancestry for 20 years. She now shares her own narrative.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.”
“Things usually work out in the end.”
“What if they don’t?”
“That just means you haven’t come to the end yet.”
“One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.”
“I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.”
“Sometimes you need a little crisis to get your adrenaline flowing and help you realize your potential.”
The 2012 memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by American author, writer, and podcaster Cheryl Strayed. In her memoir, Strayed refers to her 1995 1,100-mile trek over the Pacific Crest Trail as a voyage of self-discovery.
Cheryl Strayed believed she had lost everything when she was twenty-two. After her mother passed away, her family dispersed, and her marriage quickly fell apart. With nothing left to lose, she took the rashest choice of her life four years later. She would travel more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail by herself, without any expertise or preparation, from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State.
Wild effectively conveys the terrors and delights of one young lady pressing forth against all odds on a trip that maddened, empowered, and finally healed her. It is told with suspense and elegance, glittering with love and humor.
ISBN 13:9780307592736
A young neurosurgeon who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer seeks to respond to the question, “What makes a life worth living?” in this profoundly touching and precisely observed memoir. Readers of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Anne Lamott will find this work to be highly recommended.
On the cusp of finishing ten years of training to become a neurosurgeon at the age of 36, Paul Kalanithi received a stage IV lung cancer diagnosis. He alternated between working as a doctor caring for the terminally ill and being patient fighting for life. The future he and his wife had envisioned vanished in an instant. When Breath Becomes Air follows Kalanithi’s development from a gullible medical student who was “possessed,” as he put it, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life,” to a Stanford neurosurgeon who works in the brain, the most important location for a person’s identity, and then to a patient and new father who must face his own mortality.
When faced with death, what makes life worthwhile? What do you do when your future flattens out into an endless present and is no more a ladder toward your aspirations in life? What does it mean to foster a new life as one dies off when you have a child? In this extraordinarily compelling and astutely observed book, Kalanithi addresses some of these issues. While writing this book, Paul Kalanithi passed away in March 2015, yet his words continue to serve as a mentor and a gift to all of us. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.'” A talented writer who also served as a doctor, When Breath Becomes Air is a memorable, inspirational look at the difficulty of facing death and the bond between a patient and a doctor.
Sylvia Plath, an American author, and poet, only wrote one book, The Bell Jar. The book, which was first released in 1963 under the alias “Victoria Lucas,” is semi-autobiographical, albeit places and people’s identities have been changed.
The Bell Jar details Esther Greenwood’s breakdown: clever, attractive, incredibly gifted, and accomplished, but slowly crumbling—possibly for the final time. Sylvia Plath expertly engrosses the reader in Esther’s breakdown to the point where Esther’s insane behavior seems entirely plausible and approachable like watching a movie. The Bell Jar is a disturbing American classic thanks to its astounding achievement of penetrating so deeply into the terrifying recesses of the psyche.
When Thomas McFadden, a convicted English drug trafficker who offered tours inside Bolivia’s famed San Pedro prison, was discovered, backpacker Rusty Young was traveling throughout South America. Young Australian journalists traveled to La Paz to attend one of Thomas’s illicit tours out of curiosity. As they worked together to document Thomas’s experiences in jail, they quickly became friends and then collaborators. For the following three months, Rusty lived within the prison, sharing a cell with Thomas, and documenting one of the oddest and most captivating prison tales ever. He did this by bribing the guards to let him stay. Marching Powder is the end product.
The premise of this book is that San Pedro is not your typical jail. It is predicted that inmates will purchase their cells from real estate agents. Some people own and operate businesses. Families who are in prison house women and kids. It is a place where drug lords and dishonest politicians reside in opulent homes while the lowest inmates endure conditions of poverty and misery.
Violence is a constant threat, and at night, some of Bolivia’s busiest cocaine labs are located in parts of San Pedro that during the daytime echo with the sound of children. Cocaine, often known as “Bolivian marching powder,” makes life bearable in San Pedro. Even the prison feline is dependent. Marching Powder is also a story of camaraderie; it takes place in a world where humor can balance out terror and where compassion and brutality may coexist in the same prison cell. This is an interesting narrative of penetration into the South American drug society and cutting-edge travel writing.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“You have fallen badly, señor gringo. Bribery is a very serious crime in this country. You will have to pay.”
“San Pedro prison, apart from being a social microcosm, is also a microeconomy that operates under basic capitalist principles. In fact, it’s probably more efficient than the whole Bolivian national economy. And more democratic, too, but I’ll explain the prison election system to you another day.”
McNab’s work, a work of fiction titled “Remote Control,” has already earned him a spot on this list. The former member of the SAS makes a second appearance in his book that was published in 1993 and is about a mission that took place behind enemy lines during the 1991 Gulf War. During that conflict, eight members of the SAS regiment set out on a top-secret mission that was intended to infiltrate them deep behind enemy lines.
They were to locate and destroy mobile Scud launchers, as well as sever the underground network connection that connected Baghdad and the northwestern part of Iraq. This was to be done under the command of Sergeant Andy McNab. Others who were involved in the mission have claimed that certain aspects of the book are either made up or exaggerated to heighten the sense of suspense. McNab weaves a compelling tale of bravery in the face of overwhelming challenges, and this story is compelling regardless of the truth regarding the mission.
Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Sisterhood Bond are depicted in this True Story. When Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek hear the word “mom” after more than a decade, it triggers memories that they have kept hidden since they were young and nails like an eagle’s talons. Before now. Their evil mother, Shelly, tortured and mistreated her daughters for years in secret in their farmhouse in Raymond, Washington, subjecting them to unspeakable humiliation, abuse, and mental terrors. Despite everything, Nikki, Sami, and Tori formed a resilient friendship that made them less exposed than Shelly had anticipated. The sisters discovered the fortitude and strength to flee an intensifying nightmare that resulted in several murders, even as others were dragged into their mother’s sinister web.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“I loved my mother because I didn’t know I had a choice. I had to love her.”
“that 10 percent of a nightmare is still a nightmare.”
“Her perpetual despondency preserved forever in black and white.”
“Randy had an inkling that something else was afoot. Shelly’s father appeared too eager to pass his daughter off to another man.”
“Humor was the curtain she put around everything.”
Private eye Nathan Heller might be willing to put his life in danger to make a Depression dollar in 1932’s mob-ridden Chicago, but he never compromises his razor-sharp wit. That’s why both mystery enthusiasts and critics place the historical thriller True Detective at the top of their lists, and why the book won the Private Eye Writers of America’s Shamus Award for best novel. Author Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition) has just released a new edition of the modern classic that features Nathan Heller in all his guts and glory. Nathan Heller of the pickpocket detail, the city’s youngest plainclothes officer, is tasked with cleaning up Chicago’s tarnished reputation in time for the World’s Fair.
Heller finds himself an inadvertent and unwilling participant in an assassination attempt on Frank Nitti, the heir to Al Capone when the Mayor’s “Hoodlum Squad” drags him along on a raid with no instructions other than to keep his mouth shut and his gun nearby. He soon finds himself in the thick of a mob vs. mayor power struggle, and the young detective must foil a political assassination that could have global repercussions in Miami Beach. Readers interact with historical figures like “Dutch” Reagan, George Raft, and FDR himself as Collins’ explosive and evocative large-landscape historical thriller mixes the complex history of Chicago’s Century of Progress with a classic noir mystery.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“they maybe didn’t deserve respect, exactly, but I knew enough to give them some.”
“for work these days; nobody had been hired in janitorial”
All of Mr. Boddy’s enigmatic guests are made suspects after he is killed at Hill House.
Steve Harmon, a 16-year-old, is on trial for murder. According to reports, Steve acted as the lookout when the proprietor of a drugstore in Harlem was shot and killed inside of his business. Steve is used as a pawn by “the system,” which is filled with cynical officials and dishonest inmates who will turn anyone in to reduce their own sentences, whether or not they are guilty. Steve is forced to consider his identity for the first time as he prepares to enter prison, where he may spend the rest of his days.
Steve, an aspiring filmmaker, attempts to turn his trial into a script in order to cope with the horrifying circumstances that surround him. Scene by scene, he records the entire account of how his entire life was abruptly changed. But despite his efforts, reality becomes hazy and his vision becomes distorted to the point where he is unable to distinguish between himself and the truth. The writing of Walter Dean Myers is at its finest in this gripping book.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I’ll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me. MONSTER.”
“They take away your shoelaces and your belt so you can’t kill yourself no matter how bad it is. I guess making you live is part of the punishment.”
“The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help.”
“he was trying to convince himself that he wasn’t guilty.”
“Think about all the tomorrows of your life.”
“The movie is more real in so many ways than the life I am leading. No, that’s not true. I just desperately wish this was only a movie.”
The Hartes and the Golds have shared everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duties over the course of their eighteen years of living next to one another. They have become so close that it appears as though they have known each other forever. It’s hardly surprising that Chris and Emily’s friendship develops into something more in high school since they’ve always been best friends—parents and kids alike. Ever since they were born, they have been soul mates.
No one is prepared for the shocking reality that Emily is dead at the age of 17 after suffering a head injury from a gunshot when midnight hospital calls start coming in. The firearm Chris grabbed from his father’s cabinet had one live round that is still in it; Chris claims to have intended to use it for himself. But the suicide pact Chris has outlined raises questions in the mind of a nearby detective.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“I, um, I have this problem. I broke up with my boyfriend, you see. And I’m pretty upset about it, so I wanted to talk to my best friend. […] The thing is, they’re both you.”
“You know, the mind is a remarkable thing. Just because you can’t see the wound doesn’t mean it isn’t hurting. It scars all the time, but it heals.”
“She was all the things I wasn’t. And i was all the things she wasn’t. she could paint circles around anyone; I couldn’t even draw a straight line. She was never into sports; I’ve always been. Her hand, it fit mine.”
“No matter who you are, there is always some part of you that wishes you were someone else, and when, for a millisecond, you get that wish, it’s a miracle.”
“The mind is a remarcable thing. Just because you can’t see the wound doesn’t mean it isn’t hurting”
A frantic race against the clock…and an unforgiving foe. An unidentified young woman was killed in a run-down hotel, her identifying features destroyed by acid. In the sweltering heat of a Saudi Arabian public square, a parent was executed publicly. An infamous Syrian biotech expert was discovered blind in a junkyard near Damascus. Human remains in flames on an isolated Afghan mountainside. A perfect scheme to execute a terrible crime against humanity. Only one man may travel the route that connects them all.’
Best Quotes from this Book:
“nobody’s ever been arrested for a murder; they have only ever been arrested for not planning it properly.”
“If you want to be free, all you have to do is let go.”
“You can kill a thinker, but you can’t kill the thought.”
“The world doesn’t change in front of your eyes, it changes behind your back.”
“In war, the first casualty is truth.”
Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter is a dour narrative of crime, retribution, and the search for ever-elusive forgiveness. It is a story of being down and out but never down for good. The story revolves around the exploits of Jack Levitt, an orphaned youngster scraping by in the dingy pool halls and sleazy hotels of Portland, Oregon. Billy Lancing, a talented pool hustler and young black runaway, becomes pals with Jack. Jack is transferred to a reform school after a failed theft, where he is abused and placed in seclusion until being released. Billy has since become a member of the middle class, getting married, having a son, owning a business, and having a mistress. However, neither Jack nor Billy can avoid their troubled pasts, and before their unusual double drama reaches to a violent and revelatory conclusion, they will reunite in San Quentin.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“All night long, in his cell, he burned with hatred. It did not matter what he thought, it was how he felt; and alone in the darkness of his cell, with the muttering noises of the tank around him, he felt like murdering the universe.”
“He did not want to see the war movie. It would be full of shit.”
“When you lose you lose forever, and when you win it only lasts a second or two.”
“He promptly forgot all about being the hero of a coward’s nightmare,”
“He came to see that marriage was not an institution, not even an idea, but a rational social process whose function was to raise children properly.”
In Zen & the Art of Motorbike Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig, a father and his young son travel across the American Northwest on a motorcycle during the summer. The book is an analysis of how we live and a reflection on how to live better.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“You look at where you’re going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it’s all gone. ”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
At Westworld, the ultimate resort, you can live out your desires for $1,000 per day. Any human need, including murder, violence, and wild sexual abandonment, is satisfied by fully automated, humanoid robots created solely for your amusement.
Up until a single man stands alone against the crazy machines bent on complete carnage as a little computer casualty spreads like wildfire!
Best Quotes from this Book:
“What is your itinerary?”
“To meet my maker.”
“Ah. Well. You’re in luck. And what do you want to say to your maker?”
“A most mechanical and dirty hand [laughs]. I shall have such revenge on you…both. The things I will do, what they are, yet I know not. But they will be the terrors of the earth. You don’t know where you are, do you? You’re in a prison for your own sins.”
― Michael Crichton, Westworld
“Welcome to Westworld, where nothing can go wrong…go wrong…go wrong.”
― Michael Crichton, Westworld