 | Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
Buy used from: $11.97 Peggy. She says, " I think 'Collapse' is the 'Silent Spring' of the 2000's and everyone ought to read it."
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 | The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A. J. Jacobs
Buy used from: $5.18 Peggy (who sent her copy to Kate - gee why??).
Peggy recommended it for "interest, entertainment, and something you can pick up and put down (perfect for subway reading)."
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 | In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $4.55 Roberta, who commented, "How had I managed to miss Ms. Alvarez all these years?"
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 | The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman
Buy new: $19.77 / Used from: $10.87 Roberta. In Roberta's words: "It's
divine. (Despite the name, it has nothing to do with Heisenberg or quantum mechanics. It has to do with Life, Art, and Truth.) [When the series first appears in the New York Times online,] my favorite was June 2006; but now with the book in hand I'm not so sure"
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 | The Best American Science Writing 2007 (Best American Science Writing) by Gina Kolata
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $3.99 Roberta. Just the latest in this series, which are always titled "Best American Science Writing [YEAR]." Each year's winners are selected by a different
well-known science writer.
See also next entry.
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 | The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007 (The Best American Series (TM))
Buy new: $11.20 / Used from: $0.77 Roberta. Like the previous entry, this one comes out every year and entries are also selected by a different science writer. Roberta recommends them both highly.
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 | The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
Buy new: $9.60 / Used from: $8.69 Peggy, who says, "interesting and it might make you change your eating habits."
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 | One True Thing: A Novel by Anna Quindlen
Buy new: $11.16 / Used from: $2.90 Roberta.
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 | Deadline Poet: My Life As a Doggerelist by Calvin Trillin
Buy used from: $0.06 Roberta: "About Bush I and Iraq I, but amazingly timely nonetheless."
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 | A Tale of Two Lions: A Novel by Roberto Ransom
Buy new: $12.77 / Used from: $0.01 Roberta: "It has vague overtones of Life of Pi, to my weird way of thinking, but maybe it's just the lions vs. the tiger? Anyway, I wish someone else would read it. I think it deserves a wide following."
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 | The Seven Sisters by Margaret Drabble
Buy used from: $3.95 Roberta: " if you used to read everything by Margaret Drabble in the late 70s, but then stopped (I did), you might want to pick
up a more recent one. I recently read
Seven Sisters and was reminded how much I'd liked Drabble."
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 | The Palace Thief: Stories by Ethan Canin
Buy new: $11.16 / Used from: $9.41 Roberta. She likes everything by Canin but this is her favorite. Roberta says, "It's 4 novellas or long short stories, and each is excellent. The title story, which is placed last, is - to me - about ...well, I'll let you read it and see what you think."
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 | Stoner (New York Review Books Classics) by John Williams
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $8.24 Jamie S.
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 | The Agony And The Ecstacy by Stone
Buy used from: $7.49 Nancy. This and several recommendations that follow were in response to a request for recommendations about books to read before visiting Italy. Nancy wrote: "When I read it the first time, I cried when I finished it. I reread it when we went to Tuscany and Rome in 2002; I didn't cry as much, but it still was a very good book!"
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 | A Room with a View (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics) by E. M. Forster
Buy new: $5.95 / Used from: $1.61 Roberta.
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| The Little World Of Don Camillo
Buy used from: $2.50 Roberta and Kate. About a little town in Italy with a Communist mayor who is the priest Don Camillo's best friend.
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 | Women of the Shadows 2 Ed: Wives and Mothers of Southern Italy by Ann Cornelisen
Buy used from: $2.04 Roberta. Nonfiction by
a US woman, Ann Cornelisen, who went to Southern Italy shortly after WWII to do social work/foreign aid and stayed for many,
many years. She later wrote a novel called Any Four Woman Could Rob the Bank of Italy, which I also liked.
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 | Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon
Buy used from: $5.32 Roberta. First in a series of mysteries by Leon, an Englishwoman. All set in Italy. According to Roberta, The mysteries "are pretty good as mysteries and very good for local color."
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 | The Day of the Owl (New York Review Books Classics) by Leonardo Sciascia
Buy new: $10.36 / Used from: $7.63 Roberta. One in a series of mysteries set in modern Sicily. Roberta considered the one she read (which might not be this one), "dark and brooding, but felt it was entirely accurate."
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 | Italy With Kids (Open Road Travel Guides Italy With Kids) by Barbara Pape
Buy new: $16.95 / Used from: $5.69 Roberta. Recommended even if you're NOT going to Italy with kids.
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 | Robinson Crusoe (Modern Library Classics) by Daniel Defoe
Buy new: $7.95 / Used from: $4.08 Roberta: "I'd never read it and thought I should: it's good but bogs down in the middle before Friday finally gets on the scene."
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 | Middlemarch (Signet Classics) by George Eliot
Buy new: $7.95 / Used from: $4.00 Roberta: "I would say this remains my favorite book of all time, although I haven't read it in 35 years. Back then, I had started it twice before I could get into
it, but once I did, I couldn't put it down and simultaneously didn't want it to end." Got her husband to listen to it on books on tape and he loved it too.
Cynthia read it just last year and ALSO loved it.
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Listmania!
