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Book 20
The Wishsong of Shannara - Terry Brooks

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The End of Faith (religion, terror and the future of reason) - Sam Harris

From play.com

This important and timely book delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today's world. Sam Harris offers a vivid historical tour of mankind's willingness to suspend reason in favour of religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are used to justify harmful behaviour and sometimes heinous crimes. He asserts that in the shadow of weapons of mass destruction, we can no longer tolerate views that pit one true god against another.

Most controversially, he argues that we cannot afford moderate lip service to religion - an accommodation that only blinds us to the real perils of fundamentalism. While warning against the encroachment of organised religion into world politics, Harris also draws on new evidence from neuroscience and insights from philosophy to explore spirituality as a biological, brain-based need. He calls on us to invoke that need in taking a secular humanistic approach to solving the problems of this world.

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Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World - Barbara Ehrenreich

From amazon.co.uk

This brilliant new book from the author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch explores the tyranny of positive thinking, and offers a history of how it came to be the dominant mode in the USA. Ehrenreich conceived of the book when she became ill with breast cancer, and found herself surrounded by pink ribbons and bunny rabbits and platitudes. She balked at the way her anger and sadness about having the disease were seen as unhealthy and dangerous by health professionals and other sufferers.

In her droll and incisive analysis of the cult of cheerfulness, Ehrenreich also ranges across contemporary religion, business and the economy, arguing, for example, that undue optimism and a fear of giving bad news sowed the seeds for the current banking crisis. She argues passionately that the insistence on being cheerful actually leads to a lonely focus inwards, a blaming of oneself for any misfortunes, and thus to political apathy. Rigorous, insightful and bracing as always, and also incredibly funny, "Happy Face" uncovers the dark side of the 'have a nice day' nation.

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Things The Grandchildren Should Know - Mark Oliver Everett

From amazon.co.uk

How does one young man survive the deaths of his entire family and manage to make something worthwhile of his life? In Things The Grandchildren Should Know Mark Oliver Everett tells the story of what it's like to grow up the insecure son of a genius in a wacky Virginia Ice Storm-like family.

Left to run wild with his sister, his father off in some parallel universe of his own invention, Everett's upbringing was 'ridiculous, sometimes tragic and always unsteady'. But somehow he manages to not only survive his crazy upbringing and ensuing tragedies; he makes something of his life, striking out on a journey to find himself by channelling his experiences into his, eventually, critically acclaimed music with the Eels.

But it's not an easy path. Told with surprising candour, Things The Grandchildren Should Know is an inspiring and remarkable story, full of hope, humour and wry wisdom.

[Eliot Rosewater]

I usually stay away from (auto-)biographies (the concept doesnt interest me) but Im giving some serious consideration to buying Everetts one. I think the Eels lyrics are pretty personal and that the book could be enlightening and interesting.

Would you recommend?

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Originally Posted by Eliot Rosewater

I usually stay away from (auto-)biographies (the concept doesnt interest me) but Im giving some serious consideration to buying Everetts one. I think the Eels lyrics are pretty personal and that the book could be enlightening and interesting.

Would you recommend?

Yeah, I'm an Eels fan so I was already interested in the book. Quite an easy read, and was interesting to find out the story behind some of the songs.

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Their Darkest Hour: People Tested to the Extreme in WWII - Laurence Rees

From play.com

How could Nazi killers shoot Jewish women and children at close range? Why did Japanese soldiers rape and murder on such a horrendous scale? How was it possible to endure the torment of a Nazi death camp?

Award-winning documentary maker and historian Laurence Rees has spent nearly 20 years wrestling with these questions in the course of filming hundreds of interviews with people tested to the extreme during World War II. He has come face-to-face with rapists, mass murderers, even cannibals, but he has also met courageous individuals who are an inspiration to us all. In "Their Darkest Hour", he presents 35 of his most electrifying encounters.

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The Blue Zone - Andrew Gross

From play.com

A breathtaking novel of suspense from the co-author of five bestselling James Patterson novels, including 'Judge and Jury' and 'Lifeguard'. THERE ARE NO RULES IN THE BLUE ZONE. They were the perfect family. And he was the perfect family man. One day changed it all. Arrested for racketeering, Ben Raab must take his family into America's Witness Protection Programme. Only his eldest daughter, Kate, chooses to stay on the outside.

But the Programme's perfect success rate is about to come to a shocking end. A case agent is tortured to death and Ben vanishes. The one person who might be able to find him is Kate. Pursued by killers, forced to question everything she knows about her life so far, Kate is plunged into a terrifying existence for which nothing has prepared her. Most people would call it certain death. The FBI calls it the Blue Zone.

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relentless - Dean Koontz

The stunning new thriller from one of the world's bestselling authors. Hostile reviews may have hastened the deaths of some writers, but Cubby Greenwich is made of sterner stuff. At least this is what he tells himself, meanwhile obsessing about the scathing review of his latest bestseller by Shearman Waxx in a national newspaper. A feared and therefore revered critic, Waxx has an aura of mystery about him that has carried him far as an arbiter of taste, but the mystery itself is about to break cover. In an unexpected encounter with Waxx, Cubby says one innocent word, but it is the wrong word, and it seems to trigger an inhuman fury in the critic, who becomes bent on destroying Cubby and everything he loves. For it soon becomes apparent that Waxx is not merely a ferocious literary enemy, but a ruthless sociopath. When Cubby finally learns the truth, can he save himself and his family from the appalling danger they are in? The terror has only just begun!

It was an okay book, but after reading a look of Koontzs books, it felt too similiar to other books he'd written.

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The Way of Shadows (The Night Angel Trilogy) - Brent Weeks

From amazon.com

For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city's most accomplished artist.

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly - and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.

But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics - and cultivate a flair for death.

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Shadow's Edge (Night Angel Trilogy, Book 2) - Brent Weeks

From amazon.com

Kylar Stern has rejected the assassin's life. The Godking's successful coup has left Kylar's master, Durzo, and his best friend, Logan, dead. He is starting over: new city, new friends, and new profession.

But when he learns that Logan might actually be alive and in hiding, Kylar is faced with an agonizing choice: will he give up the way of shadows forever and live in peace with his new family, or will he risk everything by taking on the ultimate hit?

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Shivering Sands - Warren Ellis

From amazon.com

SHIVERING SANDS is a bit of an experiment: part Greatest Hits collection, part late-night ramblings, all crackling text transmissions sent down the wire from anywhere Warren Ellis had access to a computer and something to say. These essays, stories, music reviews, the occasional chemically-induced rant, and a couple of recipes because, for whatever reason, everyone seems to love his recipesrepresent a cross-section of the past seven years worth of Warrens writing online. From jumping around Britain, Europe and North America to just dragging his carcass up to the local pub for a think, this is the unedited spillage from the inside of the writers head during the 00s. Some of it even makes sense.WARREN ELLIS is the award-winning creator of graphic novels such as Fell, Ministry Of Space, Planetary, and Transmetropolitan, and the author of the underground classic Crooked Little Vein.

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Hold Tight - Harlan Coben

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1984 - George Orwell

Novel by George Orwell, published in 1949 as a warning about the menaces of totalitarianism. The novel is set in an imaginary future world that is dominated by three perpetually warring totalitarian police states. The book's hero, Winston Smith, is a minor party functionary in one of these states. His longing for truth and decency leads him to secretly rebel against the government. Smith has a love affair with a like-minded woman, but they are both arrested by the Thought Police.

The ensuing imprisonment, torture, and reeducation of Smith are intended not merely to break him physically or make him submit but to root out his independent mental existence and his spiritual dignity. Orwell's warning of the dangers of totalitarianism made a deep impression on his contemporaries and upon subsequent readers, and the book's title and many of its coinages, such as NEWSPEAK, became bywords for modern political abuses.

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The Novice - Trudi Canavan

Black Magician Trilogy, Book 2

Imardin is a city of dark intrigues and deadly politics, where those who wield magic wield power. Into this established order has blundered a young street-girl with extraordinary magical gifts. Adopted by the Magicians' Guild, her life is changed forever - but for better or for worse? Sonea knew that she'd face a tough time training within the Magicians' Guild but she little realised the level of animosity she would face from her fellow novices. The sons and daughters of the most powerful families in the realm, her classmates seem determined to see her fail - at whatever cost. But in accepting the protection of the guild's high lord, Sonea may have embraced an even bleaker fate. For High Lord Akkarin harbours a secret that is far darker than his magician's robes.

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