Hi Goodreads Member,
Here's our monthly newsletter from Goodreads—giving you the latest and greatest in our quest to connect people through reading!
NEW FEATURE
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Recommendations: Meet Your Next Favorite Book!We are proud to present our new personalized recommendations. Using a secret sauce of proprietary algorithms and 20 billion data points provided by you and our community of six million readers, our recommendation engine analyzes both books and the people who read them. Rate at least 20 books, and then view your recs. It's that simple! Try it out! |
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS
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Jeffrey EugenidesThree brainy Ivy Leaguers fumble in love in The Marriage Plot, a new novel from the author of Middlesex. Eugenides discusses the struggle between our heads and our hearts. More |
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Ellen HopkinsKnown for gritty novels in verse for young adults, the narrative poet talks about her first book for an adult audience. Triangles explores infidelity and the midlife crisis. More |
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Michael LewisWhere is your money? The nonfiction wizard who gave us Moneyball and The Big Short examines the terrifying state of the world's economy in his new book, Boomerang. More |
FEATURED AUTHOR GROUP
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Zombie Panel!Prep for Halloween with a chat about things that go bump in the night and want to eat your brain. Panelists include David Moody, Jonathan Maberry, and Steven C. Schlozman. More |
IN BED WITH...
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Charles Frazier's Favorite Books with Rural SettingsTrek into the wilderness with these recs from the Appalachian native behind Nightwoods, a novel set at an abandoned mountain lodge. More |
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Susan Orlean's Favorite Books About DogsThe animal-loving New Yorker writer shares her top canine reads in honor of her new biography of Hollywood star Rin Tin Tin. More |
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Alison Weir's Favorite Books About MistressesDevour these five juicy books about the power and allure of the "other woman" from the historian who wrote Mary Boleyn. More |
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Ha Jin's Favorite Novels About ChinaEmbark on a voyage to China with these picks from the author of Nanjing Requiem, a novel set during the 1937 Japanese invasion. More |
GOODREADS LIVE
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Colson WhiteheadOn October 13 join the author of Sag Harbor for a live chat about his new horror novel, Zone One, Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder, and strategies to combat the living dead. More |
DEBUT AUTHOR SNAPSHOT
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Kimberly CutterJoan of Arc, the illiterate peasant girl who led France to bloody victory, gets a voice in a new historical novel. The Maid is told through the eyes of the saint herself. More |
MOVERS & SHAKERS
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1Q84Two moons over the Tokyo skyline echo the parallel stories of a lonely ghostwriter and a female assassin whose lives converge during the course of 1984. This surrealist tale from a postmodern master is both mystery and romance. More |
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A Thousand LivesNow notorious for inciting his flock to drink poisonous Kool-Aid in 1978, cult leader Jim Jones is profiled in this nonfiction work. Special attention is paid to the diverse individuals who joined the doomed Peoples Temple. More |
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When She WokeAfter aborting her child and refusing to name her lover (a married TV evangelist), Hannah is sentenced to 16 years of "melachroming"—her skin is dyed stop-sign red. She faces a life of persecution in a fictional fundamentalist America. More |
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Moonlight on Linoleum
by Terry Helwig
Love triumphs over abuse in this memoir about sisterhood and forgiveness. With a drug-addicted mother and five sisters, the author must grow up quickly—holding together her itinerant family as they move from town to town. More |
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The DovekeepersAnchored by the true events of the Siege of Masada in 70 A.D., this historical novel tells the stories of four women present at the Near East fortress when the Romans' invasion led to a mass suicide of Jewish rebels within. More |
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The Name of the StarIn this young adult thriller, a Louisiana teen enrolls in a London boarding school just as a copycat killer begins to mimic the murders of Jack the Ripper. She spots a suspect, but soon realizes he's invisible to everyone else. More |
DO GOOD WITH GOODREADS
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The International Dyslexia AssociationThis nonprofit funds research and advocates for people with dyslexia, the world's most common language-based learning disability. More |
LITERATURE AT EVERY LATITUDE
Bucharest, Romania
44° 26' N
26° 6' E
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The Days of the KingA newly crowned prince suffers from bad teeth and hides a sordid secret in this whimsical novel that includes a poetry-writing cat named Siegfried. More |
GOODREADS POETRY CONTEST
Want your words to reach 4 million people? Goodreads and the ¡POETRY! group have partnered to host an ongoing poetry contest. Join the ¡POETRY! group to vote each month to pick a winner from among the finalists. You can also submit a poem for consideration. Here is our October winner!
The Long Marriage
and settle in beside you, finding in the just
right camber of my pillows and the space
between us the familiar comfort of our life.
I close my eyes, the stage goes dark and I
notice there are just the two of us
in the theatre and you are already asleep.
I listen to the rhythm of your shallow breath.
When we fell in love, I went first. Stepping
from the sidewalk, I darted between the cars
and got to the park on the other side
only to find you had never left the curb.
You are displeased. You have come a long way.
I am nowhere to be found. You are naked, standing
at the water's edge. The water is clear, the quarry
is bottomless. It's mid-May and too cold to swim.
Still, you dive in. When I find you, your goose
flesh and nipples blend seamlessly. We are breathless,
warm only where our bodies meet. You dive down,
your white soles recede into the darkness.
We are in your family's home, sitting at one end
of the dining room table, your parents at the other.
Your father leans on his elbows, listening.
Your mother weeps silently, her hands in her lap.
I am backed into the kitchen corner of our row
house, sprawled on the floor, my head in my hands.
You are lying awake in our bed, face to the wall.
But for the fading echo of slammed doors, there is silence.
Two dream images: a ship runs aground on
a small island (in a week your period is late);
the wrong building materials are delivered to
the house (in a day your bleeding begins).
I am bending over you, looking down.
You are giving birth, pushing. Your left knee
and arm interlocking at my elbows. Her head-
the purple flower of your bloody thighs.
We are camped in the Blue Ridge and the puppy
is lost. We search on either side of the ravine. You
have taken one frightened child and I the other.
We call back and forth as darkness falls.
In the empty great room of the house we designed,
we review the punch list with the builder. My voice
dissipates in the cold drafts. We will move
again in ten years, never having unpacked.
You are poring over photographs: children
posing in oversized shoes and hats, mugging for
the camera; proud parents framing the graduates;
your parents' unlikely last trip to Ireland.
It is still night yet the room is lit
with moonlight streaming through
your grandmother's Irish lace curtains.
Shadows silhouette the far wall. I realize
I have grown old. My breathing is
shallow and you are sitting by the bed.
When you take my hand, I feel your
thin bones beneath my calloused fingers.
With love,
Jessica, Elizabeth, and the Goodreads Team
P.S. Goodreads is hiring software engineers, a user interface designer, and an advertising account manager!
