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March 29
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Tom
gave
to:
Cheating at Canasta: Stories (Hardcover)
by William Trevor
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in January, 2008
Tom said:
"Book Review
Cheating at Canasta
By William Trevor
Reviewed by Tom Carrico
The short story evolved from the oral story telling traditions of ancient and medieval times. The modern short story became popular in the nineteenth and early twent...more
Book Review
Cheating at Canasta
By William Trevor
Reviewed by Tom Carrico
The short story evolved from the oral story telling traditions of ancient and medieval times. The modern short story became popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth century when the proliferation of literary magazines created a huge demand for short fiction. Anton Chekhov is viewed as the greatest short story writer of the late nineteenth century. American proponents of this genre include Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving, O. Henry, Nathaniel Hawthorne and, in this century, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Flannery O’Connor and Ernest Hemingway. Poe wrote of his literary theories in 1846 in an essay entitled “The Philosophy of Composition”, in which he compared and contrasted the demands of the short story versus those of longer fiction. According to Poe, “length, unity of effect and a logical method” are the important considerations for good writing. Further, Poe believed that all works should be short. “There is a distinct limit... to all works of literary art – the limit of one sitting”. He concluded that the limited length of the short story made it a superior literary product than the novel.
There is less demand for short fiction these days, and writers usually have to have a few successful novels published before anyone will consider publishing their short stories. Despite that, there are several notable and prolific authors publishing short stories today, including T. C. Boyle, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates and others. “The New Yorker” has called William Trevor “the greatest living writer of short stories in the English language today.” His newest collection is entitled Cheating at Canasta and does nothing to contradict that assertion.
This is a marvelous collection of twelve stories which fulfill Poe’s objective of being able to be read in a single sitting. The stories are so compelling, however, that they stay with the reader for far longer. To me, the most amazing quality of William Trevor’s stories is their ability to elevate common, everyday occurrences to profoundly spiritual experiences. He can create gripping drama from seemingly mundane relationships and common happenings. His prose is compact and each word is precise and perfectly chosen. He can pack more emotional pyrotechnics in fifteen pages than most authors create in a career. I also appreciate a writer who makes me consult a dictionary from time to time.
If you have read any of this author’s novels (The Story of Lucy Gault or Felicia’s Journey, for instance) then you know that some of his subjects can be macabre. These tones emerge in this collection in “An Afternoon” when a young teen meets a sexual predator she has been conversing with on the internet at a local coffee shop and in “The Dressmaker’s Child” where the town ne’er-do-well kills a youngster in a hit and run accident but escapes detection by the police.
The highlight of this collection, however, is the story for which the book is entitled. In it a middle aged man named Mallory has to place his wife of thirty years in a nursing home for early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The title comes from the fact that they play cards daily and as she deteriorates he lets her win. During their emotionally charged discussions leading up to the inevitability of her institutionalization, the wife implores her husband to “carry on” without her. She convinced him to even recreate a previous vacation to Italy. The man sits silently alone in their favorite restaurant in Venice. He can’t help but overhear the conversation of a young couple at the next table as they argue over everything. The story concludes:
“Falling in with this, Mallory asked them if it was their first time in Venice. Embarrassment was still there, but they somehow managed to make it seem like their reproval of themselves for inflicting their bickering on him.
‘Oh, very much so,’ they said together, each seeming instinctively to know how their answer should be given.
‘Not yours, I guess?’ the husband added, and Mallory shook his head. He’d been coming to Venice since first he’d been able to afford it, he said. And then he told them why he was here alone.
While he did so Mallory sensed in his voice an echo of his regret that foolishness had brought him here. He did not say it. He did not say that he was here to honor a whim that would have been forgotten as soon as it was expressed. He did not deplore a tiresome, futile journey. But he’d come close to doing so and felt ashamed in turn. His manner had dismissed the scratchiness he’d eavesdropped on as the unseemly stuff of marriage. It was more difficult to dismiss his own sly aberration, and shame still nagged...
“’No, no’ he murmured when the husband said he was sorry too, ‘No, no.’
He watched the couple go, and smiled across the crowded restaurant when they reached the door. Shame isn’t bad, her voice from somewhere else insists. Nor the humility that is its gift.”
I can’t recommend this collection of stories highly enough. They are extremely well written, entertaining and thought provoking. As I said earlier, they can be devoured quickly but they stay with you for a long, long time.
Cheating at Canasta by William Trevor is available in hardcover from Viking publishers.
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Tom
gave
to:
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany (Hardcover)
by Bill Buford
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in April, 2007
Tom said:
"Book Review
Heat by Bill Buford
Reviewed by Tom Carrico
Bill Buford is a former editor of the “The New Yorker” magazine, founding editor of “Granta” magazine and publisher of Granta Books. His hobby was cooking. He cooked for friends...more
Book Review
Heat by Bill Buford
Reviewed by Tom Carrico
Bill Buford is a former editor of the “The New Yorker” magazine, founding editor of “Granta” magazine and publisher of Granta Books. His hobby was cooking. He cooked for friends and business associates and on one occasion for the renowned chef Mario Batali. That occasion prompted Mr. Buford to quit his job at “The New Yorker” and sign on as an unpaid intern at Batali’s three star Italian restaurant Babbo in New York City. This book is part memoir of that experience, part travelogue, part history of Italian cooking and part observatory character studies of the eccentric personalities the author encountered. Add to this mixture a large aliquot of humor and you have the recipe for a thoroughly enjoyable book.
The memoir portion of the book details his rise from “kitchen slave” to line cook (which included a stint at the grill station) and finally to pasta maker. The author’s misadventures, including dicing the carrots too small, multiple injuries (including splatter burns and minor lacerations) and wasting food are all humorously documented. The amazing aspect of all of this to me was how much this experience (although only lasting about a year) was reminiscent of my surgical residency. The graded responsibility, the general fault-finding and learning from mistakes all seemed remarkably similar to that experience. Initially, his superiors criticize every move and use every mistake as a “teaching opportunity” (usually involving screaming). As he moves up the responsibility ladder, Mr. Buford relates his frustration when the kitchen manager (who in my mind represented the Surgical Chief Resident) demanding that certain orders be replated immediately for no apparent reason.
The even more fascinating portions of the book come about when Chef Batali talks to the author (“talking” here includes earsplitting fits of anger) and informs him that the only way to truly understand the art of cooking Italian food was to go to Italy and learn it first hand. This is, in fact, the way Batali learned. The author does indeed make many trips to Italy. First he learns the fine art of pasta making from women who run a small restaurant and were taught their skills by their mother and their aunts, who in turn were taught by their mothers and aunts. The reader learns the difference between pastasciutta and pasta fresca, when the egg was first introduced into the ingredients (it turns out nobody, including the curators of the Pasta Museum in Italy, are exactly sure, although sometime in the 13th century is a good guess), and why machine made pasta is unacceptable. On a return trip to Panzano (near Tuscany), Mr. Buford learns the art of the butcher from Dario Cecchini, who comes from a long line of master butchers. Dario has the interesting habit of intermittently screaming long excerpts from The Divine Comedy alternating with singing excerpts from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” while he works. These “performances” are fueled by generous amounts of alcohol. The meticulous care of knives, the various cuts of meat from pigs and cows and the appreciation for the preparation of meats as an art form are detailed.
The cast of characters which Mr. Buford meets while working at Babbo (including the maestro Batali) and traveling and living in Italy is colorful and very amusingly described by the author and is one of the strengths of Heat. This cast includes the characters already described above as well as the other restaurant workers who jealously guard their secrets of success, the Italians who courageously defend their ancient cooking arts in a modern world as well as the menagerie which makes up the restaurant world in New York City (including patrons, competing chefs and newspaper food critics).
I don’t know if this was the best book to read while trying to adopt a “heart-healthy” diet and mode of living, but I know that even under those circumstances this was a thoroughly enjoyable, entertaining, humorous and even informative book. Heat by Bill Buford is available in trade paperback from Vintage Books.
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Tom
gave
to:
Gilead: A Novel (Paperback)
by Marilynne Robinson
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Tom
gave
to:
Clapton's Guitar: Watching Wayne Henderson Build the Perfect Instrument (Paperback)
by Allen St. John
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Tom said:
"BOOK REVIEW
“CLAPTON’S GUITAR”
BY Allen St. John
Reviewed by Tom Carrico
This paperback caught my eye as it sat in the middle of the non-fiction new release table at the Short Pump Barnes and Noble for one reason and one reason only. ...more
BOOK REVIEW
“CLAPTON’S GUITAR”
BY Allen St. John
Reviewed by Tom Carrico
This paperback caught my eye as it sat in the middle of the non-fiction new release table at the Short Pump Barnes and Noble for one reason and one reason only. There is a spectacular looking acoustic guitar on the cover. Although at first glance it appears to be a vintage Martin, the headstock does not have the usual squared off end. Additionally, the name across the headstock was not Martin, but Henderson. What’s a Henderson guitar, you ask? Well, read “Clapton’s Guitar” to find out like I did.
Wayne Henderson is a retired rural postal deliveryman in Rugby, Virginia. Rugby is in Grayson County, south of Marion and has a population of 7. Wayne has been building guitars out of any and all available materials since childhood. His guitars are built one at a time and on no particular timetable. Wayne is an artist. He is very eccentric, but he is an artist.
The story of the book is that Eric Clapton, who has defined rock guitar wizardry since the 1960s (The Yardbirds, Cream, Blind Faith, etc…) played a Henderson guitar in a collectible guitar shop in New York City and fell in love with its tone and playability. He had to have one. He placed an order with Wayne and, about 10 years later, Wayne got around to building him one. He actually built two almost identical guitars, one for Clapton and one to be auctioned for charity. Enter Allen St. John, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal’s Weekend section and guitar freak. He is a friend of the shop owner who introduced Eric Clapton to Henderson guitars and promised to deliver the instruments once Wayne had actually made them. The author then travels to Rugby and observes the master luthier at work and records his observations.
The resulting book is not about Eric Clapton. Nor is it just about Wayne Henderson, although the reader gets to know Wayne and his neighbors, fellow musicians and friends very well. The book is really not just about guitars, either, although there is a wealth of guitar history included here, and many details regarding the proper construction of an acoustic guitar. No, “Clapton’s Guitar” is really about craftsmanship, attention to detail, pride in doing things the right way and not taking short cuts.
Humor abounds in “Clapton’s Guitar”. Wayne’s shop is frequented by what he refers to as “General Loafers”. If they do something which particularly annoys him, they are busted to “Colonel Loafers”. Wayne tells the author that he doesn’t put much stock in religion and refers to himself as a “Buzzard Baptist”. He only goes to church when someone dies. There are practical jokes throughout as well. Wayne is over ten years behind on orders for his guitars and people will do anything, it seems, to move up on the list. Wayne is susceptible to bribery and homemade pies seem to get your guitar built quicker than just about anything else. After reading this book it would appear that many more dogs live in Rugby than people. There’s always someone’s dog in the shop or running around the yard. There are some fascinating anecdotes surrounding many vintage guitars which themselves become characters in this book. One pre-war Martin made its way through several famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) guitarists in the 60s and 70s being pawned, sold, given as a gift and finally residing with a collector.
The real reason to read the book, however, is to gain an appreciation for people who take genuine pride in their artistry. Wayne Henderson takes no short cuts. He bends his own guitar sides, inlays his own abalone into his own fabricated fret boards and hand carves each strut which supports each specially selected and hand cut top. He tests each piece for resonance. The end product is much better than the sum of many very excellent parts. That is the magic of a Wayne Henderson guitar.
This book has something for everyone. It is part Appalachian home-spun humor, part guitar building 101 and part paean to a time when musical instruments were constructed by master artisans who took genuine pride in their creations. This book was a hoot to read. I learned a lot, I was entertained and would I ever love to be on the list of people waiting for their custom Henderson guitar.
“Clapton’s Guitar” by Allen St. John is available in trade paperback from Free Press. There are several excellent web-sites which make the book even more enjoyable including the author’s own: www.allenstjohn.com which contains links to Wayne Henderson recordings. (Note: This book is best read while listening to “Unplugged” by Eric Clapton or the soundtrack to “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou”.)
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Tom
gave
to:
A Thousand Splendid Suns (Hardcover)
by Khaled Hosseini
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Tom said:
"Book Review
A Thousand Splendid Suns
By Khaled Hosseini
Reviewed by Tom Carrico
It’s amazing that this author has the #1 fiction paperback (The Kite Runner) and the #1 fiction hardback (A Thousand Splendid Suns) on “The New York Times...more
Book Review
A Thousand Splendid Suns
By Khaled Hosseini
Reviewed by Tom Carrico
It’s amazing that this author has the #1 fiction paperback (The Kite Runner) and the #1 fiction hardback (A Thousand Splendid Suns) on “The New York Times” bestseller list. The Kite Runner has sold over four millions copies since its release in 2003. It is a hauntingly written novel set in war-torn Afghanistan. It is exceptionally well plotted and opens the window on a part of the world that very few of us are familiar with. The two boys in The Kite Runner are from different socio-economic circumstance but forge a friendship which transcends politics, war and economics. Even though this story is set in Afghanistan, it is a story of childhood betrayal and its consequences and could really have been set anywhere. It is a great story wonderfully told, however, and the fact that it takes place in a land few of us understand makes it educational as well as entertaining.
To use a baseball metaphor, if The Kite Runner was a home run, A Thousand Splendid Suns, the author’s second effort, is a game winning walk-off grand slam. The author has managed to tell the modern history of Afghanistan: from the end of the monarchy to the invasion of the Soviets to the chaos of rule by the war lords to the tight fisted maniacal rule of the Taliban to the post-9/11 return to some semblance of relative normalcy. The author again uses the device of telling the stories of two main characters of differing backgrounds, this time women. The first, Mariam, is the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman in Herat. The book opens with the story of Mariam’s childhood. She is sequestered on the outskirts of the city in a clay hut with her mother. Her father visits once weekly and servants from his house bring basic supplies. Mariam’s mother is understandably bitter and the tension between mother and daughter is palpable. Eventually Mariam is given in marriage to Rasheed, an older shoe-maker from Kabul, mainly to remove the embarrassment of her very existence from her father’s world. This man is domineering and abusive and Mariam’s inability to conceive causes her to quickly fall out of favor.
The second main character is Laila, a beautiful young girl who grows up as a neighbor of Rasheed and Mariam in Kabul. She has a childhood friend, Tariq, a young man who lost a leg to a Soviet land mine. As these children mature, they fall in love. Tariq’s family decides to run from the warlords who by now bombarding the city. During the hysteria of their pending separation, the two young lovers conceive a child. Once Laila realizes she is pregnant and has no idea how to contact Tariq, she also marries Rasheed and convinces him that the child is his. Needless to say, the relationship between Laila and the forlorn Mariam starts out poorly and gets worse. Eventually they are brought together by their shared victim status and their mutual disgust and hatred for Rasheed. The resolution of the conflict between these two women is riveting and, well, painful. You get the impression that there aren’t too many happy endings in Afghanistan.
While the author tells these two women’s stories, he also gives the reader a fantastic and comprehensive history lesson. The modern history of Afghanistan is complicated and the author uses some of the secondary characters to deliver this lesson. Laila’s father is a school teacher and is very interested in politics and a lot of his dialogue is opinion about the current state of affairs. Laila’s two older brothers fight for one of the warlords against the Communists and are both killed. Rasheed is a businessman who tries to manipulate whatever political system is in charge at the moment, which also gives insight into the political and social climate through all of these regime changes.
This is not an easy book to read. Over and over again, it is heart breaking. The cruelty to women is incomprehensible. The status of medical care during the rule of the Taliban is clinically detailed by the author (who is a physician) and graphically described when Laila presents to the only hospital in Kabul which is allowed to treat women and has to undergo a Caesarean section without anesthesia because the Taliban won’t fund the women’s hospital.
Khaled Hosseini has a writing style reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway. He writes in short, brutal sentences which conjure images that the mind can’t even comprehend. He always uses the perfect word or phrase. He alludes to Hemingway in one section when Laila’s father is reading The Old Man and the Sea. A Thousand Splendid Suns is also a fight against impossible odds, a story of hope when the situation is hopeless, and the resilience of the human spirit.
I think that this book is destined to be a classic. It is critically important for every American who has an opinion about war, freedom and human rights to read this book. It’s easy to forget the citizens of a country as it is repeatedly trampled over the decades. This book puts very real faces on people caught in the crossfire of a conflict they did not initiate. It describes conditions and situations which those of us living in the comfort of 21st century America cannot comprehend. This book is at once entertaining and horrifying, edifying and humbling, compulsively readable and appallingly shocking. It is terrific.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is available in hardcover from Riverhead Books.
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Tom
gave
to:
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir (Hardcover)
by Bill Bryson
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in January, 2008
Tom said:
"Book Review
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
By Bill Bryson
Reviewed by Tom Carrico
I am not usually one to enjoy a memoir. There always seems to be a certain smugness that someone must possess to have the audacity to think that t...more
Book Review
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
By Bill Bryson
Reviewed by Tom Carrico
I am not usually one to enjoy a memoir. There always seems to be a certain smugness that someone must possess to have the audacity to think that their story is better than, well, mine. This memoir, however, is different. Bill Bryson’s childhood ruminations could belong to anybody who grew up in the 1950s. Change Des Moines, Iowa to Arlington, Virginia and this story could even be mine. If you are under 40 you probably won’t enjoy this book as much as those of us who actually endured this particular decade. This book reads like a “Saturday Night Live” send-up of David Halberstam’s The Fifties. Like Halberstam, Bryson touches on the many social and cultural events and changes of the 1950s including the space race, the development of the nuclear bomb, the evolution of the suburbs coupled with the decline of the inner cities and the emergence of television. This author, however, takes great pride in pointing out the absurdities and ironic inconsistencies of that era. He describes his refusal to participate in the required civil defense drills, pointing out to his elementary school teacher the absolute irrationality of thinking that crawling under a desk could protect a child from a nuclear explosion. I remember thinking these same thoughts as I toted bottled water and canned goods to St. Ann’s School in Arlington which happened to be three miles from the Pentagon. Unlike Bill Bryson, I did get under the desk when told to. I feared for my life, not from an A-bomb, but from the wrath of Sister Mary Angelus.
The author was able to jog my feeble memory about certain items which are long gone. In one hilarious segment he describes the cumbersome winter boots we all had. Bill Bryson claims that the clasps, which required an incredible dexterity to fasten, were actually made from razor blades. He is equally as funny when describing how kids passed their time during the fifties. He explains that parents would kick the kids outdoors in the early morning and not expect to see them again until dinner time. The ridiculous toys of the era are recalled in great detail. The authors favorites were Lincoln Logs (where the box shows all of these great forts and structures and the contents are only enough to construct a small hut with one window), erector sets and electric football. It is hard to imagine in this day of Xbox and Playstation that electric football ever existed. I actually had two of these sets, one a hand-me-down from my cousin Mike. The author wryly and accurately describes setting up the players on the metal “field” and turning on the electricity which caused the field to vibrate and all of the plastic players to fall over or migrate towards the wrong goal line. There is also an awesome description of the complete disaster which was constructing plastic model airplane kits.
The name of the book comes from the author’s fascination with comic book heroes. He constructed his own alter-ego and named him Thunderbolt Kid. He imagined his super powers and practiced making teachers and principals disappear.
The greatest segments of Thunderbolt are when Bill Bryson recalls the early days of television. He muses over the physical differences between the comic book Superman and the flabby television version. He fondly recalls the Sky King show (and how Sky would fly around endlessly in his airplane for no particular reason) and his crush on Sky’s niece Penny. Tell the truth: didn’t we all have a crush on Penny? He also points out that television cowboys in the 50s never really shot anybody. They shot AT people, for sure, but usually just shot guns out of the bad guys’ hands or shot their hats off. Yes, it was a different era.
The television anecdote that evoked the most vivid memory for me was his description of how Walt Disney used his television show to make every kid in America dream of going to Disneyland in Anaheim. For you youngsters, this was when Orlando was still a backwater town and Disney World didn’t exist. Bill Bryson’s family finally went and, by golly, so did mine. My sister and her husband moved to California in the sixties and I remember going to visit them and getting to go to Disneyland. I was about twelve or thirteen, I guess, and I remember standing on Main Street and looking at Cinderella’s Castle in absolute awe. They gave you a book of coupons on admission in those days when you paid to get in. The coupons had different values and colors and the E coupons were the good ones (for the Matterhorn ride and Space Mountain). I remember not wanting to use the last E coupon because then it would be time to leave.
There are some serious moments here as well. Mr. Bryson notes that with the passage of time the family farm has basically disappeared from the American landscape. He also regrets the loss of the supreme optimism and sense of innocence which pervaded America in the 1950s.
This is a must read for anyone born before 1955. For you youngsters, this book may help you understand why we boomers are as odd as we are. One warning, though: there are segments that are so funny you want to stop and tell everyone around you about them.
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson is available in trade paperback from Broadway Books publishers.
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Tom
gave
to:
Priest (Hardcover)
by Ken Bruen
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in March, 2008
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February 26
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Tom
gave
to:
Into the Wild (Paperback)
by Jon Krakauer
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in October, 2007
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December 10
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Tom
gave
to:
No Country for Old Men (Paperback)
by Cormac McCarthy
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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