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<div class="goodreads-book" data-title="A Room of One's Own" data-author="Virginia Woolf">
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<img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440082020l/292570._SY500_.jpg" alt="A Room of One's Own" class="goodreads-cover-img">
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/292570" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A Room of One's Own</a>
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<p class="goodreads-author">Virginia Woolf</p>
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<span class="goodreads-year">Published: 1929</span>
<span class="goodreads-date">Finished: 29/05/2026</span>
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<div class="goodreads-description-text">A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on 24 October 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928.
While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers of and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled Women and Fiction, and hence the essay, are considered non-fiction. The essay is seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.</div>
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<div class="goodreads-book" data-title="Almond" data-author="Sohn Won-Pyung">
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<img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1573764213l/52219386._SX500_SY500_.jpg" alt="Almond" class="goodreads-cover-img">
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52219386" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Almond</a>
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<p class="goodreads-author">Sohn Won-Pyung</p>
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<span class="goodreads-year">Published: 2017</span>
<span class="goodreads-date">Finished: 27/05/2026</span>
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<div class="goodreads-description-text">Yunjae was born with a brain condition called Alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends—the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that—but his devoted mother and grandmother aren’t fazed by his condition. Their little home above his mother’s used bookstore is decorated with colorful post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say "thank you," and when to laugh. Yunjae grows up content, even happy, with his small family in this quiet, peaceful space.
Then on Christmas Eve—Yunjae’s sixteenth birthday—everything changes. A shocking act of random violence shatters his world, leaving him alone and on his own. Struggling to cope with his loss, Yunjae retreats into silent isolation, until troubled teenager Gon arrives at his school and begins to bully Yunjae.
Against all odds, tormentor and victim learn they have more in common than they realized. Gon is stumped by Yunjae’s impassive calm, while Yunjae thinks if he gets to know the hotheaded Gon, he might learn how to experience true feelings. Drawn by curiosity, the two strike up a surprising friendship. As Yunjae begins to open his life to new people—including a girl at school—something slowly changes inside him. And when Gon suddenly finds his life in danger, it is Yunjae who will step outside of every comfort zone he has created to perhaps become a most unlikely hero.
The Emissary meets The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime in this poignant and triumphant story about how love, friendship, and persistence can change a life forever.</div>
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<div class="goodreads-book" data-title="Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages" data-author="Lorna Gibb">
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<img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1731932386l/220305810._SY500_.jpg" alt="Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages" class="goodreads-cover-img">
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220305810" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages</a>
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<p class="goodreads-author">Lorna Gibb</p>
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<span class="goodreads-year">Published: 2025</span>
<span class="goodreads-date">Finished: 25/05/2026</span>
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<div class="goodreads-description-text">Languages and cultures are becoming increasingly homogenous, with the resulting loss of a rich linguistic tapestry reflecting unique perspectives and ways of life. Rare Tongues tells the stories of the world’s rare and vanishing languages, revealing how each is a living testament to human resilience, adaptability, and the perennial quest for identity.
Taking readers on a captivating journey of discovery, Lorna Gibb explores the histories of languages under threat or already extinct as well as those in resurgence, shedding light on their origins, development, and distinctive voices. She travels the globe—from Australia and Finland to India, the Canary Islands, Namibia, Scotland, and Paraguay—showing how these languages are not mere words and syntax but keepers of diverse worldviews, sites of ethnic conflict, and a means for finding surprising commonalities. Readers learn the basics of how various language systems work—with vowels and consonants, whistles and clicks, tonal inflections, or hand signs—and how this kaleidoscope of self-expression carries vital information about our planet, indigenous cultures and tradition, and the history and evolution of humankind.
Rare Tongues is essential reading for anyone concerned about the preservation of endangered languages and an eloquent and disarmingly personal meditation on why the world’s linguistic heritage is so fundamental to our shared experience—and why its loss should worry us all.</div>
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<div class="goodreads-book" data-title="To the Lighthouse" data-author="Virginia Woolf">
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<h3 class="goodreads-title">
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40653415" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">To the Lighthouse</a>
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<p class="goodreads-author">Virginia Woolf</p>
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<span class="goodreads-year">Published: 1927</span>
<span class="goodreads-date">Finished: 24/05/2026</span>
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<div class="goodreads-description-text">A pioneering work of modernist fiction, using her unique stream-of-consciousness technique to explore the inner lives of her characters, Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse is widely regarded as one of the greatest artistic achievements of the twentieth century. This Penguin Classics edition is edited by Stella McNichol, with an introduction and notes by Hermione Lee.
To the Lighthouse is at once a vivid impressionistic depiction of a family holiday, and a meditation on marriage, on parenthood and childhood, on grief, tyranny and bitterness. For years now the Ramsays have spent every summer in their holiday home in Scotland, and they expect these summers will go on forever; but as the First World War looms, the integrity of family and society will be fatally challenged. The novel's use of memory, reminiscence and shifting perspectives gives it an intimate, poetic essence, and at the time of publication in 1927 it represented an utter rejection of Victorian and Edwardian literary values.</div>
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<div class="goodreads-book" data-title="Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global" data-author="Laura Spinney">
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<img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1727324634l/217387741._SY500_.jpg" alt="Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global" class="goodreads-cover-img">
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<h3 class="goodreads-title">
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/217387741" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global</a>
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<p class="goodreads-author">Laura Spinney</p>
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<span class="goodreads-year">Published: 2025</span>
<span class="goodreads-date">Finished: 21/05/2026</span>
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<div class="goodreads-description-text">The epic tale of how one ancient language went global, and the scientific quest to trace it back to its roots, from the celebrated author of Pale Rider.
As the planet emerged from the last ice age, a language was born between Europe and Asia, by the Black Sea. This ancient tongue, which we call Proto-Indo-European, soon exploded out of its cradle, changing and fragmenting as it went, until its offspring were spoken from Scotland to China. Today those descendants constitute the world's largest language family, the thread that connects disparate Dante's Inferno to the Rig Veda, The Lord of the Rings to the love poetry of Rumi. Indo-European languages are spoken by nearly half of humanity. How did this happen?
Laura Spinney set out to answer that question, retracing the Indo-European odyssey across continents and millennia. With her we travel the length of the steppe, navigating the Caucasus, the silk roads and the Hindu Kush. We follow in the footsteps of nomads and monks, Amazon warriors and lion kings—the ancient peoples who spread these languages far and wide. In the present, Spinney meets the scientists on a thrilling mission to retrieve the lost languages and their speakers: the linguists, archaeologists and geneticists who have reconstructed this ancient diaspora. What they have learned has vital implications for our modern world, as people and their languages are on the move again. Proto is a revelatory portrait of world history in its own words.</div>
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<div class="goodreads-book" data-title="Journey Into Dreamtime" data-author="Munya Andrews">
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<h3 class="goodreads-title">
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54373723" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Journey Into Dreamtime</a>
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<p class="goodreads-author">Munya Andrews</p>
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<span class="goodreads-date">Finished: 20/05/2026</span>
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<div class="goodreads-description-text">This book invites you to to step into the magical world of Aboriginal Dreamtime and to share in the world's oldest living culture - its ancient knowledge and spiritual wisdom. Inside are Dreamtime concepts that everyone can understand. Find out why the Rainbow Snake is called by that name and why it is deeply revered. What special role does it play in traditional healing? What are sacred sites and how do they empower you? What does it mean to have kangaroo or possum Dreaming? How can you discover your 'Dreaming' and what it can teach you? How does Dreaming help you cope with and master life? What are Dreaming Eyes and Dreaming Ears? What are Sorry Rocks? Come on a journey with Aboriginal Elder, Aunty Munya as she guides you in discovering your purpose in life and how to walk in the footsteps of our Ancestors. Learn what it means to truly belong and be family to ever y one and everything.</div>
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<div class="goodreads-book" data-title="Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction" data-author="Julia Annas">
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<img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394241625l/8727686.jpg" alt="Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction" class="goodreads-cover-img">
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<h3 class="goodreads-title">
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8727686" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction</a>
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<p class="goodreads-author">Julia Annas</p>
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<span class="goodreads-date">Finished: 17/05/2026</span>
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<div class="goodreads-description-text">The tradition of ancient philosophy is a long, rich and varied one, in which a constant note is that of discussion and argument. This book introduces readers to some ancient debates to engage with the ancient developments of some themes. Getting away from the presentation of ancient philosophy as a succession of Great Thinkers, the book gives readers a sense of the freshness and liveliness of ancient philosophy, and of its wide variety of themes and styles.ABOUT THE The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.</div>
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<div class="goodreads-book" data-title="The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel: A New Translation" data-author="Anonymous">
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<img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1540171902l/42411132.jpg" alt="The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel: A New Translation" class="goodreads-cover-img">
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<h3 class="goodreads-title">
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42411132" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel: A New Translation</a>
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<p class="goodreads-author">Anonymous</p>
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<span class="goodreads-year">Published: 1375</span>
<span class="goodreads-date">Finished: 16/05/2026</span>
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<div class="goodreads-description-text">This anonymous fourteenth-century text is the glory of English mysticism, and one of the most practical and useful guides to finding union with God ever written. Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s new translation is the first to bring the text into a modern English idiom—while remaining strictly faithful to the meaning of the original Middle English.
The Cloud of Unknowing consists of a series of letters written by a monk to his student or disciple, instructing him (or her) in the way of Divine union. Its theology is presented in a way that is remarkably easy to understand, as well as practical, providing advice on prayer and contemplation that anyone can use. Previous translations of the Cloud have tended to veil its intimate, even friendly tone under medieval-sounding language. Carmen Butcher has boldly brought the text into language as appealing to modern ears as it was to its original readers more than five hundred years ago.
Also included in the volume is the companion work attributed to the same anonymous author, The Book of Privy Counsel , which contains further advice for approaching God in a way that emphasizes real experience rather than human knowledge.</div>
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<div class="goodreads-book" data-title="After Nations: The Making and Unmaking of a World Order" data-author="Rana Dasgupta">
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<img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1765030039l/236772794._SY500_.jpg" alt="After Nations: The Making and Unmaking of a World Order" class="goodreads-cover-img">
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/236772794" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">After Nations: The Making and Unmaking of a World Order</a>
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<p class="goodreads-author">Rana Dasgupta</p>
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<span class="goodreads-date">Finished: 15/05/2026</span>
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<div class="goodreads-description-text">After Nations explores 'a generalised state of crisis' that afflicts the nation-state worldwide. In an effort to understand this crisis, Rana Dasgupta charts the development of the global nation state project from the Enlightenment to the present, its ongoing value unquestioned—to our detriment.
In its modern, fully-fledged form, the nation-state system is a very recent innovation, and one that departs from the normal history of the world – which is a story of empires. What we are seeing is the rapid disintegration of a system on which we had come to depend too completely.
After Nations offers a startling account of this exhilarating and terrible system. Its thesis will be disturbing to many, but we must quickly come to terms with it if we are to address the very grave challenges that now face us as a at their core, the political, economic, military and even environmental problems we face today are not the fault of inadequate policies or poor leadership. They are the consequence, rather, of our outdated political infrastructure – the nation-state system – which is not capable, even in theory, of protecting populations from twenty-first-century conditions. Five crises (“God”, “Money”, “Law”, “War” and “Nature”) will combine inexorably to diminish the ability of this system to deliver minimally acceptable outcomes.
The author's aim, through a portrait of this time of crisis, is radically to re-imagine what the nation-state system can and should provide. His interrogation of what we might now ask of our neighbourhoods and cities, will here be writ After Nations asks what we want for our global future.</div>
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<div class="goodreads-book" data-title="Mrs Dalloway" data-author="Virginia Woolf">
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<img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1534314826l/40653414.jpg" alt="Mrs Dalloway" class="goodreads-cover-img">
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<h3 class="goodreads-title">
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40653414" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mrs Dalloway</a>
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<p class="goodreads-author">Virginia Woolf</p>
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<span class="goodreads-year">Published: 1925</span>
<span class="goodreads-date">Finished: 04/05/2026</span>
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<div class="goodreads-description-text">Elegantly interweaving her characters' complex inner lives in an unbroken stream of consciousness, Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway continues to enthral readers with its exploration of the human experience; of time, space, madness and regret.
Past, present and future are brought together one momentous June day in 1923.
Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for a party while reminiscing about her childhood romance with Peter Walsh, and dwelling on her daughter Elizabeth's rapidly-approaching adulthood. In another part of London, war veteran Septimus Smith is shell-shocked and on the brink of madness, slowly spiralling towards self-annihilation. Their experiences mingling, yet never quite meeting, Virginia Woolf masterfully portrays a serendipitous unity of inner lives, converging as the party reaches its glittering climax.</div>
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