Bill Kupersmith’s books on Goodreads (951 books) (original) (raw)

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| | # | cover | title | author | isbn | isbn13 | asin | pages | rating | ratings | pub | (ed.) | rating | my rating | review | notes | | comments | votes | count | started | read | addedDown arrow | | owned | | | format | | | -------- | -------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------- | -------------------- | --------------- | ---------------- | --------------- | ------------------ | --------------------- | 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| ------------------------ | ------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | --------------- | ---------------------------- | ------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----- | --------------------- | --------------------------------------------------- | | ------ | | | checkbox | position | cover In the Blink of An Eye (Kat and Lock, #1) | title In the Blink of An Eye(Kat and Lock, #1) | author Callaghan, Jo * | isbn 1398511161 | isbn13 9781398511163 | asin 1398511161 | num pages 416pp | avg rating 4.22 | num ratings 6,801 | date pub Jan 09, 2023 | date pub edition Jan 01, 2023 | Bill's rating | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 0 | date started not set | date read not set | date added Sep 24, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Wavewalker: Breaking Free | title Wavewalker: Breaking Free | author Heywood, Suzanne * | isbn 0008498490 | isbn13 9780008498498 | asin | num pages 416pp | avg rating 4.27 | num ratings 5,073 | date pub Apr 13, 2023 | date pub edition Apr 13, 2023 | Bill's rating | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 0 | date started not set | date read not set | date added Sep 17, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover The Night Train | title The Night Train | author Bolton, Sharon J. * | isbn | isbn13 | asin B08PK33SRS | num pages 400pp | avg rating 3.91 | num ratings 136 | date pub Nov 12, 2020 | date pub edition Mar 18, 2021 | Bill's rating | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 0 | date started not set | date read not set | date added Sep 17, 2024 | owned | format Kindle Edition | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Caledonian Road | title Caledonian Road | author O'Hagan, Andrew | isbn 1324074876 | isbn13 9781324074878 | asin 1324074876 | num pages 608pp | avg rating 3.93 | num ratings 3,477 | date pub Apr 02, 2024 | date pub edition Jun 18, 2024 | Bill's rating really liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 1 | date started Sep 16, 2024 | date read Sep 27, 2024 | date added Sep 17, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Scumbag Summer: A Novel | title Scumbag Summer: A Novel | author Luft, Jillian | isbn | isbn13 | asin B0D5V3D8VF | num pages 150pp | avg rating 4.61 | num ratings 54 | date pub unknown | date pub edition May 31, 2024 | Bill's rating really liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 1 | date started Sep 15, 2024 | date read Sep 17, 2024 | date added Sep 15, 2024 | owned | format Kindle Edition | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Hounded: Women, Harms, and the Gender Wars | title Hounded: Women, Harms, and the Gender Wars | author Lindsay, Jenny | isbn 1509563628 | isbn13 9781509563623 | asin 1509563628 | num pages 208pp | avg rating 0.00 | num ratings 0 | date pub unknown | date pub edition Nov 12, 2024 | Bill's rating | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 0 | date started not set | date read not set | date added Sep 11, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Wives Like Us | title Wives Like Us | author Sykes, Plum | isbn 0062429086 | isbn13 9780062429087 | asin 0062429086 | num pages 368pp | avg rating 3.53 | num ratings 2,746 | date pub May 14, 2024 | date pub edition May 14, 2024 | Bill's rating | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 2 | date started not set not set | date read May 10, 2024 not set | date added Sep 10, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover The In Crowd (DI Caius Beauchamp, #2) | title The In Crowd(DI Caius Beauchamp, #2) | author Vassell, Charlotte * | isbn 0593685970 | isbn13 9780593685976 | asin 0593685970 | num pages 432pp | avg rating 4.09 | num ratings 564 | date pub Apr 02, 2024 | date pub edition Aug 06, 2024 | Bill's rating | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 1 | date started Sep 2024 | date read Sep 10, 2024 | date added Sep 10, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Creation Lake | title Creation Lake | author Kushner, Rachel * | isbn 1982116528 | isbn13 9781982116521 | asin 1982116528 | num pages 416pp | avg rating 3.62 | num ratings 2,928 | date pub Sep 03, 2024 | date pub edition Sep 03, 2024 | Bill's rating it was amazing | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 1 | # times read 1 | date started Sep 10, 2024 | date read Sep 12, 2024 | date added Sep 06, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Precipice | title Precipice | author Harris, Robert | isbn 1804940941 | isbn13 9781804940945 | asin B0CL65RG9V | num pages 387pp | avg rating 4.19 | num ratings 1,394 | date pub Aug 29, 2024 | date pub edition Aug 29, 2024 | Bill's rating it was amazing | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review My first encounter with the December-May romance between a British prime minister and a young society woman was reading Susan Howatch’s Scandalous Ris My first encounter with the December-May romance between a British prime minister and a young society woman was reading Susan Howatch’s Scandalous Risks, where the role of Asquith was given to the dean of an English cathedral named Aysgarth and the setting moved to 1963 when everyone was gripped by the Profumo scandal. The object of the Dean’s affections still had the Christian name Venetia, but with the family name changed from Stanley to Flaxton. Now, reading the same story with the original characters and setting in Robert Harris’s Precipice, seems like moving from Anthony Trollope’s Barchester series to the Palliser political novels, only with real people and events. I am not a huge fan of historical fiction, both because we always know, except in the case of counterfactuals, how they are going to turn out and because the psyches of the principal characters are established by history and legend. But what literature can give the reader, which even the best historians cannot, is the sense of actually being there ourselves – in the cabinet room at 10 Downing Street or the drawing room of a great house, associating with the top people planning an invasion of the Dardanelles or a wedding at Saint Margaret’s, Westminster, with the possibility of a disastrous outcome for either. Here the novelist comes to the aid of the historian. After encountering Winston Churchill filtered through the consciousness of Asquith and transmitted to his beloved Venetia, I began to understand how he acquired his reputation as a hare-brained thoroughly untrustworthy adventurer – the despatch and hasty recall of the newly hatched naval division in Belgium was evidence enough even before the Turkish adventure. Yet the original plan for the Dardanelles operation was good and if promptly executed might well have changed the outcome of history. But complicated military operations seldom come off on schedule.To give the romantic story poignancy, Harris introduces a fictitious subplot with an imaginary Special Branch police Detective Sergeant seconded to military intelligence. We are to suppose that they are aware that someone at the highest level is leaking (as we now say) state secrets, and DS Deemer finds himself reading the intercepted correspondence between Asquith and Venetia. He even manages to gain access to her cache of letters in Alderley, the great Stanley house. On reflection, Deemer’s undercover exploits are wholly implausible, but they provide lots of suspense as well as allowing us to read the letters from another point of view than the protagonists’. And that’s necessary. Granted the liability of even the most sober (and Asquith was often anything but) and responsible older men to make complete fools of themselves when enjoying the admiring attention of an attractive person half their age (I do have the t-shirts), I can’t imagine where the Prime Minister ever expected the relationship to go. In the eighteenth-century it might possibly have worked, but not in a 20th-century democracy with a free and Opposition press. I also couldn’t see what Venetia enjoyed in the relationship. We all love the experience of being on the inside but Venetia doesn’t seem to have had any favourite persons or causes to advance. (Had I been she, I might have tried to get Edwin Montagu appointed Governor of the Andaman Islands to escape his attentions, as well as promoting woman suffrage and Irish Home Rule.)Yet despite some unlikely features of character and plot, Precipice is an engaging historical romance that I enjoyed immensely. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 1 | votes 2 | # times read 1 | date started Sep 17, 2024 | date read Sep 24, 2024 | date added Sep 05, 2024 | owned | format ebook | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Two Dead Wives (DCI Clements, #2) | title Two Dead Wives(DCI Clements, #2) | author Parks, Adele * | isbn 0778333574 | isbn13 9780778333579 | asin 0778333574 | num pages 400pp | avg rating 3.86 | num ratings 11,424 | date pub Aug 17, 2023 | date pub edition Dec 26, 2023 | Bill's rating really liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 1 | date started Aug 29, 2024 | date read Sep 10, 2024 | date added Aug 29, 2024 | owned | format Paperback | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover History in the House: Some Remarkable Dons and the Teaching of Politics, Character and Statecraft | title History in the House: Some Remarkable Dons and the Teaching of Politics, Character and Statecraft | author Davenport-Hines, Richard | isbn 0008285748 | isbn13 9780008285746 | asin B0CNRC5PZR | num pages 571pp | avg rating 4.50 | num ratings 2 | date pub unknown | date pub edition Jun 20, 2024 | Bill's rating | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 1 | date started Aug 09, 2024 | date read Sep 10, 2024 | date added Aug 09, 2024 | owned | format Kindle Edition | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover The Runes Have Been Cast | title The Runes Have Been Cast | author Irwin, Robert | isbn 9781912868 | isbn13 | asin | num pages 249pp | avg rating 3.76 | num ratings 25 | date pub Nov 29, 2021 | date pub edition Nov 29, 2021 | Bill's rating | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 0 | date started not set | date read not set | date added Aug 02, 2024 | owned | format Paperback | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Memoirs of a Dervish: Sufis, Mystics and the Sixties | title Memoirs of a Dervish: Sufis, Mystics and the Sixties | author Irwin, Robert | isbn 1861979916 | isbn13 9781861979919 | asin 1861979916 | num pages 239pp | avg rating 3.64 | num ratings 110 | date pub Apr 07, 2011 | date pub edition Apr 17, 2012 | Bill's rating | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 0 | date started not set | date read not set | date added Aug 02, 2024 | owned | format Paperback | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Strange Sally Diamond | title Strange Sally Diamond | author Nugent, Liz * | isbn 1844885968 | isbn13 9781844885961 | asin 1844885968 | num pages 384pp | avg rating 4.19 | num ratings 94,384 | date pub Jul 18, 2023 | date pub edition Mar 02, 2023 | Bill's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review Though I’d not wish to inject spoilers, the reader should be warned that some reviews understate how disturbing a story this is. Imagine Gail Honeyman Though I’d not wish to inject spoilers, the reader should be warned that some reviews understate how disturbing a story this is. Imagine Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine combined with the nastiest parts of Emma Donoghue’s Room, revised with supplementary material contributed by Jack Ketchum. Here Donoghue’s Jack character Peter alias Steve turns out to be very much a chip off the Old Nick block, and he has a younger sister, Sally alias Mary, who was rescued and adopted and reared in ignorance and without any memory of her real mother’s abduction and ordeal. It’s not clear whether forty-something Sally is autistic or suffering severe PTSD, but she comes to the attention of the police and her small-town Irish neighbours when she takes literally her adoptive father’s ironic funeral instructions to be put out with the rubbish. But the abductor rapist father fled Ireland with Peter to New Zealand, with new identities but the same horrifying evil propensities to abuse women. As the story is narrated in first person in alternate chapters by Sally and Peter, I found myself batted back and forth like a shuttlecock from bathing in warm approbation at Sally’s progress to becoming a social creature with loving friends to utmost horror and chilling anger at the monstrosities perpetrated by Sally’s father and brother. I also found the ending most unsatisfying and wonder if the author is setting up a sequel. Yet, as what Dr. Watson called sensational literature, this book is utterly engrossing. If you can suspend your repugnance at a tale of grotesque abuse told with an affect of smug satisfaction, you will likely find this one a nonstop read. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 2 | # times read 1 | date started Jul 19, 2024 | date read Jul 24, 2024 | date added Jul 18, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life | title The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life | author Miller, Lisa * | isbn 198485562X | isbn13 9781984855626 | asin 198485562X | num pages 272pp | avg rating 4.18 | num ratings 1,841 | date pub Aug 17, 2021 | date pub edition Aug 17, 2021 | Bill's rating | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 1 | date started Jul 13, 2024 | date read not set | date added Jul 13, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation | title Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation | author Cusk, Rachel | isbn 0571277659 | isbn13 9780571277650 | asin 0571277659 | num pages 153pp | avg rating 3.66 | num ratings 3,394 | date pub Aug 2012 | date pub edition Jan 01, 2012 | Bill's rating it was ok | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review Rachel Cusk writes austere postmodern novels without plots, with nameless characters designated only by a single letter. Fortunately, her books are sl Rachel Cusk writes austere postmodern novels without plots, with nameless characters designated only by a single letter. Fortunately, her books are slender, so that you can easily carry them about and be noticed perusing them in coffeehouses in university towns. In Aftermath she seems to identify herself with Clytemnestra, though so far as one can tell the only harm her estranged spouse did to their daughters was to feed them ‘pizza and chicken curry from the supermarket’ instead of the gourmet meals he used to make, ‘pasty and boeuf bourguignon . . . his own mincemeat at Christmas . . . little parcels of ravioli . . . crimped . . . around the edges’. Actually, most children prefer simple meals to recipes out of Bon Appetit! I fear Cusk’s versions of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Sophocles’ Antigone (where she gives Antigone a brother named ‘Polylectes’) would get a Beta minus on a Classics exam, and she really should reread Genesis 18:23-33, where God does not ‘thunder at [Abraham] for having the temerity to hold an opinion’ but rather bargains with him like a rug buyer in a bazaar. Granted, no one is on oath to tell the truth when describing the wreck of a relationship, but minimal accuracy when displaying one’s classical attainments is good form. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 1 | # times read 1 | date started Jul 08, 2024 | date read Jul 17, 2024 | date added Jul 08, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Moral Injuries | title Moral Injuries | author Watson, Christie * | isbn 0063378590 | isbn13 9780063378599 | asin 0063378590 | num pages 272pp | avg rating 3.52 | num ratings 501 | date pub Jun 25, 2024 | date pub edition Jun 25, 2024 | Bill's rating really liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review Besides being a writer, Charlotte Watson was a critical care nurse, and based on my own experience as a hospital chaplain, I’d say she knows the stuff Besides being a writer, Charlotte Watson was a critical care nurse, and based on my own experience as a hospital chaplain, I’d say she knows the stuff. In this story, told from multiple POVs over a 25-year period, we follow three physicians from uni to middle age, both in their careers and their personal relationships with marriages and children. Throughout, they share a guilty secret about something that happened at a student party with drugs, where someone died and someone went to prison. And at their peak they are faced with another secret involving their children and a patient on life support. That is a common legal crux and excellent subject for theological reflection: if life support is withdrawn, someone may be charged with causing unlawful death. Suppose one was a person you loved and you were involved with making the decision.The title, Moral Injury, is a term in military chaplaincy used to classify a form of PTSD caused by having participated in or witnessed terrible atrocities. And even in a civilian hospital, we sometimes face choosing deliberately between bad and worse with no way to know which will turn out worse. Our legal, moral and religious categories were laid down long before such things as ventilators were even imagined. Many people, especially patients’ family members faced with a decision, cannot grasp that taking a patient off life support is not ‘killing’ the patient and withdrawing a feeding tube is not ‘starving the patient to death’. The differences with a British setting are illuminating. What Americans call ‘residents’ are ‘junior doctors’, ‘specialists’ are ‘consultants’, ‘primary care physicians’ are ‘GPs’, ‘operating rooms’ are ‘theatres’ and the doctor’s ‘office’ is the ‘surgery’ (a term also used by MPs). I’m still not quite sure of the rank of a ‘registrar’. Though I liked multiple POVs and watching a story unfold over time, I found it difficult to keep the characters’ specialities straight and trying to recall which one was the cardio-thoracic surgeon or the air ambulance doc or the GP, much less who is married to whom or is whose mum. And I found repeated jumping back and forth from the ‘90s till now with stops in between more disorienting. Only gradually are we allowed to discover what took place at that student party long ago, and personally I found myself more jerked around than intrigued as a reader. If we’d known from the outset, we’d still have been carried along by desire to discover the outcome, but not resented the author’s playing games with us. But generally I thoroughly appreciated the medical details and quite liked the characters and the story. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 5 | # times read 1 | date started Jul 24, 2024 | date read Aug 05, 2024 | date added Jul 08, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Sophocles: Ajax (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries Book 48) | title Sophocles: Ajax(Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries Book 48) | author Sophocles | isbn 1139121219 | isbn13 9781139121217 | asin B0067J8MHQ | num pages 622pp | avg rating 3.92 | num ratings 6,244 | date pub -440 | date pub edition Aug 25, 2011 | Bill's rating | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 1 | date started Jul 24, 2024 | date read not set | date added Jul 03, 2024 | owned | format Kindle Edition | actions view | | | | | checkbox | position | cover The House of Mirrors | title The House of Mirrors | author Kelly, Erin * | isbn | isbn13 | asin B0CJP84Q7N | num pages 368pp | avg rating 4.06 | num ratings 751 | date pub unknown | date pub edition Apr 04, 2024 | Bill's rating | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review None | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 0 | date started not set | date read not set | date added Jun 30, 2024 | owned | format Kindle Edition | actions view | | | |

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