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1w

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1w

East of Eden

John Steinbeck

In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness. First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.

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1w

How to Be an Adult: A Handbook for Psychological and Spiritual Integration

David Richo

Living life as a happy, mature adult does not always come easily to all of us. In this best-selling work, David Richo conveys to his readers just how to do this, based on his many years' experience as a psychotherapist and workshop leader. The author uses as a model the heroic journey whose three phases--departure, struggle, and return--explain what happens in us as we evolve from neurotic ego through healthy ego to the spiritual Self. Departure is explored by helping the reader deal with fear, anger, and guilt, and building self-esteem. Through struggle one learns to maintain boundaries and build intimacy in relationships. And the result is a return to wholeness and love through integration. This thoughtful, approachable work is filled with checklists, diagrams, and literary quotations for meditation, making this a book to read and digest a little at a time for best results. How to Be an Adult will guide readers on their positive journey from fear, through power, to love.

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3w

estellezoeee

Jul 02, 2026

The Principles of Communism

4.0

Enjoyment: 4.0Quality: Characters: Plot:

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7w

estellezoeee

Jun 06, 2026

The Metamorphosis

3.5

Enjoyment: 2.5Quality: 3.0Characters: 3.0Plot: 3.0

😥

I've been looking forward to read this one and finally understand the hype of it. I did get more sleepy than actually got heartbroken. But, the thought of turning into something hideous with a life planned ahead is indeed a nightmare.

All you can do in these times is reminisce about the possibilities of your future plans while you get awfully treated by your blood after all the hard work you poured. This was the feeling/thought I couldn't bare to swallow as graduation is near. What a nightmare.

Publisher: Timeless books

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8w

estellezoeee

May 29, 2026

Intermezzo

5.0

Enjoyment: 4.0Quality: 4.5Characters: 4.0Plot: 3.0

🥺

This is now considered as one of my favorite books. I am so glad I chose to read this one. It took me so long to finish it. February 13, my favorite uncle died. April 4, my only grandmother died. Being able to finish this through was like finally me moving on with my life and accepting everything.

The last 3 chapters had me bawling my eyes out. The eldest child problems, the reflections on grief. Fuck, I forbid anyone to borrow the copy of my book as it also came through a lot. My random journal entries and the way I replied to their dialogues and monologues...

This must not be the best of Sally Rooney, but I am deeply grateful for her to write this one. Thank you, Rooney for writing my thoughts for me and helping me with my grief period. Always out there giving us questionable relationships and still I manage to understand and appreciate everything.

I still have a lot of thoughts. I can't seem to draw them out. But, yeah.

"It doesn't always work, but I do my best. See what happens. Go on in any case living."

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8w

Intermezzo

Sally Rooney

An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family, from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney. Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke. Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined. For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

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9w

Project Hail Mary

Andy Weir

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he?

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9w

How to Be an Adult: A Handbook for Psychological and Spiritual Integration

David Richo

Living life as a happy, mature adult does not always come easily to all of us. In this best-selling work, David Richo conveys to his readers just how to do this, based on his many years' experience as a psychotherapist and workshop leader. The author uses as a model the heroic journey whose three phases--departure, struggle, and return--explain what happens in us as we evolve from neurotic ego through healthy ego to the spiritual Self. Departure is explored by helping the reader deal with fear, anger, and guilt, and building self-esteem. Through struggle one learns to maintain boundaries and build intimacy in relationships. And the result is a return to wholeness and love through integration. This thoughtful, approachable work is filled with checklists, diagrams, and literary quotations for meditation, making this a book to read and digest a little at a time for best results. How to Be an Adult will guide readers on their positive journey from fear, through power, to love.

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9w

Beyond Freedom and Dignity

B.F. Skinner

In this profound and profoundly controversial work, a landmark of 20th-century thought originally published in 1971, B. F. Skinner makes his definitive statement about humankind and society. Insisting that the problems of the world today can be solved only by dealing much more effectively with human behavior, Skinner argues that our traditional concepts of freedom and dignity must be sharply revised. They have played an important historical role in our struggle against many kinds of tyranny, he acknowledges, but they are now responsible for the futile defense of a presumed free and autonomous individual; they are perpetuating our use of punishment and blocking the development of more effective cultural practices. Basing his arguments on the massive results of the experimental analysis of behavior he pioneered, Skinner rejects traditional explanations of behavior in terms of states of mind, feelings, and other mental attributes in favor of explanations to be sought in the interaction between genetic endowment and personal history. He argues that instead of promoting freedom and dignity as personal attributes, we should direct our attention to the physical and social environments in which people live. It is the environment rather than humankind itself that must be changed if the traditional goals of the struggle for freedom and dignity are to be reached. Beyond Freedom and Dignity urges us to reexamine the ideals we have taken for granted and to consider the possibility of a radically behaviorist approach to human problems--one that has appeared to some incompatible with those ideals, but which envisions the building of a world in which humankind can attain its greatest possible achievements.

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9w

The Art of Loving

Erich Fromm

The fiftieth Anniversary Edition of the groundbreaking international bestseller that has shown millions of readers how to achieve rich, productive lives by developing their hidden capacities for love Most people are unable to love on the only level that truly matters: love that is compounded of maturity, self-knowledge, and courage. As with every art, love demands practice and concentration, as well as genuine insight and understanding. In his classic work, The Art of Loving, renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm explores love in all its aspects—not only romantic love, steeped in false conceptions and lofty expectations, but also brotherly love, erotic love, self-love, the love of God, and the love of parents for their children.

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12w

The Art of Loving

Erich Fromm

The fiftieth Anniversary Edition of the groundbreaking international bestseller that has shown millions of readers how to achieve rich, productive lives by developing their hidden capacities for love Most people are unable to love on the only level that truly matters: love that is compounded of maturity, self-knowledge, and courage. As with every art, love demands practice and concentration, as well as genuine insight and understanding. In his classic work, The Art of Loving, renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm explores love in all its aspects—not only romantic love, steeped in false conceptions and lofty expectations, but also brotherly love, erotic love, self-love, the love of God, and the love of parents for their children.

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16w

Intermezzo

Sally Rooney

32%

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16w

Intermezzo

Sally Rooney

An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family, from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney. Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke. Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined. For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

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19w

Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us

Brian Klaas

A look at what power is, who gets it, and what happens when they do, based on over 500 interviews with those who (temporarily, at least) have had the upper hand—from the creator of the Power Corrupts podcast and Washington Post columnist Brian Klaas.Does power corrupt, or are corrupt people drawn to power? Are tyrants made or born? Are entrepreneurs who embezzle and cops who kill the result of poorly designed systems or are they just bad people? If you were suddenly thrust into a position of power, would you be able to resist the temptation to line your pockets or seek revenge against your enemies? To answer these questions, Corruptible draws on over 500 interviews with some of the world’s top leaders—from the noblest to the dirtiest—including presidents and philanthropists as well as rebels, cultists, and dictators. Some of the fascinating insights include: how facial appearance determines who we pick as leaders, why narcissists make more money, why some people don’t want power at all and others are drawn to it out of a psychopathic impulse, and why being the “beta” (second in command) may actually be the optimal place for health and well-being. Corruptible also features a wealth of counterintuitive examples from history and social science: you’ll meet the worst bioterrorist in American history, hit the slopes with a ski instructor who once ruled Iraq, and learn why the inability of chimpanzees to play baseball is central to the development of human hierarchies.

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21w

The Count of Monte Cristo: Abridged Edition

estellezoeee

Feb 27, 2026

The Count of Monte Cristo: Abridged Edition

5.0

Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 5.0Characters: 4.5Plot: 5.0

🥰

🥺

😄

I was already halfway through the book when I realized it's called an Abridged version since my IG reels share 1,500 pages while mine is only 500 lmao.

I LOVED IT. This will forever stay in me. One of the most entertaining classics I have read so far. The book will keep you up on your toes and questioning each and every move of the characters. Although, the schemes may be a bit predictable, I still love the plot and storyline for this.

What a fun narrator too. Although, I'm the type who easily laughs, this has a sense of humor and I love it hahaha.

I'm so glad the 1940s film adaptation did not completely do a proper adaptation of the book and just did their own ending hahah. My heart was heavy with that last chapter. Also, why do I feel like this resonates with la la land so much? So full of hopes and despair.

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