283 books
—
475 voters
to-read
(158)
currently-reading (3)
read (287)
drama (67)
fantasy (61)
romance (34)
female-lead (23)
currently-reading (3)
read (287)
drama (67)
fantasy (61)
romance (34)
female-lead (23)
favorites
(22)
magical-realism (19)
family-dynamics (17)
gender-studies (16)
history (13)
elements-of-history (12)
nonfiction (12)
magical-realism (19)
family-dynamics (17)
gender-studies (16)
history (13)
elements-of-history (12)
nonfiction (12)
Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust.
...more
“They talked about the lives they had left behind in Calcutta: your mother's beautiful home in Jodhpur Park, with hibiscus and rosebushes blooming on the rooftop, and my mother's modest flat in Maniktala, above a grimy Punjabi restaurant, where seven people existed in three small rooms. In Calcutta they would probably have had little occasion to meet. Your mother went to a convent school and was the daughter of one of Calcutta's most prominent lawyers, a pipe-smoking Anglophile and a member of the Saturday Club. My mother's father was a clerk in the General Post Office, and she had neither eaten at a table nor sat on a commode before coming to America. Those differences were irrelevant in Cambridge, where they were both equally alone. Here they shopped together for groceries and complained about their husbands and cooked either our stove or yours, dividing up the dishes for our respective families when they were done. They knitted together, switching projects when one of them got bored. When I was born, your parents were the only friends to visit the hospital. I was fed in your old high chair, pushed along the streets in your old pram.”
― Unaccustomed Earth
― Unaccustomed Earth
“Acting on Hope to prevent further degradation is our moral obligation.”
― Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic
― Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic
“All sins are murder, even as all life is war. I behold your race, like starving mariners on a raft, plucking crusts out of the hands of famine and feeding on each other’s lives. I follow sins beyond the moment of their acting; I find in all that the last consequence is death; and to my eyes, the pretty maid who thwarts her mother with such taking graces on a question of a ball, drips no less visibly with human gore than a murderer.”
― Markheim
― Markheim
“And my own way was to sprinkle a bit of mischief onto even my most villainous roles, just as I brought a little mischief into my encounters with my mother: doing whatever I could to make the darkness sparkle.”
― Vagabond: A Memoir
― Vagabond: A Memoir
“All this business of going through phases, it's just a thing that older people say, they think they have the right to look at you from their moldy perches and pass judgement on your life.”
― A Place of Greater Safety
― A Place of Greater Safety
CPH Book Club
— 1747 members
— last activity Jan 02, 2026 07:09AM
Certified in Public Health professionals are invited to join the book club to share and discuss books relevant to the field of public health. HOW IT ...more
acdt’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at acdt’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by acdt
Lists liked by acdt



















































