by Chang-Rae Lee, 2010 Graphic violence & sex, even lesbianism. Why?!! “Gratuitous” sex and violence. June, young Korean girl, loses her entire family one by one in aftermath and during Korean war. She is found by GI, Hector, on the road, follows him to orphanage. They both fall in love with Sylvie Tanner, minister’s wife, […]
Author: bookhound
The Surrendered
Les Miserables
by Victor Hugo, 1862, translated by Norman Denny 1200 pages. What a great book!!! Recommended by Sandy Calhoun. Jean Val Jean – ex-convict, imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving nephews, who changes into a saint after Bishop Digne gives him his silver candlesticks too, rather than having him arrested for stealing […]
King Solomon’s Mines
by H. Rider Haggard, 1885 Three Englishmen go on an adventure to find King Solomon’s diamond mine. After nearly dying many times, and being in a war in Kukualand, they make it! Almost die in the mine, too. Gagool, the ancient witch, locks them in but they manage to get out with a few diamonds […]
The Other Boleyn Girl
by Philippa Gregory, 2001 Racy novel about 1500-1536 England with King Henry VIII. Mary Boleyn, the sweet one, is the only one to survive. Brother, George, and sister, Queen Anne, are beheaded in 1536, accused of adultery. Anne was evil, ambitious – ruined Queen Katherine – poisoned a man – would do anything to get […]
The Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexandre Dumas, translated by Robin Buss, 1996, 2003, first published 1844-5 1243 pages – WHAT A WONDERFUL BOOK! All human wisdom is contained in these two words: ‘wait’ and ‘hope’! Recommended by Tim Wolsey. Edmond Dantes, a fine young sailor, is thrown into prison in Chateau d’If for 14 long years. He befriends Abbe […]
A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini, 2007 Page turner! Set in Afghanistan from 1959 to present. Main characters: Mariam and Laila. Mariam was a harami, an illegitimate child. Yet her father (Jalil) set up her and her mom (Nana) in a nice little shack in the hills by a stream near Herat and visited Mariam every week. When […]
Gates of Fire
by Steven Pressfield, 1998 The 300 Spartans go to battle at Thermopylae where all are eventually killed but not until they have killed millions of the enemy (Xerxes of Persia). What a great book! What warriors! Became intimate with the Spartans-their king, Leonidas, and their officers; Polynikes, Dienekes, Olympieus, and their wives. 480 B.C. Beautiful […]
Madame Bovary
by Gustave Flaubert, 1856 Finished 12/25/08 in Belize. Selfish girl, gets married, doesn’t like her life, has 2 affairs, can’t pay her debts, kills herself by eating arsenic.
Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Spanish 1985, English 1988 Florentino Aria falls in love with Fermina Daza. She marries Dr. Juvenal Urbino instead. Florentino whores around for 54 years waiting for Dr. Urbino to die. Dr. Urbino dies trying to capture his parrot from a mango tree. Florentino takes Fermina on a riverboat cruise on the […]
Northanger Abbey
by Jane Austen, 1803 but published 1817 (posthumously) Seems so petty – young girls falling in love – but I couldn’t put it down! Catherine Morland, 17, gets to go to Bath with Mr. and Mrs. Allen. She meets the Thorpes – Isabella becomes her dear friend. Isabella is in love (supposedly) with Catherine’s brother, […]
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
by Jules Verne, 1870 The year 1868, the Nautilus, Captain Nemo’s fantastic submarine, is thought to be a narwhal. M. Aronnax, a French scientist and his servant, Conseil, end up on a boat aimed to kill it. They end up thrown into the Pacific Ocean and are picked up, along with Ned Land, the Canadian […]
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
John Steinbeck, 1962 At the age of 58, in 1960, John Steinbeck leaves Sag harbor, NY, and his loving wife to travel across America with his French poodle, Charley. “We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” Pg 4. He got a 3/4 ton pick-up with […]
Death Comes for the Archbishop
by Willa Cather, 1927 1850’s New Mexico; two French-Catholic priests are sent from Ohio to New Mexico. They settle in Santa Fe but travel far and wide to the Mexicans and Indians in New Mexico and Arizona. Beautiful descriptions. Learned a lot about Catholicism. Bishop Jean Marie LaTour and Father Vaillant.
The Time Traveler’s Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger, 2003 Clare waits for Henry, her time-traveling husband, never knowing when he’ll disappear or reappear. Clare always drives because Henry doesn’t-never knows when he’ll disappear. Henry cooks-Clare doesn’t know how since she had a cook, Nell, while growing up (rich girl). Henry recruits Dr. Kendrick, a geneticist, to try and find a […]
Hawaii
by James Michener, 1959 First 1/2 – excellent! Second 1/2 – hard to get through. First-Polynesians from Bora Bora. Then skipped to missionaries from New England. They were good people but prejudiced. Then the Chinese came to work in sugar. Learned about leprosy and Molokai. Then the Japanese came to work. Then WWII – Japanese […]
Memoirs of a Geisha
by Arthur Golden, 1997 Intricate tale about a young girl (Chiyo) with beautiful gray eyes, sold to be a geisha from her seaside home. Separated from her sister (Satsu) in Kyoto, raised in an “okiya” with Hatsumomo, an evil geisha who tries to ruin her life. Crying by the Sirakawa stream one day, she meets […]
The Shack
by William P. Young, 2007 I HATED this book! Here’s my book report from September 2008: Had a very hard time with this book but Jenifer said to not stop reading and it did turn around when Mack is led to “Sophia” (wisdom) and asked to judge his children – 3 to hell, 2 to […]
The Moonstone
by Wilkie Collins, 1868 Fantastic mystery published in 1868. Story takes place in 1840’s England. Herncastle steals an Indian diamond, the Moonstone, and wills it to his niece on her 18th birthday. Franklin Blake delivers it (her cousin). There is a curse associated with the Moontsone because it is guarded by 3 Indians in perpetuity. […]
Death in Zanzibar
by M. M. Kaye, 1958 Zanzibar, on the east side of Africa. Who Dun It – Lash and Dany – many characters. House of Shade, Kivulimi, Tyson and Lorraine (Dany’s mother and many others).
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
by Alexander McCall Smith, 2002 A rival detective agency run by a man, The Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency, opens up. Mma Ramotswe is visited by a man who has deep regrets about 2 things he did as a young man: got a girl pregnant and stole a radio to sell so she would have an […]