Author: bookhound

The Mysterious Mr. Quin

by Agatha Christie, 1930, 1958 I adored this book. I got it from a little free library in the neighborhood. I took it to Montana December 2024 when I went there to help Adam and Danette after Eliya was born. It’s a little book so was easy to stuff in my carry-on. Twelve mysteries set […]

Flash

by Rachel Anne Ridge, 2015 Adored this book! Danette loaned it to me in Montana December 2024. I read it in about 3 days. It was wonderful. True story about the life lessons learned from a donkey that showed up in their driveway one night. Tom and Rachel live in the country in Texas. They […]

The Christmas List

by Richard Paul Evans, 2009 Dee lent me this book to read while in Montana with Adam and Danette in December 2024. It was EXCELLENT! I read it in 2 days. It’s a re-telling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Set in Utah, the main character is James Kier. He’s a ruthless, rich businessman who […]

Bitter Lemons

by Lawrence Durrell, 1957 I learned about this book from The Island of Missing Trees book about Cyprus. It’s by Lawrence Durrell, the eldest brother of the Durrell’s in Corfu. I’ve read Gerald Durrell’s books and love them. I liked this one, too. That is one talented family! Lawrence bought an old, charming place in […]

Into the Uncut Grass

by Trevor Noah, illustrated by Sabina Hahn, 2024 I LOVE Trevor Noah, author of Born a Crime! (Everyone in the U.S.A. should read Born a Crime.) This is his latest book. It’s a children’s book for adults, an adult’s book for children. It’s about a little boy and his teddy bear, Walter, who wake up […]

Building Wealth One House at a Time

by John W. Schaub, 2023, 2016, 2005 Adam recommended this book. Adam took him fishing. See picture above. There is no picture of the author on the back of the book, either. I think he likes to remain anonymous. He’s been buying houses and leasing them out since 1975. He is extremely hard-working, smart, logical, […]

Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth

by Ina May Gaskin, 2003, 2019 Recommended by Adam. This one was not as organized as the Susan McCutcheon book, Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way. Ina May is a midwife. She has been for decades. Her book, Spiritual Midwifery, was first written in 1975 and has been updated 7 times. She started a birthing center […]

The Island of Missing Trees

by Elif Shafak, 2021 Interesting book giving lots of history about the island of Cyprus, including the Civil War that erupted between Greeks and Turks on July 20, 1974. The main characters are Kostas, a young Greek man, and Dephne, a young Turkish woman. They live on the island and fall in love. They meet […]

Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way

by Susan McCutcheon, 2017 (1984, May 1996, June 2017) Adam recommended this book. He listened to it while on the way home from Alaska. He and Danette own a copy of it. It was where he learned about how X-rays were done on fetuses and it took 20 years or so before this completely unnecessary […]

White Teeth

by Zadie Smith, 2000 In-depth study of London from the eyes of a diverse caste of characters: 1. Bangladeshi immigrants, Samad Iqbal, his wife Alsana, and their twin sons, Millat and Magid. 2. Archie Jones, and his wife, Clara, who is black and the daughter of Hortense, a Jehovah’s witness born in Jamaica. 3. Archie […]

Cheap Land Colorado

by Ted Conover, 2022 This is our second book for Old Town Book Club 2024-2025, to be discussed on November 4th. Such a readable book! It’s about the people who live on raw land in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. He is an investigative journalist, grew up in Denver but now lives in New […]

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine

by John Fox, Jr., 1908 Sweet, romantic book about an older man, John “Jack” Hale, and a “little girl,” June Tolliver, who meet in the Lonesome Cove up in the hills of Virginia, near the giant pine, the “Lonesome Pine.” They fall in love. Incredibly romantic. Set in the early 1900’s, when the railroad and […]

Cold Comfort Farm

by Stella Gibbons, 1932 I ADORED THIS BOOK!!!! I learned about it from my British Classics puzzle. It was one of the classics in that puzzle, and the cover had a little blurb, “Very probably the funniest book ever written.” It was a delight from start to finish. Set in 1930’s England. The main character […]

The Mayor of Casterbridge

by Thomas Hardy, 1886 This book was suggested to me as his favorite classic during the FAC at Susan and Doug’s, by the retired cancer doctor from Indiana who lives in the new MCM house on E. Myrtle Street. I think his name is Jim. This was a soap opera! Main character, Michael Henchard, gets […]

Wind, Sand and Stars

by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, 1939 This is an autobiography of the author of The Little Prince. He was a French pilot in the 1930’s and 1940’s, flying the mail from France to Africa and then in South America over the Andes. He writes about the dangers of flying – mountains, storms, sand, sometimes the planes […]

The Secret History

by Donna Tartt, 1992 I read this book because it is by the author of The Goldfinch, which I loved, and which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. This was a page-turner, very dark in personalities and setting and plot. Six college-aged students, most very wealthy, are the sole students in a professor’s Greek class. […]