by D.L. Mayfield, 2022 I learned about this book from the library’s monthly biographies email. It’s a short, very well-written, and easy to read biography of Dorothy Day, the woman who started the Catholic Worker newspaper and Hospitality Houses for the poor. I had never heard of her, but Pope Francis in 2015 said to […]
Author: bookhound
Firekeeper’s Daughter
by Angeline Boulley, 2021 Engrossing mystery recommended to me by Cousin Gretchen. It’s YA, but well-written and a page-turner. I loved the setting (Ojibwe community of the Sault Ste. Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians and Sault Ste. Marie, in upper Michigan). I loved the main character (Daunis, 1/2 Indian, 1/2 rich white girl). It’s modern […]
Long Way Down
by Jason Reynolds, 2017 A very unusual book. Written in verse style so, although it is 306 pages long, I read it in just an hour or so. A 15 year-old black child, Will, is following the rules after his beloved brother, Shawn, is murdered. The rules are: Don’t cry, Don’t Snitch, Get revenge. He […]
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
by David Grann, 2023 Good, fast read by the author of Killers of the Flower Moon. Tells the true story of the ship, the Wager, a British warship that took off in 1740 for an ill-fated voyage with 4 other ships, to go around Cape Horn (the tip of South America) and capture a Spanish […]
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, 2005 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize Mesmerizing, enthralling book. I read it because the movie, Oppenheimer, was based on this book. The book is 591 pages long. It took me almost 6 weeks to read it. The movie follows the book closely, but the book is so much […]
Abroad in Japan
by Chris Broad, 2023 I LOVED this book! It’s funny and informative! Written by a young British man who went to Japan in 2012 at the age of 22 to teach English through the JET program. He ended up spending 10 years there (and maybe is still there), becoming a YouTube sensation, and loving Japan. […]
Band of Sisters
by Lauren Willig, 2021 Pat loaned this book to me. It was about the Smith College Relief Unit, a group of American women, graduates of Smith College, who volunteered in WWI to help French villagers devastated by the Germans (1917 – 1919, in villages near the Somme). They had no idea what they were getting […]
Remarkably Bright Creatures
by Shelby Van Pelt, 2022 A very fun novel! This book is the last book selected for the 2023-2024 Old Town Library Book Club. I loved the characters: Tova, an elderly Swedish lady who cleans the aquarium; Marcellus, a remarkably bright Giant Pacific Octopus who lives in the aquarium and knows what happened to Erik, […]
Returning: A Spiritual Journey
by Dan Wakefield, 1984, 1985, 1988 Learned about this book from the New York Times Morning Report (I think) talking about Dan Wakefield and his books on the day he died in March 2024 at age 91. He was born in Indianapolis in 1932 and grew up an only child, to unhappily married parents. His […]
West with Giraffes
by Lynda Rutledge, 2021 Wonderful book, recommended by neighbor, Pat. It’s historical fiction about a true life 1938 pair of giraffes that survived the hurricane out to sea near NYC in 1938, and then the journey across country to the San Diego Zoo, to become the first giraffes in a zoo in America.
The Fearless Mind
by Dr. Craig L. Manning, 2009, 2017 Adam sent me this book. Danette read it and liked it. It’s by a tennis player turned sports psychologist consultant. It’s like a thesis on how to control your mind, mainly, in order to become a peak performer. I like how he talks about thinking about the past […]
Naomi Osaka: Her Journey to Finding Her Power and Her Voice
by Ben Rothenberg, 2024 Very detailed biography on tennis player, Naomi Osaka. I happened to see it on the shelf at the library and grabbed it. It answered all my questions about Naomi – why is her last name Osaka when it’s her mother who is Japanese? Why does she play for Japan? Why did […]
Beartown
Fredrik Backman, 2016 I learned about this book from his Instagram posts. There are so many people who love Beartown and send him pictures of hockey jerseys with #16 and Ovich on them. I was intrigued because I love everything he’s written, so I borrowed it from the library. Well, it’s not my favorite book […]
The Ideal Team Player
by Patrick Lencioni, 2016 Self-help, business-help book on how to be an ideal team player and find and cultivate ideal team players. Wish I’d known this when I was working! We sure got fooled a number of times. As I look back, I can see that if we’d had this model – humble, hungry, and […]
The Midnight Library
by Matt Haig, 2020 Fun book! This was one of the Old Town Library Book Club’s selections for 2023-2024, for February 2024. It’s about a young British girl, Nora Seed, who is full of regrets and decides to kill herself by taking all of her anti-depressants. She wakes up in the Midnight Library with Mrs. […]
Lessons in Chemistry
by Bonnie Garmus, 2022 I loved this book! It was recommended by Jan M. and Marney K. It was an engrossing novel about 1960’s America, a lady chemist named Elizabeth Zott, who faces sexual harassment, assaults, and prejudice at every turn. She meets the love of her life, Calvin Evans, but refuses to marry him […]
The Mermaid Chair
by Sue Monk Kidd, 2005 Got this book out of the little free library in front of Poppie’s house. It’s by the author of The Secret Life of Bees. The story starts when an artist/mother/wife gets called to her childhood home on an island off the coast of South Carolina by a friend of her […]
The Covenant of Water
by Abraham Verghese, 2023 Beautiful novel by the author of Cutting for Stone, and The Tennis Partner. Marney told me about it. It is 715 pages long! It is set in southern India, spanning almost the entire 1900’s. It concerns a family that lives on a small estate called Parambil, near the ocean on the […]
The Shoemaker’s Wife
by Adriana Trigiani, 2012 Wonderful novel, set in early 1900’s to mid-1900’s, about young Italian immigrants, Ciro Lazzari and Enza Ravanelli. Ciro was an orphan, dropped off with his brother, Eduardo, at the convent in Vilminore, when he was a child. The nuns raise him. He’s strong and handsome. Enza, short for Vincenza, is the […]
Hard Times
by Charles Dickens, 1854 It was good to read a classic again, but this one was more difficult than other Dickens novels. Here’s an example from Chapter 9, Final: “It is a dangerous thing to see anything in the sphere of a vain blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it himself. Mr. Bounderby felt that […]