by Lisa Ko, 2017 Good book about Chinese mother (Polly Guo) and son (Deming Guo) separated when Deming was 11 years old. He thinks his Mama abandoned him. He is adopted by a white couple in upstate New York but never feels comfortable there and his heart aches for his Mama. Finally, at the age […]
Author: bookhound
The Leavers
Paul Simon, the life
by Robert Hilburn, 2018 Scanned this book quickly after getting through the first 100 pages but then getting bogged down. Learned enough: Born in 1941, grandparents immigrated from Lithuania and Ukraine, long before the Holocaust, which would have killed them since they were Jewish. His father was a musician, stand-up bass. He was born in […]
Milkman
by Anna Burns, 2018 Fantastic book! So original! Never read anything like this! LOVED it! Learned what Ireland in the 1970s was like – brought home the problems. Written from the perspective of an 18 year old Irish girl, Middle Sister. We never learn her first name. She has a wonderful relationship with maybe-boyfriend but […]
Washington Black
by Esi Edugyan, 2018 Fascinating book about a little boy, George Washington Black (Wash), who is a slave on the Faith Plantation in Barbados. He works alongside a big black woman, Big Kit. She takes care of him and he gets to sleep with her at night and work alongside her during the day. One […]
The Joy of Less
A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify by Francine Jay, Miss Minimalist, 2010 Easy, fast read about getting rid of S***, and living a more meaningful life. This was 4 years before Marie Kondo’s, ‘Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.’ Francine advises a room-by-room de-cluttering effort rather than Marie Kondo’s de-clutter by type effort, but […]
The Library Book
by Susan Orlean, 2018 What a fantastic writer Susan Orlean is! I haven’t read a book that flows this beautifully since Herman Wouk’s, The Caine Mutiny. She details the Los Angeles Public Library fire that happened on April 28, 1986. One of the first things she tells us is why we’ve never heard of this […]
Driving Miss Norma
by Tim Bauerschmidt and Ramie Liddle, 2017 When Tim’s mother, aged 90, is diagnosed with uterine cancer, rather than undergo months of chemo, radiation, etc., they invite her to go on the road with them (Tim, his wife, Ramie, and their standard poodle, Ringo). She says to the doctor, “I’m ninety years old. I’m hitting […]
Small Fry
A Memoir, by Lisa Brennan-Jobs, 2018 Memoir by the first-born daughter of Steve Jobs. He never married her mother. and he denied he was Lisa’s father even after a DNA test proved she was. What a mean, stingy man. How painful her childhood was, trying to earn her father’s love. He would not give her […]
Gulp.
by Mary Roach, 2013 Funny book about all the sensationalist science on the alimentary canal, starting with taste (it’s almost all about our nose) down through all the digestive processes. She reports on a wine-tasting comparing six bottles hidden in brown paper bags. “‘At least one is under $10 and two are over $50…Over the […]
Pachinko
By Min Jin Lee, 2017 Ugh, glad this one’s over. It started out good, but about half-way through, it became trash, full of all kinds of sex for no good reason, and pointless interactions, except to reinforce how racist the Japanese were (are?) towards the Koreans. This was our 3rd title for the Old Town […]
Transcription
by Kate Atkinson, 2018 Finished 12/26/18 Kept waiting to get into this book all the way through to the end. I was so excited about it because it is by the author of Life After Life and Started Early, Took My Dog. Story is about spies in WWII England. Juliet Armstrong is the main character. […]
Around the World in Eighty Days
by Jules Verne, 1873 Finished 12/14/18 Loved, loved, LOVED this book! Phileas Fogg, a rich Englishman, decides to take on the challenge to go around the world in 80 days. He takes his brand new servant, Passepartout, along and the adventures they have together are so entertaining.
Spiritual Disciplines Handbook
Practices that Transform Us, by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, 2005, Scanned 12/9/18 A very thorough book covering spiritual disciplines by defining them, providing Scripture verses regarding them, and exercises to build them.
Shade, A Tale of Two Presidents
Shade, A Tale of Two Presidents, by Pete Souza, 2018 Scanned 12/9/18 Pete Souza was the White House photographer for Obama and Reagan. He contrasts his photos of Obama with tweets of Donald Trump and “throws shade” at Trump, which means “a subtle, sneering expression of contempt for or disgust with someone–sometimes verbal, and sometimes […]
The Wayfarer’s Handbook
A Field Guide for the Independent Traveler, by Evan S. Rice, 2017, scanned 12/8/18 Very interesting, packed little book full of all kinds of fun facts for travelers: The difference between a hobo (traveling worker), a tramp (works only when they have to), and a bum (refuses all work) Don’t worry so much Don’t pack […]
Bridge of Clay
by Markus Zusak, 2018, finished 12/7/18 Good novel, set in Australia, about 5 brothers wracked by grief when their beloved mother, Penelope (Penny), dies of cancer, and their father (Michael) abandons them. Clay, the fourth of 5 boys, leaves home to help their father build a bridge, and ends up building a bridge for all […]
Daring to Drive
by Manal al-Sharif, 2017 Very informative and educational memoir about her life and her quest to legalize driving for Saudi women. It took 27 years – the first demonstration, not hers, was in 1990, and those women’s lives were ruined forever because they dared to drive.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902 Wonderful mystery! Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are recruited by a Dr. Mortimer and his new friend, Sir Henry Baskerville, to investigate the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles, a giant, malicious hound that haunts the moors around the Baskerville estate, and surely caused the death of Sir Henry’s […]
A Higher Loyalty
by James Comey, 2018 Fascinating personal account of the Director of the FBI, James Comey, and his work under Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump. Starts out with horrifying account of the Ramsey Rapist breaking into his home when he was a teenager and he and his brother barely living through it, a chapter about being […]
The Moving Toyshop
by Edmund Crispin, 1946 Delightful English mystery set in the town of Oxford in 1938, involving Gervase Fen (pronounced Jer-voz) and his poet friend, Richard Cadogan. Richard is bored and in need of a holiday in order to be inspired to write poetry again. He decides to go to Oxford and arrives late at night […]