Author: bookhound

The Yearling

by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Pulitzer Prize Winner, 1939 BEAUTIFUL BOOK!! The Baxter’s, Penny (Dad), Ma, Jody-son, live in a clearing on high ground in Florida. They farm and raise or hunt all their food. Tote water from the sink hole. Nearest neighbors are the Forrester’s, typical moonshiners. They are bothered by a bear – Ol’ […]

Perelandra

by C.S. Lewis, 1943 (2nd in the Space Trilogy) Ransom is taken to Perelandra (Venus). It is a land of floating islands, friendly beasts, bubble trees, and yellow gourds delicious beyond belief. The Bubble trees refresh you better than a cool shower on a hot day. The Yellow gourds, which grow on trees, taste so […]

The Double Comfort Safari Club

by Alexander McCall Smith, 11th #1 Ladies Detective Series, 2010 Phuti Radiphuti has his leg crushed by one of his delivery men who backed his truck into him. He has to have the lower part amputated. His Aunty won’t let Mma Makutsi visit in the hospital but Mma Ramotswe gets that changed and he heals […]

Out of the Silent Planet

by C.S. Lewis, 1938 Marvelous Book! Fantastic Story! Ransom is kidnapped by Weston and Devine – taken in their spaceship to Malacandra where they were going to turn him over to the Sorns for a human sacrifice, they thought. Ransom escapes and meets up with the Hross – a friendly, large, fur-covered people. He lives […]

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

by Alexander McCall Smith, 2009 Great book! LOVED this one!! Mma Ramotswe solves the mystery of why the soccer team, the Kalahari Swoopers, are losing all of their games. Actually, her foster son, Puso, figured it out – it was that the owner, Mr. Molofololo, kept changing things and their shoes were uncomfortable so they […]

Tinkers

by Paul Harding, 2009 Finished as fast as I could – like abstract art – all over the place, written like his notes of nature while on acid. It did have a main story in between the “trips.” A man is dying of cancer – laying in his living room – memories of his father, […]

The Miracle at Speedy Motors

by Alexander McCall Smith, 2008 Not the best Ladies Detective book. Mma Makutsi & Phuti Radiphuti buy a bed – velvet heart headboard. It doesn’t fit into Mma Makutsi’s house when they delivered it the next day, so she has them leave it outside. The rainy season starts and ruins it. She buys a cheap […]

Lorna Doone

by R.D. Blackmore, 1869 LOVED THIS BOOK! Wonderful hero of heroes, John Ridd, falls in love with Lorna Doone, even though her people killed his father. He rescues her from the wicked Doone’s and she is restored as Lady Lorna Dugal, because the Doone’s had kidnapped her and killed her parents and brother. John loves […]

Arrowsmith

by Sinclair Lewis, Pulitzer Prize winner, 1925 Martin Arrowsmith comes from Elk Mills in the state of Winnemac. Goes to medical school in early 1900’s. Falls in love with research with Dr. Gottlieb. Marries Leora, a wonderful girl who adores him. They move to her hometown, Wheatsylvania (North Dakota) but can’t get on with the […]

The Man from Beijing

by Henning Mankell, 2010 Rich, powerful Chinese man (Ya Ru) takes revenge on 19 Swedish people living in a remote village in Sweden. Their ancestor was cruel and brutal to his Chinese ancestor, San, on the railroad, and then again back in China at a Christian mission. Story of revenge taken way too far. Birgitta […]

Death in Kenya

by M.M. Kaye, 1958 Great mystery set in Kenya right after the Mau Mau revolt. Flamingo, the estate owned by Aunt Em, in Kenya. Her niece, Victoria, comes to live there. First, Alice is murdered, the wife of Em’s grandson, Eden. Then, Kamau disappears, then Gilly Markham is murdered. Then an attempt on Victoria. It […]

One of Ours

by Willa Cather, Pulitzer Prize 1923 Claude Wheeler – “Now he dismissed all Christian Theology as something too full of evasions and sophistries to be reasoned about.” Sophistry – A subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning. Fallacious – deceptive, misleading, containing a fallacy, logically unsound What a beautiful book! What a […]

God is Closer Than You Think

by John Ortberg, 2005 Great book. First Pres Lenten Study 2010. Wayne led small group: Dave and Norma Brown, Roger and Elizabeth Heins, Al & Rosemary Habernicht, Jim and Linda Wagner, Patrice Quadrel. Started out with a bad attitude because it’s not “The Hole in Our Gospel,” but ended up liking it very much. Especially […]

Tales of the South Pacific

by James A. Michener, 1946 (won Pullitzer Prize in 1948) Norfolk Island: an island in the South Pacific near Australia and New Zealand. The Norfolk Pines were planted by the Mutiny of the Bounty people who ended up there. They had to cut them all down to make a landing strip during WWII. Bill Harbison-yuck! […]

Merle’s Door, Lessons from a Freethinking Dog

by Ted Kerasote, 2007 “This sort of analysis has led geneticists to conclude that everyone alive today is related to one woman-dubbed “mitochondrial Eve”-who lived in Africa about 150,000 to 175,000 years ago.” “…every domestic dog alive today, during the last century, and going back for thousands upon thousands of years, from the smallest Pekingese […]

One Minute Manager

by Stephen Blanchard, PhD; Spencer Johnson, MD, 2003 Carolyn Worden’s notes: Front inside cover, “Help people reach their full potential, catch them doing something right.“ P. 61: You set one minute goals with your people to make sure they know what they are being held accountable for and what good performance looks like. You then […]

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

by Mark Twain, 1885 Finished 2/15/10 – the day I found out I needed a root canal! Wonderful book!!!! Non-stop adventure!!!! Huck escapes his drunk father, meets up with Jim on Jackson’s Island. They go down river on a raft and have many adventures, including running into 2 rapscallions, the King and the Duke, who […]