by Edith Wharton, 1921 Pulitzer Prize Unrequited love – New York society, late 1800s Newland Archer marries May Welland but is in love with Countess Olenska. She bucks the trends but refuses to lead him astray. He remains faithful to his wife. After her death, he and son go to Europe and he can visit […]
Author: bookhound
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
by Alexander McCall Smith, 2007 2007 installment of #1 Ladies Detective Series. They just get better and better! LOVE these books. In this one, Mr. JLB Matekoni takes a case- follows the wrong guy – but it actually turns out better than if he’d followed the right guy! (2 men in red cars) Mma Makutsi […]
Hannah Coulter
by Wendell Berry, 2004 Great, sweet book about a woman in rural Kentucky, 1940’s to 2000. Her life on the farm. First husband dies in WWII, marries Nathan Coulter. Their life, love, children, grandchildren, friends, neighbors. Hard work, goodness, kindness, beauty in nature, sticking with one another.
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen, 1813 LOVED THIS BOOK! Could not put it down! Elizabeth ends up marrying Darcy, but not until about a year of misconception about him. He still wants her even after she rejects him. Then she finds out what a nice guy he really is. He forgives her rejection and they end up […]
The Rule of Four
by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, 2004 Good read. Four roommates at Princeton, two are researching the Hypnerotomachia, a 500-year old book which is a mystery. Paul figures it out – you think he is dead. Tom is whiling away his life as a software analyst in Texas when an ancient painting shows up in […]
The Last of the Plainsmen
by Zane Grey, 1936 Poetic gibberish – about stalking cougars in Grand Canyon country in Mexico.
The Hole in Our Gospel
by Richard Stearns, 2009 Inspirational! A call to arms!! (Wayne’s book) FANTASTIC BOOK! Biblical truths, stories of the gospel in action, God’s heart for the poor. Everything you ever need to know about what God expects of His people. Full of the truth in plain statistics but also full of hope for what we can […]
Jewel
by Bret Lott, 1991 UGH! What a STUPID book! No sympathy for any of the characters. About Jewel, a woman who has a Down’s Syndrome child in the 40’s – then called “Mongolian Idiot” – h husband and other 5 children. Starts off in Mississippi, then moves to L.A., back to Mississippi, then back to […]
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain, 1876 What a fun, exciting book! So many adventures by the mischievous Tom, getting his friends to whitewash the fence, going to the graveyard with Huck and witnessing a murder, getting Muff Potter off on the last day of the trial. Going to Jackson’s Island and playing pirates for a week – […]
My Life in France
by Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme, 2006 All about how Julia Child and her husband, Paul, lived in France from 1948 to 1954. Julia fell in love with French food and cooking. She wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It took about 9 years, I think. She’s quite the perfectionist! Beautiful France – she […]
City of Thieves
by David Benioff, 2008 Leningrad, WWII, in siege by Germans. Lev Beniov, young 17-year-old Jewish boy, gets arrested for looting (stole a knife off a dead German), thrown into the Crosses-Russian prison. Kolya, handsome soldier, thrown in same cell for desertion (went to town to get laid). They do not get executed but instead are […]
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens, 1850 (821 pages) Last line: “Oh Agnes, Oh my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed! So may I, when realities are melting from me like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward!” What a tale – what characters […]
The Good Earth
by Pearl S. Buck, 1931, Pulitzer Prize winner I miss my messed up Chinese family already! What a great book! Wang Lung’s father arranges marriage for him to O-Lan – kitchen slave in the Great House of Hwang. Wang Lung is a farmer. They work so hard they eventually become wealthy landowners. O’Lan is a […]
Track of the Cat
by Nevada Barr, 1993 Good mystery set in Guadalupe Mtn of Texas. Anna Pigeon is a National Park Service ranger. Discovers fellow ranger dead in the wilds supposedly by mountain lion. She is suspicious, though. She gets sabotaged on a hike, falls, very treacherous, but doesn’t die. Then another ranger, Craig Eastern, dies of snakebite […]
The Good Good Pig
by Sy Montgomery, 2006 Very compassionate and animal-loving female author. “Compassion means “with suffering.” Went home to be with Dad when he was dying of cancer even though he had written her off when she married Howard Mansfield (Jewish). Then, her mother, who was really the culprit, got cancer too and again she went home […]
Blue Shoes and Happiness
by Alexander McCall Smith, 2006 Beautiful, beautiful book! Mma Ramotswe’s cases include a young chef who catches her boss stealing food for her husband and then is accused of blackmailing the boss. Mma Ramotswe discovers the person blackmailing the boss is Aunty Emang, a Dear Abby-type person who ends up being a tiny, purely evil […]
Tess of the D’urbervilles
by Thomas Hardy, 1891 Tess, beautiful beyond belief, eyes and lips especially, long dark hair. Her mom sends her to the D’urbervilles (fake ones) to maybe make them rich. Instead, she is raped by Alec D’urberville. She goes home, has a baby, which dies at age 1. She goes to work on a dairy farm. […]
Touch Not the Cat
by Mary Stewart, 1976 “bistered” lilies – bistered means brown “yesty” waves – yesty not in my dictionary Bryony Ashley’s father dies after being hit by a car. Bryony returns to England from Funchal, Madeira. She returns to Ashley Court, the mansion with a moat and a maze that has been in her family forever.
Death in Berlin
by M.M. Kaye, 1955 Miranda Brand goes to Berlin with cousin and his wife, Stella. Soon is involved in murder of Brigadier Brindley, who told story of stolen diamonds. Then the governess is murdered. Turns out it was Stella – she was going to murder Miranda – jealousy and wanted money. Miranda and Simon Lang, […]
1984
by George Orwell, 1949 “Big Brother is Watching You.” Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth for Big Brother, the Party of Oceania. He rewrites history constantly – that is his job. He knows that things are not as they want him to believe. He hates Big Brother. He falls in love with Julia, […]