Author: bookhound

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, […]

The Woman in White

by Wilkie Collins, published in serial form 1859-1860 Walter Hartright runs into the woman in white on a road at night going towards London. She enters his life again while he is teaching painting to 2 young ladies in Fairlie’s Limmeridge House. Walter falls in love with Laura Fairlie, 1/2 sister of Marian Holcombe. But […]

Disappointment with God

by Philip Yancey, 1997 Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden? Reads Bible from cover to cover in 2 weeks. Analyzes it from those 3 questions. In O.T. God was not silent or hidden – didn’t result in faith or obedience. Jesus – God not unfair, silent, or hidden. Holy Spirit – in […]

Robinson Crusoe

by Daniel Defoe, 1719 Robinson Crusoe decides to leave his safe, middle-class existence in York, England on 9/1/1651, against the advice of his father and mother and others. He takes a sea voyage to London. But the ship gets hit by a storm. They manage to get on another ship before their’s “founders” – sinks. […]

Treasure Island

by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883 (1850-1894, died in Samoa) An old pirate shows up at an inn in England. The Admiral Benbow Inn, owned by young Jim Hawkins’ father. The old pirate’s fellow pirates show up to steal his loot but Jim and his Mom get to it first and escape the Inn and hide. […]