by Ina May Gaskin, 2003, 2019 Recommended by Adam. This one was not as organized as the Susan McCutcheon book, Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way. Ina May is a midwife. She has been for decades. Her book, Spiritual Midwifery, was first written in 1975 and has been updated 7 times. She started a birthing center […]
Author: bookhound
The Island of Missing Trees
by Elif Shafak, 2021 Interesting book giving lots of history about the island of Cyprus, including the Civil War that erupted between Greeks and Turks on July 20, 1974. The main characters are Kostas, a young Greek man, and Dephne, a young Turkish woman. They live on the island and fall in love. They meet […]
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
by Matthew Walker, PhD, 2017 Incredibly “eye-opening” book about the importance of sleep! Wayne’s tennis buddy, Andrew, recommended it. I wasn’t going to read it – I got it from the Library for Wayne – but I’m so glad I did. Wow! Sleep is so incredibly important all throughout life and our modern world has […]
Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way
by Susan McCutcheon, 2017 (1984, May 1996, June 2017) Adam recommended this book. He listened to it while on the way home from Alaska. He and Danette own a copy of it. It was where he learned about how X-rays were done on fetuses and it took 20 years or so before this completely unnecessary […]
White Teeth
by Zadie Smith, 2000 In-depth study of London from the eyes of a diverse caste of characters: 1. Bangladeshi immigrants, Samad Iqbal, his wife Alsana, and their twin sons, Millat and Magid. 2. Archie Jones, and his wife, Clara, who is black and the daughter of Hortense, a Jehovah’s witness born in Jamaica. 3. Archie […]
Cheap Land Colorado
by Ted Conover, 2022 This is our second book for Old Town Book Club 2024-2025, to be discussed on November 4th. Such a readable book! It’s about the people who live on raw land in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. He is an investigative journalist, grew up in Denver but now lives in New […]
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
by John Fox, Jr., 1908 Sweet, romantic book about an older man, John “Jack” Hale, and a “little girl,” June Tolliver, who meet in the Lonesome Cove up in the hills of Virginia, near the giant pine, the “Lonesome Pine.” They fall in love. Incredibly romantic. Set in the early 1900’s, when the railroad and […]
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
by J.D. Vance, 2016 I wanted to read this book for a long time. I once had it from a Little Free Library but redistributed it before I read it. Once Trump selected him as his Vice Presidential running mate, I put it on hold at the library. Fantastic book! True story about his life […]
Cold Comfort Farm
by Stella Gibbons, 1932 I ADORED THIS BOOK!!!! I learned about it from my British Classics puzzle. It was one of the classics in that puzzle, and the cover had a little blurb, “Very probably the funniest book ever written.” It was a delight from start to finish. Set in 1930’s England. The main character […]
The Mayor of Casterbridge
by Thomas Hardy, 1886 This book was suggested to me as his favorite classic during the FAC at Susan and Doug’s, by the retired cancer doctor from Indiana who lives in the new MCM house on E. Myrtle Street. I think his name is Jim. This was a soap opera! Main character, Michael Henchard, gets […]
Wind, Sand and Stars
by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, 1939 This is an autobiography of the author of The Little Prince. He was a French pilot in the 1930’s and 1940’s, flying the mail from France to Africa and then in South America over the Andes. He writes about the dangers of flying – mountains, storms, sand, sometimes the planes […]
The Secret History
by Donna Tartt, 1992 I read this book because it is by the author of The Goldfinch, which I loved, and which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. This was a page-turner, very dark in personalities and setting and plot. Six college-aged students, most very wealthy, are the sole students in a professor’s Greek class. […]
The Little Prince
by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, 1943 This book has been translated from the original French into 505 different languages, second only to the Bible. I was intrigued by it so checked it out from the library. It’s about a “little prince” from a tiny planet who makes his way to earth, where he meets the narrator […]
Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson, 2004 Found this book in the Little Free Library on Locust Street. It is on several best books lists. It’s about a sweet, old pastor (77 years old) who is going to die soon, writing a very long letter to his 7 year-old son. He married (for the 2nd time) late in […]
Yellowface
by R. F. Kuang, 2023 A page-turner! What an original tale! Spellbinding! This is the Fort Collins Reads book for 2024. The author comes Sunday, October 27th at 2 p.m. to the Fort Collins Marriott. It is also our first selection for the 2024-2025 season of the Old Town Library’s Book Club. An unsuccessful author, […]
Unruly Saint: Dorothy Day’s Radical Vision and Its Challenge for Our Times
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 […]
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 […]