by Abraham Verghese, 2009 Amazingly original story! Twin boys, Marion and Shiva, born at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to a nun, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, who died in childbirth. Their father, a gifted surgeon, Thomas Stone, abandons them at their birth. The twins are raised by Hema and Ghosh, 2 doctors at Missing. […]
Author: bookhound
Cutting for Stone
Mockingjay
by Suzanne Collins, 2010 (final book of the Hunger Games) Katniss is rescued out of the Hunger Games at the capital before she is killed (end of Book 2) and taken to District 13, the District everyone thought was destroyed 75 years ago by the Capitol. But really they went underground and have been planning […]
Angle of Repose
by Wallace Stegner, Pulitzer Prize winner 1971 A man, Lyman Ward, is stuck in a wheelchair and moves to his Grandma’s cottage in the California mountains. He decides to write a book about her life. What an interesting life. She is part of “gentility” in northeastern part of America in late 1800’s but marries a […]
Catching Fire
by Suzanne Collins, 2009 Book 2 in the Hunger Games Trilogy Katniss and Peeta go on their Victory Tour and see that some of the Districts are starting to revolt against the Capitol. Supposedly started by Katniss and the berries of the first book, the Hunger Games. (I can’t remember the berries – but they […]
Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion
by Sara Miles, 2007 “The spiritual memoir of a twenty-first century Christian” Written by Sara Miles, a lesbian raised by atheists who wanders into St. Gregory’s Episcopalian Church (in S.F.) one day and is served communion and cries and cries and can’t stop thinking about Jesus. She becomes a believer and eventually opens up a […]
Heaven is for Real
by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent, 2010 True story about 4 year-old Colton Burpo from Imperial, Nebraska, who almost died of a ruptured appendix but gets a trip to heaven and relates what he heard and saw over the course of 6 years to his mom and dad, Sonja and Todd Burpo. Todd is a […]
Shanghai Girls
by Lisa See, 2009 Set in Shanghai and then Los Angeles from 1937 to 1957, two sisters, Pearl and May, grow up in Shanghai, loving life – rich, beautiful, “beautiful girls,” – painted on calendars. Then their Dad (Baba) gets in trouble with gang due to his gambling and he has to sell his daughters […]
Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House
by Stephanie Barron, 2002 Being the sixth Jane Austen mystery. Not well-written! Contradictions – started out with tea and then “finished my chocolate.” Hard to follow. Story about Jane and her brother, Frank, a Navy captain, and the Navy and someone (a Navy captain, Thomas Seagrave) being wrongly accused of murder. A French gentleman posing […]
Started Early, Took My Dog
by Kate Atkinson, 2011 Interesting novel, set in England, about a retired police superintendent, Tracy Waterhouse, who purchases a little girl, Courtney, from a drug-crazed, abusive prostitute, Kelly Cross, at a bus stop. At the same time, Jackson Brodie, a private investigator, saves a little dog beaten by a thug. Their lives intertwine while Jackson […]
An Altar in the World
by Barbara Brown Taylor, 2009 Her philosophy on how to find God in the everyday world. I think Danette recommended this book.
People of the Book
by Geraldine Brooks, 2008 Fictional tale of the true “Sarajevo Haggadah,” an ancient (1350) Jewish prayer book beautifully illustrated — “Illuminations.” It is now in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, valued at $700 million in 1991 – most valuable book in the world. She goes back in time from Hanna Heath, […]
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana
by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, 2011 A true story about Kamila Sidiqi and her 5 sisters and how they survived under the Taliban. Very similar to My Forbidden Face. Khair Khana is the neighborhood in Kabul in which they lived. When the Taliban took over, they could no longer leave the house, unless accompanied by male […]
My Forbidden Face
by Latifa, 2001 Sept. 27, 1996, Taliban take over Kabul, Afghanistan. No longer can women go to school or work – must cover themselves entirely. Also, no music, etc. No whistling, no TV, no pets, no kites, no weddings, not allowed to laugh in streets, no photos. “One thing and one thing only, unites Afghans […]
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party
by Alexander McCall Smith, 2011 12th book in the #1 Ladies Detective Agency Wonderful, wonderful book! Mma Ramotswe solves the mystery of the cattle maulings – not really – but everyone else is satisfied; the kind neighbor who just wants to be friends buys the unkind Mr. Botsalo Moeti salt lick and offers to fix […]
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
by Stieg Larsson, 2005 Intriguing characters but poorly written and very ugly – lots of perverse sick dark sexual crime and a serial murderer. Why is this an international best seller? Lisbeth Salander – 24 yr. old – tattoos, piercing, ward of state (Sweden) – genius computer hacker, very unemotional, loves her mother, though – […]
Half Broke Horses
by Jeanette Walls, 2009 “A True-Life Novel” Jeannette Walls tells the life story of her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, who grew up on a ranch in Texas and then New Mexico. Her dad taught her how to break horses and work on the ranch. She was the oldest of 3 children-smart, hard-working, fearless. She really […]
The Red Pony
by John Steinbeck, 1937 Strange, unsatisfying little book about a little boy (Jody) who lives on a ranch with his mom, dad, and a ranch-hand, Billy Buck. His mean dad brings home a little red pony, a treasure, for Jody, to raise and train and have as his own. One day the pony is left […]
The Hunger Games
By Suzanne Collins, 2008 Teen fiction-fast moving. Set in futuristic North America where the “Capitol” holds the Hunger Games annually as a reminder to the Districts, twelve of them, not to ever rebel again. Two teens from each of 12 districts are drawn in a lottery. These 24 youths are sent to an arena in […]
Unbroken
by Laura Hillenbrand, 2010 (she wrote Seabiscuit) “A WWII Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption” Louis Zamperini, from Torrance, CA, grows from a delinquent to an Olympic runner. Then a bombardier for the Army Air Force in WWII. He flies in B-24 bombers and they participate in the bombing of Nauru in the Pacific. On […]
Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1
by Mark Twain, 2010 He requested that much of his autobiography be unpublished until 100 years after his death. Introduction = 58 pages Preliminary Manuscripts and Dictations, 1870-1905, Pgs. 59-199 Autobiography of Mark Twain, pgs. 203-467 Explanatory Notes, pgs. 469-650 Appendixes, pgs. 651-667 Note on the Text, pgs. 669-679 Word Division in this Volume, pg. […]