by Russell Moore, 2023 Saddening, maddening book by the editor in chief of Christianity Today and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. It’s about the steep fall from grace of the Evangelical church. He writes with firsthand knowledge about the despicable leaders who want power and money at any […]
Author: bookhound
Waiting for Snow in Havana
by Carlos Eire, 2003 What a beautiful, amazing, wonderful, educational, painful, delightful book! I LOVED THIS BOOK! Thank you, Jan, for telling me about it. I never knew anything about Cuba and Castro. This biography, by a man who was born in Cuba in 1950 and had to leave in 1962, brings to life the […]
Whalefall
by Daniel Kraus, 2023 Fast read – 2 page chapters, short sentences. About young, 17-year old Jay, who dives Monastery Beach to try and find his dad’s bones, but ends up swallowed by a sperm whale. His dad committed suicide because he was dying of mesothelioma. He was a horrible father to Jay. Shaming him, […]
life is so good
by George Dawson and Richard Glaubman, 2000, 2013 Excellent book. George Dawson, born in 1898, died at age 102, learned to read at age 98. Grew up on a farm in Marshall, Texas. Helped pick cotton at age 4. Oldest of children born to poor black farming couple in east Texas. He never got to […]
Cuba Libre
by Elmore Leonard, 1998 Gene M. was reading this book and it sounded interesting. It was a fun, action-packed romp through 1890’s Cuba. The characters were good and the good guys win! Realize how bad the Spanish were to the Cubans. The Americans fought against the Spanish and won. The blowing up of the Maine […]
Tom Lake
by Ann Patchett, 2023 Eminently readable novel about Lara Kenison, a young seamstress turned actress who was amazingly talented and beautiful but gave up stardom to marry Joe Nelson and work his cherry farm in Michigan. Lara’s all grown up and telling the story of her life as an actress to her 3 adult daughters […]
Ishmael
by Daniel Quinn, 1992 Tyler’s book. He really wanted us to read it. It is about a young man who answers an ad, Teacher Seeks Pupil. The teacher ends up being a gorilla named Ishmael. They talk telepathically for months. Ishmael teaches him his theory of the Takers and the Leavers. The Leavers were hunter-gatherers […]
On Death
by Timothy Keller, 2020 Short, little book on death by Tim Keller, based on a sermon he preached at Kathy’s sister’s funeral, Terry Hall, on 1/6/2018. First he talks about how we fear death. One reason we fear it is because we don’t see it any longer. Our medical establishment has made it so we […]
The Violin Conspiracy
by Brendan Slocumb, 2022 This novel is the ‘Fort Collins Reads’ book for 2023, and our first Old Town Library Book Club book for 2023-2024. It’s a page-turner, a mystery of who took the $10 million Stradivarius from Ray MacMillian, a young black violin prodigy. Ray, born to a single mom, grew up in North […]
Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod
by Gary Paulsen, 1994 Very engrossing tale of Gary Paulsen’s first time running the Iditarod race from Anchorage to Nome. He loves his dogs! Cookie was his lead dog. He describes the different aspects and legs of the race so well. The whole thing is crazy like hell. He made almost fatal rookie mistakes – […]
Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I?
by Timothy Keller, 2022 Another AMAZING book by Tim Keller. What a blessing he was! Thank you, God, for Tim Keller. What a teacher of your Word. This was his last book, and it is everything a person needs to know about forgiveness. Forgiveness is only possible when a person is humble and realizes how […]
Becoming Free Indeed
My story of disentangling faith from fear by Jinger Duggar Vuolo with Corey Williams, 2023 What a sweet, sweet girl Jinger is! She grew up one of 19 children, on TV shows called, 14 Children and Pregnant Again, 17 Kids and Counting, 18 Kids and Counting, 19 Kids and Counting, Counting on. Her parents are […]
The Meaning of Marriage
by Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller, 2011 Another excellent book by Tim Keller. Kathy, his wife, helped him with this one. Marriage created by God in the Garden of Eden. When God created woman and presented her to Adam, he said, “At last!” Woman completes man. Man completes Woman. Marriage brings us closer to the […]
When People Are Big and God Is Small
by Edward T. Welch, 1997 Excellent book! I heard about it at Two Rivers Church from a woman who was giving her resurrection story. It sounded like me – care more for what people think than what God thinks. I requested it from the library and they had to get it from Covenant Theological Seminary […]
When Making Others Happy is Making You Miserable
by Karen Ehman, 2021 Christian self-help book for people-pleasers. She mainly focuses on one’s to-do list and learning to say no to others. What finally drove her to a summer of “no and necessary” was when a dear, dear friend of hers asked if her adult son might be able to stay with her once […]
Horse
by Geraldine Brooks, 2022 Superb book! Geraldine Brooks can write! Her dialogue and descriptions are like Herman Wouk’s–they flow like water. The book is about a thoroughbred racehorse named Lexington. Jarret, a young black slave is in the stable when he is born at the Meadows in Kentucky in 1850, and he’s there with him […]
Hatchet
by Gary Paulsen, 1987 Children’s book, mentioned by Pat, who was reading it with/to her grandson. I read it in one day. It’s about a 13 year old boy, Brian Robeson, who is being flown up to northern Canada to spend the summer with his Dad, who is working the oil fields. His parents are […]
Demon Copperhead
by Barbara Kingsolver, 2022 Painful page-turner, about the opioid crisis as told through the life of a little boy, Damon (Demon), in rural, poor Virginia. He goes through hell, literally, with a single, drug-addicted mom who marries an abusive man. When she dies of an overdose on “Oxy,” his already terrible world falls apart, and […]
Trust
by Hernan Diaz, 2022 Pulitzer Prize Winner. Two versions of the life of Andrew Bevel and his wife, Mildred, extremely wealthy as a result of playing the stock market, culminating in the crash of 1929. The first version is a novel by Harold Vanner depicting them as Benjamin Rask and his wife, Helen. The second […]
Poland
by James A. Michener, 1983 A 616-page novel about Poland, it’s history from the 1200s to 1980s and Lech Walesa’s Solidarity, told through fictional families and towns. The first few pages of the book tell what is historic and what is fictional from each chapter. That is helpful. The Tartars, which were Genghis Khan and […]