Author: bookhound

The Covenant of Water

by Abraham Verghese, 2023 Beautiful novel by the author of Cutting for Stone, and The Tennis Partner. Marney told me about it. It is 715 pages long! It is set in southern India, spanning almost the entire 1900’s. It concerns a family that lives on a small estate called Parambil, near the ocean on the […]

The Shoemaker’s Wife

by Adriana Trigiani, 2012 Wonderful novel, set in early 1900’s to mid-1900’s, about young Italian immigrants, Ciro Lazzari and Enza Ravanelli. Ciro was an orphan, dropped off with his brother, Eduardo, at the convent in Vilminore, when he was a child. The nuns raise him. He’s strong and handsome. Enza, short for Vincenza, is the […]

Hard Times

by Charles Dickens, 1854 It was good to read a classic again, but this one was more difficult than other Dickens novels. Here’s an example from Chapter 9, Final: “It is a dangerous thing to see anything in the sphere of a vain blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it himself. Mr. Bounderby felt that […]

Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]