A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify
by Francine Jay, Miss Minimalist, 2010
Easy, fast read about getting rid of S***, and living a more meaningful life. This was 4 years before Marie Kondo’s, ‘Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.’ Francine advises a room-by-room de-cluttering effort rather than Marie Kondo’s de-clutter by type effort, but both advocate removing everything from a room (Francine) or gathering everything of one type in one place (Marie) and then sorting into Trash, Treasure, or Transfer (Francine Jay); or keeping if it sparks joy, getting rid of it if it doesn’t (Marie Kondo).
by Jules Verne, 1873
Practices that Transform Us, by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, 2005, 
Shade, A Tale of Two Presidents, by Pete Souza, 2018
A Field Guide for the Independent Traveler, by Evan S. Rice, 2017, scanned 12/8/18
by Markus Zusak, 2018, finished 12/7/18
Very informative and educational memoir about her life and her quest to legalize driving for Saudi women. It took 27 years – the first demonstration, not hers, was in 1990, and those women’s lives were ruined forever because they dared to drive.
Wonderful mystery! Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are recruited by a Dr. Mortimer and his new friend, Sir Henry Baskerville, to investigate the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles, a giant, malicious hound that haunts the moors around the Baskerville estate, and surely caused the death of Sir Henry’s uncle. The mysteries begin even in London, with Sir Henry’s missing boots (first a brand new one, and then an old one), a warning letter using words cut out of the newspaper, and being followed by a man with a black beard. Holmes sends Dr. Watson to Baskerville with Sir Henry, with the excuse that he has pressing investigations in London to which he must attend. 
Fascinating personal account of the Director of the FBI, James Comey, and his work under Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump. Starts out with horrifying account of the Ramsey Rapist breaking into his home when he was a teenager and he and his brother barely living through it, a chapter about being bullied and bullying, another chapter about habitual liars and how easy it is to become a liar, and then insider accounts on his work in New York City under Rudy Giuliani, convicting Mafia leaders, prosecuting Martha Stewart, and then on to Washington, D.C., and working for Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump. The difficulties of the 2016 election and the FBI being asked to investigate Hillary Clinton and Russian interference are covered in detail. 
Delightful English mystery set in the town of Oxford in 1938, involving Gervase Fen (pronounced Jer-voz) and his poet friend, Richard Cadogan. Richard is bored and in need of a holiday in order to be inspired to write poetry again. He decides to go to Oxford and arrives late at night and stumbles into an unlocked toy store, only to find the body of an elderly woman, apparently strangled to death. He gets hit on the head and wakes up in a closet with a window open. He crawls out the window, goes to the police, who return to the shop only to find it is now a grocers, not a toy shop. And no body exists and they don’t believe him. Richard goes to his English professor friend, Gervase Fen, and tells him the whole story. Gervase believes him and together they begin a whirl-wind adventure trying to discover who was murdered, why, and by whom. Loved this story! Lots and lots of drinking, of course, and odd characters, and fantastic descriptions of Oxford and surrounding areas. I get confused by all the characters and can’t remember who is who, but no matter – it’s a delightful romp through the English town and countryside, and I love it! There were also so many different words I didn’t know the meaning of so here they all are: 
Excellent writer, she covers the history of Denver water from the mid-1800’s to present. The west was a desert, but when gold was discovered and people moved here, they needed water to live and they transformed the desert with lawns, trees, flowers, and bushes, because they wanted what they had in the east. They built reservoirs and dams with hardly any opposition until the 1960s. They took water from the Colorado River, Blue River, Fraser River, Platte River with reservoirs and tunnels and dams and transformed Denver into an oasis. It used to be easy to build a dam or a reservoir in Colorado, with hardly any opposition, except for those on the Western Slope, but agreements could be made and dams and reservoirs built. 
Beautiful, poignant short illustrated book about Syrian refugee father and son fleeing Syria by boat. 
This was our first book for the Old Town Library Book Club for 2018-2019. We met and discussed it on 10-15-18. Most everyone liked the book although some did not like the ending. I think it was rather violent but I can’t really recall the ending. I loved the main character, Tayo, who was a half-breed Indian abandoned by his mother and raised by his Christian Aunt on the Navajo Indian reservation. He was always a shame to his Aunt, because of his mother, her sister. He and his cousin, Rocky, enlisted in the Army during WWII and were sent to the Pacific. They ended up on the Bataan death march and Tayo was unable to save Rocky who died a horrible death at the hands of the Japanese on that march. 
Very deep book about the resurrection of Jesus and the power of it – that God brought heaven and earth together at that moment, and the power continues to radiate through us who believe. The idea that we are not Christians so that when we die, we get to “go to heaven,” but that we are Christians so that we can bring the love of God to those around us and thereby bring the kingdom of God to earth right now. There will be a renewal of the earth at the last day, but everything we do in the name of Jesus, now, has a place in building for the kingdom. Richard Stearns quoted from this book in The Hole In Our Gospel, and what he quoted captures the core message of this book: