by Laurie Frankel, 2017 What a fantastic book! What a fantastic writer! I didn’t want to read this book, but my friend, Christie, read it and said she couldn’t put it down – it was so good! So, I read it and felt the same way, even though the topic, a transgender child, is not […]
Category: Fiction
The Great Alone
by Kristin Hannah, 2018 Glad I stuck with this book. The first 1/2 seemed like it was written by an amateur for teenage girls. After about 250 pages, however, it was a page-turner. Set in 1970’s Alaska, somewhere near Homer on the Kenai Peninsula, in a town called Kaneq, which I think is a fictional […]
Playing for Pizza
by John Grisham, 2007 Quick, easy read about an NFL quarterback (Rick Dockery) who is banished from the league because he throws too many interceptions. He’s had 3 major concussions. His agent finds him a job in Italy so he moves to Parma, Italy, and finds love and purpose among some Italians who love the […]
Exit West
by Mohsin Hamid, 2017 Very interesting premise–Nadia and Saeed, two people living in some unnamed Mid-Eastern country, fall in love at the same time that their country deteriorates into chaos and war. They hear about hidden doors that appear and disappear but allow you to escape the country. They pay an agent and escape first […]
The Leavers
by Lisa Ko, 2017 Good book about Chinese mother (Polly Guo) and son (Deming Guo) separated when Deming was 11 years old. He thinks his Mama abandoned him. He is adopted by a white couple in upstate New York but never feels comfortable there and his heart aches for his Mama. Finally, at the age […]
Around the World in Eighty Days
by Jules Verne, 1873 Finished 12/14/18 Loved, loved, LOVED this book! Phileas Fogg, a rich Englishman, decides to take on the challenge to go around the world in 80 days. He takes his brand new servant, Passepartout, along and the adventures they have together are so entertaining.
Bridge of Clay
by Markus Zusak, 2018, finished 12/7/18 Good novel, set in Australia, about 5 brothers wracked by grief when their beloved mother, Penelope (Penny), dies of cancer, and their father (Michael) abandons them. Clay, the fourth of 5 boys, leaves home to help their father build a bridge, and ends up building a bridge for all […]
Sea Prayer, by Khaled Hosseini, 2017, 2018
Beautiful, poignant short illustrated book about Syrian refugee father and son fleeing Syria by boat. They lost their wife and mother in the bombing in Syria and father and son are escaping Syria and waiting on the shore for the boat: Your mother is here tonight, Marwan, with us, on this cold and moonlit beach, […]
Ceremony
by Leslie Marmon Silko, 1977 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 […]
A Prayer for Owen Meany
by John Irvin, 1989 Unique, thought-provoking, sometimes hilarious story about tiny Owen Meany and his best friend, Johnny Wheelwright, and their growing up in Gravesend, New Hampshire, in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The story is told from Johnny’s perspective and starts with telling how, during Sunday school when their teacher left the room for a […]
The Story of Ferdinand
by Munro Leaf, 1936 Drawings by Robert Lawson Ferdinand the Bull just wanted to sit under his favorite cork tree, “smelling the flowers just quietly.” I loved this book as a child and they made a movie of it, which is pretty good, and made me want to read the book again. Learned about cork […]
The Little Paris Bookshop
by Nina George, 2013 Jean Perdu owns a book barge in Paris. He is 20 years into grieving his lost love. She gave him a letter but he never opened it. Finally he does and she left him because she was dying of cancer. He unhooks his barge and travels south with Max Jordan, a […]
Jayber Crow
by Wendell Berry, 2000 Very sweet tale about a sweet man, the town barber, in Port William, Kentucky. Full of love and pain, the beauty of nature, hard-work, relationships, and faithfulness and steadfastness, forgiveness along life’s journey. Jayber’s life starts out by the river and ends by the river. He’s an orphan sent to live […]
Saving Fish from Drowning
by Amy Tan, 2005 Strange but interesting book about 12 tourists who went to Burma (Myanmar) and got kidnapped by jungle tribe who thought one of them was the Young White Brother who would save them from the SLORC – the military junta, make them disappear, etc. Told from the point of view of Bibi […]
Life after Life
by Kate Atkinson, 2013 (same author who wrote Started Early, Took My Dog) Never read a book like this before – like different courses through time that a person’s choices make. Little Ursula is born on a snowy night in English countryside home, “Fox Corner,” on February 11, 1910. First time she dies because the […]
Breathing Lessons
by Anne Tyler, 1988, won the Pulitzer Prize One day in the life of Ira and Maggie Moran, driving to the funeral of her best friend’s husband. We learn the life story of Ira and Maggie; 2 children, Jesse and Daisy. Daisy is a genius and going off to college. Jesse is a singer in […]
The Accidental Tourist
by Anne Tyler, 1985 Excellent Book – could not put it down! Who and what would Macon choose? His wife, Sarah, who he adores but they just are not right for each other? Or Muriel Pritchett, the young, skinny, colorful, poor but oh so rich in spirit young lady who gently but definitely forces herself […]
The Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer, c. 1343-1400 (translated by David Wright) He wrote the Canterbury Tales, an unfinished poem, starting in 1387. It is a delightful series of stories told by 29 members of a party traveling to Canterbury. The “Host” decides it will be fun for each member to tell a tale, making the journey fun. […]
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
by Mark Twain, 1889 A Colt Arms foreman in 1800’s Connecticut gets knocked silly and ends up in 6th Century England with a knight in armor. He goes from being about to be burned at the stake to being The Boss, supplanting Merlin as the greatest magician, because he made the sun disappear (he knew […]
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus
by Mary Shelley, Published anonymously in 1818 (The Mother of Gothic Horror) Young Victor Frankenstein grew up in an ideal loving environment in Geneva, Switzerland. His childhood companions were Henry Clerval and Elizabeth. He loses his mother, tragically, to scarlet fever. Her dying wish were that Victor and Elizabeth would marry. He goes away to […]