Barking to the Choir



The title of this book is referring to a saying,"Preaching to the choir!"  But, a homeless/gang member got it a little mixed up.  

Gregory Boyle is a Catholic priest who runs a program for gang members; he also runs a bakery that employs the gang members.  This is a mixture of Boyle's Christian philosophies and his interactions with the gang members he encounters over the many years he has been doing this.  

It is a remarkable story and he is a very inspiring person who follows the teachings of the Savior.  I give it four stars and am grateful that I read it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise

Image
 Talk about a fairy tale!  That's exactly what this book is. It's the story of a father and daughter who travel the states in a school bus that has been converted into their home. The mother and two sisters were killed in an accident five years ago, and Coyote and Rodeo (daughter and father) will go anywhere but to their home in Oregon because of the terrible memories that they both have from there. Coyote (really Emma) learns that the park where she and her mother and sisters buried a memory box is being dug up and she tries to find a way to trick Rodeo into going home. Along the way, they pick up some unique characters - including a goat - and the adventure takes off.  It's really quite silly, but tender.   I give it 3.5 stars.  Not my kind of book actually, although it has won several awards for YA lit.
Read more

Big Lies in a Small Town

Image
  Morgan is in jail for an accident she did not commit.  Her boyfriend was driving drunk and ran into a girl, who became paralyzed for life.  The boyfriend - SOME boyfriend - ran away explaining he had a scholarship to law school and can't get in trouble.   One day two women came to get Morgan out of jail.  She has to restore a very old painting before the art gallery opens.  While restoring the painting, Morgan is surprised at some of the gruesome details on the canvas.  She became enamored with finding out about the artist who drew the wall painting for a post office in a small town in North Carolina. The story is told in two time frames; one of Anna Dale - the artist who painted the original mural and Morgan Wallace - the young girl trying to get it restored.   It's a mystery; well-written, good characters, engaging story.  I sort of guessed the ending before I found out the entire details.  It's a fairy tale story for sure, but I giv...
Read more

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

Image
 WOW!  What an incredible book....this was my 2nd time listening to this amazing book and I found it just as compelling as I had the first time. It tells the story of a young woman - Elizabeth Holmes - who starts her own blood testing company at the age of 19.  She wants to Help People, but somewhere along the line, her values got all twisted and she got caught up in a web of lies, deceits, power, money, and self aggrandizement.   MANY people - powerful people - fell under her charismatic spell and her vision for testing people's blood from a single drop of blood.  No needles needed.  Only that is not what happened at all.  The machines didn't work and she continually lied about that.  She lied about them being FDA approved, about them being used on the battlefields of Afghanistan, about the results of the tests, about how far along they were in testing the machines; just lies, lies, lies.   The work environment at her company - Theranos - wa...
Read more