I don’t read novels.

Ask my kids, they’ll tell you my shelf is historical nonfiction, biographies, business books, and psychology and science reads. So when I told them I’d just tore through a novel faster than any book I’ve ever read, they accused me of falling and bumping my head.

The book is Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. The recommendation came from Dr. Allen Kuperman, a retired pediatrician and one of my favorite dinner companions for the kind of conversation that runs long after the plates are cleared. Allen leads a book club with some of the sharpest medical minds in the Twin Cities, and when he leans in to recommend something, I listen. He leaned in hard for this one.

I started it the Thursday of the July 4th weekend. I finished it Saturday. That has never happened to me with a book before, let alone a novel.

Here’s the setup, without spoiling anything: an elderly man from Portugal arrives in a small town in Georgia. Like most small towns, the local coffee shop is the epicenter of everything that matters. the gossip, the friendships, the daily rhythm of people’s lives. On the walls of that coffee shop hang portraits of local residents, drawn by a local artist, each one capturing not just a face but a mood, an essence, something true about who that person is.

The elderly man notices these portraits. And he sets out to meet every single person in them, to actually sit with them, hear their story, and understand what the artist saw.

That’s it. That’s the engine of the whole book. And it is enough.

What got me wasn’t the plot mechanics, it was the reminder underneath all of it: life is about connection. The relationships we build with people are the whole point. In a tech-driven world where we scroll past each other constantly, it’s easy to forget that our attention and our words actually matter to the people on the receiving end of them. This book will show you just how much they matter, probably more than you’d expect.

At its core, Theo of Golden is really about a choice every one of us gets to make, over and over, in ordinary daily interactions. Do we move through the world deeply generous, self-forgetful, and full of kindness and genuinely curious about people, celebrating them for who they actually are? Or do we move through it materialistic, brash, self-righteous, quietly measuring everyone against expectations they never agreed to, setting them up for a disappointment we’ve already written the script for?

Levi doesn’t lecture you on which one to choose. He just shows you, through one old man’s unhurried walk through a small town, what the first option looks like in practice, patient attention, curiosity without an agenda, the willingness to sit with someone long enough to actually see them.

I won’t tell you how it ends. I won’t tell you what happens to the people in those portraits, or what the old man is carrying with him that you slowly start to sense underneath his calm. That’s yours to discover, and it deserves to unfold the way Levi built it to unfold.

What I will tell you is this: take the step. Read it. Let it slow you down for a few days. And then look at the people around you a little differently, because the world gets better, one conversation at a time, when we decide to actually pay attention to each other.

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. Enjoy my favorite 2026 book, even by someone who doesn’t read novels.

P.S quid pro quo… whoever refers my next best novel recommendation will receive a gift.