Modern showcase · #1 New York Times bestseller
A stranger buys 92 portraits — and gives every one away.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi started as a quiet, self-published novel from a Georgia lawyer and songwriter. Readers kept handing it to friends until it became one of the most talked-about books in the country.
Sold through Book Haven & Co., our independent bookstore in Madison, Indiana.
The story in 30 seconds
01
He finds the portraits
An elderly stranger walks into a coffeehouse in a small Southern city. On the walls hang 92 pencil portraits of locals that nobody is buying.
02
He gives them away
One by one, Theo buys each portrait and returns it, with a handwritten letter, to the person in the drawing.
03
He asks for a story
In exchange he asks for only one thing: their story. Secrets come out, regrets get shared, and a whole town starts to change.
Pick it up if…
- ✓ You loved A Man Called Ove or Gilead
- ✓ You want a book club pick everyone actually finishes
- ✓ You need a gift for someone who's grieving
- ✓ You're tired of cynical stories and want a kind one
Good to know
- Author
- Allen Levi, Georgia attorney, former judge and songwriter
- Published
- Self-published 2023 · Atria Books edition 2025
- Praise
- Katie Couric and Jen Hatmaker book club pick
- Feel
- Gentle, hopeful, quietly faith-filled
- Best for
- Book clubs, gifts, slow weekend reading
Read it slowly, in person
Theo walks a small river town. So can you.
BookInspo is made by Book Haven & Co., a bookstore in an 1845 building on Main Street in historic Madison, Indiana, right on the Ohio River. Pick up a copy downstairs, then stay in the Book Haven Suite upstairs and read it the way it was meant to be read: one unhurried chapter at a time.
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