HEY! Don't Miss This!!!

HEY! Don’t Miss This!
“Theo of Golden”

I sometimes joke that there was a road sign near our house when I was growing up that read, “SLOW – Children at Play,” and my mom went outside one day and put a comma after the word children—“SLOW Children, at Play.” Punctuation is important.

The point of telling you that is that I am, in fact, often slow. I want to confess that I have been slow to get on board the Theo of Golden bus, and I have learned that I have been really missing out! I want to encourage you: Don’t miss the Theo of Golden bus!!!

I was first encouraged to read Theo of Golden by my wife, Debi. She read the book for a book club, and she absolutely loved it. She encouraged me to read it, but I don’t read a lot of fiction, so I didn’t get on board.

Then, a month or so later, the Theo of Golden bus went past me again as I saw it being referenced on Facebook and began hearing more people talking about it. Yet I still wasn’t fully persuaded.

Then, about two weeks ago, I reached the tipping point. I had several people tell me about it once again. One friend of mine told me that he still had 40 pages to go and that he was so torn because he desperately wanted to read the conclusion, but he also didn’t want the book to end. That comment certainly piqued my interest to the point that I decided I wanted to read it. This happened on a Sunday evening.

On Monday morning, Debi and I were traveling through Waco on our way to Kingsland, TX. I told her that I was going to read it. She ended up pulling up an Oprah’s Book Club: Presented by Starbucks podcast in which Oprah Winfrey interviewed the author of Theo of Golden, Allen Levi. It was so good and so powerful. I would encourage you to listen to it even if you have read the book or especially if you are thinking about reading it.

The story behind the book is fascinating, and that is part of what helped me get on the bus and begin reading it.

Allen Levi, the author of the book, was 62 or 63 years old when he began writing it. He had been an attorney, a judge, a singer-songwriter, and a speaker. He had never written a book, and he decided that writing a book was something he wanted to do. He wasn’t writing the book to have it published. He simply wanted to see if he could write a book.

It took him around three years to write it. As he was writing, several of his close friends learned about the project, and they would ask him about his progress and encourage him. Finally, one day after he had finished writing it, they asked how it was coming, and he told them it was finished. They asked if they could read it. He reluctantly gave them a copy of the manuscript so they could read it.

One of those friends called him back after reading it and told him that it was so powerful and so good that he needed to have it published.

In 2023, Levi decided to publish the book, but he decided to take the self-publishing route. He hired his niece, Aron Ritchie, to help him. Neither of them had any publishing experience, and they basically had a zero-dollar marketing budget. Usually, self-published books sell around 250 to 300 copies.

Aron relentlessly promoted the novel by contacting book clubs, engaging readers on Facebook, arranging appearances for Allen Levi, and reaching out to churches and libraries.

By 2025, the self-published edition of Theo of Golden had sold more than 100,000 copies.

Eventually, Atria Books (a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster) acquired the novel in a seven-figure deal and republished it nationally in 2025. After the Atria release, the momentum increased exponentially, with the book selling more than one million copies in the United States and becoming number one on the NY Times Best Seller List. It has now sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide.

I was slow to get on the Theo of Golden bus, but now I am firmly onboard. I want to encourage you: if you happen to be someone who hasn’t boarded yet—or perhaps you were unaware there was a bus—purchase a copy of Theo of Golden and start reading! You will be glad that you did.

This book is a healing balm for the craziness and divisiveness of our day. Its themes of kindness, gentleness, generosity, and compassion are so desperately needed today. This book will slow you down and help you reflect on your life and on the people around you!

Initially I was thinking there probably wasn’t much reason to write this blog because I was probably the last person on earth to read the book. However, over the past week or so, I have made it a point to ask several friends and family members whether they have read it, and surprisingly, more have answered, “No,” than “Yes.” So, I decided to go ahead and write this.