Nevermore Nonfiction: Better Than Fiction, Willie Nelson, and The Vatican

The June 25th Nevermore Book Club started with reminiscences of favorite books stores past and present:  Burke’s in Memphis, Kemball-Cochran in Bristol, and Malaprop’s in Ashville.  Of course, this brought up another favorite place for books—the public library, where you can test drive a book or author for free, and then decide if you want to buy a copy. 

Better Than Fiction: True Travel Tales from Great Fiction Writers edited by Don George  is a wonderful collection.  Some of the authors are well known (Peter Mathiessen, Alexander McCall Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, Isabel Allende) but all are masters of the craft.  The settings cover the globe, from the United States to the Solomon Islands to Luxemburg to Mumbai, and offer unique perspectives, entertainingly told.  This is a compilation from the good folks who bring us the wonderful Lonely Planet travel guides.

If you think the title Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die sounds like something Willie Nelson would say, then you’re probably ready to read this collection of thoughts from one of the original country Outlaws.  Willie mixes one liners, comments on politics, reminiscences of career and boyhood, along with insights on his writing and the occasional dirty joke in this entertaining collection.  If you’re looking for a straight-forward biography, this isn’t it; if you just want to feel you’ve had a wide conversation with an incredible performer and Texas icon, then this is the book for you.

John Thavis spent more than 25 years covering stories at the Vatican.  The Vatican Diaries:  A Behind the Scenes Look at the Power, Personalities and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic Church certainly lives up to its title but journalist Thavis tends not to insert his own perspective, leaving it up to the reader to draw conclusions.  He does tackle the difficult issues and does so in a readable style.

 
On a similar topic, Garry Wills examines the institution of priesthood in the Catholic Church in his book Why Priests?  He asks whether or not having a priesthood has benefited the Church or been a detriment.  He attempts to lay out the arguments for and against the priesthood, though the subtitle of the book (“A Failed Tradition”) pretty much sums up his conclusion. Reviewers found his book to be thought-provoking and controversial but disagreed as to whether or not he made a compelling case.  Wills is a professor of history and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose other titles include Why I Am a Catholic and What Jesus Meant.