Reported by Ambrea
Nevermore
had some great books to share, including one reader’s favorite book: The
High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel.
Martel, author of The Life of Pi,
creates a moving epic in his latest novel, which follows the lives of a young
man on a mission to redefine history, a Portuguese pathologist, and a Canadian
senator returning to his ancestral home.
It begins in Lisbon in 1904 with a journal and a dream, before
culminating in a century-long quest that leads readers in an unexpected
direction. Our reader said she
absolutely loved this book. She said,
“[It has] parts to make you laugh; parts to make you cry.” It has everything for readers, she continued,
and it has an underlying theology—a universal idea of God—that she found
fascinating. Our reader, who admitted
she read The High Mountains of Portugal four
times, always found new things to appreciate and enjoy each time she read
it. She highly recommended it to our
other Nevermore members.
Next,
Nevermore looked at Tipperary by
Frank Delaney. Charles O’Brien is a
healer, a traveling doctor who ventures all along the countryside and beyond to
dispense traditional cures and help heal a variety of ailments, maladies, and
wounds; however, he becomes an unlikely storyteller when he unwittingly soaks
up the tales of his homeland. Then, at
forty, when he is summoned to Paris to treat one of his dying countrymen—Oscar
Wilde, no less—he falls in love with April Burke, who doesn’t return his
affection. Determined to win her over,
Charles sets out to preserve Tipperary, an abandoned estate in Ireland, and win
April’s favor. Our reader, who enjoyed
reading Delaney’s Ireland, said she
was a little disappointed with Tipperary. Charles is an excellent storyteller, but,
when other narratives were sewn into the story, our reader pointed out that she
didn’t like the anonymity given to other characters. It made Tipperary
challenging, because she was never sure whose narrative she was reading,
and, ultimately, unrewarding.
In
Another Place You’ve Never Been by
Rebecca Kauffman, Nevermore was introduced to Tracy, a woman who aspires to
something greater than her work as a restaurant hostess in Buffalo, New
York. However, rather than following
Tracy as she works to cultivate her creative talents, Kauffman looks to the
peripheral characters—people who have known Tracy, people whose lives intersect
hers—and interweaves their stories to create a fascinating narrative tapestry
of lives, hopes, dreams, and experiences.
Although our reader said Tracy was a memorable heroine, both dynamic and
fascinating, she thought Kauffman’s novel was a little bland. She found Another
Place You’ve Never Been just didn’t stir as much of an emotional response
for her and she didn’t really recommend it to her fellow Nevermore readers.
Nevermore
also shared Remarkable Creatures by
Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a
Pearl Earring and At the Edge of the
Orchard. On the coast of England,
Mary Anning discovers a series of unusual fossils buried in the cliffs near her
home and sets tongues to wagging. Not
only do the townspeople have something new about which to gossip, the
scientific community is absolutely voracious to learn more about these
fossils—even if they are set to disregard Mary entirely. But Mary gains an unlikely friend and
champion in Elizabeth Philpot, a spinster who shares her passion for scouring
beaches and has her own fascination with fossils. Our reader enjoyed reading Chevalier’s novel,
saying it was a fascinating look at women and their impact on early scientific
discoveries. Moreover, she said, “The
characters are great; the scenes are great.”
She appreciated Chevalier’s eye for detail and her ability to make
sifting through sand in search of fossils a fascinating experience.
Next,
Nevermore visited another reader favorite:
Moral Disorder, a series of
eleven stories by Margaret Atwood that follows the life of one remarkable young
girl as she traverses her childhood in the 1930s and beyond. According to the jacket cover, “Each story
focuses on the ways relationships transform a life: a woman’s complex love for a married man, the
grief upon the death of parents and the joy with the birth of children, and the
realization of what growing old with someone you love really means.” It’s a fascinating, funny but poignant
collection of stories that our reader termed as “wonderful.” Our reader is a big fan of Atwood—and Moral Disorder is one of her
favorites. She enjoys it each and every
time she reads it, because she likes the complexity of the characters,
including the narrator, and the subtle traces of humor and humanity throughout
it.
Last,
but not least, Nevermore took another look at Margaret Atwood’s work with her
latest novel, Hag-Seed. A reimagining of William Shakespeare’s Tempest, Hag-Seed is a curious novel that follows the rise and fall of
Felix, a former Artistic Director for the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival, as he
puts on the finest show of his life—and plots revenge against those who
betrayed him. Our reader said she really
liked Atwood’s novel, noting that it read like a mystery story and a very good
one at that. Our reader also took a special
interest in Atwood’s bibliography, which listed many of the books and movies
and plays watched by the author in preparation for Hag-Seed. As the latest
installment of the Hogarth Shakespeare Project, Hag-Seed joins The Gap of
Time by Jeanette Winterson, Shylock
is My Name by Howard Jacobson, and Vinegar
Girl by Anne Tyler.
No comments:
Post a Comment