Reported by Kristin
Our first Nevermore
reader enjoyed The Lost City of Z: A
Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann. Popular interest
in the book has been sparked by the recent movie of the same name. (Available
at the Main library: DVD LOS.) Explorer
Percy Fawcett trekked into the Amazon in an attempt to find the lost city of El
Dorado (“City of Gold”) in 1925. Our
reader said that she particularly admired Fawcett’s incredible drive and
purpose.
Yet another reader
tried Brothers of the Sea by D.R.
Sherman, an older novel set in the Seychelles Island, and another reader
decided to jump on the bandwagon and read it in the coming week. The reader who just finished it said that it portrayed
a beautiful relationship between a sweet boy and a nice father.
The same reader absolutely
loved Emory’s Gift by W. Bruce
Cameron, author of A Dog’s Purpose. After his mother dies, teen Charlie is lonely
until a grizzly bear saves him from a mountain lion, then moves into the family
barn. Being in Northern Idaho, everyone
else wants to kill the grizzly, but Charlie seeks to protect his friend and
protector.
Turning to science
fiction, another reader enjoyed Red Planet Blues by Robert Sawyer. Within a
frontier-like town set up in a bubble dome on Mars, human foibles are presented
in a light breezy way. Alex Lomax is a
private eye, the only one in New Klondike.
Outside the bubble, a variety of treasure hunters are seeking extremely
valuable Martian fossils. Our reader
appreciated the word play, such as someone being described as “kempt and
sheveled,” as opposed to “unkempt and disheveled.”
Next up was a book
published in 1917, The Grim 13: Short Stories by Thirteen Authors of
Standing, edited by Frederick Stuart Greene. These stories do tend to be on the grim side
(as the title indicates,) but they are not tragic. Our reader’s favorite one was about a man in
the jungle whose job is to raise the bridge out of the way when a boat needs to
pass. Spookiness abound as the man
questions what he hears.
Another classic, The
Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson
McCullers, portrays outcasts and oddballs in a small Georgia town during
the 1930’s. When John Singer, a deaf
mute, loses his mute companion to a mental institution, he moves in with the
Kelly family. Rife with racial and
poverty issues, our reader compared this with To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
A new-to-Nevermore
reader discussed her recent reading of Madam Secretary: A Memoir by Madeleine Albright. Published in 2003, this memoir takes the
first female U.S. Secretary of State from her childhood in Czechoslovakia to
her high ranking governmental position in Bill Clinton’s administration. Our reader was very impressed that Albright
rose to that post after a relatively late start in government—her first federal
job was when she was 39 and had three children.
Long
Black Veil by Jennifer Finney Boylan tackles a 1980
murder mystery when six college students looking for a thrill are drawn into a
terrifying situation where someone ends up dead. Fast forward twenty years when new evidence
comes to light. The chapters alternate
between the old and the new; titles at the beginning of each section make it
easy to differentiate the time periods.
Our reader found this book very entertaining, saying that it will keep
you on the edge of your seat.
Next up in fiction
was Big Little Lies by Liane
Moriarty. Involving three women who
run in the same circles because they have children in the same Australian
preschool, the storyline makes it clear right up front that someone will end up
dead, but winds around and around before naming the victim. Our reader said that if you have ever been a
parent of an elementary school student, you will recognize the mommy politics
in this tale. Now an HBO miniseries, the
book may resonate with many a striving, overachieving parent.
In Jamestown: The Truth Revealed, William Kelso examines what happened to the lost 1607 Jamestown
Settlement. Historians had long believed
that the original site of the James Fort was covered by the river, as the land
surrounding it was a low swampy place.
After Jamestown burned, it was mostly forgotten. In 1994, archeologist Kelso began to dig in
another location and found definitive evidence of the stockade, church, and
perhaps most unsettling—cannibalism. The
13-year-old girl depicted on the cover is a representation from a found skull
and leg bone which showed proof of being scraped out, and her flesh possibly
eaten during “the starving period.” Our
reader’s descriptions engendered much curiosity and discussion within the
group.
Neil Shubin argues in The Universe Within: The Deep History of the Human Body that
the very evolution of the universe is evidenced within the human body. From our atoms to our sleep cycles, Shubin
connects the strands that show how the universe around us influences the way
our bodies have adapted. Our reader said
that she learned so many beautiful scientific things from this book.
Finally, The Jane
Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
was enjoyed by another reader. In this
novel, two time travelers are sent back in time from the near future to 1815
London. Their goal: recover an
unpublished novel, and steal it.
(Without influencing history, of course.) Our reader enjoyed the time travel aspect of
the novel, and was amused by the fact that the travelers had not experienced
“real food” in their own time period, but merely 3D replica composites made to
nourish them. The real thing in 1815 was
surely a shock to their digestive systems and their sensibilities.
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