Nevermore: Peety, German Girl, Bushmen, Being Nixon

Reported by Kristin

Nevermore is full of animal lovers, and this was evidenced by one reader enjoying Walking with Peety: The Dog Who Saved My Life by Eric O’Grey.  Before adopting Peety, the author was plagued by health problems.  Overweight and depressed, he was surprised when his doctor suggested that he adopt a dog to encourage more physical activity.  Within a year, both human and canine were eating healthier, exercising and in much better physical health.  Our reader was touched by the sweetness of the book, and another dog lover gladly picked it up to check out next.

Crossbones Yard by Kate Rhodes introduces Alice Quentin, a London psychologist with a family history of abuse and mental illness.  Alice also enjoys running, but that joy is interrupted one day when she practically stumbles over a dead body at a graveyard.  With a killer on the loose, Alice helps to build a psychological profile of the murderer, whose style looks all too much like Roy and Marie Bensons’—two unusually cruel convicted (and currently incarcerated) serial killers.  Our reader said that this was a great series debut.

Next up was The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa, an international bestseller.  The story begins in 1939 Berlin when young girls Hannah Rosenthal and Leo Martin must flee the country to escape Nazi oppression.  The refugees travel to Havana to an uncertain, if not quite so immediately dangerous future.  More than seventy years later, young Anna Rosen receives a letter from someone she has never known, who says she is Anna’s great-aunt Hannah.  The family’s mysterious past beckons to Anna as she discovers the heartbreak and loss endured by previous generations.

Another reader appreciated the simple life portrayed in Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen by James Suzman.  The hunter-gatherers in southern Africa worked only about fifteen hours a week and had all that they needed, leaving much time for leisure activities.  Until white Europeans came, the bushmen were happy; seeing the advantages that earning money provided made the natives unsatisfied and ultimately changed their formerly egalitarian society.  Our reader commented that it was “such a refreshing book.”

In historic American politics, next discussed was Being Nixon: A Man Divided by Evan Thomas.  This newer biography encompasses everything that Nixon himself taped and wrote in his diary.  As a conservative vice president to the more liberal Republican Eisenhower, Nixon had two sides: he was very aggressive and determined to accomplish things; also he was a socially rigid person who wasn’t comfortable with others.  The author suggests that the decision to cover up the Watergate scandal was Nixon’s ultimate downfall.  Our reader proclaimed that this biography had a startlingly fresh feeling, and was recommended to all.