Reported by Kristin
Nevermore loves a good mystery, and The Blood: A Jem
Flockhart Mystery by E. S. Thomson is no exception. Third in the series, this time Jem and
sidekick Will Quartermain are on a floating hospital called The Blood, where the investigators find
much more sinister goings-on than might be expected in a medical
establishment. Our reader said that you
don’t have to read the books in series order to enjoy them, and that most of
the villains are intriguingly hiding in plain sight.
Next, a book club member enthused about the Netflix show Trotsky, and how it had inspired her to
re-read the classic Animal Farm by George Orwell. Reading it again as an adult, our reader easily
was able to understand the human individuals represented by the animal
characters. Snowball the pig is very
similar to Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky.
Czar Nicholas is represented by the farmer Mr. Jones, while the Old
Master seems to be a mix of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. Our reader’s enthusiastic reprisal of this
school reading list standard was entertaining and enlightening.
Turning to non-fiction, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of
our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson made our next reader think deeply about
the deep racial divisions within the United States. From the post-Civil War era to today, people
of color have been systematically discriminated against in subtle and
not-so-subtle ways. Our reader did not
just give a positive review of this difficult to read book; she said she “highly,
highly, highly recommends it.”
Going back in time, The Last Day: Wrath, Ruin, and Reason in the Great Lisbon
Earthquake of 1755 by Nicholas Shrady was another interesting read. Long before the creation of the Richter
scale, the earthquake was probably a “9,” hitting Lisbon, Portugal on a Sunday
morning. Shaking for over ten minutes,
buildings tumbled, tsunamis formed and the city burned. The destruction and the rebuilding of the
city captivated our reader.
The next book didn’t get such a positive recommendation: River
Bodies by Karen Katchur. Becca
Kingsley is a veterinarian who has returned to small town Pennsylvania to be
with her dying father. When a local
murder may be connected to a cold case from twenty years ago, Becca becomes
involved. Our reader said that
unfortunately this thriller was somewhat mediocre, and could have benefited
from having 50-60 pages of the “whodunit” revelation removed.
Finally, another reader enjoyed The Ravenmaster: My Life
with the Ravens at the Tower of London by Christopher Skaife. Folklore claims that if the ravens are ever
removed that Britain and the Crown would fall.
Skaife had served the palace for decades before becoming responsible for
the ravens. Our reader enjoyed that the
book contained so many details about the keeper himself, but also about the
pageantry surrounding the care of keeping of the ravens.
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