Nevermore: Crime and Punishment, Everything is Tuberculosis, King of the North

 

Nevermore Book Club readers enjoy a wide variety of books, old and new, fiction and non-fiction. Here are some of the books recommended from a recent meeting:

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a classic of Russian literature for good reason.  The protagonist, Raskolnikov, is mired in poverty as is his family.  He sees others suffering as well, and who are forced to pawn their possessions to survive.  Roskolnikov convinces himself that by murdering the pawnbroker and stealing her money, he can save his family and perform great acts of public service; that such a deed would not be a true crime because it would serve the greater good. Afterwards, however, he struggles with his conscience even as he tries to help others. Our reviewer thought it was a magnificent book and feels everyone should read it.

Everything is Tuberculosis is by John Green, best known as the Young Adult author of such best-sellers as The Fault in Our Stars.  Green began researching TB after meeting young patient Henry Reider in Sierra Leone who had contracted a drug-resistant form of the disease.  Green gives a history of TB, which once ravaged all of Europe and had a lasting impact on the culture of the time, while he chronicles the efforts to save Henry’s life.  Our reader found the book fascinating, informative, and recommends it to everyone.

King of the North:  Martin Luther King’s Life of Struggle Outside the South by Jeanne Theoharis examines the often overlooked time King spent in the Northeast, starting when he was a student in Boston.  While King’s work to combat racism in the South is well documented, the same work in the North has been minimized.  Our reader was impressed with the attention played to Coretta Scott, later King, who was also a student in Boston at the time. Although she hasn’t quite finished with the book, she recommends it highly.

Conclave by Robert Harris is a fictional account of the election of a new pope.  Cardinal Lomeli is charged with managing the Conclave while facing his own crisis of faith.  He becomes aware of a rumor that one of the cardinals actually had been dismissed from his duties just hours before the Pope’s death, something the cardinal emphatically denies. It falls to Lomeli to try to uncover the truth.  The book was the basis for the Oscar nominated movie of the same name, and the reviewer said the film was an excellent adaptation.