Nevermore: Oregon Trail, Come Saturday, Look Who's Back, Boston Corbett, Karin Fossum, Frightful's Mountain

 Reported by Jeanne

Nevermore hit the trail this week—the Oregon Trail, that is, with one member praising Rinker Buck’s The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey. Journalist Rinker set out with his brother and a dog to recreate as best he could, what it was like to travel on the Oregon Trail. They traveled in the time honored way using a covered wagon and a mule team for transportation.  Buck also recounts a history of the trail along with their present day adventures.  

For a view of the Trail it its heyday, the same reader tackled another book written by a journalist in 1846.  Francis Parkman was a twenty three year old when he took a two month trip through Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas.  He wrote his adventures up as installments for Knickerbocker Magazine, then turned them into a book which was published in 1849. Some have noted that his views of the Native American tribes were generally negative, but Parkman still provides a vivid look at life at that time.  One thing that struck our reader was the many uses for dogs, including food.   Another member pointed out that travel along the Trail at that point was strongly dictated by nature:  travelers needed to leave by May or early June in order to reach the end of the trail before winter hit.  Those who failed to do so usually perished. Part of the problem was that on some parts of the Trail there was simply no way to turn around and go back.  The Donner Party was mentioned, but not so much as to spoil the fine Blackbird Bakery doughnuts the group was enjoying.

Another reader recommended Come Saturday by Doris Musick which is a novel based on a true incident.  In 1933, a group of men had gone to a gristmill near Lennon, Virginia when the boiler exploded. Several men were killed and several more were injured.  According to our reader, Musick does a good job with both the setting and with shedding some light on a bit of local history.

Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes presents an intriguing scenario:  what if Adolf Hitler came back? In the book, he awakens in 2011.  He doesn’t realize that decades have passed and treats everything from a 1945 perspective. People believe he’s an actor or comedian pretending to be Hitler and find his outrageous comments to be “authentic.”  He becomes a TV personality with an avid following.  Our reviewer said she couldn’t decide if this was a satire or a farce but it was certainly entertaining.  

Most folks have heard of Jack Ruby, the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, but far fewer would recognize the name Thomas “Boston” Corbett.  He was the man who killed another presidential assassin, John Wilkes Booth and for a time his name was known far and wide.  For a while after the war ended, Corbett would earn money by giving lectures, styling himself “Lincoln’s Avenger.” An extremely religious man who had reprimanded his superior officer for profanity and taking the Lord’s name in vain, Corbett’s behavior became increasingly strange and he seemed beset by paranoid delusions. In The Madman and the Assassin, author Martelle Scott tells the intriguing story of this British immigrant who was court martialed for insubordination, who spent months in Andersonville prison, and who became a foot note in American history. Our Nevermore reader called it “fascinating.”

The next reviewer opened with, “Karin Fossum hasn’t let me down yet!” He’s reading When the Devil Holds the Candle, which he describes as being about what happens when young men get confused and become misguided: they can end up in more trouble than they’re ready for.  As usual, this Inspector Sejer novel is heavy on psychology and is darkly thrilling.

Finally, a reader said that when she needed to read something to fill her with joy, she turns to Jean Craighhead George’s juvenile novel, Frightful’s Mountain. Frightful is a peregrine falcon first introduced in the classic My Side of the Mountain. The book is told from the bird’s point of view and is beautifully written.  George was a naturalist, so her books are full of authentic detail as well as a deep respect for nature and the environment.  Our reviewer described this as both a “feel good” book and as a spiritual book.  She highly recommends it to everyone.  The depiction of migration is especially good, and it almost made her feel as if she were about to take wing.

Nevermore: Mystery, History, and More!

 Reported by Ambrea

At Nevermore this week, our readers encountered a variety of books—including some audiobooks—and revisited some familiar titles, such as Quiet:  The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain and Believer:  My Forty Years in Politics by David Axelrod.

To start off, one of our readers looked at a pair of audiobooks:  The Last Surgeon by Michael Palmer and The 11^th Hour by James Patterson.  In The Last Surgeon, Nick Garrity, a veteran suffering from PTSD who spends his time working at a clinic in Baltimore to help the homeless, and Jillian Coates, a psychiatric nurse, are pitted against a dangerously efficient killer, an assassin who goes by the name of Franz Koller—a man who will stop at nothing to catch and kill his intended victims.  In The 11^th Hour, Patterson returns with his Women’s Murder Club and another terrifying series of murders, beginning first with the death of a millionaire and ending with the discovery of bodies in a famous actor’s garden!  According to our Nevermore reader, both audiobooks were excellent.  Although this was her third time reading 11^th Hour, our reader enjoyed it immensely and highly recommended the Women’s Murder Club novels.

Next, our readers dived into history with Across the Plains in 1844 by Catherine Sager Pringle.  Sager’s narrative recounts her family’s harrowing journey from Ohio to Washington, enduring harsh conditions and great tragedies of the Oregon Trail.  Considered one of the most authentic accounts of the American westward migration, Sager’s memoir chronicles an extraordinary passage of time in which all 8 of the Sager children were orphaned, rescued and adopted by Narcissa and Marcus Whitman, and endured an attack by the local Cayuse tribe in Washington.  Our Nevermore reader thought Across the Plains was absolutely fascinating, saying, “It’s just so amazing to me that people end up doing [things like this]…that people survived.”

Another reader picked a Scandinavian mystery:  When the Devil Holds the Candle by Karin Fossum.  Inspector Konrad Sejer and his colleague Jacob Skarre are confronted with dark possibilities in their town, confronting the death of an infant and the disappearance of a delinquent youth—and all the terrible connections they will find.  Our reader, who is attempting to read all of Fossum’s work, enjoyed the fourth installment of Fossum’s Inspector Sejer series.  Although she said it doesn’t have a happy ending, she was glad that all the “bad people get their due.”

Next, our readers looked at a satire of historical proportions in Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes (translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch).  Vermes novel opens with Adolf Hitler—in 2011.  After waking from 66 years of sleep, Hitler discovers a Germany that’s entire changed:  social media spreads new ideas and fuels celebrity obsession; cities are multicultural, meshing together races, ethnicities, religions, and more into one common community; Germany is led by a woman.  And Hitler is suddenly jettisoned into popularity for the public believes he’s an impersonator of incredible skill—until he begins his own political party.  Full of references to events in World War II and brimming with a darkly comical humor, Look Who’s Back was a fascinating novel that was “very, very well done,” according to our Nevermore reader.

Two of our readers also revisited Quiet and Believer, rounding out our meeting with new impressions of the same material.  For our reader, Quiet, which examined the differences between and stressed the importance of extroverts and introverts of society, was a fascinating piece of work.  Although it read almost like a textbook, providing interesting little nuggets about introverts and extroverts (such as how introverts prefer meeting people in a friendly, noncompetitive context, and extroverts prefer meeting others in a competitive context), our Nevermore reader enjoyed Susan Cain’s study.

Believer, on the other hand, produced a divided opinion at the meeting this time.  One reader confirmed her original opinion of Axelrod’s work, saying she still enjoyed it as she drew to the final few pages; however, another reader disagreed, saying she wouldn’t finish it.  It “confirmed my opinion of people who are good, [reinforced my opinion] who I liked,” she said.  Showing the clash between idealism and reality, Axelrod showed the meaning of compromise—and, in some cases, showed how many politicians begin as good people and manage to compromise their values in the pursuit of political power—which turned our reader away from finishing

Ending on a lighter note, our Nevermore readers rounded out our meeting with The Public Library:  A Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson.  Filled with more than 150 photos of libraries spread across the country, The Public Library explores the importance and, in some cases, decay of one of America’s most important institutions.  Our Nevermore reader said it was interesting to see the history of libraries, to read short commentaries by writers such as E.B. White, Amy Tan, Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Patchett, Dr. Seuss and others, and to get a visual exploration of some of America’s most memorable libraries.

Raven Report: Double the Fun!

by Jeanne

We had a special Saturday edition of the Nevermore Book Club in conjunction with Believe in Bristol’s State of the Arts events.  Director Jud started the session with a challenge:  he would show us five musical instruments which we may not even have heard of ere now and we would be able to remember them an hour later.  Skepticism was rife, but using the principles from Moonwalking with Einstein:  the art and science of remembering everything by Joshua Foer he was sure we could do it.

And he was right!  In fact I still remember the ophicleide, bombarde, doumbek, oud and mbira though I confess I had to do some looking to find out how to spell “ophicleide.” I’m still not really sure what all the instruments are, but I do remember them!

As usual with book club, one topic leads to another.  I had A Presumption of Death by Jill Paton Walsh which uses the characters created by Dorothy L. Sayers in her series of mysteries featuring Lord Peter Wimsy.  We talked about one writer using another’s characters, the difference in reading a book written during the 1940s and one written in 2006 but set in the 1940s, and how changing attitudes can sometimes cause a problem with older books meant for children.

Doris started another interesting discussion with Pray for Silence by Linda Castillo.  Police Chief Kate Burkholder is called to investigate a case where an Amish family has been slaughtered.  Since Kate was raised in an Amish family, this case causes her to revisit her own past.  Books set among the Amish have become very popular in the last few years and we discussed some of the aspects of Amish culture, but almost before we knew it the time had just flown by!

Tuesday’s Nevermore had an even wider selection of books being championed by readers!  Jud had the new book by David Sedaris, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk.  It’s a collection of animal fables rather like Aesop if that old Greek had been possessed of a darkly comic, cynical humor and a taste for the absurd.  Sedaris isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and neither is Jasper Fforde, but both have devoted followers.  One of Our Thursdays is Missing is Fforde’s latest entry in his BookWorld series, in which characters pop in and out of classic novels and different literary genres may be at odds. (Peace talks are going on between Women’s Literature and the Racy Novel, for instance.)  Literary jokes abound, of course. 

Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong provided a change of pace.  Armstrong is a former Catholic nun and respected writer on religion who worked with a number of religious leaders to compile a “Charter for Compassion.”  Thoughtful, moving and empowering, this is a great choice for anyone wanting to live a more aware life.

The Room by Emma Donoghue, the novel about a child and his mother held prisoner, is still making the rounds of readers.

The new Tom Clancy book, Dead or Alive, features the return of Jack Ryan, Jr. as he seeks out the terrorist known as the Emir. It was in the process of being read, so no verdict as yet!

The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford alternates between the 1940s and 1980s when Henry Lee, a young Chinese boy, befriends a Japanese girl prior to the Japanese internment.  In the 1980s, the discovery of an item thought lost causes Henry to remember his first love. 

Erik Larson, best known for Isaac’s Storm and Devil in the White City, has a new book out.  In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin is the riveting true story of the William Dodd family, who moved to Germany in 1933 when Roosevelt appointed Mr. Dodd ambassador to the Third Reich.  Initially charmed, Ambassador Dodd begins to grow increasingly uneasy with the way new laws begin to shape the society.  Meanwhile, one of his daughters is infatuated with the dashing Nazi officers, including the first chief of the Gestapo. Of course, we read it with the full knowledge of what was to come; the principals were living it.