Nevermore: Plains Across, Martian, North Korea, and More!

Reported by Ambrea

Our Nevermore Book Club journeyed far and wide this week.  Our readers revisited the Oregon Trail with The Plains Across by John D. Unruh Jr. and traveled to Mars in The Martian by Andy Weir, and even stopped over in North Korea in Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim.  Although our group only was missing some regulars this week, there were still plenty of books and opinions to share.

One of our members has been reading a number of books about the Oregon Trail. This week it was The Plains Across:  The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-1860 by John D. Unruh Jr. In this book, our reader said she had a unique opportunity to witness the activities of travelers and study what really happened on the Oregon Trail.  Unruh, who wrote The Plains Across as part of his doctorate dissertation, spent an entire decade compiling information on travelers and pioneer transportation and major trail events, compiling an incredible amount of information into a single, accessible volume.  Our Nevermore readers said it was more of a textbook than recreational reading, but she found it interesting even if she left it unfinished.  She has since decided that her curiosity with the Oregon Trail has been satisfied.

Next up was Without You, There Is No Us:  My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite by Suki Kim, an English teacher who spent six months in North Korea under the leadership of King Jong-il in 2011.  In her memoir, Kim reveals her experiences at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.  Three times daily, students would sing praises of the country’s leaders, which is where Kim finds the inspiration for her title:  Without you, there is no motherland.  Without you, there is no us.  Between extreme censorship guidelines and rigid religious/political regulations, the university was utterly claustrophobic for Suki Kim—and her memoir portrays these struggles of everyday life.  According to our reader, Kim’s memoir provided great insight into the educated social classes of North Korea; however, our reader couldn’t enjoy Without You, There Is No Us for the simple reason that it was going to have or did have grave repercussions for the individuals involved.  It cast everything into a negative light and North Korean officials don’t take kindly to any perceived criticism.

The first novel of the meeting was Buried Angels by Camilla Lackberg.  When Ebba was a baby, she was abruptly abandoned by her family in 1974; now married with children of her own in mind, she and her husband have returned to her hometown to make a fresh start—until an arsonist targets her house.  Detective Patrik Hedstrom and his wife, crime writer Erica Palck, are introduced to the case and discover that Ebba’s family might not be missing after all.  Our reader, who was a little more than halfway finished with the novel, said Buried Angels was “quite good.”  Filled with a multitude of characters—which made our reader wonder, “Is anyone in Sweden not in this book?”—and laced with intrigue, danger, and mystery, Buried Angels was highly recommended by our reader.

Likewise, The Martian by Andy Weir (which was just released as a movie on October 2) received some very positive reviews from our readers.  Chronicling the odyssey of Mark Watney, as he fights to survive the inhospitable terrain of Mars and return to Earth, The Martian is a tale of survival that reaches into the depths of the solar system—think of it as Castaway on Mars.  Our readers seemed to enjoy Weir’s novel.  Marvelously detailed and full of real theoretical physics, all made accessible by Mark Watney’s colorful explanations, The Martian was a thrilling ride.  It kept one of our readers on the edge of her seat.

Having read Gone Girl and Sharp Objects, one member decided to explore Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places.  Like her previous books, this novel is a psychological thriller that plays upon the darkest parts of human imagination.  The story, which our reader described as “pretty dramatic,” begins with Libby Day:  she was seven when her two sisters and her mother were murdered and, as the sole survivor, she testified in court that her brother, fifteen-year-old Ben, was the killer.  Twenty-five years later, she’s brought back to the case only to discover that the facts she believed as a child may no longer be true—and a killer may still be on the loose.  Our reader said she enjoyed Dark Places, much better than Sharp Objects; however, she still believes that Gone Girl is still Flynn’s best book.

Last, our readers discussed Descent by Tim Johnston.  Descent, which follows the disappearance of Caitlin Courtland and the disintegration of her family, was incredibly popular at one of our prior meetings.  Two of our Nevermore members really enjoyed Johnston’s novel, having only positive comments to make; however, our latest reader said she just couldn’t stay with it from beginning to end.  It had the potential to be a great novel, but she felt she just couldn’t sink into the story and stay hooked like some of our other readers.

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.