Nevermore: 81 Days Below Zero, Salt Path, Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, Paul Newman

 

Reported by Garry

81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness by Brian Murphy. A few days before Christmas in 1943, Leon Crane and four other Army aviators took a retrofitted B-24 bomber out for a test flight from the Ladd Field in Fairbanks, Alaska. The flight ended in disaster, crashing in the wilderness and killing all on board except Crane – a city kid with no wilderness experience or training. Armed with the clothes on his back, a Swiss army knife, and the remains of his parachute, Crane fought for his survival by using his instincts and intellect against some of the harshest landscape in the world. Our reader says that this book is harrowing in its descriptions of the extremes that Crane had to endure, but she absolutely loved it due to the depth of research and descriptive writing. CD

The Salt Path: A Memoir by Raynor Winn is also a tale of survival in the wilderness, albeit set on the South West Coast Path of Britain. Evicted from their home after losing their life savings in a bad business deal, Winn and her husband decide to trek the 630-mile trail from Minehead, in Somerset, along the coast of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbor in Dorset. Camping on fields and hiding in private properties, Winn and her husband find that they begin to thrive in the adversity, surviving on ramen noodles and sleeping in sub-standard camping gear in the at-times brutal and always unpredictable British coastal weather. This true story of resilience, love and persistence really moved our reader, who herself has a history of long treks in the wilderness. BM

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick is quickly becoming a favorite book amongst our readers. Arthur is a sixty-nine year old widower who, on the anniversary of his wife’s death, sorts through her possessions. He comes across something that he has never seen before: a gold charm bracelet. What did this mean to Miriam? Why did she never wear it in the many years they were together? How well did he really know his wife? These questions send Arthur on a series of journeys to find out the stories behind the charms – in doing so, he uplifts and expands the lives of those he finds, and changes his own life for the better. Sweet without being sappy (and the audiobook has an amazing reader!), this is a beautifully written book about finding hope and healing in unexpected places. DC/WJ/NH

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir by Paul Newman. Distilled down from thousands of pages of transcripts from an oral history project that Newman and his close friend Stewart Stern began in 1986, this memoir is a raw, unflinching, and deeply human look at one of the true film icons of the past 75 years. Newman began acting at age 7, studied drama, served in the Navy, and landed his breakout film role in 1956 in the film “Someone Up There Likes Me”. What followed was one of the most storied, successful, and iconic film careers of the 20th century. Our reader was brought to tears by this book and commented on how disarming and fascinating she found this look at the life of one of the biggest movie stars in history. NH

Also mentioned:

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t by Adam Grant

Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey by Florence Williams

Strange Things in the Woods: A Collection of Terrifying Stories by Steve Stockton

The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker

The Northminster Mysteries series by Harriet Smart

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

When We Had Wings by Ariel Lawhon, Kristina McMorris and Susan Meissner

Just As I Am: A Memoir by Cicely Tyson

The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening Your Mind by Richard Restak

Gilded Mountain: A Novel by Kate Manning

Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan

The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff

The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Treacherous Strand by Andrea Carter

Revenge of the Librarians by Tom Gauld

Snuff by Terry Prachett

Reviewed by Patrick

            Snuff is novel number 39 in Terry’s Pratchett’s expansive and beloved Discworld series, making it the third to last entry in series as a whole and the final entry in the “Night Watch” subseries. If that all sounds too complex, please don’t be intimidated; Pratchett’s Discworld novels can be read in any order with no loss of understanding. It’s the most accessible fantasy series I’ve ever read, and one of my personal favorites. 

            As is typical of an entry in the “Night Watch” subseries, Snuff follows Samuel Vimes, a street-wise copper who rose from nothing at all to become Watch Commander of the entire city of Ankh-Morpork, a bristling metropolis that serves as the central location for much of the Discworld series’ action. Snuff is something of an exception, as it takes place in the countryside. You see, Vimes’ boss, the affable-yet-Machiavellian Lord Vetinari, and Vimes’ beloved wife Lady Sybil Ramkin have forced the workaholic Vimes to take a family vacation to their country estate, nestled in a sleepy farming hamlet with a number of dark secrets (as is standard among sleepy hamlets, frankly). Of course, Vimes, being something of a justice-obsessed tidal wave crammed into a lanky human frame, can’t abide these hidden evils, and sets about to bring them to light as soon as he learns of them, aided by his wife (a force of nature in her own right) and his hyper-competent (and deadly) butler Wilikins.

            Though I am a long-time fan of Discworld, it was only recently that I picked up 2011’s Snuff; it sat waiting on my bookshelf for five whole years, for reasons even I don’t know. I finally decided to pick it back up, a year on from Pratchett’s passing. However, Snuff is just as engaging and endearing a novel as any other Discworld work, and I felt like hardly any time had passed at all since I last visited Pratchett’s universe. Pratchett is often rightfully compared to fellow British author P. G. Wodehouse, both being possessed of scathing wit and excellent comedic timing; Vime’s butler Wilikins is very much a loving nod to Wodehouse’s Jeeves, in fact, were Jeeves in constant possession of dozens of lethal weapons and a pair of well-hidden full-sleeve tattoos. 

But Pratchett’s works are far broader in scope than Wodehouse’s, digging deep into the dark places of the world in order to try and make sense of them, and to bring comfort to those who have faced that darkness, willingly or not. Snuff is no exception in this. One of the central themes of Snuff is the exploitation of the weak and vulnerable by the wealthy and powerful (especially along racial and ethnic lines), and the obligation we all have to do what is right, to not turn a blind eye and pretend we never saw anything. It is not, however, a simple story of good versus evil, of light versus dark; Sam Vimes carries a chunk of living darkness in his soul, in fact, an eldritch companion acquired earlier in the series’ timeline. It is vengeance given sentience, neither evil nor truly good, and Vimes must always keep it in check , even when he knows it has a point, or maybe even several points at once. He chooses to never yield to what is easy instead of what is right, and this reflects one of the core tenets of the Discworld series: that evil is always a choice, never something inevitable. 

All in all, Snuff is an excellent choice for any first-time visitor to Discworld, though it is one of the latter entries in the series, and it is a deeply enjoyable return to Sam Vimes’ side for any veteran reader. The novel deals openly with violence and slavery (the latter through a fantastical rather than historical lens), but it balances this with a number of heartwarming sequences, and is deeply funny throughout, as is typical of Pratchett’s work. In fact, Pratchett’s ability to balance the heart-rending with the inspirational and the hilarious is possibly his most defining trait as a writer, and I encourage anyone and everyone to pick up his works, if they haven’t already. Young or old, new to fantasy or a fan since long before Tolkien, Discworld has something for everyone, and, again, Snuff is as good a place as any to start!