This week, Nevermore revisited a few familiar
titles, including Seven Brief Lessons on
Physics by Carlo Rovelli and What If?
by Randall Munroe, but readers also displayed some new books that took them
traveling from Britain to Budapest, from the rivers of Paris to the mountains
of West Virginia. We started with a
second visit to a familiar police procedural:
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke
by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, in which Investigator Martin Beck sets off to
Budapest in search of missing journalist Alf Matsson. Although one reader
enjoyed reading her copy of Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s novel, our second reader
wasn’t nearly as thrilled with the offering.
“It was terrible,” she said, offering an honest review of it. Despite finishing The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, she admitted she was bored for much
of the novel and decided, at the end, she just couldn’t find anything to like
about it.
Next,
our readers looked at The Little Paris
Bookshop by Nina George. Monsier
Perdu is a literary apothecary, a procurer of books and dispenser of novels on
his floating bookshop barge—and he always has the right book for just the right
person. His intuitive prescriptions of
books help heal broken hearts and mend emotional wounds. But when Perdu suddenly comes across a letter
from the once-great love of his life, he sets sail for the south of France to
bring closure to his own story. Already
a favorite with our library staff, The
Little Paris Bookshop received rave reviews at Nevermore. Our reader thought it would be a cutesy,
sweet sort of book, but he said it turned out to be a great novel with
incredible emotional impact. “[It]
surprised me the power of this book,” he told his fellow Nevermore
members. Even the subplots had
substance, he noted, and the characters were excellent.
Nevermore
also took a look at Sidney Chambers and
the Shadow of Death by James Runcie.
Noted as a cross between Agatha Christie’s mysteries and G.K.
Chesterton’s beloved Father Brown—and inspiration for the hit television show, Grantchester—Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death is an intriguing mystery
set in Grantchester, England, in 1953 during the coronation year of Queen
Elizabeth II. Sidney Chambers, vicar of
Granchester and honorary canon of Ely Cathedral, is drawn into a series of
unexpected mysteries and, together with his friend—and Cambridge
inspector—Geordie Keating, he finds himself set up as an unconventional
clerical detective. Our reader enjoyed
Runcie’s first novel in his Grantchester Mysteries series, saying it was very
well-written and incredibly interesting.
Although she said the narrative of the plot was a little bit slow, she
said the novel was very good, overall.
Shifting
gears, our Nevemore readers looked at a classic memoir of India during World
War II with Home to India by Santha
Rama Rau. A teenaged girl who had spent
much of her life and education abroad in London, Rau returned to India in the
thick of the Second World War when their father, a diplomat, was stationed in
South Africa. Simultaneously moving and
heart-wrenching, Home to India is one
girl’s incredible account of trying to reconnect with her native country and
her gradual involvement in the complex, nuanced world of Indian politics and art. Our reader borrowed Rau’s memoir from her
fellow Nevermore reader, who highly recommended it, and said it’s an incredibly
interesting piece of work. “What I know
about India comes from PBS,” she admitted, so Home to India was an insightful and enlightening memoir that
corrected her misconceptions and introduced her to a new side of Indian
culture, art, education, and politics.
Like
the memoir of Santha Rama Rau, A
Different Kind of Daughter by Maria Toorpakai is a moving account of one
young woman’s attempts to make a place for herself in the world and craft her
own identity. In A Different Kind of Daughter, Toorpakai recounts her harrowing
journey from the violent alleys of Peshawar, a frontier city in north Pakistan,
to the international spotlight as an advocate for oppressed women and an
internationally renowned squash player.
Toorpakai spent much of her childhood disguised as a boy, learning how
to fight on the streets of Peshawar, before finally channeling her considerable
talent and determination into athletics—and, finally, squash. Our Nevermore reader absolutely loved
Toorpakai’s memoir. She said she learned
so much about Pakistan, about its history and its turbulent political climate;
however, she also learned a great deal about Toorpakai and her fight to compete
in the sport she loved. It’s a moving
account of liberation and dogged determination, but it’s also a well-written
narrative that delves deep into the social and political issues of the modern
world.
Last,
Nevemore looked at The Devil is Here in
These Hills: West Virginia’s Coal Miners
and Their Battle for Freedom by James Green. West Virginia is at the heart of the coal
country, a state wracked by divisive and deadly altercations between labor
unions and the powerful corporations which mined there. In The
Devil is Here in These Hills, Green recounts some of the most harrowing
events in West Virginia’s history and introduces readers to some of the most
prolific characters in the fight for unionization and civil rights of coal miners. Our reader was incredibly pleased with
Green’s book. Wonderfully written and
highly detailed, it offers insight into the formation of the coal mining
industry from the sudden push into the wilderness in search of coal and the
formation of constricting company towns during the 1870s to the violent
skirmishes at Blair Mountain. Our reader
was especially interested in the Battle of Blair Mountain. Distinguished as the largest labor uprising
in the history of the United States, the Battle of Blair Mountain was the first
and only time the U.S. Army dropped bombs on American soil—and American
citizens. He was fascinated to learn so
much about events that had such an impact locally on the region and abroad.
