Nevermore members read widely, and this week one reader read
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty, a science fiction murder mystery. The Dormire is a sleeper ship, carrying
thousands of colonists from a war-torn, atmosphere-wrecked, socially
disintegrating Earth to a new start on the planet Artemis. But when Maria Arena and her crewmates
awaken, as clones of their original selves, finding blood floating through the
air leads them to believe that their former selves have been murdered. Our reader greatly enjoyed this book and said
that he could really see someone making this novel into a movie.
Turning to American history, another reader enjoyed Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson
by Jan Jarboe Russell. This revealing biography of the First Lady
shows how much she contributed to LBJ’s presidency in the midst of the Civil
Rights movement. Conversations with
family members and political associates make this a well-rounded picture of
President and Mrs. Lyndon Johnson. Our
reader said that she enjoyed the book and that Lady Bird was a lovely person.
It’s
All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World’s Family Tree by A. J. Jacobs was enjoyed by yet another
reader, as the author has explored the DNA connectivity of the worldwide
community. After Jacobs received an email
from an eighth cousin who had been able to connect 80,000 relatives, he began a
globe spanning journey to explore the far flung branches of his family
tree. Our reader enjoyed the humor, as
Jacobs told his own family stories within the scientific explanations of how we
are all related.
Our next reader began to read The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer
Mystery by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James, but sadly could
not finish it. Although the book was
praised by other critics, our reader found that it was simply murder after
murder, bludgeon after bludgeon. She stated
emphatically: “It has 461 pages of
murder and not all of them were near the train tracks.”
Truevine:
Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother’s Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow
South by Beth Macy
shocked another reader as it recounted the story of two albino African-American
brothers who were stolen from their family in 1899 and forced to be part of a
circus sideshow for almost thirty years.
George and Willie Muse were depicted as caricatures of themselves as
they traveled the world with the circus, and eventually reunited with their
mother. Our reader said that it was an
extremely well-researched book and that she learned a lot about Virginian
society and race relations in the early 1900’s.
Another novel was
enjoyed by another reader, Abraham’s Well
by Sharon Ewell Foster. The story centers around the Trail of Tears,
the removal of Native Americans from the southeastern United States and their
forced march to what is now Oklahoma.
Foster’s characters are not just Native American, but Black Cherokee
African Americans, whose bloodlines were also mixed with white slave
owners. The Cherokee removal is here
told from the point of a young girl, Armentia, who experiences tragedy and loss
as her family is forced from North Carolina to Oklahoma.
Finally, The Unquiet
Grave by Sharyn McCrumb told the
story of Zona Heaster, married to Trout Shue in 1896 and dead a few short
months later. Zona appears in a waking
dream to her mother Mary Jane, insisting that she was murdered, and Mary Jane
has no choice but to pursue justice for her daughter. Set in recently created West Virginia, the
story jumps in time from the actual happenings to a recounting by an aging
lawyer more than thirty years later. Our
reader said that everything McCrumb writes is wonderful, and she only wishes
the author had included maps in this novel based on historical facts.
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