Reported by Kristin
Our first Nevermore reader was very involved in two books that
address issues of climate change. The first, When the Rivers Run Dry by
Fred Pearce, talks about very serious problems. Although noting this book as
“not a page-turner but very interesting” our reader complained that the 2006
edition is already out of date. For interested readers, a second edition was
published in 2018 and is touted as “fully revised and updated.”
The next related book was Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with
the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island by Earl Swift. Tangier Island is
in the middle of Chesapeake Bay on the watery border of Virginia and Maryland,
and is losing coastline at an alarming rate of fifteen feet per year. Swift
lived and worked with the community’s residents (a mere 470 at last count)
learning the conservative, strongly Methodist, close-knit culture which many
residents hope to preserve through some sort of governmental intervention such
as building jetties or sea walls. Our book club member felt that Swift did an
excellent job describing this insular community.
Another reader enjoyed history this week with The Pioneers:
The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West by
Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough. After the Treaty of Paris of
1783 ended the Revolutionary War and gave the Northwest Territory to the newly
American people, a group set out to forge through the wilderness and settle on
the Ohio River. Our reader called McCullough a phenomenal researcher and
commented on his fantastic photographs and historical information.
People of the Deer by
Farley Mowat is a classic story of a native people, the Ihalmiut who lived in
the Arctic, much appreciated by our next reader. The Canadian author wrote this
as a young man after World War II, and recorded a disappearing way of life.
Although some of his work was called into question in later years, his
eloquence in telling of the bleak winters, the caribou migration, and the
difficulties faced by the people has been remembered for decades.
Our next book club
member said she just couldn’t put her historical novel down this week. English
Passengers by Matthew Kneale contains tales of rum smugglers, vicars, and
Tasmanian aboriginals. The aforementioned vicar is rather obnoxious on a long
sea journey to Australia. These tales from the nineteenth century came alive,
keeping our reader turning page after page.
Much laughter ensued over Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My
Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. With her very dry sense of
humor, Ephron presents a series of essays about being a woman “of a certain
age.” Our reader said that she just needed a light read and this fit the bill
perfectly.
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