Nevermore: My Mother She Killed Me, Living with Cannibals, Island that Dared, and I Take My Coffee Black

 

 

Reported by Garry

 

The chillingly titled My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me is a collection of new fairy tales, edited by Kate Bernheimer, which contains retellings of classic fairy tales as well as newly minted stories, and there are a bunch of them!  At 567 pages, this tome contains forty stories from authors such as Neil Gaiman, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates and many more.  Dark, gruesome, hilarious, and unsettling, this book may not be for everyone, but our reader thoroughly enjoyed it!

 

 

Living with Cannibals and Other Women’s Adventures is a collection of first-person narratives from the National Geographic Society, edited and compiled by Michele Slung.  This collection highlights sixteen trailblazing (oftentimes quite literally) women from the past two centuries who faced hurdles both physical and cultural to explore distant horizons.  Our reader was particularly struck by the differences (and sometimes similarities) of the experiences of these bold women across the centuries; while the technology used by the explorers has changed, nature itself has not and remains as treacherous and beautiful as it was in 1800.

 

The theme of exploration by women continued with our next book, The Island that Dared:  Journeys in Cuba by Dervla Murphy.  Murphy, along with her daughter and three young grandchildren travelled extensively across Cuba in 2005. She then returned alone in 2006 and 2007, often times walking up to 27 miles per day, sleeping on beaches or in the forest and getting to know the people of the Caribbean island.  With vivid descriptions of the people, places, and things of Cuba, this book left our reader with a much deeper understanding of this often misunderstood island nation.

 

I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America is a humorous biography by Nashville based actor/author/comedian Tyler Merritt.  In this heart-warming book, Merritt recalls stories from his life growing up in an extremely diverse community in Las Vegas, going to college in California, and only truly experiencing racism once he moved to a less diverse area – specifically Nashville.  Our reader loved this book and specifically pointed out how funny and enjoyable it was, while still making the point that racism is a learned trait that can be un-learned.

 

Also mentioned:

The Angel Makers by Jessica Gregson

The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon by Marcy McCreary

An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed by Helene Tursten

On Animals by Susan Orlean

Pickles Tails: The Hijinks of Muffin & Roscoe, Volume One by Brian Crane

Bait and Switch:  The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich

The Ride of Her Life: the True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America by Elizabeth Letts

The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage

The Price of Glory:  Verdun 1916 by Alistair Horne

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Weaver’s Revenge by Kathleen Ernst

Chance Development: Stories by Alexander McCall Smith

Last Girl Ghosted by Lisa Unger

World Religions: The Great Faiths Explored and Explained by John Bowker

Gender Swapped Fairy Tales by Karrie Fransman and Jonathan Plackett