Nevermore: My Name Is Red, Other Birds, This Will Not Pass, The Plot

 

 

Reported by Garry

 

My Name is Red is a novel by Nobel Prize winning Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. During the height of the Ottoman Empire in 1591, the Sultan assembles a small army of miniaturists to create a book singing his praises. Specifically, and perhaps dangerously, the Sultan wants the book to include paintings of himself – which is considered an affront to Islam. When one of the miniaturists is killed, anyone could be the killer – indeed, one of the 56 chapters is narrated by the killer. There are also chapters narrated by a corpse, a dog, a tree, and the color red. Unconventional and yet successful at every level, this book truly captivated our reader’s imagination, and she stated that she absolutely loved it.  MH

 

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen is a novel set in the small coastal town of Mallow Island, South Carolina. Zoe Hennessey has come to town to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at The Dellawisp, a unique cobblestone building that holds five apartments and many secrets, both mundane and otherworldly. This atmospheric work of magical realism kept our reader guessing, and she stated it was just plain fun! She was never quite sure where the book was going, but the twists and turns were a delight to read.  WJ

 

This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns is the authoritative account of the immediate aftermath of the tumultuous 2020 United States presidential election and the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Drawing from multiple interviews, first-account documents, and recordings by Burns and Alexander (both reporters), this book lays bare the insularity of Washington politics and the duplicity with which both Republicans and Democrats treat not only their own people but the voting public. This book was so good that our reader recommends that anyone who has an interest in the current state of the political climate in our country read this for the astonishing insights it holds.  DC

 

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz. What would you do? Jacob Bonner is a one-hit-wonder author whose career is on the skids. He has a student who is working on a book with a stunningly brilliant plot. Then the student dies and the book goes unpublished...until Jacob publishes it himself under his own name. Wildly successful, the book brings Jacob riches beyond his dreams. It also brings an email: “You are a thief.” Someone knows Jacob’s secret, but who and how far are they willing to go to uncover it, and how far is Jacob willing to go to keep it hidden? This nail-biting suspense novel is an easy read with incredibly descriptive characters and taut writing, and comes highly recommended by our reader. PP

 

Also mentioned:

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

The Last Mile by David Baldacci

The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason

The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson

Switchboard Soldiers by Jennifer Chiavarini

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Brazen by Julia Haart

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

The Recruit by Alan Drew

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

Who Killed Jane Stanford?: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits, and the Birth of a University by Richard White