Reported by Garry
Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith. “I used to be a scandal myself. Now
I am an institution.” Ivy Crow is a firecracker - raised in the mountains of
Appalachia at the turn of the last century, she is the daughter of a down-on-their-luck
family and one of nine siblings whose lives are upended when their father dies.
Ivy and her family scrape by through the years, documented by Ivy in a series
of letters that recount a life of adventure, poverty, struggles, opportunity,
and love. First published in 1988, this novel is now considered one of Smith’s
best, and holds a place in the heart of many of our Nevermore readers. MH
The Boy Who Talked to Dogs: A Memoir by Martin McKenna. Part memoir,
part guide to the strange inner world of dogs, this non-fiction book tells McKenna’s
story from the time he was growing up bullied and alone in Garryowen, Ireland.
Living with ADHD that was poorly (at best) understood by those around him, at
age thirteen he ran away from home and lived on the streets (and in barns,
fields, etc.) with a gang of six dogs who taught him self-reliance, the value
of family, and self-respect. Touching and eye-opening, this comes highly
recommended by our reader, especially to anyone who has known the love of a
dog. CD
Dollbaby by Laura Lane McNeal. Ibby Bell’s father has just died unexpectedly.
Her mother can’t cope, and drops off Ibby and her father’s urn with her
eccentric grandmother in New Orleans, thousands of miles and an entire world
away from her home in Olympia, Washington. Grandma Fannie is one who ends up in
the nearby mental institution on a semi-regular basis, and so Ibby is taken under
the wing of Queenie and Dollbaby – Fannie’s Black household helpers. Queenie
and Dollbaby educate Ibby on the ways of the South in the era of Civil Rights
struggles. Our reader, who grew up in the deep South, found this to be an
uplifting, funny, and poignant historical novel and absolutely loved it,
recommending it to anyone who has a love for Southern culture. KN
The Librarian of Burned Books by Brianna Labuskes. Loosely based on the story
behind the real-life Council of Books in Wartime, this historical novel follows
the fates of three women whose professional and private lives are guided by the
power of books. In 1933 Althea James receives an invitation from Joseph
Goebbels to participate in a cultural exchange program. Once she is in Berlin,
Althea begins to realize that the propaganda by her hosts does not match the
reality of what is happening in Germany. Three years later in Paris, Hanna
Brecht has escaped from Berlin, and is working at the German Library of Burned
Books, only to find that there is no safe harbor in France. In 1944 Vivian
Childs is fighting a powerful US senator over censorship and the banning of
books. Vivian’s battle will bring the three women’s worlds together and expose
the secrets of the recent past. WJ
Also mentioned:
How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic
Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe by Thomas
Cahill
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S.
Herman and Noam Chomsky
The Inmate by Freida McFadden
Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One
Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside by Nick Offerman
Last Things by C.P. Snow
My Dream of You by Nuala O’Faolain
Funny Farm: My Unexpected Life with 600 Rescue Animals by Laurie
Zaleski
The Girls in the Snow by Stacy Green
The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson
Africatown: America’s Last Slave Ship and the Community It Created by Nick Tabor
The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration by Jack Bittle
Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt’s Ancient
Temples from Destruction by Lynn Olson
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