Nevermore: When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Village of New Ghosts, 1066 And All That

 

Nevermore 11-18-25

Reported by Rita

 

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously uncomfortable memory of buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina. In essay after essay, Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life-having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane or armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds-to the most deeply resonant human truths.

I laughed out loud! Sedaris never disappoints. I highly recommend this book. - CD 5 stars

 

The Village of New Ghosts by Winifred Hughes

The Village of New Ghosts is attuned to the destabilizing experience of loss. Time, and the poet's sense of it, has shifted, and she is newly awake. Hughes writes that now in her 70s, she is faced with "the confrontation of unimaginable loss. But there is also a sense of being an experienced writer, which comes with a freedom from youthful ambition or trying to build a career."

Very rich and touching. Truly amazing. - PP 5 stars

 

1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England by W.C. Sellar, R.J. Yeatman

This humorous "history" is a book that has itself become part of the UK's history. The authors made the claim that "All the History you can remember is in the Book," and, for most Brits, they were probably right. But it is their own unique interpretation of events that has made the book a classic; an uproarious satire on textbook history and a population's confused recollections of it.

Hilarious and easy to read in small sessions. - RR 4 stars

 

Other Books Mentioned

Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America by Beth Macy

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston

Follow Me to Alaska: A true story of one couple’s adventure adjusting from life in a cul-de-sac in El Paso, Texas, to a cabin off-grid in the wilderness of Alaska (Follow Me to Alaska Series Book 1) by Ann Parker

All But My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein

The Last Gentleman Adventurer: Coming of Age in the Arctic by Edward Beauclerk Maurice

Sleep by Honor Jones

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

A History of Present Illness by Anna Deforest

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Island in the Sea of Time (Nantucket, #1) by S.M. Stirling

The Honey Month by Amal El-Mohtar

 

New Books

The Kamogawa Food Detectives (Kamogawa Food Detectives, #1) by Hisashi Kashiwai

The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie Leong

My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music's Black Past, Present, and Future by Alice Randall