Nevermore 5-12-26 Reported by Rita
In the Fields of Fatherless Children by Pamela
Steele
In late 1960s Appalachia, many things loom darkly over June
the Vietnam War is dividing the country, and a strip mine is eating away the
mountain at the head of the holler where she lives, threatening the natural
landscape and the only way of life she has ever known. While still in high
school, June has fallen in love. She is pregnant, and the father may be Ellis
Akers. Ellis is the son of Solomon, a mortal enemy of June’s stepfather, Isom.
The feud is so old it fuels two vengeful men with the power of long animosity
between rival families. June’s brother, Tom, leaves to enlist in the war, and
so does Ellis. Suddenly, June is on her own, at sixteen with a newborn, and is
a mother unable to protect her daughter from the wrath of Isom. Without
warning, her baby is kidnapped. Guided by her love for the generations of women
before her, but now desperately alone, June must carefully navigate the search
for her child alongside family and strangers in a wild and disappearing
landscape.
It's very descriptive and the setting is great. I really enjoyed it. -MS 5 stars
10% Happier by Dan Harris
After having a nationally televised panic attack, Dan Harris knew
he had to make some changes. A lifelong nonbeliever, he found himself on a
bizarre adventure involving a disgraced pastor, a mysterious self-help guru,
and a gaggle of brain scientists. Eventually, Harris realized that the source
of his problems was the very thing he always thought was his greatest asset:
the incessant, insatiable voice in his head, which had propelled him through
the ranks of a hypercompetitive business, but had also led him to make the
profoundly stupid decisions that provoked his on-air freak-out. Eventually
Harris stumbled upon an effective way to rein in that voice, something he
always assumed to be either impossible or useless: meditation, a tool that
research suggests can do everything from lower your blood pressure to essentially
rewire your brain. "10% Happier" takes readers on a ride from the
outer reaches of neuroscience to the inner sanctum of network news to the
bizarre fringes of America's spiritual scene, and leaves them with a takeaway
that could actually change their lives.
I found this book to be very informative. I recommend it. -KM
4 stars
Son of Nobody by Yann Martel
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were not the only ancient tales of
the Trojan War. In Son of Nobody, Yann Martel composes a new the Psoad, an epic
in free verse that follows a goatherd’s son, Psoas of Midea, who leaves his
wife and family to fight at Troy. Psoas meets his doom and the poem of his life
is lost—until a Canadian academic studying at Oxford, Harlow Donne, discovers
its relics thirty centuries later. As Harlow assembles and comments on the
fragments in footnotes, he retrieves memories of his wife and daughter and
grapples with questions of ambition, family, and responsibility in both the
ancient and modern worlds.
Profound
- I loved it! -DC
5 stars
Other
Books Mentioned
Poor by Katriona O'Sullivan
Across the Plains in 1884 by
Catherine Sager
We the Women by Norah O'Donnell
Gutsy Women by Hillary Clinton & Chelsea
Clinton
Keeper of Lost Children by
Sadeqa Johnson
Toxic Designs by Kristi Holl
North of Ordinary by Sue
Aikens
New
Books
Cat on a Hot Tin Woof by
Spencer Quinn
The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances by Glenn
Dixon
Starry and Restless by Julia
Cooke
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