Nevermore: Daughters of Yalta, Everyone Who Is Gone Here, Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife

 

Nevermore 12 - 2 -25

Reported by Rita

The Daughters Of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War by Catherine Grace Katz

The untold story of the three intelligent and glamorous young women who accompanied their famous fathers to the Yalta Conference in February 1945, and of the conference’s fateful reverberations in the waning days of World War II. Tensions during the Yalta Conference in February 1945 threatened to tear apart the wartime alliance among Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin just as victory was close at hand. Catherine Grace Katz uncovers the dramatic story of the three young women who were chosen by their fathers to travel with them to Yalta, each bound by fierce family loyalty, political savvy, and intertwined romances that powerfully colored these crucial days.

Very interesting and enjoyable. I learned more about WWII. - KM 5 stars

 

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer

An epic, heartbreaking, and deeply reported history of the disastrous humanitarian crisis at the southern border told through the lives of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policymakers who determine their fate.

I found this interesting and filled with lots of information, however, it was not an easy read. - NH 3 stars

 

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston

Frederick Fife was born with an extra helping of kindness in his heart. If he borrowed your car, he'd return it washed with a full tank of gas. The problem is there's nobody left in Fred's life to borrow from. At eighty-two, he's desperately lonely, broke, and on the brink of homelessness. Fred's luck changes when, in a bizarre case of mistaken identity, he takes the place of Bernard Greer at the local nursing home. Now he has a roof over his head, three meals a day, and, most importantly, the chance to be part of a family again. All he has to do is hope that his poker face is in better shape than his prostate and that his look-alike never turns up. As Fred navigates life in Bernard's shoes, he learns about the man's past and what it might take to return a life in better condition than he found it.

 

Fun and funny, mellow, and sad in parts. An absolutely delightful feel-good story. - NH 5 stars

 

 

Other Books Mentioned

 

A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott

Finding My Way by Malala Yousafzai

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

The Pilgrims And Pocahontas: Rival Myths Of American Origin by Ann U. Abrams

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds by John Fugelsang

 

New Books

 

107 Days by Kamala Harris

Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging by Angela Buchdahl

Bad Bad Girl by Gish Jen

Giving Up Is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy by Joyce Vance

Our Favorite Books Read in 2023: Jeanne's Mysteries

Mysteries are my favorite genre, so I have a lot of those to list.  On another post, I’ll list favorite non-mysteries.  Don’t worry—that list is a LOT shorter.  Several of these were already reviewed on our blog.

 A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton:  Kinsey Milhone is a private detective in Los Angeles in the 1980s.  Strong plots, strong sense of place, and a wonderful protagonist in Kinsey, this is a series to savor.

Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen: Hiaasen has an off-beat sense of humor and I really like the Florida setting—especially when it’s cold and dreary outside my window.  His books are always a wild ride!

War and Peas by Jill Churchill: Jane Jeffries is a single mother who ends up solving mysteries along with her friend Shelly.  Both are sensible but also very funny, and certainly not prone to rushing into danger. 

Fatal Glow by Valerie Wilson Wesley: Odessa Jones, a widow working in a real estate office and trying to make some extra money catering.  She also sees “glimmers” or auras around people that give her slight clues. She’s not only sensible, but kind and compassionate. The supernatural aspects don’t dominate and don’t solve the mystery. 

Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch: Another entry in the Rivers of London series about Peter Grant, a young police officer who is also an apprentice magician.  Packed with historical tidbits about London, dark plots, fantastical characters and leavened with humor, these are addictive.   They definitely need to be read in order.  

Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano:  Finlay is a divorced mother of two small children who is trying to hold it all together and not doing very well—and then someone mistakes her for a hitwoman.  It’s fast-paced and very funny, but with high stakes

 Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman:  The residents of an English retirement village are about to have their way of life  disrupted by a developer.  When he turns up dead, the residents decide to investigate.   

Mrs. Malory's Shortest Journey by Hazel Holt: Another older series (started in the 1990s) but for me did not seem dated at all.  Mrs. Malory is a widow and literary critic with a keen eye for observation.  The characters are well developed and the plots are interesting, and the British setting is a plus.

 

Honorable Mentions:

 

See Something: A Witch City Mystery by Carol J Perry:   Lee is a TV reporter in Salem, Massachusetts who has some psychic abilities but they don’t overwhelm the story. . I really like the characters in this one, especially O’Ryan, a witch’s cat who is probably more than an ordinary cat, and Lee’s Aunt Ibby who is a librarian. 

On the Spine of Death by Tamara Berry: this series gave me Finlay Donovan vibes a bit. The main character is a best selling thriller author who has a rebellious teenage daughter.  I particularly liked  that the author character would meet someone and immediately start mentally writing the person as a character in her book, giving a new background, motivations, etc.  This is the second title and I felt Berry really hit her stride here, though first one was good. 

Shady Hollow by Juneau Black:  This entertaining first in series books features anthropomorphic animals in a village mystery.  If you don't like animals sipping tea and chatting, avoid this book.

Nevermore: Immobile Empire, Daughters of Yalta, Humans, Forgotten Country

 

Nevermore June 7, 2022

 

Reported by Garry

 

The Immobile Empire by Alain Peyrefitte is a detailed look at the disastrous attempt by the British Empire to open up China to trade with the West in 1793. Both cultures viewed the other with derision and were convinced of their own superiority. Egos clashed and the results have echoed around the globe for generations. Peryefitte draws on the diaries of those involved on both sides to paint a fascinating picture of distrust, hubris, and etiquette. This exhaustively researched book clocks in at a hefty 630 pages, but the length of it neither put off nor bored our reader who says that this is a very interesting book for any history buff.  FC

 

The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War by Catherine Grace Katz is the meticulously researched tale of the daughters of three of the most powerful men in history: Sarah Churchill (Winston’s daughter), Anna Roosevelt (Franklin’s only daughter), and Kathleen Harriman (daughter of Averell Harriman, the US Ambassador to the Soviet Union). These three daughters accompanied their fathers to a world-altering meeting at Yalta during the waning days of the Second World War. Seamlessly combining the politics of the day with the interpersonal relationships of the three daughters and their fathers, this book fascinated our reader, who found it hard to put down.  CD

 

Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up by Tom Phillips is an irreverent look at how we humans manage to mangle nearly everything we get our hands on. How we are still here is a bit of a mystery when you look at all the ways that we have messed things up. Our reader says this breezy book has equal amounts of history and humor and was a delight to read, and she found herself laughing out loud many times.  PP

 

Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung is one of the most beautiful books that our book club member has ever read. Weaving Korean folklore into a decades-spanning story of immigration and the search for identity, this story focuses on Janie, a Korean-born, American-raised immigrant, and her family. Janie’s elder sister disappeared and cut all ties with her family. The family moves back to Korea and Janie is tasked with finding her sister before their father dies – a task that Janie both feels compelled to do, but bitterly resentful about. This debut novel takes a deep and emotional look at not only the immigrant experience but the ties that bind (and sometimes chafe) amongst family members.  AH

 

Also mentioned:

Same Place, Same Things by Tim Gautreaux

The Resting Place by Camilla Sten

The American Women’s Almanac: 500 Years of Making History by Deborah G. Felder

Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938 by R. A. Scotti

The Memoirs of A Survivor by Doris Lessing

The Book Woman’s Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson

Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy by Nathaniel Philbrick

Chocolat by Joanne Harris

Death of a Gossip by M.C. Beaton

LGBTQ Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia edited by Jeff Mann and Julia Watts

Love is the Cure: On Life, Loss and the End of AIDS by Elton John

Fools Crow by James Welch

His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa

Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases by Paul Holes

The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures: A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and the Movies by Paul Fischer

Yinka, Where is Your Husband? By Lizzie Damilola Blackburn

Eight Faces at Three by Craig Rice

Nevermore: Picoult, Ford, Alexander Hamilton, Churchill, Klansman, Bradley, Link, Woodward

Our first book club member picked up Jodi Picoult’s The Book of Two Ways. Dawn Edelstein discovers much about herself in a crisis—as the plane she is on prepares for a crash landing. Rather than thinking of her husband Brian, a serious astrophysicist, she finds herself thinking of an old connection, Egyptologist Wyatt Armstrong. Woven through the story are Egyptian tomb inscriptions, showing how the body can go one of two ways. Our reader found this to be a very interesting book, although she commented that there were not any overt social issues as there are in many of Picoult’s books.

 

Love and other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford struck a chord with our next reader.  Set in Seattle, this is the tale of a young boy born in China. His mother leaves the child for his “uncle” because she is poor, but the uncle takes child and puts him in a hold in a boat, and they go to America. The Coast Guard comes and the children are thrown overboard. The boy survives, and the man who rescues him is named Ernest, so he takes that name. The Christian Children’s Home Society sends him to a boarding school where he is ostracized. When he is sent to the 1909 World’s Fair this seems to be an fun outing, until Ernest finds that he is to be auctioned off as a “healthy boy to a good home.” The lady who wins the raffle is a madam in charge of a house of ill repute – where he goes as the houseboy.  Our reader found it to be a fantastic book about the history of Seattle and the World Fair, and totally recommends it.

 

Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth by Stephen F. Knott had a lot of surprises for our next reader. Hamilton died in 1804 and for the next 20 years, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams did everything they could to smear his reputation. Hamilton said that the people were a great beast, but he was very concerned about the condition of everyone. He wanted even the common man to profit and thrive from the economic structure. Even today, many Supreme Court decisions quote Hamilton and the Federalist Papers. Aaron Burr who fatally shot Hamilton in a duel, saw a bust of Hamilton, rubbed his hands over the face of the bust and said “This is where all the poetry was.” Hamilton’s popularity has fluctuated over the years, with various political figures having differing opinions. FDR hated Hamilton; Lincoln loved Hamilton, and many people have strong opinions about him today with his story recently retold in a modern day musical via song and rap.

 

Another popular read this week was The Splendid and Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson. The main part of the book covers Churchill’s first year from when he assumed office amidst immediate German bombing to when the US entered the Second World War. The author researched deeply, looking for stories that others omitted. One of Larson’s sources is diaries from Churchill’s private secretary, John Colville, detailing some of the things that were going on in Churchill’s private life, such as his finances and his son, Randall. Everyone acknowledged that Churchill was a wonderful orator, but some had great reservations about his ability to be Prime Minister. He began to energize the country during a time of great difficulty with the creation of the Ministry of Aircraft Development. Larson also utilized the Mass Observation Project, diaries from everyday people about their day-to-day experiences.  Nell Last, a housewife, age 49, said of Churchill and his political rival Neville Chamberlain:  “I would rather live my life with Chamberlain, but for this time perhaps we are better off with Churchill.”

 

Life of a Klansman: A Family History in White Supremacy by Edward Ball has been passed around to several Nevermore readers. The author is the great-great-grandson of Constant Lecorgne, a white French Creole who terrorized African Americans from under the infamous white sheets. Our reader noted that in 1870 Ulysses Grant asked for laws that would prevent voter intimidation, and yet some people still feel those effects of intimidation at the voting booth today. Our reader found this an excellent book but heavy reading.  

Fighting Words by local author Kimberly Brubaker Bradley is a middle grade novel. Ten year old Della has always felt protected by her older sister Suki. The sisters have secrets, but when Suki comes to a breaking point, Della’s world is shattered. The author tackles the stigma of childhood sexual abuse in a very real way. Our reader feels that everyone should read this book because abuse affects so many people and is so well hidden from the mainstream. Abuse could be happening to people you see on an everyday basis because you do not know what is going on behind closed doors. Our reviewer felt it was a very important book but said parental guidance might be needed for some children because of the topic, and recommended it for readers of all ages. 

O. Winston Link: Life along the Line: A Photographic Portrait of America’s Last Great Steam Railroad by Tony Reevy. Norfolk and Southern was the last steam railroad in the United States, and Norfolk and Western was the last one that ran steam trains on all of its lines. Winston was an artistic photographer, not just a point-and shoot hack. He was known for his perfect lighting and being able to capture glimpses of small town life that was changing dramatically in the 1950s. The History Museum of Western Virginia/O. Winston Link Museum is in nearby Roanoke, and many photographs of Bristol are in the book.  

 

Our last member said that reading Rage by Bob Woodward made her feel as if she was in the backroom listening to highly charged political conversations. Our reader felt that the author doesn’t get overly convoluted in semantics and does an excellent job of describing the chaos – with so many different people infighting and nobody knowing exactly what was happening.  She has new respect for General James Mattis, calling him unbelievably brilliant and knowledgeable. In such turbulent political times, this book was touted as descriptive and insightful, and our reader enjoyed it much more than she thought she would.

Nevermore: Churchill, Idaho, A God in Ruins, Stars Are Fire, The Longest Walk

Reported by Ambrea 

Nevermore decided to explore Dinner with Churchill:  Policy Making at the Dinner Table by Cita Stelzer.  Insightful and interesting, Dinner with Churchill offered a fascinating—and rather entertaining—glimpse of Churchill as both a leader and an unexpectedly brilliant conversationalist.  Churchill, a connoisseur of fine dining and fine cigars, often used the dinner table as a platform for his policies and a means of meeting lawmakers, diplomats, and more.  Our reader said she enjoyed reading Stelzer’s book, noting it offered a different viewpoint of one of Britain’s more notable Prime Ministers.  “I always enjoy hearing about history from another source,” she told her fellow readers.  And she liked that Stelzer was thorough in her research, pointing out that the author even included dinner menus from notable dinner parties.

Next, Nevermore plunged into the debut novel Idaho by Emily Ruskovich.  Ann and Wade live in northern Idaho, carving out a home for themselves in the rugged landscape; however, with Wade’s memory slowly fading, Ann makes one last attempt to put together her husband’s distant past—and discover what happened to his first wife.  Our reader said she was intrigued by Idaho.  As a native of the state, she was curious to see how the author handled a complex psychological story set and how Ruskovich would depict the setting.  When asked if she liked it, our reader responded that she “absolutely liked it.”  Although time feels a bit jumbled, hopping back and forth from past to present, she noted it was very well written.  “I was very happy to be introduced to this [new] author,” she said.

Nevermore also revisited Kate Atkinson’s A God in Ruins, which tells the story of Teddy Todd as he endures World War II and ultimately survives to see a future he didn’t expect to see.  A perennial favorite among previous readers, A God in Ruins once more received high marks for its intricacy and intensity.  Both touching and unexpectedly heart-wrenching, A God in Ruins was a powerful introduction for our reader who hadn’t yet had the chance to read Atkinson.  She noted Atkinson’s novel was full of great descriptions and possessed of an incredible story, containing scenes that were “seared into my soul.”

Dipping back into historical fiction, Nevermore shared another new book:  The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve.  During the fall of 1947, the coast of Maine is plagued by fires.  Soon, properties and homes from Bar Harbor to Kittery are burning as the fires rage out of control—and Grace Holland’s home is caught the flames.  Five months pregnant and desperate to protect her two children, Grace and her best friend Rosie, along with her children, are forced from their homes and spend the night sheltering in a frigid ocean to survive.  Suddenly penniless and homeless, Grace is faced with an uncertain future in a town that no longer exists—and an unexpected sense of freedom.  After finishing Shreve’s novel, our reader gave The Stars Are Fire a solid “B rating.”  Although she found the story haunting and the characters interesting, she noted that it seemed a bit unreal.  She labeled it as “not bad, but not great,” recommending it to her fellow readers who enjoy historical fiction with a personal narrative.

Last, Nevermore took a look at The Longest Walk:  An Odyssey of the Human Spirit by George Meegan.  Written during the 1970s, The Longest Walk tells the story of George Meegan, who set off across the Americas—from the southernmost tip of South America to the Arctic Ocean at the continents’ northern reaches—for a walk that lasted for seven years and more than 19,000 miles.  Our reader, who enjoys reading of others’ traveling and hiking experiences, said she found Meegan’s memoir absolutely fascinating.  She loved reading about his travels across two continents and she loved hearing about both the exotic and the familiar locales he visited.  She was especially intrigued by the chapters that brought him to North Carolina, noting it was interesting to see his experiences in the states with which she was familiar.