Summary by Meygan
This week’s Nevermore opened with Doctored by Sandeep Jauha, an Indian
doctor who works in a hospital located in Long Island. In Doctored, he writes about
his experiences working in the American health care field and discusses his
family. Our Nevermore reader said this book is borderline unethical but makes
readers question what are the ethics to begin with. The reader said this book
is full of educational and informational material and the author provides
unflinching descriptions of people. By the end of the book discussion, three
Nevermore members were greatly interested in checking out Doctored.
The next book discussed was Capital by Thomas Piketty. The Nevermore reader stated this book is
an admirable piece of work that is about our political economy. The book was
originally written in French, and the author’s writing style was described as
being clear and readable, in spite of it being an English translated book. The
reader stated that Capital states the
facts about income and how there is a lot of wealth out “there” that we know
nothing about. The author questions how there can be a science of economics if
people don’t have the information. This book was highly praised by our Nevermore
reader who stated Capital is a
phenomenal book and a real joy to read. He felt like it was a real education
and he liked the book immensely more than other economics books he has read. It
appears that the author did a fine job of making the subject user friendly and
relatable.
One of our Nevermore members stated that she was
done with books related to World War II. That is until she found a book about a
dog who was a British was hero. The Dog
Who Could Fly: the Incredible True Story of a WWII Airman and the Four-legged
Hero Who Flew at His Side by Damien Lewis tells the tale of Robert Bozdech
and his beloved dog, Ant. Robert joined the Royal Air Force to fight Hitler.
Unfortunately, his plane was shot down, which lead him to meeting Ant, a German
shepherd puppy. Together they fight in the war and they eventually became
British war heroes. Our Nevermore reader stated that this is the most amazing
dog she has ever read about and she admired the way he was devoted to his
master. She said it was as if the man and dog could read each other’s minds. (She
also mentioned how her dog would have never been that much help, which resulted
in a good Tuesday morning Nevermore chuckle.)
Well, it appears that Bristol is putting itself on
the map. Currently reviewed in The Wall Street Journal, Barry Mazor’s Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots
Music is a biography about Ralph Peer’s journey to Bristol in 1927. Ralph established the recording, marketing,
and publishing of blues, jazz, country, gospel, and Latin music. This is a new
book and was released on November 1st.
A Nevermore member read two books about Hillary
Clinton: Hard Choices by Hillary
Rodham Clinton and HRC: State Secrets and
the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. Even
though both books were enjoyable to the Nevermore reader, he stated that HRC provides a better picture of
Hillary’s personality and focuses more on her time spent in senate and as the
secretary of state. Hard Choices provides
more information about her career in full and provides different views on the
stages throughout her career. The reader said there are many big questions
about Benghazi.
Tom Reiss’ The
Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
is a biography of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a soldier and officer in the
French Revolution and father of author Alexander Dumas. This book was described
as excellent and a worthy of its Pulitzer award. It was both informative and entertaining,
with a very readable style. Our reviewer said it would make a great movie.
Our Kurt Vonnegut Nevermore reader just finished
reading Cat’s Cradle. Even though he
enjoyed Cat’s Cradle, he didn’t like
it as much as The Sirens of Titan. Cat’s Cradle is less science fiction
than Vonnegut’s other novels. This novel studies the family of the creator of
the Atomic bomb and the audience soon realized that the family is completely
dysfunctional. The Nevermore reader said this was an interesting read.
The dystopian young adult novel Parched by Georgia Clark was the last book discussed. After her
mother dies, Tess moves to the Badlands—a place where people fight over
resources and where the water is scarce. She is recruited by Kudzu, a group of
people training to fight against the government. This book reminded the
Nevermore reader of The Hunger Games,
even though she thought it wasn’t nearly as good. Still, readers who love young
adult dystopian novels should at least check out this book to see how yet
another author has written about the end of times using different characters
and a different setting.
