Nevermore: The Sweet Trade, A Tyranny of Petticoats, I Love It When You Lie, The Order of Time

 

Reported by Garry

 

The Sweet Trade by Elizabeth Garrett. This work of historical fiction follows the exploits of two of the most famous female pirates of all time: Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who both sailed with Calico Jack Rackham in the early 1700s. Anne is a Southern belle who has a vicious temper and a wild streak. She marries penniless James Bonny and with him runs off to Nassau where she meets Calico Jack. Mary has been a fighter all of her life – just simply to survive. Disguising herself as a man from an early age, she was a foot soldier, innkeeper and cavalry brigadier before joining the crew of a Dutch ship that was captured by Calico Jack. For three years, this trio scours the Caribbean seas in search of loot and treasure until they are captured and sentenced to death in 1720. Our reader found this novel to be very interesting and filled with details about life aboard a pirate ship.  WJ

 

A Tyranny of Petticoats: 15 Stories of Belles, Bank Robbers & Other Badass Girls edited by Jessica Spotswood. Strap in for a delightful ride through history with a collection of young women adventurers from the 1700s up to modern times. Written by some of the leading Young Adult authors of our time, this book of short stories provides plenty of adventure, humor, and historical context for the engaging content. Our reader states that all of the stories are very, very different from one another, and that this anthology was a fascinating read.  MH

 

I Love It When You Lie by Kristen Bird is a tribute to all sassy Southern women. It begins with the unexpected death of the Williams family matriarch. Gran has long been under suspicion for the death of her husband. All of the Williams family girls, including all three granddaughters, as well as a great-granddaughter, are included in the local sheriff's surveillance...perhaps with good reason. As the family gathers for her funeral, Gran may not be the only one to be buried this weekend. LK

 

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli. Why do we remember the past, but not the future? Does time pass the same everywhere? Does time even exist, or is it an artifact of the way we interpret our existence? In this fascinating, mind-bending, but straight-forward book, Rovelli brings together physics, mathematics, philosophy, and literature to lay out what we currently know about the phenomenon that rules our lives with a seemingly iron fist: time. Written for the layperson, this immensely enjoyable book comes highly recommended by our reader.  HJ

 

Also mentioned:

Whale Day: and Other Poems by Billy Collins

Night Flight to Paris by Cara Black

My Name is Selma:  The Remarkable Memoir of a Jewish Resistance Fighter and Ravensbrück Survivor by Selma van de Perre

The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson

The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin

The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened by Bill McKibben

The Middle of Somewhere by Suzanne Stryk

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

Midnight at the Blackbird Café by Heather Webber

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

New Books:

 

London Séance Society by Sarah Penner

The Watchmaker’s Daughter:  The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom by Larry Loftis

Pushcart Prize XLVII: Best of the Small Presses edited by Bill Henderson

Nevermore: Strength in What Remains, Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton, Coming Plague, Betrayal

 

Reported by Garry

 

The biography Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder kicked off this week’s Nevermore book club. This 2009 tale of Burundian emigre Deo traces his life as he flees from his war-torn homeland to Rwanda and even worse conditions, back through Burundi and on to New York City and finally back to Burundi as a medical doctor. When he arrived at JFK Airport, Deo had only $200 to his name, spoke no English, and had no contacts. Amazingly, he managed to get a working visa and taught himself English by reading dictionaries in bookstores (he should have gone to the library!) Eventually making connections and building a network of people who helped nurture and guide him, Deo attended Columbia University where he graduated as an MD, and then returned to his homeland to provide medical care to those in the community where his story started. Our reader loved this book and highly recommends it not only as an unblinking look at civil war and the immigrant experience but for the exquisite and insightful writing.  DC

 

The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton is a debut novel by Eleanor Ray. In this good-humored and uplifting story, Amy is a woman whose fiancé and bridesmaid both disappeared at the same time eleven years ago. Over time, Amy has sunk into depression and isolation, becoming a hoarder in her London home. New neighbors move in across the street and Amy’s interaction with the young children helps her not only come to terms with her past but to heal from the trauma and start to live life again. Our reader really enjoyed this touching novel and noted that it deals with hoarding in both a realistic and sympathetic manner.  AH

 

The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, first published in 1995, is a prescient look at the world of new diseases with which humanity is not prepared to deal. Written by Laurie Garrett, this extensively researched book looks at the many, many ways that our behaviors, both as individuals and as societies, set the table for the explosive emergence of a variety of diseases that have devastating impacts on a global basis. Garrett traces back through fifty years of virology to look at the worldwide conditions that lead not only to outbreaks of new diseases, but the resurgence of old diseases that are no longer curable. Garret also points out ways that we can mitigate the effects of these plagues – all it takes is societal willpower, leadership, money, and understanding – a tall order!  CD

 

Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show by Jonathan Karl is an explosive look at the aftermath of the November 2020 U.S. election and the months of turmoil that followed, culminating in the attack on the Capitol building in which five people died. Karl is ABC news’ chief Washington correspondent and fills this book with detailed accounts of the behind-the-scenes events surrounding the last days of the Trump administration and lays out how perilously close America was to a true insurrection and constitutional crisis. Our reader was stunned by the details in this book and stated how the reality of what was going on out of sight was so much worse than what was on public view.  NH

 

 

Also mentioned:

Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving

Daughter of the Reich by Louise Fein

The Whispers of War by Julia Kelly

The Quiet American by Graham Greene

The Winemaker’s Wife by Kristin Harmel

A Short History of Humanity: A New History of Old Europe by Johannes Krause and Thomas Trappe

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930’s and 1940’s by Robert Polito, Horace McCoy, Kenneth Fearing, William Lindsay Gresham, Cornell Woolrich, James M. Cain, and Edward Anderson.

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy

She Kills Me: The True Stories of History’s Deadliest Women by Jennifer Wright

The Ghost Map:  The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How it Changed Science, Cities and The Modern World by Steven Johnson

The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan

Underwater Wild by Craig Foster and Ross Frylinck

Patient Zero:  A Curious History of the World’s Worst Diseases by Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen

Lost Cove, North Carolina: Portrait of a Vanished Appalachian Community, 1864-1957 by Christy A. Smith (Contributions to Southern Appalachian Studies series)

The Joy and Light Bus Company by Alexander McCall Smith

The Pure Land by Alan Spence

Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City by Andrew Lawler

The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley