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

Nevermore: Silence, Waking Lions, A Criminal Defense, Girl in Disguise, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Nora Ephron

The fun of the Nevermore Book Club is that you never know what books will be discussed. Unlike many book groups, the Nevermore members bring in whatever interesting books they’ve read in the past week.  Fiction, non-fiction, classics, best sellers—they all turn up at Nevermore.

The first book up this week was Silence by Shusaku Endo, a novel about two 17^th century Jesuits who travel to Japan to visit the Church there.  They find that the Christians have been undergoing horrific torture and cruelties to force them to renounce their faith. What does a priest do under these circumstances?  Our reader found this classic Japanese novel to be thought-provoking and moving, if a bit difficult to read. It’s not just the descriptions of the physical brutality; the spiritual anguish is just as traumatic. 

Waking Lions is another novel that wrestles with questions of morality. As Israeli author Ayelet Gundar-Goshen’s novel begins, an exhausted neurosurgeon is driving down a road late at night, he hits and kills an illegal African immigrant. He flees the scene but soon is confronted by his victim’s wife who has found the doctor’s wallet at the scene.  She employs an unusual form of blackmail:  she will keep silent if he will provide medical treatment to some of her fellow illegal immigrants.  Complications multiply rapidly:  the doctor’s wife is the police officer investigating the hit and run death. Our first reader enjoyed the book; it’s a thriller but also examines the uneasy relationships between different ethnic groups in Israel.  The second reader was less impressed, saying the book was “a downer.”

Pulitzer Prize winning author Tracy Kidder writes about Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard educated infectious disease specialist who has spent decades helping people in Haiti.  Farmer, who is an anthropologist in addition to being a medical doctor, is an inspirational figure in Mountains Beyond Mountains.  This compelling book makes an eloquent plea for health care for the poor of all nations. 

On a lighter note, our reader praised I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron’s collection of essays about aging, parenting, and other topics.  Ephron’s sense of humor shines through almost every page, and readers—especially those of a certain age--will find themselves nodding in agreement with her observations. 

A Criminal Defense is a debut thriller by William L. Myers, Jr. The protagonist is lawyer and former District Attorney Mick McFarland who finds himself in a complex situation.  A friend and fellow attorney stands accused of murdering a journalist—a young woman who had recently contacted McFarland for legal help.  The prosecuting attorney is a former colleague and rival of McFarland’s.  Our reader thought the book was thoughtful and well-written, examining some questions of ethics along with a good story.

Finally, Girl in Disguise by Greer Macallister had been praised earlier by some Nevermore readers as a wonderful historical novel about the first female Pinkerton agent. Our latest reader said she didn’t find it appealing, which just proves once again that not every book is for every reader.