Nevermore around the world: Sharyn McCrumb, Martin Sixsmith, Edward Gibbon and more!

Frog Music by Emma Donoghue continues to be passed from reader to reader at the Nevermore table.  While verdicts vary on the book, it was agreed that the two narratives running through the book made it a little confusing.  The two threads are intertwined, but occur only four days apart.  For a somewhat confusing or possibly a great book about San Francisco in 1876, check out Frog Music.

Another reader had just finished King’s Mountain by Sharyn McCrumb.  From the description of the events surrounding the Revolutionary War battle of King’s Mountain, our reader thought that the battle must have raged for months.  However, the actual engagement only lasted about two weeks, and the battle itself encompassed only sixty-five minutes.  Our reader enjoyed the book, as many others have as well.

The Guts by Roddy Doyle was again brought to the table.  Irishman Jimmy Rabbitte has been on a quest to gather old folk music and reunite bands which may want to make a comeback.  Incidentally, the Pope is coming to visit Ireland for the first time since 1932.  Our reader would love to see this book made into a movie.

Staying with the Ireland theme, Philomena by Martin Sixsmith put in an appearance.  Our reader noted that the incredible detail written in the first few pages was impossible to portray in the recent movie of the same name.  However, the movie was promoted as very powerful because it was stripped down to the essential story line.

Continuing with Ireland, a particular chapter was mentioned in Shakespeare’s Restless World: A Portrait of an Era in Twenty Objects by Neil MacGregor.  In the chapter entitled: “Ireland: Failures in the Present”, the author mentions that the largest army ever assembled in England was under King Henry V in order to put down an Irish rebellion.  The Irish fighters were known as particularly savage, using guerrilla-like tactics to defend their territory.

Heading back to the United States, Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff was mentioned.  By a journalist, the book is a very personal journey through the chaos and corruption that fills Detroit.  As the decay of Detroit has been in the news lately, general opinion around the table is that Detroit has hope and may turn around to be re-born as a smaller, better city, much like New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Another reader has just begun The Passage by Justin Cronin.  Described as “sort of science fiction” with secret government experiments going on, our reader is looking forward to finishing the rest of the book.

Finally, another reader confessed to reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, but only in the abridged version.  Originally published in six volumes between 1776-1789, we can’t fault our reader for taking on the somewhat ambitious task of reading a mere 700 pages or so.

Nevermore: Tami Hoag, Pat Conroy, Sharyn McCrumb and more!

Nevermore opened with praise for Tami Hoag’s novel The 9th Girl, a thriller about a serial killer whose victims are adolescents.   Detectives Nikki Liska and Sam Kovac are faced with trying to identify his latest victim, a girl whose body was found on New Year’s Eve.  Hoag balances the characters’ home lives with the case, and shows a shrewd understanding of high school culture and the role social media plays in the lives of young people—not to mention that this is an extremely well done thriller.  Our reviewer praised the strong characterization and commented that while Hoag isn’t an author that’s usually at the top of the list, this book was very good indeed.  Other reviewers have said that this is one of Hoag’s best.

The next book up was The Death of Santini by Pat Conroy.  Most of Conroy’s fiction is thinly disguised autobiography, but this nonfiction book is very open about its sources: Conroy’s real family.  The book concentrates on the last few years of Conroy’s father, the model for the father of The Great Santini.  Our reviewer said that some sequences bordered on the fantastical, but felt Conroy was trying to tell the story as honestly as he could. He pulls no punches in the telling, either.  All his siblings were strongly influenced by their father, but the reactions to his domineering ways were varied.  The verdict was that this wasn’t a book that she enjoyed as much as some, but it was worth reading.

Innocence by Dean Koontz had been picked up by another reader who felt that parts of it were excellent.  He read a thought-provoking selection but then added that for him the ending fell flat, which was sad in a book that had so much promise.

Two series were recommended without a great deal of in-depth comment.  Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs was praised as a World War I era detective novel series, one that might surprise you with a woman as the private investigator.  The other series applauded was by Oliver Pötzsch, set in Germany in the 1600’s about a man who carries on the familial tradition of being an executioner.  In that time, executioners performed a necessary duty but were shunned by society.  The series contains four books, beginning with The Hangman’s Daughter.

Finally, King’s Mountain by Sharyn McCrumb was brought to the table once again.  With a nod to the local history of the North Carolina/Tennessee area, McCrumb writes novels that are a great blend of fiction and history.  Set during the American Revolution, this is a story of the Carolina Overmountain Men and their commander John Sevier.