New Fiction for March!

 

Bohjalian, Chris  The Jackal’s Mistress

Bowen, Rhys  Silent as the Grave (Molly Murphy)

Broadbent, Carissa Slaying the Vampire Conqueror (Crowns of Nyaxia)

Brown, Sandra  Blood Moon

Callahan Henry, Patti  The Story She Left Behind

Cavanagh, Steve Witness 8

Clare, Cassandra  The Ragpicker King

Coble, Colleen  Ambush

Cosimano, Elle  Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave

Dodd, Christina  Girl, Anonymous

El-Mohtar, Amal  The River Has Roots

French, Nicci  The Last Days of Kira Mullan

Gerritsen, Tess The Summer Guests (Martini Club)

Gilmore, Laurie The Strawberry Patch Pancake House (Dream Harbor)

Henderson, Alice  The Vanishing Kind (Alex Carter)

Hunter, Georgia  One Good Thing

Jones, Sandie I Would Die for You

Jones, Stephen Graham The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

Mallery, Susan Beach Vibes

McConaghy, Charlotte Wild Dark Shore

Meier, Leslie  Bridal Shower Murder (Lucy Stone)

Morrissey, Hannah  The Unlucky Ones (Black Harbor)

Oakley, Colleen Jane and Dan at the End of the World

Pandian, Gigi  The Library Game (Secret Staircase Mystery)

Patterson, James The Writer

Peterson, Tracie   A Constant Love

Raybourn, Deanna  Kills Well with Others

Rendon, Marcie R. Broken Fields (Cash Blackbear Mystery)

Rose, Karen  Dead Man’s List

Rosenberg, Joel C.l  The Beijing Betrayal

Russell, Karen The Antidote

Santopolo, Jill The Love We Found

Scalzi, John  When the Moon Hits Your Eye

Score, Lucy  The Story of My Life

Shigematsu, Kiyoshi  The Blanket Cats

Steel, Danielle  Far From Home

Turtledove, Harry  Twice as Dead

Willig, Lauren  The Girl from Greenwich Street:  A Novel of Hamilton, Burr, and America’s First Murder Trial

Nevermore: My Sunshine Away, March, Calypso, Water Is Wide, Night Strangers, Birchbark House, 1491

 

This week’s Nevermore opened with the book My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh.  Set in Baton Rouge in the 1980s, the book is narrated by a 14 year old boy with a crush on Lindy Simpson, a slightly older neighborhood girl.  The seemingly idyllic area is rocked when Lindy is raped and our narrator is determined to bring the perpetrator to light.  Although the themes are dark, our reviewer said that the crime isn’t the real focus of the book.  It is suspenseful but it’s more a coming of age story as told by an appealing character.  The one criticism of this otherwise well written book is that at several points the narrator would start to impart some important piece of information only to say, “I’ll tell you about that later.”  She found that quite frustrating, but still recommends the book.

 

Another literary delight was March by Australian author Geraldine Brooks which imagines the life of Mr. March, father of the Little Women family.  In the book, he is largely absent because of the Civil War which was raging at the time.  Brooks tells that hidden part of March’s story, basing the tale (as did Louisa May Alcott) on the real Alcott family.  Our reviewer found it well written and intriguing, and the entire group took an interest in the “story behind the story.”

 

David Sedaris’ Calypso continues to delight readers and listeners.  Again, it was in audio book format, as listener after listener praised Sedaris for his wonderful and expressive voice.  Most had first heard him on NPR, either as part of “This American Life” or else one of the other programs.  Everyone has found his stories of family dynamics to be quite relatable and very, very funny.  The current listener has moved on to another collection of his essays, this one with a seasonal theme:  Holidays on Ice.

Poisoner in Chief by Stephen Kinzer took the group discussion into darker territory.  Starting in the 1950s, chemist Sidney Gottlieb worked with the CIA on various drugs and techniques for mind control.  The idea was to attempt to re-program people, and to develop interrogation techniques to break even the most stubborn of prisoners.  Experiments were even carried out on civilians without their knowledge, sometimes with horrifying results.  Gottlieb’s research is still used today.  It’s a book both fascinating and appalling in equal measure, and should be required reading.

 

 While Pat Conroy is best known for his novels such as The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini, one of his first books was actually a memoir.  The Water Is Wide is his account of teaching on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina in 1969.  His pupils knew very little of life in the outside world beyond the island.  Conroy sought to expose them to the wider world, wanting to make a positive difference in their lives. The book is based on Conroy’s experiences but has been somewhat fictionalized, including the name of the island.  The book is recommended.

 

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian is set in a small town in New Hampshire.  Chris, his wife Emily, and twin daughters have just moved to town in search of a new start after the crash of a plane Chris was piloting which resulted in the deaths of 39 passengers.  At first, the family enjoys the attentions of the new neighbors and exploring the house, but soon strange things begin happening.  Some of the local women seem to be taking a lot of interest in the couple’s daughters and Chris thinks he can hear some of the dead passengers.  Our reader says it was kind of a weird book, rather scary, but interesting.  She didn’t think it was one of his best but still good.

 

Next up was The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich. Set in 1847 near what is now called Lake Superior, the story centers around Omakayas, an Ojibwa (Chippewa) girl, and her family.  Rich with detail and history, our reader felt that Erdrich’s books should have a much wider audience and recommend her work to all.  Most of her books deal with Native American culture—Erdrich herself is Chippewa—and all are excellent.

Finally, 1491:  New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles C. Mann was promoted as a fascinating look at pre-European North and South America.  Mann wants to dispel the idea that it was a pristine wilderness but was instead host to sophisticated societies and cultures who created cities, governmental structures, advanced agricultural techniques, and more.  Mann makes sometimes complex subjects very accessible to the average reader.  Our reviewer praised the book and found it fascinating.

Nevermore: March, Kings and Queens, Guess Who, Our Souls at Night, Illustrated Man, Becoming

Reported by Jeanne

Nevermore opened with a very brief review of March by Gwendolyn Brooks.  The book explores the Civil War experiences of Mr. March, the patriarch of the March family from Little Women, based in part on Bronson Alcott’s diaries just as Louisa May used her own family in her novel.  The book was very well written and interesting; the problem was that when the reviewer was several chapters into the book she realized she had already read it.  It was recommended.

The PBS documentary “Prince Charles at 70” inspired another member to pick up Kings & Queens of Great Britain to explore the lives all of all 60-plus rulers of England and Great Britain.  She was thoroughly enjoying it, but said she knew it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

A newcomer to Nevermore had just started reading Guess Who: A Novel by Chris McGeorge.  Morgan Sheppard, star of a reality TV show called “Resident Detective,” wakes up in a hotel room, handcuffed to a bed.  With him are five strangers and a corpse.  Morgan is told that he has three hours to solve the murder mystery or a bomb will go off.  The reader described it as a sort of classic locked room mystery, and that the book was off to a promising start.

Sometimes Nevermore readers have an innovative approach to their books.  Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf is the story of two lonely older people who develop a close and tender relationship.  Widow Addie approaches her neighbor, Louis, and suggests they spend their nights together—not for sex, but for companionship in the dark. Their comfortable and comforting time together is challenged when Addie’s grandson is sent for a visit. Our reader loved it up until the end, which she found unsatisfactory so “I just closed my eyes and wrote a new ending that made me happy.”

The Illustrated Man  by Ray Bradbury is a collection of science fiction stories, many of which originally appeared as standalone stories.  Bradbury created a side-show character whose body is covered in tattoos, each of which comes to life and tells a story.  Several of the tales are quite well known and have been filmed—“The Veldt” and “The Long Rain,” for example—but our reader was unimpressed.  She gave up after a story or two.

Becoming by Michelle Obama is still making the rounds in the club.  The current reader said she hadn’t yet reached the White House years, but was finding much to admire in the way that Mrs. Obama was deeply involved in her daughters’ lives while also juggling a demanding career and a husband with political aspirations.