Nevermore: The Premonition, Imperial Woman, A Map of the World, Sold on a Monday

 

Reported by Garry

 

The first new book this week was The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis.   This non-fiction book traces the unravelling of the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic.  This is an unflinching look at the men and women who trace, predict and fight disease outbreaks and how the US government turned a willful blind eye to their findings and recommendations.  Our reader found this to be a both heartening and disillusioning book:  heartening in that the author points out the everyday heroes who risked their professional lives to bring attention to the growing threat of Covid and disillusioning in how he lays out how very badly our public health system has been politicized to the point that hundreds of thousands of people suffered and died needlessly.  Our reader highly recommends this book if you want a look behind the scenes of what went on during the past year fighting the novel Covid-19 virus.

 

 

Our next reader reviewed The Imperial Woman:  The Story of the Last Empress of China by Pearl S. Buck.  Written in 1956, this novel is a fictionalized account of the life of Empress Dowager Cixi, spelled Tzu-Hsi in this book.  Born into poverty, Tzu-Hsi moved into the Forbidden City at age 17 to become a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor.  She became the de facto head of the Qing dynasty after his death, and remained so until her death in 1908.  Tzu-Hsi reigned for 47 years and guided China through a turbulent time of modernization unparalleled in China’s history.  Our reader was fascinated with the details of the daily life in the Forbidden City and the structures and strictures of daily life in a world bound by tradition and ceremony, and the portrait of a woman who had the vision, tenacity and ruthlessness to guide an ancient society into the modern world. 

 

Next up is the gripping novel A Map of The World by Jane Hamilton.  Set in modern day Wisconsin, this story follows the Goodwin family and focusses on Alice, a nurse in the local elementary school.  Disaster strikes the family when a local child drowns in the Goodwin’s pond while under Alice’s care.  Subsequently, Alice is accused and charged with the sexual assault of one of the students at the school.  Our reader highlighted Hamilton’s writing style as particularly engaging and liked the ambiguities and nuances of the characters in this novel.

 

Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris was the next book reviewed this week.  This historical novel uses as its foundation the story of a 1948 photograph of four children for sale in Chicago.  McMorris used that starting thread to weave a new story, set near Philadelphia in 1931.  Sold on a Monday follows struggling reporter Ellis Reed who captures a gut-wrenching photograph of two small siblings and a “2 Children for Sale” sign on a farmhouse porch.  Ellis’s newspaper story and photograph rock the nation and make him a star reporter, but he now has to deal with the fallout.  Our reader did not want to rush through this book, pointing out the poignant and heart-touching prose in this novel, which she highly recommends.

 

Also mentioned:

The Sunday Times Travel Book

The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Messina

Catwad by Jim Benton

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan

Caste:  The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson

Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon

Animal, Vegetable, Junk by Mark Bittman

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson Brown

The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair

Nevermore: Civil War, White Trash, Whiteout, Big Short, A Great Reckoning, and The Innocent

Reported by Ambrea

Kicking off Nevermore this week, we looked at a fascinating book by Thomas Fleming titled A Disease in the Public Mind:  A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War.  Described as a “riveting, character-driving history” on the book jacket, Fleming’s book was a fascinating exploration of the Civil War and the divisions that pitted North against South—and why, as Fleming seems to assert, a war was bound to happen with or without slavery as a justification.  According to our reader, Disease in the Public Mind was a marvelous book.  Wonderfully detailed and incredibly well written, Fleming’s book is “the best explanation of why the Civil War started” and how the deep rooted prejudices (and, in some cases, fanaticism) between North and South inflamed—and eventually ignited—violence.  Our reader gave it very high marks, recommending it to history buffs and Civil War aficionados alike.

Next, Nevermore took a second (or third) look at White Trash:  The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg, which takes a long hard look at political and social prejudices that have divided and, in essence, polarized the so-called “class-free” society of the United States.  Isenberg describes the plight of the poor and succinctly looks at how history has shaped Americans’ vision of poverty, how it impacts our reactions and our perceptions of it:  “First known as ‘waste people,’ and later ‘white trash,’ marginalized Americans were stigmatized for their inability to be productive, to own property, or to produce healthy and upwardly mobile children…[and well] into the twentieth century, expulsion and even sterilization sounded rational to those who wished to reduce the burden of ‘loser’ people on the larger economy.”  Our reader said she enjoyed reading White Trash, because, like Disease in the Public Mind, it is incredibly detailed and it looks at racial tensions, as well as class distinctions, that have shaped the American public.  At once jarring and fascinating, Isenberg’s book proved to our reader that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Shifting gears, Nevermore decided to share a suspenseful, yet entertaining read by Ken Follett.  In Whiteout, Toni Gallo, direct of security at a Scottish medical research firm, has a problem:  a canister containing a deadly virus is missing and one of the lab technicians is dead, bleeding from his eyes—which means someone has already released the virus.  Which means the world is about to face one of the most terrifying biological disasters in history.  Our reader said she enjoyed reading Follett’s novel.  Described as fun and frivolous, Whiteout was a wonderful change of pace and it was such an exciting crime story.  Our reader admitted that she finished it in two days, high praise in her book, and said she enjoyed almost every minute of it.

Nevermore also looked at economics and finances—and the big stock market crash of 2008—in The Big Short:  Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis.  “The real crash, the silent crash, had taken place over the previous year where the sun doesn’t shine and the SEC doesn’t dare, or bother, to tread,” reads the book cover.  “The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren’t talking.”  According to Lewis, several people knew that impending financial devastation was on the horizon—and yet, instead of warning anyone, some did nothing and others decided to make millions.  Our reader, who admitted she was not savvy when it comes to the stock market and economics, said she enjoyed reading Lewis’ book.  She understood many of the complicated concepts outlined by Lewis, which she liked, but, most of all, she was duly impressed by the fact the author names names.  Overall, she said it was a great book to read and she recommended it anyone curious about the complicated state of financial markets and stock exchanges.

Next, Nevermore pulled out a favorite novelist to share:  Louise Penny.  In A Great Reckoning, our reader revisited Armand Gamache, former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, as he stepped into a new mystery involving a strange old map, four young cadets at the Sûreté academy, a stained glass window with its own horrific secrets—and a murdered professor.  Gamache, along with a young cadet named Amelia Choquet, finds himself caught in a tangled web of secrets and lies that will lead to places that even he is terrified to see.  Our reader, a fan of Penny and her Inspector Gamache series, said she enjoyed loved reading A Great Reckoning.  Although she said the story does become a little technical, she pointed out that it didn’t diminish the novel or make it any less appealing.  It’s Penny’s most recent novel—the twelfth in a long running series—but, according to our reader, it stands well on its own and provides an intriguing, entertaining mystery that will leave the audience breathless.

Last, Nevermore shared The Innocent by Ian McEwan.  Leonard Marnham is twenty-five years old and looking for excitement, and he certainly gets it when he is tasked with tunneling under a Russian communications center to tap phone lines and when he meets the alluring, enigmatic West Berliner, Maria Eckdorf.  Caught up in an international “comedy of errors,” Marnham finds himself risking everything when, in one night—one terrible, terrible night—everything goes horribly awry.  Our reader highly recommended reading McEwan’s novel.  Personally, he said he enjoyed excavating the pieces of Marnham’s and, moreover, he enjoyed the way McEwan writes.  However, he did point out to his fellow readers that “you do need some bravery to read this book.”  It’s guaranteed to surprise and, possibly, horrify.

Nevermore Economics & Cut

Finances tend to be a bit of a topic around December, as folks decide what their budget for gifts should be and whether or not to blow those budgets.  The Nevermore Book Club went one better by taking a look at national global economics, courtesy of the books Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World and The Big Short:  Inside the Doomsday Machine, both by Michael Lewis.  The latter book examined the background of the 2008 economic downturn in the U.S., while Boomerang has more of a global perspective.  Lewis is one of those authors who can take complex subjects and make them not only understandable but readable. . . and even funny.  He’s also the author of The Blind Side, basis for the Sandra Bullock movie of the same name, as well as Moneyball, which was made into a movie with Brad Pitt.

Thomas Friedman’s That Used to be Us discusses the challenges the United States faces in order to remain a world leader, including globalization, deficits, and the information revolution.  This book was considered a good one, but not exactly riveting. 

Of course, this wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea; or as one club member put it, “Who needs Ambien when we have economics?”

The antidote to that was a recommendation for George Pelecanos’ new book The Cut, the first in a new series of thrillers about Iraqi war veteran Spero Lucas who specializes in recovering stolen property, no questions asked. The only requirement is that Lucas gets a flat 40% of what is recovered.  He accepts an assignment from a marijuana dealer to recover some missing shipments of product, but soon learns that the personal toll may be too great to pay.   Pelecanos was a writer on “The Wire,” where the city of Baltimore was so vividly portrayed that it was almost a character itself.  The Cut is set in Washington, D.C., another city Pelecanos knows and describes well.