Nevermore: Black Bird Oracle, Happy-Go-Lucky, Chicken Soup for the Soul

 Nevermore 4-29-25  Reported by Rita

 

The Black Bird Oracle: A Novel (#5 in All Souls Series) by Deborah Harkness

When the Congregation demands she and Matthew test the magic of their 7-year-old twins, Oxford scholar and witch Diana Bishop forges a different path. She confronts her family's dark past and reckons with her desire for even greater power—if she can let go of her fear of wielding it.

Not my favorite book in the series, but it ties up loose ends. It's a really good read.     - MH     4 stars

Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris

The best-selling author offers a new collection of satirical and humorous essays that chronicle his own life and ordinary moments that turn beautifully absurd, including how he coped with the pandemic, his thoughts on becoming an orphan in his seventh decade, and the battle-scared America he discovered when he resumed touri

9 out of 5 stars! This was touching and funny. Absolutely great!     - CD     5 stars  

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Laughter's Always the Best Medicine: 101 Feel-Good Stories by Amy Newmark

Chicken Soup for the Soul's first-ever humor collection, including stories from spouses to parents to children to colleagues and friends that tell about their own mishaps and those most embarrassing moments.

The stories are very happy, funny, and good, but some felt a little repetitive.     - MS     4 stars

 

Other Books Mentioned

 

Make Me by Lee Child

A Woman Who Went to Alaska by May Kellogg Sullivan

Moment in Peking by Yutang Lin

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter

Boom!: Talking About the Sixties: What Happened, How it Shaped Today, Lessons for Tomorrow by Tom Brokaw

Ernie's War: The Best of Ernie Pyle's World War II Dispatches by Ernie Pyle

Sunpath by Michael Maryk

The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage

Living in the Light by Deepak Chopra

13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do by Amy Morin

Against the Wind by J. F. Freeman

 

New Books

 

Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service by Michael Lewis

Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green

The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More by Jefferson Fisher

King of the North: Martin Luther King's Life of Struggle Outside the South by Jeanne Theoharis

Nevermore: Best of Me, How We Do Harm, Brazen, Girl with No Shadow, Last Days of the Dinosaurs

Nevermore June 21, 2022

 

The Best of Me by David Sedaris is a hilarious, biting, and deeply insightful look at the development of Sedaris’ writing, spanning 25 years. This collection of essays, chosen by Sedaris as his “greatest hits” volume was loved by our reader who pointed out not only how funny Sedaris is in his exceptionally clear-eyed examinations of the absurdities of every-day life, but his bravery is laying himself bare - his ups and downs, victories and defeats, all for public consumption.  CD

 

How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks about Being Sick in America by Dr. Otis Webb Brawley. This searing exposé by the head of the American Cancer Society takes an unflinching look at the current state of healthcare in America and the conflicts and hypocrisies that prevent the vast majority of Americans from receiving proper medical care. Crawley calls for rational healthcare, healthcare drawn from results-based, scientifically justifiable treatments, and not just the peddling of hot new drugs. Our reader was at turns frustrated and amazed by this book – frustrated by the way that the medical system is driven by money, to the detriment of the patients, and amazed by the insight and forceful, thoughtful arguments for change that Dr. Brawley sets forth.  CD

 

Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie by Julia Haart is a memoir by the head of one of the world’s largest talent agencies tracing her escape from an extremist ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect of New York to become a world famous shoe designer, to the head of the Elite World Group. Our reader was shocked and repulsed by the level of control forced upon Haart and her children, but was also inspired by Haart’s relentless pursuit of personal freedom and self-actualization even when faced with being shunned from the family and community that had been her entire world.  NH

 

The Girl with No Shadow is the second book in the Chocolat series by Joanne Harris. Magic, deception, chocolate, and winter in Paris all come together in the tale as Vianne Rocher wanders from Lansquenet-sous-Tannes (the location of Chocolat) to the wind-blown streets of Paris. Vianne has set up a new chocolaterie but is unhappy and feeling stagnant. The shop is not doing well, her daughter Anouk, is being bullied in school, and depressed Vianne no longer wishes to make high-quality chocolates. Into their lives comes vibrant, vivacious Zozie de L’Alba who starts to turn their lives around. But at what cost? Our reader, who loves magical realism novels, says that Joanne Harris is her new favorite author and highly recommends this book and the others in the Chocolat series.  MH

 

The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World by Riley Black is a fascinating look at what the latest science tells us happened to the dinosaurs and how their disappearance affected all other existing and emerging species in the days, years, and millennia after the dinosaurs’ extinction. 66 million years ago, a 6-mile wide asteroid travelling at 44,700 miles per hour slammed into the Earth in what is now Chixulub, Mexico, leaving a crater over 110 miles wide and 12 miles deep. The shockwave and super-heated air blasted the atmosphere with hundreds of billions of tons of sulphur, dust, rock and debris, instantly setting fire to the land for thousands of miles in every direction and creating oceanic waves more than a mile tall. The blast produced a world-wide blackout and freezing temperatures that lasted at least a decade, and overnight wiped out nearly half of all life on Earth. The resulting changes allowed for the evolution of mammals and avians (birds) as well as thousands of other species that had been stifled by the dominance of the dinosaurs for over 100 million years.

 

Also mentioned:

 

Open Season by C.J. Box

LGBTQ Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia by Jeff Mann and Julia Watts

The Lawless Land by Boyd and Beth Morrison

The Book Woman’s Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson

About Grace by Anthony Doerr

The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth

Child Zero by Chris Holm

A Spy in Plain Sight: The Inside Story of the FBI and Robert Hanssen—America’s Most Damaging Russian Spy by Lis Wiehl

Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

Nevermore: Full Tilt, A Carnival of Snackery, Melungeon Winter, Great Irish Potato Famine

 

Reported by Garry

Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle by Dervla Murphy tells the 1963 story of the author taking her bicycle (which she named Roz) on a solitary international journey from Ireland, through Europe, into Afghanistan and Pakistan, ending in New Delhi. Murphy kept a diary, which has been transcribed into this book, recording her interactions with locals, the weather, treacherous mountain roads, and the beauty of the raw landscapes she traveled through. More just a pure travelogue, Murphy has deep insights into the cultures and writes passionately and empathetically about the different peoples that she came across. Our reader loves travelogues, and was nearly overwhelmed by the risky situations in which Murphy found herself. (She did carry a pistol, and actually had to use it a couple of times.) Our reader loved this book and recommends not only this title, but another book by Murphy The Island that Dared - a recounting of her travels in Cuba in 2006 and 2007. CD

A Carnival of Snackery by David Sedaris is a collection of diary entries from 2003-2020. In his inimitable writing style, Sedaris records the quirky, bizarre, and mundane with a sharp eye and even sharper wit. Sedaris speaks at venues worldwide, so this book covers his experiences in France, England, the UK, Japan, and many other locations around the world – all with their own unusual and hilarious customs and mores – which Sedaris weaves into a mesmerizing, riotous series of thoughtful, caustic yarns. Our reader is a fan of Sedaris’ work and highly recommends this latest work by the prolific essayist.  MH

 

A Melungeon Winter by Patrick Bone was a fortuitous find at the recent Friends of the Library Book Sale. Bone is a Tennessee-based author of multiple books including this historical fiction set in the 1950s in the Appalachian Mountains, recounting the story of Jubalee and Robert, two young men (one white, one black) whose friendship runs afoul of the racial tensions of the time. Jubalee’s father is wrongly convicted of murder, and Jubalee and Robert set out to uncover the truth with the help of an assortment of odd characters, including the feared Melungeon hermit, Denny Mullins. Our reader was thrilled with this find that she picked up, and thought this who-dun-it set in the local mountains was a delightful read. She also read and recommends Aliens of Transylvania County by the same author.  KN

 

The Great Irish Potato Famine by James Donnelly is an account of the late 1840s famine which resulted in the death of about one million people and was also largely responsible, in conjunction with British government policies, for one of the greatest international human migrations of British history. Between the years of 1845 and 1855, nearly one million people died, and close to two million (20% – 25% of the entire population) left Ireland, most for North America. This book combines narrative, analysis, historiography, and scores of contemporary illustrations. Our reader found this to be a fascinating, harrowing look at one of the greatest exoduses from a single island in recorded history. KN

Also mentioned:

Onion John by Joseph Krumgold

The Coal Tattoo by Silas House

Every Patient Tells A Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis by Lisa Sanders

Rules for Aging by Roger Rosenblatt

The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal by Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Second-Worst Restaurant in France by Alexander McCall Smith

Roots by Alex Haley

The African Americans – Many Rivers to Cross by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder

Between Certain Death and a Possible Future: Queer Writing on Growing Up with the AIDS Crisis edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

The Wrath of Angels by John Connolly

Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

Seeking the Swan: A Selection of Winning Entries from the Annual Writing Competition of West Virginia Writes, Inc. 1996 – 2006 (West Virginia Writers Anthology)

Heart in the Right Place by Carolyn Jourdan

As You Wish:  Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes

Auntie Poldi and the Lost Madonna by Mario Giordano

Nevermore: Wizard of Earthsea, Ministry for the Future, Kashmir Shawl, Invisible Life of Addie Larue, Calypso

 Reported by Garry

Our Nevermore reader had decided to try the classic fantasy novel A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin.   She hadn’t read a fantasy/sci-fi in a very long time, and was surprised by how action packed this novel is. There is a bit of a slow build at first but soon becomes filled with action.  The timeline moves very rapidly, which our reader found a bit unusual.  The first in the Earthsea Cycle, A Wizard of Earthsea follows the early adventures and coming of age of the wizard Ged, as he moves from his isolated home to the Wizard school to traversing the world both fleeing from and chasing after his shadow.   While she has not yet finished it, our reader is impressed so far. 

 

Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson is set in the near future where an international organization—the titular Ministry for the Future—is tasked for advocating for future generations. The chapters alternate between the points of view of various characters, but mostly from those of Mary Murphy, the head of the organization, and air worker Frank, who finds himself in a deadly heat wave.  Our reader found this to be a gripping tale of the perils of climate change, and illustrates how strong the forces of technology, greed, and human behavior can be. 

 

Historical romance took the stage next.  The Kashmir Shawl by Rosie Thomas begins with Mair Ellis, a young Welsh woman, finding an exquisite Kashmir shawl among her late grandmother’s possessions. Nestled within is an envelope containing a single lock of hair.   Fascinated and curious, Mair wishes to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps in Kashmir and solve the mystery of who the lock of hair belonged to.  The story switches back and forth between present day and India during World War II where Nerys, Mair’s grandmother, traveled as a young wife accompanying her missionary husband.  Our reader found the texture of the book to be wonderful, with vivid descriptions of the places and people, and it kept her going.

 

The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab is a historical fantasy novel that starts in Paris in 1714.  In a moment of desperation, Addie Larue makes a deal with the Devil:  she will live forever, but nobody will remember her.  She cannot write or say her own name – she has to make up a new name.   Every day of her life, she can go back to the same people and they won’t remember her at all.  The Devil meets with her on a regular basis to get her to quit, but she refuses to. The book jumps back and forth in time until 2015 when Addie meets a man who remembers her.   Our reader came away with the message that life is about paying attention to where you are every day, and really enjoyed this new book.

 

Deeply personal and darkly hilarious, Calypso by David Sedaris made our reader laugh out loud, which is a reaction she doesn’t normally have.  In this 2018 collection of 21 semi-autobiographical essays, Sedaris is a bit more self-reflective as, at age 61, he starts to confront his mortality and aging.  Our reader thought this book was wonderful.