The History Book Club discussion

Connie, isn’t this a delightful book? Your review nails it!
Regards,
Andrea

Thanks, Andrea. It was fun and heartwarming!

109. by Richard Osman
Finish date: December 2021
Genre: Mystery
Rating: B+
Review: Four friends in an upscale retirement village in Kent, England meet on Thursdays to talk about unsolved murders in their city. Elizabeth, who seems to have some knowledge of espionage, leads the Thursday Murder Club. Ron is an outspoken former union leader, and Ibrahim is a retired psychiatrist. Joyce is a former nurse whose nurturing personality and homemade baked goods make even the suspects feel comfortable. The Thursday Murder Club moves into high gear when two people associated with the retirement complex are found dead.

I enjoyed the personalities of the four amateur sleuths, and how their personalities complemented each other. Richard Osman's writing is witty and clever, and I look forward to his next book.

110. by Sanjay Gupta
Finish date: December 2021
Genre: Non-fiction, Healthcare, Science
Rating: A-
Review: Sanjay Gupta MD gives us a realistic look at the Covid-19 pandemic. He's optimistic that we can do better in preparing for the next pandemic if we learn from the present one. Dr Gupta is a neurosurgeon and the CNN chief medical correspondent. He interviewed public health experts and scientists around the world while he was writing "World War C."

Dr Gupta discusses other pandemics, the biology of viruses, how various vaccines work, and how our immune system fights Covid and other diseases. He tells what could have been done better in educating the public, while he also realizes we were dealing with a novel disease. An important difference in Covid was the number of people who were spreading the disease while remaining asymptomatic themselves.

He writes about assessing risk factors, vaccine hesitancy, and the misinformation that is circulating on social media sites. Dr Gupta encourages people to make healthy decisions--masking, vaccinations, social distancing, eating well, exercising, getting adequate sleep, and keeping a healthy weight--to reduce our chances of severe illness or death from Covid.

"World War C" is written in an accessible way while also giving lots of interesting scientific information, especially in the first few chapters. The importance of thinking globally is emphasized. Dr Gupta reminds us that viruses do not take vacations, even when we may want to relax our guard.

111. by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Finish date: December 2021
Genre: Non-fiction, Biography
Rating: B
Review: "Brave young women complete heroic acts every day, with no one bearing witness. This was a chance to even the ledger, to share one small story that made the difference between starvation and survival for the families whose lives it changed."

When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1996, many men had to flee from Kabul since they had supported a previous government. The women left behind were subjugated and forced to wear a chadri (burkah) when they were out in public. They could not go outside their homes without the company of a male relative. Author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon interviewed Kamila Sediqi who was confined to her home with her younger brother and sisters after her parents fled for safety.

Kamila was a 19-year-old woman who had trained as a teacher, but the schools for girls were shuttered by the Taliban. When her father's savings ran low, Kamila looked for a way to support her siblings. She asked her older married sister to teach her to sew. Risking her personal safety, Kamila and her younger brother visited tailors and got orders for dresses to be made in their home. As the business expanded, Kamila employed the needy neighborhood women and opened a sewing school in their home. Kamila went on to work with international groups promoting women's cottage industries and entrepreneurship.

"The Dressmaker of Khair Khana" is an inspiring story written in a journalistic manner. Both adults and older teens would enjoy this non-fiction work about a resourceful woman in Taliban-controlled Kabul.

112. by Claire Keegan
Finish date: December 2021
Genre: Historical fiction, Novella, Christmas
Rating: A
Review: Bill Furlong delivers coal and logs to families and businesses in a small town in Ireland. It is December 1985, and his wife and five daughters are eagerly making preparations for Christmas. When he delivers coal to the convent, he encounters an abusive situation. He is faced with a moral dilemma, and reflects back on his own upbringing. This is a moving story about a generous man with a good heart making a hard choice.

113. by James Robertson
Finish date: December 2021
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Religion
Rating: B
Review: "The Testament of Gideon Mack" is a very unusual memoir because Gideon, an agnostic Presbyterian minister, claims to have seen the Devil. A few months after Gideon penned this manuscript, his dead body was found deep in the mountains of Scotland. Gideon's testament is bookended by an introduction and an epilogue. The memoir is introduced by the editor who is considering publishing this strange document. The editor wants to verify some of the facts in the memoir so he sends a freelance reporter to investigate, and the reporter's findings are presented in the epilogue.

Gideon grew up in a repressive household with a cold father, also a minister, and a frightened mother. Neither offered much love or connection with the modern world. Gideon went to Divinity School and enjoyed the theological arguments, but secretly was an unbeliever. But he became a good minister who focused on Christian charity, and ran marathons to raise money for good causes.

A river cut across the small Scottish town where Gideon lived. There was a dangerous ravine, the Black Jaws, where the rushing river water traveled underground through rocky caves. Gideon fell into the gorge, and was carried away by the raging river. Three days later he was found on the river bank, bruised but alive. Gideon said that he was rescued by the Devil in the caves, and would enjoy seeing him again. Everyone thought he was delusional from a head injury, mentally ill, or lying.

Author James Robertson was a good storyteller who developed interesting characters, including several unreliable narrators. The book had a good sense of place, a small town in northeastern Scotland where everyone knew everyone else's business. People from the beginning of time have wondered about the supernatural and life after death, and the book raises lots of unanswerable questions. Scottish folk legends and myths about the Devil added to the entertaining story. This was a Booker Prize Longlist Nominee in 2006.

114. by Patti Callahan
Finish date: December 2021
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: B+
Review: On June 13, 1838, the luxury steamship "Pulaski" left Savannah to travel north to Baltimore. Affluent families from Georgia wanted to escape the summer heat. A boiler explosion in the middle of the night caused the "Pulaski" to sink. There were too few lifeboats so people had to hang on to pieces of the decks, and many had never learned to swim. The book follows the stories of two women--Lilly and Augusta--as the passengers struggled to stay alive in the ocean off the coast of North Carolina.

A present day timeline tells the story of the "Pulaski" disaster from the point of view of Everly, the curator of an exhibit at the Rivers and Seas Museum. We follow Everly as she discovers connections in her research, and marvel at the artifacts brought up by divers exploring the site of the shipwreck. The interactive exhibit she designed followed the lives of a Savannah family, including the enslaved servants who traveled with them. Everly is suffering from survivor's guilt because she was present when her best friend was killed by a hit-and-run driver. The survivors of the 1838 steamship disaster also had the difficult task of moving on in their lives after the loss of so many loved ones.

Usually in a dual timeline book there is one timeline that I enjoy more. In "Surviving Savannah," I found both timelines fascinating. The "Pulaski" disaster has been called the "Titanic of the South," and would probably be a great subject for a film.