Hi everyone, first the December book club info!

Our December meeting will be held in the Conference Room at the library on Friday, December 10, 2021 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. (Zoom link available, upon request)

Our December read is: Susan, Linda, Nina and Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR by Lisa Napoli (352 page)

Book Description: A group biography of four beloved women who fought sexism, covered decades of American news, and whose voices defined NPR

In the years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women in the workplace still found themselves relegated to secretarial positions or locked out of jobs entirely. This was especially true in the news business, a backwater of male chauvinism where a woman might be lucky to get a foothold on the “women’s pages.” But when a pioneering nonprofit called National Public Radio came along in the 1970s, and the door to serious journalism opened a crack, four remarkable women came along and blew it off the hinges.

Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie is journalist Lisa Napoli’s captivating account of these four women, their deep and enduring friendships, and the trail they blazed to becoming icons. They had radically different stories. Cokie Roberts was born into a political dynasty, roamed the halls of Congress as a child, and felt a tug toward public service. Susan Stamberg, who had lived in India with her husband who worked for the State Department, was the first woman to anchor a nightly news program and pressed for accommodations to balance work and home life. Linda Wertheimer, the daughter of shopkeepers in New Mexico, fought her way to a scholarship and a spot on-air. And Nina Totenberg, the network’s legal affairs correspondent, invented a new way to cover the Supreme Court. Based on extensive interviews and calling on the author’s deep connections in news and public radio, Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie will be as beguiling and sharp as its formidable subjects.

—

And here are the notes from our November meeting, which was held at the library on Friday, November 12, 2021.

November Read: The Brilliant Abyss: Exploring the Majestic Hidden Life of the Deep Ocean, and the Looming Threat That Imperils It by Helen Scales

About The Author: The author Dr. Helen Scales, is a marine biologist and teaches at Cambridge University. Dr. Scales weaves her story of the Brilliant Abyss around her experiences doing marine research, with assistance from modern robotic technology, during a trip to the Gulf of Mexico aboard a research vessel named The Pelican.

—

A cliff notes overview of the book; the first half offers a description of the life forms and geological features of the deep ocean; and the second half describes how critical it is to life on the planet that the deep ocean be preserved.

The “deep ocean” is defined as the part of the ocean that starts when sunlight dwindles and the ocean waters become pitch black, down to the ocean floor. The transition from the ocean to the deep ocean starts to occur at about 200 feet below the surface. The author well describes the deep ocean, which is extensive and features a multitude of geological features including Continental Shelfs that border the continents, Continental Slopes that descend from the Continental Shelfs toward the ocean floor, the flat Abyssal Plains of the ocean floor, Seamounts (submerged mountains) and Volcanic Islands that rise from the ocean floor, and some of which break the surface of the ocean; and, at the deepest parts of the ocean, deep trenches and rift valleys located miles beneath the ocean’s surface; and which were formed over long periods of time as underwater tectonic plates shifted.

For most of human history the deep ocean has remained a mystery. In fact, the author notes that prior to the twentieth century many scientists thought the deep ocean was devoid of life. This ideology was disproven, and today with modern technology that allows scientists, via Remote Operating Vehicles, to study the deep ocean in ways never before possible; we are living in a golden age of oceanic exploration.

Scales expressively describes the marine life that live in the deep ocean including bone-eating worms, Vampire Squid, the almost wheat-like-looking Iridogoria octocoral and the eloquent Ctenophore; with tis many feeding tentacles spread out to catch the nutritious marine snow that drifts down to the deep ocean from above. And she brings home the point that the deep ocean is a vibrant ecosystem full of life.

Scales kicks off the second part of the book by noting, that history tells us that any time new lands have been discovered by the human race; that humans have subsequently exploited those lands for commercial gain; leaving the lands depleted of natural resources and the local ecosystems damaged. She goes on to discuss how human behavior is damaging the ocean via exploitation and climate change.

On the exploitation front, Scales describes some of the ways that commercial interests want to gain wealth from the ocean and she is dubious, to say the least, when some of those commercial forces assure naysayers that what they wish to do, will not harm the ocean. Examples of the potential commercial project include medicinal cures made from sea sponges, intense deep sea fishing of orange roughies (deep sea perch), deep sea mining done by sophisticated robots and certain green energy projects.

Additionally, the author makes a case that humans are already damaging the oceanic ecosystem, both by human made climate change, and by humans using the ocean as a receptacle for human junk and waste including a huge amounts of plastics.

One book club member loved this book! The others, including the hostess, thought the book, which does have academic-scientific bent, required quite a bit of work thus wasn’t quite as much fun to read and discuss as previous book club selections. The hostess concurred with that latter assessment and has promised that in the future, any non-fiction book club selections will be more accessible.

—

Additional Related Resources

NOAA: Touring The Ocean Floor

–

The Brilliant Abyss (what is is?) by Helen Scales (A Cambridge University Video) (49 minutes)

–

Author Talk: Helen Scales, The Brilliant Abyss (Talk hosted by Nantucket Atheneum)  

<iframe width=”853″ height=”480″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/DPbfXGgm9XM&#8221; title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe>

—

Other Books Recommended By Book Club Readers:

Beautiful County: A Memoir by Qian Julie Wang – the story of how a young Chinese immigrant grew up doing menial work with her parents to pay the bills, became a star student at school and eventually a civil rights lawyer.

–

On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor – the author offers an exploration of foot trails; how and why they have been created overtime by animals and people.

Have a great day,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

First off, is the info for our November book club gathering, which is quickly approaching!

I don’t know how time seems runs so fast, sometimes, but it does!

We’ll be meeting, next Friday, November 12, in the Conference Room at the library from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

A Zoom link is available for anyone that would like to attend virtually – just let me know a day or more in advance of the meeting so I can set it up.

Our November read is:

The Brilliant Abyss by Helen Scales (288 pages)

Here’s a description of the book:

“The oceans have always shaped human lives,” writes marine biologist Helen Scales in her vibrant new book The Brilliant Abyss, but the surface and the very edges have so far mattered the most. “However, one way or another, the future ocean is the deep ocean.”

A golden era of deep-sea discovery is underway. Revolutionary studies in the deep are rewriting the very notion of life on Earth and the rules of what is possible. In the process, the abyss is being revealed as perhaps the most amazing part of our planet, with a topography even more varied and extreme than its Earthbound counterpart. Teeming with unsuspected life, an extraordinary interconnected ecosystem deep below the waves has a huge effect on our daily lives, influencing climate and weather systems, with the potential for much more-good or bad depending on how it is exploited. Currently the fantastic creatures that live in the deep-many of them incandescent in a world without light-and its formations capture and trap vast quantities of carbon that would otherwise poison our atmosphere; and novel bacteria as yet undiscovered hold the promise of potent new medicines. Yet the deep also holds huge mineral riches lusted after by many nations and corporations; mining them could ultimately devastate the planet, compounded by the deepening impacts of ubiquitous pollutants and rampant overfishing.

Eloquently and passionately, Helen Scales brings to life the majesty and mystery of an alien realm that nonetheless sustains us, while urgently making clear the price we could pay if it is further disrupted. The Brilliant Abyss is at once a revelation and a clarion call to preserve this vast unseen world.

—

September 10, 2021 Book Club Read: Learning to Speak Southern by Lindsey Rogers Cook

The main character in the book is Lexi Henry, the Margaret & Dennis Henry. Lex was born and raised in Memphis which is the contemporary setting for the novel.

Other notable characters in the book include Lexi’s godmother Cami, her childhood best friend Grant.

Lexi, who is a strong-willed woman with an independent streak, has been leading a vagabond lifestyle and teaching English in variety of countries. She has been running away from her painful childhood and making light of life and responsibilities. She lives this lifestyle until a life-upending tragedy occurs, when she loses the baby she was expecting with her unreliable boyfriend Oscar. She then is at a loss; and accepts an invitation to return to her home town, Memphis, and stay with her godmother Cami, who was her mother’s best friend.

Lexi’s relationship with her late mother Margret was a difficult one. Margaret was also a strong-willed woman, and in dealing with Lexi she was demanding, aloof and strict; and she tried very hard to get her daughter to do what she thought was best without an explanation of why.

In essence, the book tells the tale of a daughter struggling with her past, and discovering who she is, by discovering who her late mother Margaret really was. In flashback chapters and through Margaret’s journal entries, which Lexi’s godmother Cami gives her a few a time; Lexi and the readers learn that as a young woman, a strong-willed Margaret loved writing, and wanted to be a writer. Margret had a boyfriend, Dennis, that she had known she childhood and her mother expected her to marry Dennis after her high school graduation.  And then, just before she graduated from high school an author named John spoke to the students at her school. John, subsequently, invited Margaret to dinner and Margaret not only began a relationship with John, but she also left Memphis with him and traveled to his home in Europe, where she lived with him for a couple of months before discovering that he was more selfish and self-centered than she had realized, and not at all the golden writer and caring person that she thought he was.

Margaret then leaves John and goes to Paris, a city she has always wanted to visit. While Margaret is in Paris she realizes she is in quite a pickle. She has little money, no way to get back to Memphis and she is pregnant.

In the end, Margaret calls her high school boyfriend and would-be fiancé Dennis in Memphis, and he pays for her to travel home.

When Lexi first realizes Margaret had a baby with John, she thinks she is not her father, Dennis’s daughter. But as it transpires, the baby Margaret gave birth to in secret, before she married Dennis, was a son that was placed with a married couple that lived near-by. And so by the end of the book, Lexi and the readers discover that her childhood best friend, Grant, whom she spent some time hanging out with during the book, is actually Margret’s son, and thus Lexi’s half-brother. And that Lexi is indeed her father, Dennis’s daughter as she had always believed.

Learning To Speak Southern was a book of revelations, interspersed with clever literary points that Lexi and, assumedly the author, both like. It was also something of a coming of age tale, as by the end of the novel one got the impression that Lexi felt at home in Memphis with her family now consisting of her father Dennis and her half-brother Grant.

The majority of the book club group liked the novel Learning To Speak Southern. Two members did not. The book was indeed a quick read and offered an interesting story. However, for the two book club member who didn’t like the book; the reason was the same, the main character Lexi was not easy to relate too; as she seemed too self-centered. Overall though, the book club members would recommend this book.

—

October 8, 2021 Book Club Read: The Unkindness of Ravens:  A Greer Hogan Mystery by M. E. Hilliard

Our October Read, The Unkindness of Ravens, is the first book published by librarian and writer M. E. Hilliard

The book follows a forty-year-old widowed librarian named Greer Hogan. It transpires, that Greer had previously lived in New York City, had a prestigious job making a six figure salary and lived with her husband, a successful businessman in an upscale apartment. And her whole world changed, when one night, she arrived home to find her husband’s body on the floor. Once her husband’s murder case was closed, she decided she needed a major change. So she decided to go and work in a setting she had always felt safe in – a public library. She quit her job, went to library school, graduated and was hired as a librarian at the gothic Raven Hill Manor Library, located in a small fictionalized town near Albany, New York.

It is obvious to anyone reading The Unkindness of Ravens that the writer has worked in a public library; because her descriptions of the work are spot on!

Consider the follow three quotes all uttered by our main character, librarian Greer Hogan:

“I spent much of my time in charge of the reading room, sitting at the reference desk, answering questions and pimping books to readers eager for something novel. Even on those days when the computers and copier were at their most uncooperative, requiring knowledge that two years of graduate school had failed to impart.”

“My desk was piled with books, copies of Publishers Weekly, catalogs of upcoming releases and files.”

“I found Mary Alice behind the Circulation desk, hip deep in returns and checking in books with practiced efficiency, Come murder, mayhem, hell or high water, the book drop must be emptied.”

So the story unfolds, mainly, in the gothic library and relays the tale both of Greer Hogan and why her friend Joanna Goodhue, who is murdered early in the book, was murdered; which relates to a mysterious death of a child many years earlier. And I’m not going to spoil the mystery by saying any more about it than that!

The author is obviously well read, and the many pop culture references throughout the book were great fun; they include reference to Columbo, Midsomer Murders, Kinsey Millhone, Joni Mitchell and even Clue’s Professor Plum in the library with a led pipe.

The book club members all enjoyed The Unkindness of Ravens, although it was noted by one member that the writing could have been a bit better; however, as  the book is the first novel published by the author, her writing may well improve as she continues to write. Having said that, the book club attendees enjoyed The Unkindness of Ravens as a light mystery, with a gothic library setting, a likeable heroine and wonderful, relatable pop-culture references interspaced at appropriate times throughout the book.

On a final, FYI note, the second book in the series, A Shadow In The Glass, is scheduled to be published in April 2022.

—

Book Club Members Recommended Authors & Books

Recommended Series:

Victoria Thompson’s books; historical mysteries including The Gaslight (Murder on Astor Place, book 1) &

Counterfeit Lady (City of Lies, book 1) series

Anne Perry’s mysteries including Charlotte and Thomas Pitt (The Carter Street Hangman, book 1) & William Monk (The Face of a Stranger, book 1) series

C.S. Harris Sebastian St. Cyr Mysteries; book 1 is What Angels Fear.

Specific Titles:

Bewliderment by Richard Powers

Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration by Sara Dykman

Code Name Hélène: A Novel by Ariel Lawhon

Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Rival and Courage by Anne Lamott

—

Have a great day and I hope to see everyone next Friday!

Linda