December 2013 Books

D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen Ambrose
Published: 1994
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I bought this at the humongous Strand Book Store in New York City in June of this year.  It is a chronologically detailed account of D-Day: the Allied invasion of Hitler's Fortress Europe on June 6, 1944.

What I learned:

• Eisenhower's fateful decision to go ahead despite the horrible weather conditions.
• The paratrooper's missions behind enemy lines were critical.  Many were dropped miles from their intended areas.
• Role of mini-subs and minesweepers
• Engineers who blew up beachhead obstacles were no less courageous than infantry soldiers. 
• Unbelievably detailed planning - down to the minute.
• The training of troops for amphibious landing.
• The horrible seasickness onboard the landing crafts - the soldiers were eager to get off
• Carnage on Omaha Beach.
• Brave decisions/actions of junior officers and NCO's made the difference.  If they stopped, the invasion would have failed. 

Germans

• Almost all senior leaders like Rommel were away.
• Hitler was the only one who could release the Panzer tanks to the front and he was not awakened when the invasion began.
• Operation Double-Cross was wildly successful - the Germans were convinced the real invasion would occur at the heavily fortified Calais.
• Troops were very slow to react.  Many frontline soldiers were conscripted Russians and Poles, who surrendered easily.
• The Atlantic Wall was the main defense - once it was breached by the Allied forces, it was only a matter of time before Germany fell. 
• Hitler did not use his new V-1 bombs on the beaches, nor were the Allied ships attacked by U-boats.

Allied forces

• Control over air and sea was critical for success. 
• Came to France as liberators, fighting for freedom.
• Troops were made up of citizen soldiers who fought as courageously and grit as the professional German army. 

I recently watched and would highly recommend the Oscar winning 1962 movie about D-day called The Longest Day.   

Soldier From the War Returning: The Greatest Generation's Troubled Homecoming from World War II by Thomas Childers
Published: 2009
Rating: 4
Goodreads

As opposed to Tom Brokaw's rosy accounts of returning GI's in The Greatest Generation, Childer's excellent book paints a more realistic picture.

As the only son of a WWII veteran, Childer's knows firsthand of what he says in the introduction: "wars are not clean or neat, and neither is their aftermath."

After years of research, he traveled and spoke on this topic which elicited heartfelt responses and confessions, reinforcing Childer's belief that WWII had a far greater negative impact on the veterans and their families than history has led us to believe.  His aim was to tell a truer story - I believe he succeeded.

Sample stats:

• In 1947, unemployment of veterans was triple that of civilians.
• Post war housing was hard to find.  In early 1946, an estimated 1.5 million veterans were living  with family or friends.  
• Civilians grew weary of veteran's complaints and needs. 
• Divorce boon in the two years right after the war.  
• PTSD was not a recognized diagnosis at the time but veterans exhibited all the classic symptoms: depressions, recurring nightmares, survivor's guilt, unexplained rage, extreme anxiety.

The book underscores and emphasizes the high price of war.

There are times when war may be necessary.  With all its horrors and grotesque crimes, the Second World War is a case in point.  But if, as a last resort, we send soldier's into harm's way, we should be under no illusion about war's colossal human costs, remembering that even in the most brilliant triumphs there is heartbreak and that the suffering does not stop when the shooting does.   

One only has to read a few brutally honest memoirs of WWII veterans who fought in North Africa, Guadalcanal, Italy, Peleliu, France, or Iwo Jima to know the "Greatest Generation" could not come home unscathed.

My Son and the Afterlife: Conversations From the Other Side by Elisa Medhus, MD
Published: 2013
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I can't help feeling like I was led to this book - by Josh.

On December 18th,  I was at the Dulles airport with a few minutes to spare before my plane took off.  Although I had plenty of reading material, I stopped at a book kiosk and lo and behold, this book was on a shelf that I just happened to peruse.  After reading the back jacket, I not only got the book but read it within a couple of days.

Dr. Elisa Medhus never believed in life after death.  As an accomplished physician, she placed her faith in science.  All of that changed after her son Erik took his own life and then reached out from the other side. 

Intimate, heartbreaking, and illuminating, go on an incredible journey from grief and skepticism to healing and belief.  Based on Medhus' wildly popular blog, ChannelingErik, My Son and the Afterlife provides answers to the most universal questions of being human. 

At once tragic and uplifting, Erik speaks from the other side with candor, wisdom, and depth as he describes his own experiences and provides new answers about the nature of souls, death, and the afterlife - answers that have the potential to change our lives forever.

Erik died on October 6, 2009 - almost 7 months after Josh.  Have they met?  I wonder.  Soon after, she began communicating with him via mediums and started her blog.

The book is essentially a transcript of her questions and his answers (via medium).  It is information overload: strange, surreal, and difficult to process.   The following bullet points are what I wrote in my book journal:

• Afterlife is a reality
• Our two-dimensional (space and time) are a very small part of the overall reality
• Souls depart the physical body upon death but retain their essence, memories, everything that makes them unique.
• Souls want to remain connected to their loved ones on earth and are able to give signs, play pranks, show themselves and communicate
• Reincarnation exists
• Unconditional love for ourselves and others is the ultimate goal of being human
• This energy, life-force, soul, spirit exists in all living things: humans, plants, animals

Along with Dr. Eban Alexander's book, Proof of Heaven, there is much to ponder. 

July 2013 Books

My surprising obsession with World War II continues; I wrote a post about why on Josh's blog.

No Ordinary Time - Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front In World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Published: 1994
Rating: 5
1995 Pulitzer Prize for History
Goodreads

This is the first of several biographies I plan to read on Washington's first power couple. For a novice such as myself, Goodwin's book is an excellent start.  Beginning with the day that ended Europe's "Phony War", when Roosevelt learned of Hitler's invasion of Holland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands on May 9, 1940, Goodwin unveils the personal and political life of this unusual couple as they navigate the war of the century.

What I learned: about FDR:

• Privledged life
• Very close to his mother, Sara
• Master politician - manipulator
• Unfaithful husband
• Paralyzed by polio at 39 years old
• Kept his own counsel - "ice in his veins"
• Could see the whole picture
• Would not move without public opinion
• Folksy fireside chats
• Elected to an unprecedented four terms

About Eleanor Roosevelt:

• Shy, awkward, unattractive daughter of beautiful, aloof mother
• Alcoholic father
• Niece of Theodore Roosevelt
• Had 6 children (one died in infancy) but left rearing to her mother-in-law
• Became FDR's eyes and ears after he was disabled by polio
• After finding out about FDR's affair with Lucy Mercer, she no longer lived as his wife but continued as political partner.
• Struggled with depression
• Work-a-holic
• Championed the underdog: children, women, Negros, laborers
• A die-hard liberal

FDR's smart decisions:

• Picked military leaders and let them run the war
• 1940 - 1942 - Lend Lease policy which allowed US to give aid to Britain and Russia without entering the war.
• Doolittle raid on Tokyo
• Decision to invade North Africa first
• Recapture of the Philippines
• Production of B-29 Superfortress bomber
• Spent enormous amount of federal money on research/development of atomic bomb
• United Nations

FDR misses:

• Did not push mobilization/production in 1940-1941
• Did not do enough to protect small business
• Sanctioned relocation of US citizens of Japanese descent.  
• Holocaust -he felt the best way to relieve the suffering of the Jews in concentration camps was to end the war as quickly as possible.  He could've done much more. 

Unprecedented social change in America:

• Great Migration: south to north, east to west and rural to city
• Greatest redistribution of wealth - created the middle class
• Post war economic boom
• GI bill 
• Mixed economy: government and consumer spending
• New entrants into the workforce: women and Negroes

The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw
Published: 1998
Rating: 3
Goodreads

I have mixed feelings about this book. No doubt - the young men and women who grew up in the Great Depression, then fought the two-front war at home and overseas, and upon returning, contributed to the greatest economic boom of this country - deserve to be called "The Greatest Generation" and the more I learn about their sacrifice, the more indebted I feel.

However, Brokaw's book gives a one-sided view of those who came home, focusing on the ones who could put the war behind them and lead well-adjusted, productive lives.

I look forward to reading Thomas Childer's book, Soldier From the War Returning: The Greatest Generation's Troubled Homecoming From WWII, which will give a more realistic portrait of the emotional, psychological and physical challenges that faced veterans upon their return.

The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany by Stephen E. Ambrose
Published: 2001
Rating: 3.5
Goodreads

A quick read that focused on a B-24 Liberator pilot and his crew, stationed in Italy and tasked with bombing strategic targets such Germany's oil fields.  That pilot was George McGovern, later US Senator and 1972 presidential candidate.

What I learned:

• The B-24's took a tremendous amount of physical and emotional strength to fly.
• Pilots needed to complete 35 missions before they could go home.
• Many young pilots died during training and so were pre-war casualties.
• McGovern was part of the 15th Air Force which was not as famous as the 8th Air Force stationed in England.
• Good descriptions of formation flying, flak, faulty bomb releases.
• Cabins were not pressurized so the crew needed oxygen and endured sub-zero temperatures during missions.
• Fighter support was crucial to bomber's success.
• Mussolini's Italy was decimated.

Audiobook: Flag of our Fathers by James Bradley
Published: 2000
Rating: 4
Goodreads

An engrossing book which focuses on 5 Marines and 1 Navy corpsman who were immortalized in the iconic picture of World War II - the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima.

John Bradley, the author's father was the corpsman who, after returning from the war, became a husband, father, successful small business owner and community leader.  He did not, however, speak of his war experiences or of this photo with his family.  

After his father's death in 1994, they found a few boxes containing war memorabilia in his closet which prompted James' quest to learn more about the 6 men in the photo - before, during and after the war - which, of course, included his father.

Add "To Watch and Read" list:

• Movie: Flag of Our Fathers directed by Clint Eastwood
• Movie: Letters from Iwo Jima directed by Clint Eastwood
• Flyboys: A True Story of Courage by James Bradley
• The Imperial Cruise: The Secret History of Empire and War by James Bradley

With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge
Published: 1981
Rating: 5
Goodreads

Excellent personal memoir about an enlisted Marine's experience in WWII, specifically the Battle of Peleliu and Okinawa.  It is an honest, gritty, unembellished portrayal of war, shouldered by the men on the front lines.  Some of the scenes are unbelievably horrific.

He is a main character in Tom Hanks/Steven Spielburg's HBO production, The Pacific.

I plan to read his second book, China Marine which is a memoir about Marine life as part of the occupying forces in China.



We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese by Elizabeth Norman
Published: 1999
Rating: 5
Goodreads

The author stumbled upon references to the "Angels of Bataan and Corregidor" while researching her first book, Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served In Vietnam.  

These "angels" are the army and navy nurses who found their idyllic, island life on the Philippines turned upside-down on December, 1941 when Japanese bombs landed on Manila.  The US military under General Douglas MacArthur, woefully unprepared for enemy invasion,  retreated to the Bataan Peninsula for their first stand.  The nurses worked in two hospitals, set up in the jungle, not far from the front lines.  Before Bataan fell, the nurses were able to retreat to the Malinta Tunnel deep in Corregidor Island.

Unable to withstand the powerful Japanese forces, the army on Corregidor Island surrendered on May 6, 1942.  The POW nurses lived at the Saint Thomas Internment Camp (STIC) in Manila until liberated by MacArthur in February 1945, almost three years later.

What I learned:

• Step-by-step fall of the Philippines to the Japanese.
• "Europe First" policy left MacArthur to fend for himself, however with our decimated Navy at Pearl Harbor, it is unlikely the Philippines could have been saved. 
• MacArthur's retreat to Corregidor Island earned him the bitter nickname: Dugout Doug
• Bataan Death March
• Nurse's grisly and harrowing work in jungle hospitals, close to the front lines of battle. 
• Starvation, disease and death faced the nurses in STIC. 
• The nurse's own "esprit de corps" saved them.
• After liberation, the nurses, having lost an average of 30+ pounds were celebrities, used by the government to boost public support for the war. 
•  Post homecoming - many felt disjointed, out-of-place, melancholic and depressed.

So glad I found this book on Amazon, in fact, it would make an inspiring movie.

Living Reed: A Novel of Korea by Pearl S. Buck
Published: 1963
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I am of Korean descent, but know very little of Korean history.  Partly because Asian history is not a focus in US schools but mostly because the subject of history, even that of my own race, was not of much interest.  That is, before reading Ken Follett's Winter of the World, a historical fiction novel about World War II.  Now, if one looked at my TBR pile, they would think I loved history.

So when I saw that Buck had written a novel about Korea, I ordered it from Amazon and read it within a couple of weeks.  Through the lens of one aristocratic family, Buck tells of Korea's tumultuous history from late 1800 - Korean War.

What I learned:

• Political tension between Japan, China and Russia over Korea
• Social tension between old and new religion/philosophy
• 40+ years of brutal Japanese occupation
• Courtship, marriage, role of women
• Christianity in Korea
• Teddy Roosevelt's foreign policy favored Japan over Korea
• Communism vs democracy - a divided Korea

China Marine: An Infantryman's Life After World War II by E. B Sledge
Published: 2002
Rating: 4
Goodreads

Sledge continues his memoir of WWII, from learning about the Japanese surrender in Okinawa to being part of the occupying forces in Northern China, a "tinderbox of conflicting armed forces" to the difficult adjustment back to civilian life, typified by this scene which made it into HBO's The Pacific.

Sledge was signing up for school at Auburn University and trying to see if some of his Marine Corp training would qualify for college credit.  The girl behind the desk was getting flustered when she couldn't find course equivalency for weapons and tactics.

"Finally, in desperation, she slammed her pencil on the table and said in a loud, exasperated voice, "Didn't the Marine Corps teach you anything?!"  A gasp ran through the crowd, and you could have heard a pin drop.  I didn't lose my temper, but I realized that, like most civilians, war to this lady meant John Wayne or the sweet musical South Pacific.  

Slowly placing my hands on the table, aware that all eyes were on us, I said in a loud, calm, voice: "Lady, there was a killing war.  The Marine Corps taught me how to kill Japs and try to survive.  Now, if that don't fit into any academic course, I'm sorry.  But some of us had to do the killing - and most of my buddies got killed or wounded."  

In the preface, he writes about living with the "embedded trauma...the emotional equivalent of a sliver of steel shrapnel lodged near my heart."  I can relate to this.

A Marine's experience of the war, told in his own words, is so gripping.  I can feel him trying to express the inexpressible through the limited means of language.

Other memoirs to read:

• Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War by William Manchester
• Red Blood, Black Sand: Fighting Alongside John Basilone from Boot Camp to Iwo Jima by Chuck Tatum

Audiobook - The Few: The American "Knights of the Air" Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain by Alex Kershaw
Published: 2006
Rating: 4
Goodreads

In 1940, while Britain was fighting for her life again Nazi Germany's quest to gain air superiority, it was illegal for any US citizen to fight for a foreign nation, even an ally.

Despite this policy, many American pilots joined the Royal Air Force, fought bravely alongside their aces and did their part to help save the RAF from destruction.  And with the loss of air domination, Hitler called off the invasion of England.

The reader of the audio book was very good - employing German, American, British and Australian accents when needed.  While driving in my car, I could envision the dogfights over the English countryside, her cities or the English Channel.   I could feel the pilot's intense relief in surviving another battle, along with the ensuing physical and emotional post-battle fatigue as well as the grief upon learning of a fellow pilot's death.

Other WWII books by Kershaw:

• Escape From the Deep - about submarine U.S.S Tang
• The Longest Winter - about the Battle of the Bulge
• The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice

The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins
Published: 1975
Rating: 2
Goodreads

This fictionalized account of Germany's attempt to kidnap Winston Churchill was uninteresting.  I now see that historical fiction can run the gamut on accuracy and authenticity.  I have to be more selective on what stories to read.

June 2013 Books

Ike: An American Hero by Michael Korda
Published: 2007
Rating: 4
Goodreads

Over the past 9 months I have been reading about WWII and the brave citizen soldiers who fought against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperialist Japan.  This month, I wanted to learn more about the person who led the Allied forces to victory in Europe.  I also wanted to learn more about the post WWII era, (i.e. the Cold War).  Both goals were accomplished via two well-written biographies on the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe and later, President of the United States from 1953 - 1961: Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Bullet points of interest that I jotted down in the front of the book:

•  he had to deal with prima donna generals like Montgomery (huge jerk) and George Patton.
•  Love triangle?  Ike, Kay Summersby and Mamie (wife)
•  Korda makes constant comparisons to the Civil War such as Bastogne-Gettysburg and Ike-Grant.
•  During the war, he was a huge chain smoker - up to 4 packs a day!
• He is not buried in Arlington Cemetery, but rather in a small chapel on the grounds of the Eisenhower Presidential Library in his hometown of Abilene, Kansas.

Jobs after the war:

• Leader of US Occupying Forces in Germany
• Army Chief of Staff (replaced Marshall)
• President of Columbia University
• 1st Commander of NATO forces
• President of the United States for 2 terms

Memoirs to add to the wish list?

By Eisenhower

• Crusade in Europe 
• At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends
• White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956-1961

By Churchill

• 6 Volume History of World War II

Eisenhower: Soldier and President by Stephen E. Ambrose
Published: 1983
Rating: 4
Goodreads

This is the second Ambrose book I've read - the first was Band of Brothers.  I really like his writing: clear, concise and interesting.  He gives an unbiased accounting of Eisenhower's good and bad decisions as General and President.

What I learned:

• Nixon was his VP for 8 years.  They had a formal, frosty relationship.  
• Eisenhower ended the Korean War with an armistice.  He could not see a way to win without WWIII and a battle with the Russians.
• He did not get sucked into other escalating areas such as Vietnam and Cuba.
• President over 8 years of peace and prosperity.
• He did not assert leadership during the Civil Rights Movement (I found this surprising).
• U-2 incident (spy plane over Russia) which ended in international embarrassment. 

Other Ambrose books to read:

• D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II
• Citizen Soldiers
• The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys: The Men of World War II
• Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals
• The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany

The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett
Published: 1980
Rating: 3
Goodreads

A quick read about a ruthless German spy in Egypt feeding information to Rommel, a British spy-catcher and a beautiful Jewess.

This fictitious account reminds me of his other recently read works: Hornet Flight and Eye of Needle. 

The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
Published: 1972
Rating: 3
Goodreads

This book was referenced in Korda's biography on Ike, so I downloaded a sample, got hooked, bought the i-book and finished in a couple of days.

It is based on the true life account of the post-war activities of a ruthless SS officer, Otto Skorzeny, who set up "Odessa, the escape network for Nazi war criminals".

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Published: 1931
Rating: 5
Awards:  1932 Pulitzer Prize for Novel
Goodreads

I needed a break from WWII and felt hungry for good literary fiction.  I plucked this from my shelves and was hooked from the start.

The first book in her trilogy about the honest, hard-working farmer, Wang Lung and his family in pre-WWII China.  It was a best-seller in 1931 - 1932 and according to Wikipedia, the books apparently helped Americans consider the Chinese as allies in the upcoming conflict with Japan.

The second book of the trilogy, Sons was published in 1932 and the last book,  A House Divided in 1935.

Sons By Pearl S. Buck (# 2 in Good Earth trilogy)
Published: 1932
Rating: 3
Goodreads

As intimated by the title, this book focuses on the three sons of Wang Lung.  In contrast to the round characters in The Good Earth, the sons are flat and one-dimensional; therefore, not as interesting, hence the lower rating.

The social and historical context of pre-World War II China is what makes this trilogy fascinating.  The third son becomes a decorated soldier and with his inheritance, amasses an army and becomes a war lord in the north.  It is a very unstable time period as war lords constantly vie for more land, armies and power while revolution takes root and spreads in the south.

I know nothing of modern Chinese history so will probably read the third book in the trilogy to find out what happens to this family and their country.   I am already starting a list of books to read in the future:

• Thunder Out of China by Theodore White
• The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and Birth of Modern China by Hannah Pakula
• China Marine: An Infantryman's Life After World War II by E.B. Sledge

Audiobook: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Published: 2010
Rating: 5
Goodreads
Author web site

WOW - what an awesome, inspiring story of Louis Zamperini, Olympic athlete (1936) turned US Army Air Force bombardier in WWII.

I did not know anything of this man's life before listening to the audiobook which made it that much more enjoyable.  His story needed to be told and I am glad Hillenbrand stumbled upon it while conducting research for her first book, Seabiscuit. 

What he endured during the war is truly mind-boggling, defies comprehension and elicited many verbal outbursts (OMG, no way, you've got to be kidding me, what? really?), complete with head shaking and slapping of the steering wheel while driving alone in my car.  Anyone viewing must've thought I was a bit loco.

I love Hillenbrand's writing - so clear, concise, strong and vivid.  One would never know she suffers terribly from chronic fatigue syndrome and is therefore completely housebound, living vicariously through her research and writing - read interview.

I've seen the movie Seabiscuit and loved it, but now want to read her book.  I am a big fan and can only hope that she finds another interesting subject worthy of her writing.

Helmet For My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific by Robert Leckie
Published: 1957
Rating: 5
Goodreads

Another WOW book about a budding, 21-year old journalist Robert Leckie, who enlisted in the US Marine Corp in January 1942 and fought at Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester and Peleliu where he was wounded by a blast concussion and evacuated to a field hospital.   He is one of the main characters in the Hanks/Spielburg HBO mini series, The Pacific.

He decided to write this memoir in 1951 after seeing the Broadway musical, South Pacific, in order to "tell the story of how it really was.  I have to let people know the war wasn't a musical." (wikipedia article).  He accomplished his goal.

A beautifully written literary memoir about how one goes from being a young patriotic man-boy to a well-trained killer/soldier, ready to fight a ferocious and brutal Japanese enemy - for his country, yes, but even more so, for his fellow Marines - esprit de corps.

Some of my favorite passages:

A soldier's pack is like a woman's purse: it is filled with his personality. 

And there is terror, coming from the interaction of trial and tedium: the first, shaking a man as the wind in the treetops; the second, eroding him as the flood at the roots.  Each fresh trial leaves a man more shaken than the last, and each period of tedium - with its time for speculative dread - leaves his foundations worn lower, his roots less firm for the next trial.

Upon seeing a detached hand:

I turned to go, and as I did, nearly stepped on someone's hand.  "Excuse me," I began to say, but then I saw that it was an unattached hand, or rather a detached one.  It lay there alone - open, palm upwards, clean, capable, solitary.  I could not tear my eyes from it.  The hand is the artisan of the soul.  It is the second member of the human trinity of head and hand and heart.  A man has no faculty more human than his hand, none more beautiful nor expressive nor productive.  To see this hand lying alone, as though contemptuously cast aside, no longer a part of a man, no longer his help, was to see way in all it wantonness; it was to see the especially brutal savagery of our own technique of rending, and it was to see men at their eternal worst, turning upon one another, tearing one another, clawing at their own innards with the maniacal fury of the pride-possessed. 

His descriptions of living and waging war in the jungle are unforgettable.

After publishing his memoir, he went on to be a prolific writer of military history.   The following are ones that I would like to read:

• Strong Men Armed: The U.S. Marines Against Japan (1962)
• Conflict: The History of the Korean War (1963)
• Challenge for the Pacific: 6 Month Battle of Guadalcanal (1968)
• Delivered From Evil: The Saga of WWII (1987)
• The March to Glory: Battle of Chosin Reservoir (1990)
• Okinawa: The Last Battle of WWII (1995)
• Wars of America (1998)

October 2012 Books

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett (The Century Trilogy #1)
Published: 2010
Rating: 5
Goodreads

LOVED IT!  This well researched historical novel focuses on the events leading up to WWI or the Great War, the war itself, the Bolshevik revolution and the woman's suffrage movement. These monumental and world-changing events are told through the interrelated lives of five families from the US, Wales, Russia, Germany and England.

I had my ipad nearby to check facts and read more about certain events.  Having never been interested in history, I find myself  wanting to learn more. 

Winter of the World by Ken Follett (The Century Trilogy #2)
Published: 2012
Rating: 5
Goodreads

LOVED IT as much as the first.  This book covers the brief interlude between the two World Wars and WWII.  Once again, I could not put it down.  After finishing, I watched the HBO series Band of Brothers (loved it!) and read the book.

Historical fiction is my new favorite genre.  I am currently reading Jeff Shaara's The Rising Tide which covers the North African conflict in WWII.  I know absolutely nothing about this and again, finding it fascinating.  My husband says I need to watch the movie Patton with George C Scott which is set in this time period.

Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose
Published: 1992
Rating: 5
Goodreads

This book chronicles the amazing and heroic journey of the men from Easy Company, the 506th regiment of the 101st Airborne from enlistment to the grueling training which few survived; to the drop on D-Day into enemy territory, to the gallant fighting in key battles such as the Battle of the Bulge to the taking of Hitler's Eagle' Nest towards the end of the war.

I loved the HBO series and plan to watch HBO's The Pacific to learn about the fight against the Japanese. 

Moments of Being: A Collection of Autobiographical Writing by Virginia Woolf  edited by Jeanne Schulkind
Published: 1976
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I have started a collection of Virginia Woolf's writings and am thinking of doing a study of her life and works using Hermione Lee's critically acclaimed biography as the guide to reading her diary, essays, short stories and novels in chronological order.  I think it would be a fascinating study of a most unique and brilliant literary mind. 

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Published: 1937
Rating: 5
Goodreads

I read this in anticipation of the movie from Peter Jackson that is coming out in December.  A quick read which felt like a reunion with old friends from the Lord of the Rings trilogy (meaning movies as I have yet to read the books): Bilbo and The Ring, Gollum, Gandalf and Elrond of Rivendell.