October 2014 Books

Edge of Eternity (Century Trilogy # 3) by Ken Follett
Published: 2014
Rating: 4
Author web site
Goodreads

Two years ago, I read the first two books in Follett's Century Trilogy (see post) which began a love for historical fiction and initiated a reading spree of World War II that continues to this day; also spawning interest in the subsequent Korean and Vietnam Wars.

I pre-ordered the book and began reading upon receipt.  Follett begins the narrative in 1961 and continues to follow the same families (American, British, German and Russian) introduced in the first two books.

In this lengthy book (1,098 pages), I was disappointed that the Korean War was completely skipped, but that is just par for the course - another example of how it is truly the "Forgotten War."  That said, Follett did not focus on the Vietnam War either, rather turning his attention to the Civil Rights movement in American and the Cold War with Russia, specifically the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Very gripping reading - I did not realize how close we were to a nuclear war which could've wiped us out.

The book ends with the events that led to the demise of communism in Eastern Europe, culminating in the dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall.

I found this particular quote of a semi-retired CIA officer as he watched the fall of the Berlin Wall on television - very telling of our foreign policy decisions:

Everything we did was completely ineffective. Despite all our efforts Vietnam, Cuba, and Nicaragua became Communist countries. Look at other places where we tried to prevent Communism: Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Cambodia, Laos….None of them does us much credit. And now Eastern Europe is abandoning Communism with no help from us.

To say the twentieth century was tumultuous is an understatement,  Follett has done a great job bringing it to life and making this reader, formally uninterested in history, a convert.

Poetry as Survival by Gregory Orr
Published: 2002
Rating: 5+
Goodreads

I loved it - evidenced by the numerous dog-eared pages and marks (underline, circles, exclamation marks, asterisks and comments) within the margins.

How he found poetry and what it has meant in his life reminds me of Anne Sexton - both say that poetry had literally saved them.

When he was twelve, Orr was responsible for a hunting accident that killed his younger brother. While his parents did not blame him, they were unable to talk about it due to their profound grief. He was left unconsolable.  Then two years later, his mother died after a common medical procedure. Trauma upon trauma inflicted on this young adolescent's soul.

Lucky for him, a high school English teacher exposed him to poetry and he has not looked back.

I wrote a poem one day, and it changed my life. I had a sudden sense that the language in poetry was "magical," unlike language in fiction: that it could create or transform reality rather than simply describe it. That first poem I wrote was a simple, escapist fantasy, but it liberated the enormous energy of my despair and oppression as nothing before had ever done. I felt simultaneously revealed to myself and freed of my self by the images and actions of the poem.

and

When someone, in the throes of a powerful and disturbing experience, turns instinctively to the writing or reading of a poem, it is because they sense the personal lyric can be a powerful aid in helping them survive and make sense of their experience.

Orr is a professor of English at the University of Virginia.  Reading this book gave me a sense of being in a seminar class on how poetry, specifically the personal lyric, has saved him.  It reads like a memoir, peppered with the poems and lines of poetry that he knows and loves. I have transposed these poems into my own personal poetry journal:

• Back by Jane Kenyon
• Hallowe'en by Lisa Spar
• Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
• It struck me - every Day and I felt a Funeral, in my Brain by Emily Dickinson

There is much more to say about this life changing (strong words but true!) book which I hope to do on Josh's blog.  

Would highly recommend!!!

Other books by Orr:

• The Blessing: A Memoir (2002)
• The Caged Owl: New and Selected Poems (2002)
• Concerning the Book That is the Body of the Beloved (2005)
• How Beautiful the Beloved (2009)
• River Inside the River: Poems (2013)

The Poet's Corner: The One-and-Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family compiled by John Lithgow

Published: 2007

Rating: 4

Goodrreads

This famous actor's love of poetry began at a young age - at the feet of his grandmother who could recite numerous poems from memory.

So this book is like a love offering - a poetry anthology of his all-time favorite poets who "lived on different continents, in different eras, their works are old and new, romantic and savage, comic and gloomy, orderly and chaotic, long and short."

Lithgow includes a short commentary on each of the fifty poets and what the chosen poem(s) means to him.  

He also includes quotes from the poets themselves - my favorites are below.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel….the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself. To be nobody-but-yourself - in a world that is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.    E.E. Cummings 

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that it is poetry.  Emily Dickinson 

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.    Robert Frost 

Look, then, into thine heart, and write!        Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary.      Edgar Allen Poe

Emily Dickinson is one poet whom I find both difficult to understand and amazing when I do.  I found and bought The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson edited by Thomas H. Johnson at my local library book sale a couple of years ago for the bargain price of $1.50. I have not delved into the book as yet but have rather run into Dickinson's poetry via other means - even finding an ambitious blogger who aims to read and write about all 1,789 poems. 

So when deciding which of the many poems in Lithgow's book I could transcribe here, how could I go wrong with Dickinson? 

There is no Frigate like a Book (#1263)

by Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry - 

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll - 

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human soul.

Audiobook: The Churchills: In Love and War by Mary S. Lovell
Published: 2011
Rating: 5
Goodreads

I borrowed this from the library - a fascinating, in-depth, frank and somewhat gossipy look at the extended family of one of the greatest statesman ever: Winston Spencer Churchill.

Lovell's premise is that family is very important to a person and so to gain better understanding of WSC, one must look at his family.  What kind of family was he born into? How did he interact with his parents, grandparents, friends, siblings, girlfriends, political allies and enemies, wife, children?

WSC was a product of his time and class: post-Victorian, British aristocracy.  He was the grandson of the 7th Duke of Marlborough and cousin to the 9th Duke of Marlborough. His mother was an American beauty, Jennie Jerome.  His cousin married an American heiress, Consuelo Vanderbilt whose first love was Winthrop Rutherford who eventually married Lucy Mercer, FDR's mistress.  Small world!

While primarily known as prime minister during the Second World War, I came to learn of his many other skills: novice pilot,  prolific writer, historian, painter, bricklayer, consummate politician and Nobel Prize winner (for Literature).  Also, I did not know he had served as prime minister twice.

Any subsequent reading of this man's life will be enriched by the insights gained from this well researched book.  

October and November 2013 Books

Since Josh's death, I've felt no motivation to tackle much needed organization/clean-up of our home which included his room.  But last month, I wrote about emerging from a "grief cocoon" on Josh's blog and an unexpected result has been the energy to work on such projects.   But since there are only so many hours in a day and/or gas in the tank, only one book was read in October.   Hence this post will be a record of two months.

Code to Zero by Ken Follett
Published: 2000
Rating: 4
Goodreads

Very fast read; I finished in a  couple of days.  Signature Follett - pulls the reader in right from the start.   Just what I needed after several months of heavy reading of WWII and the tome, War and Peace.

This book is about the Cold War or more specifically, the space race between Russia and the US.  And spies.  I would recommend.

The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway
Published: 1989
Rating: 4
Goodreads

The cover also says In the tradition of My Brilliant Career - a woman's exquisitely clear-sighted memoir of growing up in Australia.  

In my book journal, I added:

• with a crazy, over-bearing, manipulative, paranoid mother
• in the outback or bush
• in a male-dominated, colonial British culture where women get married and have babies
• where as a true intellectual, she felt out of place, shut down and totally inhibited
• where family cultures says "one does not cry" no matter who has died
• where she decides to go the Harvard/Radcliffe to pursue a graduate degree

Her description of the bush in the first few pages is so vivid.  One of my favorite sentences:

There is the ever-present round mount of prickly weed, which begins its life a strong acid-green with hints of yellow, and then is burnt by the sun or the frost to a pale whitish yellow.  As it ages, its root system weakens so that on windy days the wind will pick it out of the earth and roll it slowly and majestically about like whirling suns on a Van Gogh painting. 

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes
Published: 2006
Rating: 5
Goodreads

This book came highly recommended by my sister-in-law, a fellow bibliophile.  I got the audiobook from the library and was hooked!

Click here to listen to the author discussing his first book.  The debut novel is great on so many levels:

• In the head of many characters
• Description of the ugly military bureaucracy and ambition/greed which led to good Marine's deaths
• Fascination and quest for medals
• Racism in the military, not only white vs. black but sometimes, black vs. black
• Enlisted vs officers
• Junior officers vs "brass"
• Becoming a killing machine
• Bravo company as fodder
• Surviving in enemy jungle without food, water, supplies
• In the end, Marines really fight for one another

I've read quite a bit of the Marine's horrific experiences in WWII.  Vietnam was no different, except in a major way - these brave young men did not have the backing and support of the home front.  Tragedy heaped upon tragedy.  

Other book by Marlantes:

What It is Like to Go To War" - click here for Q&A with Marlantes.

The Twelve (The Passage # 2) by Justin Cronin
Published: 2012
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I spotted this book in the library while looking for an audiobook for the car.  I read the first book of the trilogy, The Passage and liked it.  The notes in my book diary, however, were not thorough enough to help me remember the main characters and plot outline - thank goodness for Wikipedia.

Cronin's dystopia world pulled me in from the start and did not let go - the plot builds suspense to where I had to find out what happened next even though I felt ambivalent to the main characters.

The story reminds me of Stephen King's The Stand, one of my all-time favorite books except that in his masterpiece, King focused on a few memorable characters (Stu Redmond, Larry Underwood, Randall Flagg, Mother Abigail, Fran Goldsmith, Nadine Cross).

So my new equations:

Fast and good read - suspenseful plot a must; characters can be secondary
Awesome book - suspenseful plot and interesting, round characters

Flyboys: A True Story of Courage by James Bradley
Published: 2003
Rating: 5
Goodreads

Absolutely horrifying account of 8 American airmen shot down and captured off the island of Chichi Jima, a critical Japanese radio base.  For 50 years, howe these men died was kept classified by the US Government.  With the exception of one mother who was still alive when the book was published, all the other parents died without knowing the truth, despite numerous attempts to find out……WOW.

Many, many OMG written in the margins of the book.

In order to fully understand the Japanese mindset and their subsequent treatment of the 8 flyboys, Bradley provides a concise but comprehensive backstory of Japanese history leading up to WWII.  What I learned:

• For almost 250 years (1614 - 1853), Japan was completely isolated.
• After seeing Western imperialism in Asia, (Dutch ruled Indonesia; French had Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia; the mighty British Empire governed Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, Burma and India), Japan began turning itself into a military nation.
• In 1862, Japan began its conquest but taking Chichi Jima from American businessmen who had settled this island as a critical coal stop for freighters from US to China.
• In 1894, Japan attacked China and emerged victorious.  
• in 1904, Japan started the Russo-Japanese War, resulting in a 1905 treaty mediated by Theodore Roosevelt, in which Japan received territory conceded by Russia and complete control over Korea.
• The US was far from innocent it her own quest for land against the Native Americans, Mexicans and Filipinos. 
• Japan continues its course as a military state, where Emperor Hirohito was god and service unto death for the Emperor was expected of every Japanese man, woman and child.  To surrender to the enemy was shameful and forbidden, hence the suicidal policy permeating Japanese military and utter contempt for surrendering Allied soldiers in WWII.   
• The training of soldiers was brutal and dehumanizing.  The rules of war did not apply. 
• In 1931, Japan invades and conquers Chinese Manchuria renaming it Manchukuo.  
• In 1937, Japan shows their brutal hand with the infamous Rape of Nanking.  Atrocities committed against 300,000 civilian Chinese reverberated throughout the world.
• Summer of 1941, the US and UK ended trade with Japan and cut off precious oil, without which Japan's military would be paralyzed. 
• Japan faced two options: concede to the West or strike boldly and gain enough territory to exact a treaty with the US. 
• December 6, 1941 - bombing at Pearl Harbor

Next book to read by Bradley:

• The Imperial Cause: A Secret History of Empire and War

True North: A Memoir by Jill Ker Conway
Published: 1994
Rating: 3
Goodreads

Picks up where The Road From Coorain leaves off:

• graduate work at Harvard/Radcliffe
• marries Harvard professor and moves with him back to his native country, Canada where she moves from Professor to Vice President of Internal Affairs at the University of Toronto
• becomes President of Smith College

Reading her memoir makes me appreciate how much women had to fight for equal rights and how far we have come however, my interest waned in the many pages describing the inner politics of university life.

The Marines of Autumn: A Novel of the Korean War by James Brady
Published: 2000
Rating: 5
Goodreads

Wow - I loved it.  Like Marlantes' Matterhorn, this is another superb example of how the use of fiction by an ex-Marine can place the reader in war.

Brady was a Marine officer in The Korean War, sandwiched between WWII and the Vietnam War and often called the "Forgotten War" - a sad fact for the brave 52,000+ Americans who fought and died in the three years of conflict from 1950 - 1953.

In this novel, Brady chose to write about a campaign that occurred a year before he arrived in Korea, when the Chinese entered the war on behalf of the retreating North Koreans and nearly destroyed MacArthur's army in the frigidly cold autumn of 1950.  The battleground was the Chosin Reservoir.

It is clear that my prior reading has built a pyramid of knowledge that enhances each subsequent book.   I understood the references to Marine's battles on small Pacific islands, their intense dislike and distrust of General MacArthur, of Marine commander Chesty Puller's reputation, and why the US could not allow Korea to fall to the communists.

What I learned in this book:

• General MacArthur - decent job getting Japan on her feet after WWII, caught sleeping when North Koreans invaded the South, brilliant move at Inchon, clueless about Chinese invasion, uncontrollable by Washington, thought he would be the next President. 
• MacArthur vs the Marine generals under him.
• Army vs Marines 
• Marine officers vs. senior non-commissioned officer (NCO) vs enlisted.
• Military hierarchy - if you wanted to move up in the ladder, you did not disagree.
• Poor decisions by commanders cost lives.
• Fighting in freezing cold - "God never meant honest soldiers to fight winter wars."
• Orderly retreat of army vs panic.
• How the Chinese could have destroyed MacArthur's army but did not, similar to Meade's chance to annihilate Lee's army at Gettysburg. 
• Criticalness of strategic airstrips and ports during war. 

Other books by Brady to read:

• The Coldest War: A Memoir of Korea (1990)
• Warning of War: A Novel of the North China Marines (2002)
• The Marine: A Novel of War from Guadalcanal to Korea (2003)
• The Scariest Place In the World: A Marine Returns to North Korea (2005)
• Why Marines Fight (2007)

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)

May 2013 Books

My foray into WWII continues.  I am also reading posts from last month's Poetry Blog Tour, hosted by Savvy Verse & Wit.

Hornet Flight by Ken Follett
Published: 2002
Rating: 4
Goodreads

A quick read by the master of historical fiction.  This tale is about the Danish resistance during WWII.  It is a critical time in the war - Germany has invaded Russia and Churchill fears Russia will fall soon unless the British can divert Germany's mighty Luftwaffe's (air force) focus back to protecting the homeland.  Thus an all-out blitz of RAF's Bomber Command is scheduled but they need intelligence on Germany's radar capability and how to elude it.  The main radar station is in Denmark.

The afterward tells the important and often un-sung work done by courageous resistance fighters:

The Danish Resistance eventually became one of the most successful underground movements in Europe.  It provided a continuous flow of military intelligence to the Allies, undertook thousands of acts of sabotage against the occupying forces, and provided secret routes by which almost all Denmark's Jews escaped from the Nazis. 

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
Published: 1951
Rating: 5
Prizes:  1952 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Goodreads

Excellent book - I loved it and would highly recommend.

While I decided to read The Caine Mutiny because of the WWII connection, I would actually categorize this novel as a psychological thriller with WWII as its backdrop. It is a story of how rational men, confined in a small space (minesweeper) under extreme pressure and operating under strict military rules of behavior within a set chain of command will act in the hands of a madman.   A similar story could be told about adult behavior in a strict, religious construct or within a family ruled by a tyrannical, psychotic and abusive father.

What makes this work compelling is that Herman Wouk's experience in WWII on two destroyer minesweepers is captured so succinctly that the reader knows what it was like for the sailors and officers:

Another day and another passed of rough seas and lowering skies; of rolling and pitching, cold winds, and cold damp eating into bones softened by tropic warmth; of a treadmill of watches in a wheelhouse dank and gloomy by day and danker and gloomier by night; of sullen silent sailors and pale dog-tired officers, of meals in the wardroom eaten in silence, with the captain at the head of the table ceaselessly rolling the balls in his fingers and saying nothing except an infrequent grumpy sentence about the progress of the work requests....the world became narrowed to a wobbling iron shell on a waste of foamy gray, and the business of the world was staring out at empty water or making red-ink insertions in the devil's own endless library of mildewed unintelligible volumes. 

Back on the ship after shore leave:

There would be hundreds of thousands of miles of steaming, and probably many battles, before the ship would come into these waters again with its bow pointed the other way.  The sun, dead ahead, sinking beneath ragged banks of dark clouds, shot out great spokes of red light which fanned across the western sky.  It was an uncomfortable similitude of the flag of Japan....Willie closed his eyes, listened with pleasure to the hum of the ventilators, and felt in his bones the vibration of the main engines, transmitted through the springs of his bunk.  The ship was alive again. He felt warm, and safe, and at home.  Drowsiness came over him almost at once, and he slept deliciously. 

Eccentricities, those fungi of loneliness and boredom, began to flourish on the Caine.

The awesome responsibility that a ship captain feels:

...a shrinking of his personal identity, and a stretching out of his nerve ends to all the spaces and machinery of his ship.  He was less free than before.  He developed the apprehensive listening ears of a young mother; the ears listened on in his sleep; he never quite slept, not the way he had before.  He had the sense of having been reduced from an individual to the sort of brain of a composite animal, the crew and ship combined.  The reward for these disturbing sensations came when he walked the decks.  Power seemed to flow out of the plates into his body. 

The psychological affect on the protagonist, Willie Keith, serving under a strange, psychotic captain named Queeg:

Willie began to develop a deep, dull hate for Queeg. It was nothing like the boyish pique he had felt against Captain De Vriess.  It was like the hate of a husband for a sick wife, a mature, solid hate, caused by an unbreakable tie to a loathsome person, and existing not as a self-justification but for the rotten gleam of pleasure it gave off in the continuing gloom.

I recognize the same dual-time disconnect that Styron brings up in Sophie's Choice - see post.

Willie stared at the holocaust for a minute or so, while a warm fragrant breeze fanned his face...then Willie sat at his place again, and dug his spoon into the mound of white cream attractively laced with brown.  It occurred to him that there was an unsettling contrast between himself, eating ice cream, and marines on Namur a few thousand yards away, being blown up.  He was not sufficiently unsettled to stop eating the ice cream, but the thought worked around like grit in his mind.

And an example of a kairos moment in Willie's life:

With the smoke of the dead sailor's cigar wreathing around him, Willie passed to thinking about death and life and luck and God.  Philosophers are at home with such thoughts, perhaps, but for the other people it is actual torture when these concepts - not the words, the realities - break through the crust of daily occurrences and grip the soul.  A half hour of such racking meditation can change the ways of a lifetime.  Willie Keith crushing the stub in the ashtray was not the Willie who had lit the cigar.  That boy was gone for good.

Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood With Britain in its Darkest, Finest Hour by Lynne Olson
Published: 2010
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I picked this book up in March at the Shakespeare & Co bookstore on the upper East Side in NYC.

The book focuses on three Americans who made London their home during the darkest days of the war.  They were immersed in British politics and society and used their influence to shape policy and public opinion in both England and America.

What I learned from this highly recommended book:

• Life in London during the worst of the Blitz when the city was bombed for 57 straight nights.
• The resiliency of the British people and the amazing volunteerism that arose to tackle domestic problems that the government could not handle such as the crucial task of making the numerous shelters bearable.
• Changing of the US ambassador to England from isolationist Joseph Kennedy to New Hampshire governor, John Gilbert Winant, who became a well-known and beloved figure to the British monarchy, prime minister, military leaders and general public.  
• England became the base of US military operations which meant the enormous influx of American GI's in British cities and countryside.  Despite speaking the same language, the cultural and stereotypical barriers were huge.  The British described American soldiers as "over-paid, over-sexed and over here" while Americans remembered the British as the "murderous redcoats who tried to destroy the infant United States during the Revolutionary War".  There was also a healthy dose of skepticism regarding the British colonial policies; the Americans were interested in freeing Europe/Far East from Nazi/Japanese tyranny, not upholding the British Empire. 
• FDR made unilateral decisions in foreign policy, working with Churchill directly and by-passing Winant's role - much to his frustration.
• Two other Americans were W. Averell Harriman, head of the Lend-Lease program and Edward R. Murrow, head of CBS news in Europe.  He produced the famous radio broadcasts that educated America on the European War.
• Very sad and shocking end to Winant's life.  

Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
Published: 1978
Rating: 4
Goodreads

Another quick read where Follett surmises that one of Hitler's most trusted and ruthless spies, code name Needle, has discovered the truth regarding the Patton ruse, meant to trick the Germans into thinking the cross-channel invasion would be at Calais, rather than the beaches of Normandy.

British intelligence track The Needle to a small island where he is going to alert Germany via radio broadcast and then rendezvous with a U-boat for the trip back home.  The only person in his way is a beautiful, courageous young mother resulting in a nail biting ending.

February 2013 Books

War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk
Published: 1978
Rating: 5
Good read
Author web site

The story picks up where The Winds of War left off: Pearl Harbor has been bombed and in one stroke, America abandons her isolationist policy and declares war on Japan which leads to Germany declaring war on the US.

Storytelling is an art, especially when the subject matter is as massive and well chronicled as WWII.  And Wouk is the supreme artist.  Continuing the saga of fictitious US naval officer Victor "Pug" Henry and his family, and using various literary techniques listed below, Wouk paints a graphic, unforgettable portrait of this global war, displaying the spectrum of human action - from heroic to inconceivable barbarism.

• Translated summary of war:  This device has continued from The Winds of War.   At deliberate intervals, Wouk inserts Pug's translations and commentary on sections of General Armin Von Roon's World Holocaust.  In it, Roon discourses on Hitler, the major battles, the "Jewish problem" and the Nazi's cold, calculated solution.  It is a clever and effective way of providing the Nazi viewpoint. 
• Diary excerpts:  In his private journal, prominent American author Aaron Jastrow writes about his attempts, along with his niece Natalie and her baby, Louis to leave Europe in the midst of the war.  Another clever device as the reader is privy to the thoughts and feelings of an eloquent Jew chronicling the nail-biting escape from the Nazis and tragic conclusion.  
• Epistolary:  Using letters from various members of the Henry family to one another and/or their love interests, Wouk is able to show what is happening in different parts of the world during the war.
• Interview excerpts: Taken from liberated Auschwitz victims, the interviews show the true horror of what happened.  

After finishing, I could not stop thinking of this book - the characters, the intimate portrayal of the Holocaust which was extremely emotional to read; I can't imagine where Wouk had to go internally to write it, the brutality of the Japanese soldiers, the incredible naval battles in the Pacific, the North African and Italian conflicts - basically the terrible sacrifices and ultimate consequences of WWII on individuals and nations.

To learn more, I have been watching the BBC DVD series on WWII, borrowed from my dad who is a war buff.  I have also begun watching the mini-series on Wouk's two works, starring Robert Mitchum as Pug Henry.  In my Netflix queue is the 1976 movie Midway starring Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda.

My new favorite section in the bookstore is Military History/WWII.  I am also interested in other WWII historical fiction works.  Who knew my reading journey would take this track, begun last fall during the reading of Ken Follett's Winter of the World?  This is why reading is such an adventure.

Jackdaws by Ken Follett
Published: 1996
Rating: 4
Goodreads

"Exactly fifty women were sent into France as secret agents by the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War.  Of those, thirty-six survived the war.  The other fourteen gave their lives.  This book is dedicated to all of them."

These four haunting sentences initiate the reader to the subject matter of this highly suspenseful book by the master of historical fiction.  French speaking women with certain skills are recruited, quickly trained and parachute into occupied France for a critical mission right before Operation Overlord or D-Day.  Led by smart, beautiful and cunning British agent, Felicity Claret or Flick, they must succeed against all odds. The antagonist is a cultured German intelligence officer whose successful interrogation techniques, specific to each prisoner, earns high accolades (and expectations) from Field Marshall Rommel.

The list of COE female agents in Wikipedia is sobering as the majority of those killed in action (KIA) died in German concentration camps.

I am realizing that it would take a lifetime or more to read all the books - non-fiction, biography and historical fiction - written about WWII.  I remain highly interested in this world-changing period so will continue until another un-named subject arrests and diverts my reading journey.

Audiobooks: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Published: 1847
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I listened to this audiobook after listening to Persuasion by Jane Austen.  Wow - what a difference.  From the refined, cultured rooms of Anne Elliott's home at rural Kellynch Hall and sophisticated Bath to the wild moors around Wuthering Heights, the difference was so stark and grating to the ear that I almost did not give it a chance. Good thing I did as it only took a couple of chapters to hook me into the story.

I had heard of the framework that Emily Bronte used in this novel: a story within a story, likened to the Russian dolls.  Mr. Lockwood is the first narrator - a tenant of Thrushcross Grange whose master is the strange Mr. Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights.  After an eventful overnight stay at Wuthering Heights where he meets Heathcliff, Mrs. Heathcliff, a young, but obviously unhappy beauty and a un-cultured man who seems neither servant nor son, Lockwood's curiosity mirrors our own.  Luckily for both, Mrs. Nellie Dean is the housekeeper at Thrushcross Grange and while Lockwood is recovering from an illness, she obliges by telling the story of the inhabitants of the Heights.

It is a story of unbridled passion which leads to the extremes of love and hate, jealousy and revenge.  The frustrated love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff is like a malignant cancer, destroying them and all associated innocents.  But in the end, it seems like true love prevails.

Listening to classics on audiobooks has become a favored way to utilize time in the car.  I would highly recommend it.

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
Published: 2011
Rating: 3
Goodreads

I bought this book at a local library sale due to my current interest in WWII.   It answers the question of how and why the German people allowed Hitler and his Third Reich, governed by their fanatical Nazi ideology, to take over every aspect of their lives.

William E Dodd, a history professor at the University of Chicago is tapped to be the US Ambassador to Germany in 1933 - the year that Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor.  His family's experiences as they leave Chicago and land in Berlin give us an "on-the-ground" view of the events surrounding Hitler's rise to totalitarian dictator as they unfold in real time.

We see his adult daughter's initial attraction to the young, vibrant, idealistic German men of the Third Reich.  She sees nothing wrong with their ambition and desire to restore Germany's position in the world.

As America's first family in Germany, they hob-nob with all the Nazi leaders from the Gestapo head, Rudolf Diels to Hermann Goring, commander of the Luftwaffe and Joseph Goebbels, master mind of the highly effective Nazi propaganda machine.

Their initial tolerance of the Nazi party turns to disbelief and horror as they witness first hand the deliberate persecution of Jews and ultimately anyone who does not sharply raise the "Heil Hitler" salute.

I would classify this as a non-fiction fiction, similar to In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, albeit a significant notch down from TC's beautiful prose.  The amount of research is staggering: the book ends on page 375, notes end on page 422 and the bibliography on page 434.

For those who write non-fiction books based on mountains of research, I wonder if a pre-requisite is a photographic memory.

The Pacific by Hugh Ambrose
Published: 2010
Rating: 4
Goodreads

Hugh Ambrose is son of deceased historian and biographer Stephen E. Ambrose, author of Band of Brothers, the book that inspired the HBO series produced by Steven Spielburg and Tom Hanks.

H. Ambrose takes up his father's banner when he signs on to assist with the research for the HBO series, The Pacific, also produced by Spielburg and Hanks.  The book is born out of that research.

The book follows the lives of 5 Marines who are involved in the major battles of the Pacific from Midway and Guadalcanal to Peleliu and Iwo Jima.  They found the Japanese a different kind of enemy; one that would rather die than surrender and whose conduct in war was indescribably barbaric, brutal and downright inhumane.

Two of the Marines, Robert Leckie and Eugene Sledge kept diaries during the war and from those, wrote detailed memoirs which formed the basis of the mini-series and book.  I would like to read them:  Helmut for My Pillow and With the Old Breed. 

It was helpful to watch the series while reading the book as I could visualize the beachhead landings and horrific battles for previously unknown islands in which the Japanese had mastered the art of concealment by using pillboxes, tunnels and caves from which the brave Marines had to clear one by one.

I can better understand why Truman decided to drop the atomic bombs and force Japan to surrender.  For if the Pacific theatre had dragged on, the next step was the invasion of mainland Japan.  The estimated casualty cost of young lives, based on the experience from previous battles would be too much - unbearably so.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Published: 2006
Rating: 5
Goodreads

My daughter gave me this book after she was done.  I almost did not take it; what a mistake that would've been!  I loved it - in fact, as soon as I was finished, I wanted to read it again.

On this "grief to reading journey" which started almost four years ago when my beloved Josh died, there are books which have stopped me in my tracks: making me think, cry, ponder, smile and ruminate on certain characters, situations, or even well constructed sentences which convey meaning so unmistakable it is like art. This is such a book.

Barbery, a professor of philosophy turned novelist, examines the meaning of life, books, art, friends, and family through the eyes of two characters, different by all external measures such as age and socio-economic class, but kindred spirits internally - where it matters.

The ending was a shocker but upon reflection, (even though I still would've preferred the Jane Austen "happily ever after" highly satisfying Elizabeth Bennett marries rich, intelligent, hopelessly-in-love-with-her Mr. Darcy), it worked.

I must share one quote in which the precocious 12-year old Paloma writes a description in her diary of her new friend, fifty-four year old concierge, Renee Michel.

Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside, she's covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary - and terribly elegant.

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.