Tag: war

Three Came Home

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Keith, Agnes Newton. Three Came Home. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1947.

This may sound a little strange but I was able to finish this in the time it took to a baseball game to start and finish (no extra innings), a movie to be watched (127 minutes) and a man to get a vasectomy. In other words, no time at all was taken to start and finish Three Came Home. Besides being extrememly uncomplicated I liked it and I think that made it all the easier to buzz through.

Agnes Newton Keith is what you would call “plucky.” She is a straight shooter even in the presense of pain and suffering. As prisoners of war from January 19th, 1942 to September 11th, 1945 Keith, her husband Harry, and their infant son George are held captive by the Japanese on the island North Borneo. Because of Keith’s reputation as a writer (previously publishing a book called Land Below the Wind) Keith is commissioned by Japanese Commander Major Suga to write “The Life and Times of an Internee” as proof his prisoners did not suffer in captivity. He wanted to convey actual happiness. Keith writes an account for Major Suga but at the same time she needs to tell her truth. Three Came Home is her written-in-secret journal of nearly three years as a prisoner. It documents not only her survival but her determination to be a good mother to George and a good wife to Henry.

Despite being a “war memoir” Three Came Home is not without humor. Case in point, Keith is trying to diaper her child and “misses” describing the outcome as “an aborginal phallic decoration” (p 16). Ouch!
Above all else Keith remained true to the idea that all people are good and only circumstance makes us bad. “I believe that while we have more than we need on this continent, and others die for want of it, there can be no lasting peace” (p 317).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Living Through War” (p 156).

In Country

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Mason, Bobbie Ann. In Country. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1985.

In Country is deceivingly simple. The language is so straightforward and uncomplicated you think it was originally written for children. Here’s the scoop: 17-year-old Samantha Hughes acts obsessed with the Vietnam War. She lives with her vet uncle and pesters him daily about the possibility of Agent Orange reeking havoc with his health. He has bad acne on his face and strange headaches. Despite having a boyfriend her own age Sam also starts to fall in love with a local mechanic, another vet. To the average witness Sam’s fixation with all things Vietnam is borderline mania, but Sam has good reason. The father she never knew was lost in the war. He died when she was only two months old. He never came home. No one knows very much about him and if they do they aren’t saying much. As a result Sam feels her entire existence is shrouded in mystery. After being rejected by the vet and reading her father’s journal Sam decides she needs a change of pace. She loads her uncle and paternal grandmother in her clunker car and travels from Kentucky to Washington D.C., to The Wall. There the entire family finds some sort of closure.

I had to come back and modify this review because I forgot to point out the best thing about this book. Sam has another obsession – music. I love the way the hits of the 80s, especially Bruce Springsteen’s album ‘Born in the USA’ ground the reader and orient him/her to the timeframe of the story.

Author Fact: Bobbie Ann Mason wrote criticisms and short stories before writing In Country, her first novel.

Book Trivia: As a best-selling novel In Country was made into a movie in 1989 and starred Bruce Willis. In Country is even studied in high school English classes.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Maiden Voyages” (p 159). Pearl liked it enough to mention it again in another chapter called “Teenage Times” (p 216).

Lord of the Flies

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Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Perigee Books, 1954.

What high school English lit teacher hasn’t put Lord of the Flies on his or her syllabi? What student hasn’t read at least one excerpt from this book? I shudder to think classrooms have moved to the movie version, but if that means Golding’s story lives on, so be it.

This could be called the most chilling sociological experiment of all times (besides Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game.) What happens when you take the most prim and organized society (proper English boys from a prep school), hand it the suggestion of chaos and violence (they are escaping a nuclear war), then leave it to its own devices without guidance (a deserted island without adults)? All normalcy goes out the window when the boys try to build their own hierarchical, structured society. In a Darwinian approach some boys, the strongest & smartest, rise to the top while weaker boys become scapegoats and victims of paranoia. In the beginning the group is held together by necessity. They recognize the need for fairness and organization, especially if they want to be rescued. But all that vanishes when the younger boys become increasingly convinced there is a monster on the island. No amount of rationalizing can calm them. Fear and violence escalates until there is no turning back. All calm is lost to tragedy.

Probably the most frustrating part about the book was something very deliberate on Golding’s part. When the boys are finally rescued the Naval officer is embarrassed by the children, especially Ralph’s emotional breakdown when remembering how it all fell apart. You want the officer, the adult, to be more understanding, to take the boys more seriously.

Book Trivia: Lord of the Flies influenced musicians like U2 and Iron Maiden and sparked television parodies but a full length movie has yet to be made.

Author Fact: Golding won a Nobel Prize for literature.

Favorite line: “The group of boys looked at the conch with affectionate respect” (p 128).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads: Decade by Decade (1950s),” (p 177).

June ’11 was…

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What a weird month June ended up being! I wanted to stop borrowing books from other libraries while mine went through a transition period with it’s catalog. I chose one book to read, And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hoover Santmyer which I thought would take me the entire month of June. How wrong I was…about everything. First, the migration is delayed so I could have borrowed books from other libraries. In that one instance the library stayed the same while everything else changed: the entire building has had every light bulb changed, I’m in the process of hiring two new people (and an architect for a complete overhaul of the library’s layout), in September I will have three staff members working nights, only two people are in their same offices, and I even got new furniture. What a difference a month makes. I was also wrong about finishing And Ladies of the Club. I was bored to tears. So I moved on to:

  • Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan in honor of D-Day on June 6th, 1944.
  • Atonement by Ian McEwan in honor of June being Family month.
  • Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe in honor of June being National Short Story month.
  • Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler in honor of Food Week

Not a huge month for reading. I spent a lot of time focusing on life in the here and now…

 

Longest Day

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Ryan, Cornelius. The Longest Day: June 6th, 1944. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1959.

I think people view history as a boring and tedious subject because they forget that flesh and blood people are often the backbone of historical events. Ancestors who could have been the reason for their very being. Cornelius Ryan didn’t forget that the importance of D-Day didn’t lie in how it happened but whomade it happen. In his introduction he makes it clear that The Longest Day is not an military account of June 6th, 1944 but “a story of people…” within a 24 hour time span. The detail and clarity with which Ryan writes about seemingly ordinary men and women makes The Longest Day extraordinary. I thoroughly enjoyed Ryan’s straightforward style.

Line that grabbed me: “Now on this great and awful morning the last phase of the assault from the sea began” (p 239).

Author Fact: Two things – Ryan was born on June 5th (ironically so close to D-Day) and he died a cancer victim.

Book Trivia: Longest Day was made into a movie in 1962. Ryan wrote the screenplay and it starred John Wayne and Richard Burton.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Nonfiction” (p 253). Pearl calls it a “classic” and suggests following up with Ryan’s A Bridge Too Far and The Last Battle.

Feb ’11 was…

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February was a strange, strange month. On the one hand, my birthday (which was good), yet on the other hand, many different family dramas (not so good). Other oddities include getting robbed, the roof leaking, a mysterious flat tire, and lots of great PT (what’s different?). My list of books for the month included some behemoths – two over 700 pages long. It took me longer than expected to get through my list because I also got an Early Review book from LibraryThing and I decided to read a few “off-list” titles. February was also a month of personal challenges (yay for physical therapy and the return to running for real). I can’t forget to mention that!

  • Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution by Diane McWhorter ~ in honor of National Civil Rights month. This was a nice blend of didactic and personal.
  • Big Year: a Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik ~ in honor of February being a bird feeding month (as apposed to watching). Funny, funny, funny.
  • Night Soldiers by Alan Furst ~ in honor of Furst’s birth month. This was really heavy, but I actually got into it.
  • Belly of Paris by Emile Zola ~ in honor of Charles Dickens (writing style is similar). Word to the wise – don’t read this when you are hungry. The food descriptions are amazing!

For the Early Review Program with LibraryThing I finally received and read My Korean Deli by Ben Ryder Howe. I’m still waiting for a second Early Review book from LibraryThing.

  • Runner’s World The Complete Book of Running: Everything You Need To Run For Weight Loss, Fitness and Competition by Amby Burfoot. I picked this up because someone had given me a gift certificate for B&N and I wanted to get something I would keep for a very long time.
  • It Must Be..(a Grand Canyon Trip : Drawings and Thoughts From a Winter’s Trip From Lee’s Ferry to Diamond Creek (December 19, 2010 – January 2, 2011).. by Scott P. Barnes ~ this was such a surreal read for me! I’ve always wanted to see this author’s name in print.

Night Soldiers

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Furst, Alan. Night Soldiers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988

I have to admit this took me a little time to get into. The story starts off in 1934 with a violent bang. Khristo Stoianev is a Bulgarian teenager who witnesses the brutal beating and subsequent killing of his younger brother, Nikko. Nikko, only 15 years old, was used as an example of a growing power. Using this tragedy as a vehicle for change, Khristo is drawn into the NKVD, the Soviet intelligence service. From there he is sent to serve in the Spanish Civil war (although it is curious to note during his training he was taught English and French, not Spanish). Meanwhile,the political arena is heating up. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia are arm wrestling over real estate in Eastern Europe. Stalin is starting to purge the undesirables and this is to include Khristo so he flees to France.
Furst paints a stunning picture of eleven years of Eastern European history complete with French underground guerrilla operations, lavish love affairs, the never ending quest for power and multidimensional aspects of war.

Most telling line, “But these were political times, and it was very important to think before you spoke. Nikko Stoianev spoke without thinking, and so he died” (p 3).
Favorite line, “The nasty scene at the Finnish embassy refused to leave his mind, and he and Andres had decided to drawn their war in a bottle of Spanish gin” (p 161).

Author fact: Alan Furst was born on February 20th, 1941. He has an ongoing love affair with Paris.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called  “World War II Fiction” (p 253) even though WWII isn’t the focal point of the the story.

Citizen Soldiers

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Ambrose, Stephen E. Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army From the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 -May 7, 1945. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Stephen Ambrose has the uncanny ability to take you back in time. His words pick you up and carry you hook, line and sinker, back to June 7, 1944 and forward through the great and terrible World War II. However, Citizen Soldiers is not a dry account of strategic war maneuvers. It is not a blah blah blah play by play of how Germany’s armies moved along the western/eastern slope while the Allies pushed further north or south. Those things did happen but Citizen Solders is more than that. It’s as if you have been dropped in the middle of hand to hand skirmishes or have the ability to eavesdrop on Hitler’s frequent phone arguments with a subordinate. You get to know people, places and events as if you are talking to the soldiers themselves, dodging bullets in the snow-covered country side, and witnesses skirmishes first hand. For once, the photographs and maps included do not make the storytelling vivid, they only enhance the words.

The version I read included an afterword where Ambrose talks about the reactions he has received upon publishing Citizen Soldiers. To me, this afterword was humble and gracious and yet, had an air of protective authority.

Things that made me go hmmmm. Little reminders that WWI and WWII were not really that far off. For example,  “There [Stoob] discovered that he had been wounded in the same small French village as had his father in 1914 – also in the head and leg” (p 111). There were also moments of humor: “Cooper examined the wreckage in the train and was surprised to find that invaluable space had been taken up with women’s lingerie, lipstick, and perfume, instead of desperately needed ammunition and food. “The Germans apparently had done a good job of looting all the boutiques in Paris when they pulled out”” (p 112), and “In Paris the whores put away their English language phrase books and retrieved their German versions” (p 205).

Author fact: Stephen Ambrose was born in the month of January, hence the reading of this book at this time.

Book Trivia: Citizen Soldiers was a New York Times bestseller.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Nonfiction” (p 253).

January 2011 is…

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I always thought resolutions should be made on one’s birthday. To me, the day of birth is the truest new year an individual can have. I know I’m thankful for every new year I get. I want to make the most of them. This year, I am breaking with my own tradition of birthday resolutions and making new year resolutions. Not only because I can, but because I know they are ones I can keep. Simple as that. This year’s biggest resolution is to read more. So, having said that, here is the January 2011 list:

  • Citizen Soldiers: the U.S. Army From the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 – May 7, 1945 by Stephen E. Ambrose ~ in honor of Ambrose’s birth month.
  • I, Robot by Isaac Asimov ~ in honor of two things: Asimov’s birth month and January being “technology month.”
  • Cruddy by Lynda Barry ~ in honor of Barry’s birth month
  • King of the World by David Remnick ~ in honor of Muhammad Ali’s birth month
  • Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat ~ in honor of Danticat’s birth month

I didn’t plan it that I’m celebrating birthdays for the month of January. It just worked out that way.

Final Flight

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Stekel, Peter. Final Flight: the Mystery of a WWII Plane Crash and the Frozen Airmen in the High Sierra. Berkley: Wilderness Press, 2010

The backdrop for Final Flight is November 18, 1942 – the day a Beech 18 airplane went missing during a training mission in the mountains of the High Sierra. Peter Stekel, a longtime hiker of the Sierra Nevada, was introduced to the story in 2005 when a “Frozen Airman” was found and identified as part of the four-man crew in the Beech 18 crash. Stekel spends two years engrossed in the events surrounding the 63 year old tragedy, learning everything he can about the airmen on board, the weather conditions, the media reports (and misreports) and of course, the unforgiving landscape where the crash occurred. When he, himself, finds a second body in the High Sierra the research becomes a must-tell story. Enter Final Flight, the story Stekel just had to tell. I enjoy a “complete package” book: great story, compelling mystery, photographs that tell a little more, biographies that endear you to people, maps to ground you to location, references and details that urge you to learn more. I found Final Flight to have all of these elements and much, much more. First and foremost it is a true story. That alone draws you in. Then you learn two of the airmen are still missing despite reports that clearly state all four airmen were recovered and given a group burial in Golden Gate National Cemetery. Why the misinformation? That creates intrigue. Where are the remaining airmen? Will they ever be found? You want Stekel to keep digging only so he can keep you informed. The photographs not only give the visual boost to description of the glacier’s location high in the Kings Canyon National Park, but also illustrates just how difficult it was to find any remains in 1942. Finally (and above all else), Final Flight is a proper tribute to the families of the four airmen who lost their lives on November 18, 1942. Stekel’s story shows respect and offers closure.

September ’10 was…

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Sorry – forgot to post this!
September. As the song goes, “wake me when September ends” (thanks, Green Day). I got married in September just so I would have one happy memory (my wedding was freakin’ awesome). It is the one good thing to look forward to celebrating each year. Except this year. Considering how bad this September has been I am amazed I even remembered I got married in this damned month. Between Indiana being sick dying (on our anniversary no less), the anniversary of my father’s passing (18 years), my grandfather still being in hospice and my other insane family issues I can’t sleep straight. I don’t know when I’ll find mind rest again. But, here are the books that kept me somewhat sane:

  • Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre ~ I feel bad not being able to finish (or even like) this book. For years I’ve wondered about it.
  • Moo by Jane Smiley ~ was this ever a movie? I still can’t get over how caustic it was!
  • Wild Life by Molly Gloss ~ this should have been a movie, too!
  • Between Parent and Child by Haim Ginott ~ just told my mom about this book last night. Something I would reread if I had children.
  • Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide by Robert Michael Pyle ~ this had me believing…for a minute.
  • The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty ~ my biggest head-scratcher this month. Seems like I have read this before somewhere.
  • The Clock Winder by Anne Tyler ~ it is interesting the way people have influence over others without wanting (or even trying). I read this in four days time.
  • The Heartbreak Hotel by Anne Rivers Siddon ~ a little redundant but I read this in honor of back to school month and because I had it ready on a shelf.
  • Report From Ground Zero by Dennis Smith ~ because I haven’t been sad enough

For LibraryThing’s Early Review Program:

  • Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine by George Dohrmann ~ this was intense!

I was supposed to get another book but I haven’t seen it yet. I am not going to even mention the title in case it never arrives. Even if it does comes I won’t be reading it in September.

For fun (started):

  • The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver ~ my husband bought this for me as an anniversary present because he knows I love, love, love Ms. Kingsolver’s work. And to think I didn’t get him anything. I did end up making one of this favorite meals for the very first time, chicken pot pie.

September ’10 is…

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September is the storm before the calm – literally since Earl is raging up the coast! School is back in session. A new hire is on the premises. Things are a little crazy right now. Here are how things look for books at the moment:

  • Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre ~ in honor of the Cold War starting in September
  • Between Parent and Child by Haim G. Ginott ~ in honor of National Family Month
  • Where Big Foot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide by Robert Pyle ~ in honor of Bigfoot being spotted on September 16, 2007 in Pennsylvania (yay for the Northeast Sasquatch!)
  • Wild Life by Molly Gloss ~ a companion read to Where Big Foot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide.
  • Moo by Jane Smiley ~ in honor of school being back in session

I’m also in the process of reading a few food books and an Early Review book. More on all of that later.

Making of the Atomic Bomb

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Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986.

I think I should feel more disappointed that I didn’t get through this book. And yet, I don’t. Quite simply put – I’m just not that into atomic bombs. I think I knew this would happen when I said I didn’t exactly see it as summer reading, despite the clever connection of the first bomb being testing in July…

Here’s what I know – The Making of the Atomic Bomb won a Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In other words, people liked it. A lot. I can also tell you it is a thick read. Over 800 pages long (and the pictures don’t count). I got through the first 50 and called it quits. Again, no regrets.

If I had been able to devote more time to The Making of an Atomic Bomb I would have found it to be a portrait of personalities ranging from scientists (Einstein) to political leaders (Roosevelt). I would have found it to be a commentary on the state of world economics (The Great Depression) and warfare (World War II). I would have found it to be scientific and philosophical, psychological and historical. All those things.

Believe it or not, I do have a favorite line from the little I read: “As he crossed the street time cracked open before him and he saw a way to the future, death into the world and all our woe, the shape of things to come” (p13). This was in the opening paragraph and sets the stage for science to unleash its dangers.
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Bomb Makers” (p 42).

June ’10 was…

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June was a month of reconnection. By far, my favorite musical moment was the lovely Rebecca Correia at the Iron Horse. It is awful to say but every single artist that follows her on stage can’t compare. Not that they are NailsOnaChalkboard bad, but they have nothing on Rebecca. On the professional side of things June was a very frustrating month. On the personal sides I got one of the best hugs of my life (thanks, Gracie). For books, it was this:

  • Happenstance by Carol Shields ~ this should be a movie
  • Hatchet by Gary Paulsen ~ this also should be a movie
  • The Confession of Nat Turner by William Styron ~ this was a hard one to read
  • Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World by Carol Brightman ~ a very thorough biography that helped with my insomnia
  • I Don’t Know Why I Swallowed the Fly by Jessica Maxwell ~ first year fly fishing story
  • Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym ~ a sociology experiment in a land of anthropologists
  • Master & Commander by Patrick O’Brien ~ this took some time to get into…so much so that I didn’t finish it.
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald ~ I needed to lick my wounds with something enjoyable!

For LibraryThing’s Early Review program:

  • The House on Oyster Creek by Heidi Jo Schmidt ~ once I got beyond the first chapter I loved it. Beautiful writing.

For the fun of it:

  • Winning By Losing by Jillian Michaels ~ I’m most interested by the subtitle on the cover of her book, “Change You Life.” I’m up for that. Really.

Master & Commander

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O’Brian, Patrick. Master And Commander. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1969.

Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I couldn’t get into this. As the last book of the month I found it incredibly boring. Maybe it was stopping every ten minutes to look up words like felluca and dursn’t and slops. It was all I could do to call up my father’s ghost and remember nautical terms like foretopgallantsail and cockade and halliards. To be honest, it was too much work for summer reading. This is something I went to bury myself in in the dead of winter when nothing else can distract me or call me away. I’ll put it back on the list in honor of something else.

PS ~ this was made into a movie starring Russell Crow. Maybe I should just shut up and watch it.