This amazing novel tells the story of ordinary men and women—farmers, soldiers, priests and nuns, housewives, doctors, stonemasons—who took a stance against the Nazi juggernaut in Italy and waged a near hopeless war of resistance not only in defense of their homeland but in defense of Jews from throughout Europe who had fled across the Alps into an Italy which had broken with Germany, thinking to find a refuge from the genocide, only to discover that the Germans were occupying Italy and prepared to escalate […]
A Serial Killer Haunts Post-WWII Italy
Bojhalian takes us on a visit to Italy’s beautiful Tuscany during one of the most horrifying periods in that country’s history, when the German occupation had splintered the nation between the resistance, the collaborators, and the majority caught in between who mostly struggled to survive without selling their souls to the devil. But beyond a thought-provoking examination of choices and consequences under wartime conditions, Bojhalian also throws us into the middle of a hunt for a serial killer 10 years after the war’s end, a […]
A Time Traveler’s Homage to Jerome K. Jerome
If you are a fan of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) or PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves novels, this novel is sure to please. Willis is a well known and “decorated” sci-fi author, having won multiple Nebula and Hugo Awards. She discovered JKJ through reading Robert Heinlein and gives him a tip of the hat in an amusing, clever and thoughtful work that combines time travel, mystery, and comedy of manners. It’s 2057 London and Ned Henry, an […]
The More Things Change …
Winner of a Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1994, this history of the Roosevelts and the home front from 1939 until FDR’s death in 1945 is a meticulously researched and engaging look at both the inner workings of the White House and the changing landscape of the US economy and society during World War II. Both the Roosevelts and the American public showed themselves to be extraordinarily brilliant and sometimes terribly flawed at a critical moment in world history. Goodwin did extensive research on her […]
the Girls of Atomic City
I’ve always been a bit of a history nerd, I believe I mentioned that when I reviewed Monuments Men. I love WW2 and it’s always interesting to hear about the women’s part in aiding their men. Have you seen Bletchley Circle? It’s a BBC show about women, who were code breakers in England during the war, who are now bored housewives solving crimes. Anyway. The Girls of Atomic City is the untold story of the women who went to work in Oak Ridge, TN on […]
An Unbelievable Story of Survival
Unbroken is one of those books that leaves you shaking your head at the atrocities that men have committed against men and women in war. There are moments in this book when I thought, how unlucky can this guy be, to go from one sadistic camp officer to another who is worse. The fact that any of the men interred in the prison camps described in this book is a testament to human resilience. The book is aptly subtitled. Unbroken is the life story of […]