After their ship is sunk in the Atlantic by Germans, eight people are stranded in a lifeboat. Their problems are further compounded when they pick up a ninth passenger - the Nazi captain from the U-boat that torpedoed them.
When someone asks me to name my favorite Hitchcock movie, there are a few that will run through my head, but every time I answer the same way, Lifeboat. Directed in 1944, two years after another favorite Suspicion, and one year before another, Spellbound, this is Hitchcock at his tension building best.
Putting these characters into a derelict lifeboat, in the middle of the Atlantic, it could have gone two ways. The isolation could have been incredibly boring, Castaway anyone. It could have been a bunch of people, bickering as they are waiting to be rescued. Or the setting could have created such a closed in, claustrophobic feeling to the whole movie, keeping the tension ratcheted up the entire time. And that is what Hitchcock managed to do.
There is nothing not perfect about this movie. I even love Tallulah Bankhead in it, and I'm not normally a huge fan of hers. She never seemed to take acting seriously, at least not in film. Her performances always reminded me of someone going through the motions, not really into what they are doing. It's how I imagine most fast food workers. They don't like their jobs, maybe even hate them, but they need the money. Acting seemed like a means to an end for her, not a real passion. I'm not sure what changed for her in Lifeboat, but she knocks it out of the ballpark. Her turn as Constance Porter, a rather jaded war correspondent, is her best work. For the first time I was watching a woman who really enjoyed what she was doing, and she actually made me believe in the character. It's like watching Madonna in Evita, some roles are made for a certain actress/actor, and Constance Porter was perfect for Tallulah Bankhead.
The real star of the movie, was the atmosphere and tension that Hitchcock built within that confined space. It's the tension between the characters, the tension between the Allies and Germany, and even the tension among the Allies themselves, all at work, creating a powder keg situation. The tension never lets up. It has it's ebbs and flows, it's moments where calm seems to have descended, then Hitchcock ratchets it back up, culminating in a explosive ending.
On his way to London after being released from a mental asylum, Stephen Neale (Ray Miland) stops at a seemingly innocent village fair, after which he finds himself caught in the web of a sinister, possibly Nazi-connected underworld.
I'm almost positive that Yvette of in so many words... is responsible for me seeing this movie, at least the first time around. She reviewed it on December 28th, 2010. I read her review on December 29th, and watched the movie on February 2nd, of 2011. I only know this because I just went back and read the comments I made on her post. I've always found Ray Miland rather dashing, and I'm in love with him in The Uninvited, so when she wrote up her review, I knew I had to watch it.
The Criterion Collection just released it on Blu Ray last year, and I'm pretty sure I bought it the week it came out. How can you not love a movie that starts off with Ray Miland's character being released from an asylum, where he was committed for two year after buying the drugs his wife used to killer herself. She was dying a horrible death, and she asked for his help in ending it. Once he bought the drugs, he was unable to go through with the plan, but she got a hold of them anyway, and that was that. So he was there for two years, and the first thing he does is hope decide to hop on a train for London. Once he is at the station, he sees a little fete across the way, and since he has time he joins in.
Long story short, he ends up with a cake, meant for someone else. He is followed onto the train by a fake blind guy steals the cake, jumps off the train, and Ray Miland starts chasing after him. The guy is killed by a German bomber, dropping bombs on the innocent countryside. Which if you think about it, a German spy getting killed by a German bomb, is rather hilarious.
Once in London, Milan decides to look into the charity that hosted the fete, he meets the Austrian refugees who run the organization, and the games really begin. For the rest of the movie, we are treated to some of the craziest, most convoluted actions on the face of the planet. The plot just takes off, and if it can be twisted and turned, it is. But that's the genius of the movie, it's takes the most outrageous plot twists it can, and somehow you still buy into it. You really believe that a cabal of German spies, has been able to infiltrate every level of society, stealing military secrets and using a tailor to pass them along. The characters are over the top, just the way they should be in such a story, though some of the acting itself is rather stilted and some of the casting choices, Marjorie Reynolds, doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Hillary Brooke on the other hand, who I also adore, is brilliant as Mrs. Bellane, one of the cabalists, and a fake medium. It's through here that we are treated to one of the most memorable seance scenes I've ever seen on screen, the tension is thick through the entire thing, and the way light is used, sheer genius. Actually, the entire movies uses light and shadows brilliantly. There are a few scenes where the absences of light is used to it's fullest effect, two of the better ones are at the end.
Did I forget to mention that this is all taking place in a London that is in the middle of war, dealing with nightly German bombardments? I also want to make sure I mentioned the many gun fights, an apartment explosion, and one of the coolest book stores (also a Nazi front), that I've ever seen. I won't get into how many characters die, or the one who has to die twice. I won't even mention the lack of resolution concerning some of the characters, such as Mrs. Bellane. You just have to assume that in the end, they are all rounded up.
What I will say, is that with every viewing, I find myself falling in love with this one more and more. Fritz Lang, though the movie is supposed to be quite different in tone from the Graham Greene book it's based on, directed a terrific example of Noir, and it plays those tropes to the hilt. It is quickly becoming one of my favorite movies, and I'm sure it is one that will have many more viewings in my home.
For years, Matthew Greene and Daniel Rosen have enjoyed a contented domestic life in Northampton, Massachusetts. Opposites in many ways, they have grown together and made their relationship work. But when they learn that Daniel's twin brother and sister-in-law have been killed in a Jerusalem bombing, their lives are suddenly, utterly transformed. The deceased couple have left behind two young children, and their shocked and grieving families must decide who will raise six-year-old Gal and baby Noam. When it becomes clear that Daniel's brother and sister-in-law wanted Matt and Daniel to be their children's guardians, the two men find themselves confronted by challenges that strike at the heart of their relationship. What is Matt's place in an extended family that does not competently accept him or the commitment he and Daniel have made? How do Daniel's complex feelings about Israel and this act of terror affect his ability to recover from his brother's death? And what kind of parents can these two men really be to children who have lost so much? The impact that this instant new family has on Matt, Daniel, and their relationship is subtle and heartbreaking, yet not without glimmers of hope. They must learn to reinvent and redefine their bond in profound, sometimes painful ways. How does a family become strong enough to stay together and endure when its very basis has drastically changed? And are their limits to honesty or commitment - or love?
When I finally got around to reading this book, I read it in one sitting. I read all 420 pages, and did not put the book down once. I didn't get up to go to the bathroom, I didn't quench the thirst I started to feel half way through, I ignored my phone, and I told everyone to leave me alone. And strangely, I had this reaction to a book I'm not all that in love with, and I'm not even sure I realized that until I typed it.
And now that I've let the cat out of the bag, I guess it's on me to try figure out why I was so engrossed in a book, that I didn't love. Normally, even when I'm really enjoying a book, I don't get so engrossed that I can't put it down. And the two most recent times before this, The Absolutist by John Boyne and Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, were books that I truly loved. They were books I would recommend to anyone and everyone, and will reread for the rest of my life. I'm not sure how often I would recommend All I Love and Know, and I'm really not sure if it is a book I will ever reread. And quite frankly, I'm still not sure I can tell you why, so I think I just wasted this entire paragraph.
I think part of this issue is my somewhat conflicted view of the entire Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Like Matt and Daniel, I think what Israel has done to the Palestinians is pretty much the same as Apartheid in South Africa. I think the idea of an entire Ethnic/Religious group, who has been subjugated by other for centuries, turning around and doing the same thing themselves, I find it puzzling and just a tad bit revolting. It makes no sense to me. But at the same time, I agree that Israel has every right to defend themselves against those who don't want them to exist as a nation. But most of all, I don't have an answer. I don't know what either side should do, though I think the fighting is taking its toll on way too many innocents.
But I think my general unease has more to do with the relationship between Matt and Daniel. It's messy and complicated, they have a quasi open marriage, which I still do not understand, though I know it happens. And I think it's in that one little facet of their relationship, my own personal issues with it, that prevents me from loving this book. With everything going on in their lives, with all the pain and conflict, I get why maybe turning outside the relationship for comfort would be something that could happen. Especially when one of the partners is doing everything that he can to make it work, and the other has shut down and withdrawn so deeply into his pain, that neither one can see straight anymore. I get the need for connection in the face of pain, and I get the urge to get it anywhere you can when you are no longer getting that sense of worth from the man you love.
What I don't understand is how they allowed this to happen before the events of the book. The openness, though maybe not occurring very often, and with a ton of rules, still went on. They were happily in love, living together, but allowed each other to be intimate with other people. Call me a prude, old fashioned, or naive, but I've never been able to understand relationships like that. I try not to judge those who are in open relationships, and for the most part I don't, but I still don't get it. And I understand it's not my place to get it, since I'm not in the relationship, but it does stop me from investing to much emotion into a fictional couple that I really wanted to love. And I really don't understand why the author uses that openness as a vehicle for the couple to implode, or at least the proverbial last straw breaking the camel's back..
Since you can tell from the synopsis that it all works out in the end, I don't feel as if I'm spoiling anything for you, when I tell you that it does in fact have a happy ending. And I can even go as far as saying that I'm happy it ended that way, and that I adore both Matt and Daniel. I can even go a step further and tell you that I enjoyed the book, that I became invested in both the story and the characters, that I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with Matt and Daniel. I'm even willing to admit that it's my own personal hangups that kept me from loving what I read.
And now that I'm done typing, I'm even willing to concede that maybe I loved this book more than I did at the beginning of the review. Maybe its as simple as uttering my relationship hangups out loud, albeit in type. Could actually admitting your issues, no matter where they come from, allow you to get over them, to not let them cloud your judgement? Maybe it is that simple, or maybe, just maybe actually sitting down to write a review actually forces you to rethink the entire process over again. No matter the reason, I'm now willing to admit that I loved the book, and that I would highly recommend. it. I just hope you guys don't think I'm too schizophrenic now.
I want to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews, hopefully they will be more coherent than mine.
If you didn't know that Edwin Booth saved the life of Robert Todd Lincoln, months before his brother assassinated President Lincoln, you aren't alone. I had no clue, and that's the point of this book. The author, Andrew Carroll, who had files upon files of little know historical oddities, decided to travel the United States, visiting the sites of pivotal points in American history, that most of us have forgotten about. And forgotten is probably not the right word, let's just say this book is full of events and people that most of us never heard about, though we should have.
He had a few self imposed criteria. They had to be sites that were nationally important, not just some fun local event that didn't have that much of an impact, outside of the neighborhood it took place in. But most importantly, they had to be unmarked, which most of the time, meant they were forgotten.
But this isn't just a book full of unconnected events and the personalities involved, instead its a travelogue that celebrates this country's past, and honors those that are trying to preserve it. The author isn't just slapping down some dates and names, he's letting us in on the journey, allowing us to share in the discovery, to revel in our collective history. Each trip is a separate journey, and we are right there with him, as he visits the sites and talks to the locals, gleaning information from everyone he meets. You can feel the reverence and even the awe that he feels at times, being on location, where those we should honor, gave up their lives or fulfilled a life time of accomplishments.
He starts us off in Hawaii, not the most logical choice, nor his first choice. Rather he is forced to accommodate his journey, to meet the demands of where he is going. And it's with Hawaii that my studying began. I was unaware of how a kamikaze pilot crash landed on the small island of Niihau. Nor did I know of his capture by the locals, and how some trusted members of the community, who happened to be of Japanese heritage, tried to help him in escaping. It's that incident that helped cement the distrust of Japanese Americans, and helped to land them in internment camps for the remainder of World War II.
What follows is a state by state tour, exploring other such events. But he doesn't go off willy nilly, or even follow in a way that makes the most geographical sense. Instead he breaks the stops down into categories, using these events and places to explore broader themes running throughout our history. He visits those who are trying to figure out who was here before us. He delves into the darker side of expansion, discovery and growth. He visits the homes of men and women who pushed our country forward through innovation and science. He even touches upon the future, how our past teaches us about what is to come, and how there are those who are trying to preserve it for those generations to come.
And just to put out there one random fact that I never knew, the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, started in Haskell County, KS. I live in Kansas, but haven't been into the Western part of the state, I always knew that I never wanted to take a trip to Sublette.
On November 5, 1942, a U.S. cargo plane on a routine flight slammed into the Greenland ice cap. Four day later, a B-17 assigned to the search-and-rescue mission became lost in a blinding storm and also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on the B-17 survived. With the weather worsening, the U.S. military launched a daring rescue mission, sending a Grumman Duck amphibious plane to find the men. After picking up on member of the B-17 crew, the Duck flew into a severe storm, and the plane and the three men aboard vanished. In this thrilling, true-life adventure, Mitchell Zuckoff offers a spellbinding account of these harrowing crashes and the fate of the survivors and their would be saviors. Full of evocative detail, Frozen in Time brings their extraordinary ordeal vividly into focus - a fight to stay alive and sane through 148 days of a brutal Arctic winter. Zuckoff takes us deep into the most hostile environment on earth and into the snow case and tail section of the broken B-17, where the airmen took refuge from subzero temperatures, hurricane-force winds, and vicious blizzards. He places us at the center of a group of valiant men kept alive by sporadic military food and supply drops until an expedition headed by the famed Arctic explorer Bernt Balchen attempts to bring them to safety. But that is only part of the story that unfold in Frozen in Time. Moving forward to today, Zuckoff recounts the efforts of the Coast Guard and North South Polar Inc., led by and indefatigable dreamer named Lou Sapienza, who worked for years to solve the mystery of the Duck's last flight and recover the remains of its crew.
Before I sat down to write my review of Frozen in Time, I went back to read the review I did of Lost in Shangri-La, the last book I read by Mitchell Zuckoff. Boy, did I like that book. I'm not sure I've given such a glowing review to another nonfiction book since I've started blogging. I droned on and on about how masterfully the author was able to not only bring the events alive, but to humanize the the men and women involved, making them feel three dimensional in ways most authors can't do with historical figures. I had paragraph after paragraph lauding the author's narrative voice, his attention to detail, and his ability to make history as easy to read as fiction. It would be far easier for me to cut/paste my review of Lost in Shangri-La, changes a few names around, and have the review over and done with. Since that's cheating, I won't do that.
What I do want to say is how much I appreciate books like this. There is so much of our history, heroic stories that seem to be forgotten in a rather short amount of time. They may capture the news of day, or even a month or two, but new events slowly force them back in time, into a miasma of obscurity that tends to swallow them whole. Rarely, and only after an untold amount of dedication brought to the story, do the men and women history forgot, get a chance to be remembered again. Zuckoff is brilliant at being able to pluck a instance of history and bring it back to life in all it's glory. He doesn't just tell the story, he makes his readers live the story along side those he is bringing back to life within the pages of his books.
Parts of me, felt every moment these men spent on the ice. I put myself in their shoes, and I honestly don't know that I'm man enough to fill them. What they went through, the physical and mental anguish brought forth by the circumstance they found themselves in could easily break most of the men I know. I gasped out loud as men who survived a plane crash onto a desolate Arctic wasteland, who survived for untold weeks upon the ice, succumbed to the dangers all around them. Whether they were plunged into the bottomless depths of an icy crevasse, or lost for over 70 years entombed in ice after a plane coming to rescue them, is lost to a storm, I can only imagine the anguish they most of felt, right before they slipped away. It's a horror I'll never feel, but it's a horror I can now sympathize with.
The way he weaves the three crash stories together, two of which are a direct result of the first, is seamless. There is a rhythm to the events and to his narrative that carries the reader along, never allowing them to get bogged down in confusion or apathy for what they are reading. When the narrative switches to the present, where he is not only finding himself personally, but financially as well, invested in the search for the doomed rescue plane, and it's three passengers, it fits in with the rest of the story. So often, there is a jarring sense of dislocation when a historical narrative jumps time periods, Zuckoff pulls if off perfectly.
One of his fellow explorers, as they were searching for the plane in Greenland, would ask Zuckoff how the book would end. I'm not sure this book has a proper ending, and given the circumstances of what he was writing about, I think that's appropriate. I'm looking forward to discovering the end, when it happens.
I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review this book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.
The wonderful group at TLC Book Tours have generously offered my readers the chance to win a copy of this book for themselves. The giveaway will last until 11:59 pm, CST, on 5/10/13. You must be a resident of the United States to enter, and all you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address.
Pioneer. Congressman. Martyr of the Alamo. King of the Wild Frontier. As with all great legends, Davy Crockett's has been retold many times. Over the years, he has been repeatedly reinvented by historians and popular storytellers. In fact, one could argue that there are three distinct Crocketts: the real David as he was before he became famous; the celebrity politician whose backwoods image Crockett himself created, then lost control of; and the mythic Davy we know today. In the road-trip tradition of Sarah Vowell and Tony Horwitz, Bob Thompson follows Crockett's footsteps from his birthplace in east Tennessee; to Washington, where he served three terms in Congress; and on to Texas and the gates of the Alamo, seeking out those who know, love, and are still willing to fight over Davy's life and legacy.
I came to know and love Davy Crockett in about the same manner as everyone else my age, or even thirty years older than me. It was watching Fess Parker play Davy Crockett for Disney, that made me fall in love with the adventures he had, and the kind of man he was. Parker's Davy was daring, generous, fearless, and about every other positive adjective I can think of. I wanted to go on his adventures and grow into the man he was. He was almost godlike to me as a kid, and all I wanted was that damn coonskin cap. I don't think I ever got that hat, but I never lost that feeling of adventure and awe that Davy, through Parker, instilled in me.
I was such a huge fan that when I finally had enough points with the Disney Movie Rewards program, the very first thing I ordered was the Davy Crockett Two Movie Set on DVD. At that point in time, my son had never seen anything about or knew who Davy Crockett was. When we got it in the mail, we fired it up, and I introduced my son to one of my childhood heroes. There is just something so magical about the way Fess Parker played him, because it got my son hooked on him and he wanted to know all about Davy, Colonel Travis, Jim Bowie, and all the rest of the heroes who died in the Alamo. I actually had to explain to him that Davy, though he is single handily fighting off the Mexican soldiers at the end of the movie, died. My son though he lived and prevailed since the image faded to black. He couldn't believe that this man, who he had just met, could die. This was a few years ago, and while my son isn't as fascinated by him as he was then, he will occasionally put the movie in, and relive the adventures all over again.
For me, watching them with my son, it brought back all the magic. I fell in love all over again. Now my love for Davy has never made me go out and do my own research into his life. I did buy a few children's books for my son after we had watched the movies for the first time, but I was never compelled to go out and read about the man himself. I think part of me was scared that if I got to know the real Davy Crockett, that some of the magic would go away. Even as a kid, I understood that the Davy I knew, was more myth like than real. That he had been built up into some sort of a demigod; much like Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Johnny Appleseed, or John Henry. He was a creation of fact and fiction, and I was worried that some of the fact would overshadow that myth.
It's that separation that Bob Thompson was trying to do in his book, Born on a Mountaintop: One the Road with Davy Crockett and the Ghosts of the Wild Frontier. Much like myself, he first discovered Davy through Fess Parker and Disney and rediscovered him through his kids. Unlike myself, he was curious enough to set out on a journey to try and discover the real Davy Crockett, who the man was behind the myth. What he found out is that sometimes, it's very hard to figure that out.
Our history books are not only full of facts and dates, but they include a fair amount of guesswork, myth building, and a even a tiny bit of fiction. Those boundaries seem to be even further blurred when is comes to Davy Crockett. So much of what we know, or think we know, is myth and reality combined into a rather tangled skein, difficult to comb out. Thompson, through interviews, talking with Davy addicted historians, visiting site and landmarks important to the life of Davy Crockett, and investigation some of the source material himself, tries to do some combing on his own. Oftentimes he discovers enough to make a solid decision on whether something is fact, fiction, or a blending of the two. Other times, he is left with having to make an educated assumption, understanding he may have it wrong.
I'm not sure we will ever know the complete factual details of Davy Crockett's life, nor do I think we need to. We need our heroes, our demigods, almost as much as the Greeks and Romans did. We need men and women to elevate to a higher plane, people we can look up to and celebrate. I'm not sure how much can actually be accomplished if we were able to bring them back down to Earth. I think it's best they are left up in the stratosphere, it gives us, and future generations an example of how to live our lives.
Born on a Mountaintop: On the Road with Davy Crockett and the Ghosts of the Wild Frontier gives us some of those missing facts, dispels some of the myths, but keeps the magic intact. Bob Thompson was able to create this wonderful balancing act of finding out the truth, what he could anyway, and keeping the myth whole. He didn't hurt the legend of Davy Crockett through this book, he made it stronger and brought more color to it. He kept Davy Crockett magical for me, but gave me more information about who the man actually was.
The wonderful group at Crown Publishers have generously offered my readers the chance to win a hardcover copy of this book for themselves. The giveaway will last until 11:59 pm, CST, on 4/11/13. You must be a resident of the United States to enter, and all you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address.
London, 1940. Winston Churchill has just been sworn in, war rages across the Channel, and the threat of a Blitz looms larger by the day. But none of this deters Maggie Hope. She graduated at the top of her college class and possesses all the skills of the finest mind in British intelligence, but her gender qualifies her only to be the newest typist at No. 10 Downing Street. Her indefatigable spirit and remarkable gifts for code breaking, though, rival those of even the highest men in government, and Maggie finds that working for the prime minister affords her a level of clearance she could never had have imagined - and opportunities she will not let pass. In troubled, deadly times, with air-raid sirens sending multitudes underground, access to the War Room also exposes Maggie to the machinations of a menacing faction determined to do whatever it takes to change the course of history.
Earlier this month I posted a review for the second book in the series, Princess Elizabeth's Spy. I read them in order, but because of time restraints they aren't being reviewed in order, so I apologize to anyone who may be confused by that.
This will be a rather short review, because a lot of what I wanted to say about Maggie and her personality, I already said in the previous review. What I do want to touch upon is in the way the author combined the threat of a Nazi invasion and fresh bombings from the IRA to build the tension that Maggie and her friends find themselves living with every day of their lives. Now I don't know if there was ever any collaboration, at any level, between the two organizations, but the combination works brilliantly here. It forces Maggie and her friends to expect trouble from all directions, never really allow them to gain safe footing.
The other aspect I really enjoyed, and which I didnt' mention in the previous review, is the group of people that surround Maggie. From her aunt, a college professor in Boston, her gay best friend, the girls she shares her home with, the silent young man who seems to have taken some interest in her, her enigmatic parents, and even with Winston Churchill himself, the author has created a cast of supporting characters that I'm really looking forward to getting to know better. The fact that some of the closest people in her life aren't what they appear to be, makes it even better.
Now I know this is considered a mystery novel, and will be found in that section of a bookstore, I tend to think of books like this more of historical fiction, with a murderous or espionage twist. It's really about recreating the time period and atmosphere that someone in London during the war would experience. The spy craft and death are just added bonuses.
His swashbuckling exploits appear in The Three Musketeers, and his triumphs and trials inspired The Count of Monte Cristo - both books written by his son. Yet it is for one reason in particular that General Alex Dumas deserves to stand n history's spotlight: alone among his race, he rose to command vast armies - in an audacious campaign across Europe and the Middle East - and in his triumph and ultimate betrayal we see how dangerous one individual can be to an entire way of life.
Born to a black slave mother and a fugitive white French nobleman in Saint-Domingue (present day Haiti), Alex Dumas was sold into bondage but made his way to Paris, where he was schooled as a sword-fighting member of the French aristocracy. When the Revolution broke out, he joined the army at the lowest rank - yet quickly rose, through a series of legendary feats, to command more than 50,000 men.
No matter how high he soared, Dumas continued to live by his blade and his boldness in the face of overwhelming odds. Yet, because of his unwavering principles, he ultimately became a threat to Napoleon himself.
Dumas was on his way home from conquering Egypt when his ship nearly sank, and he was captured by a mysterious enemy, thrown into a dungeon, and subjected to slow poisoning. But the fate that awaited him when he escaped the dungeon would shock him even more.
I've been trying to figure out the first time I read The Count of Monte Cristo, the first time I fell in love with a story that has captivated my imagination ever since. As a young adult, I read it as an adventure. How could anyone resist the story of a man who is betrayed by those he thought he could trust, imprisoned for years, only to escape and exact revenge on those who harmed him. It's a brilliantly told tale, and now that I know the inspiration for the story, I'm in love with it all that much more.
Before this book, I never gave much thought to who Alexandre Dumas was, I knew nothing about his background, let alone that his father was once a a revered military man, a general who led troops into battle, and pulled off what some thought was the impossible. The fact that he was the bastard son of a French aristocrat and a freed slave, makes the real story of the father, that much more compelling.
When I read a biography, especially of someone I'm not that familiar with, I want it to entertain and inform. I want to know who the person was to the core, what made them who they are, what drove them to be the person someone would want to write a book about hundreds of years later. But what's more, I want a book that makes me want to read more after the last page is turned. I want to be inspired to continue my journey. I want to learn more about the topic of the biography, or even the events they found themselves surrounded by. Tom Resiss did all of that for me with The Black Count.
Not only do I want to know more about General Dumas, but I feel compelled to actually read more about the French Revolution and it's aftermath. As an American high schooler, we never really learned all that much about what happened. I think most Americans use A Tale of Two Cities as their main references point. From what I did know about it, I was appalled by the excesses and horrified by the sheer violence. This book didn't change that for me, actually it gave me even more reason for feeling the way I do. What The Black Count did, was make me want to know more about the workings of the Revolution, the issues behind it, and the people involved.
It also made me want to know more about a society that was capable of looking past the general's race, to raise him up to such heights. I want to know more about a France that I never knew about, a country that despite it's "familiarity" stills remains an enigma for most Americans. I want to know how a country could wrestle with race, create a handicapped system of equality, and then turn it's back on the gains it had made.
Now I'm not saying my next few years are going to be taken up with a serious study of French history and culture, but I will keep my eyes open for opportunities that will allow me to sate my curiosity. It will, on occasion, check to see if there are any new books about General Dumas or the French Revolution. I will google to see if France has erected a statue or honored the General for his service anytime soon. This will be a book I lend out, though I'm normally hesitant about doing so. This will be a book that stays on my shelves for years to come.
As World War II sweeps the Continent and England steels itself against German attack, Maggie Hope, former secretary to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, completes her training to become a spy fro MI-G. Spirited, strong-willed, and possessing one of the sharpest minds in government for mathematics and code breaking, she fully expects to be sent abroad to gather intelligence for the British front. Instead, she is dispatched to go undercover at Windsor Castle - to tutor the young Princess Elizabeth in math. Yet the upstairs-downstairs world at Windsor quickly proves more dangerous - and deadly - than Maggie ever expected.
I'm going to admit, right up front, that I've been a bad blogger lately. I really haven't had the time or the energy to sign in and write reviews. As of right now, I have 11 finished books, waiting patiently to be taken off the shelf and a review written. I actually wanted to get a review of Mr. Churchill's Secretary, this books predecessor, but alas, I ran out of time. I actually forgot I had to have this review up today. So I'm here on election day, having already voted this morning, writing a few reviews.
After reading Mr. Churchill's Secretary, review coming later, and Princess Elizabeth's Spy, I think it's safe to assume I'm in love with this sub genre. Now I'm not sure if it has a name or not, but this explosion of mystery novels set in England during the two World Wars, has me panting for more. Now I guess I better explain myself or you are going to assume I'm some sort of drooling baboon, one that doesn't utter anything other than "ugh."
I know I'm mentioned it before in my reviews of books by Jacqueline Winspear and Charles Todd, but there seems to be an odd sort of "gentleness" the various authors seem to bring to the table. I'm not sure if that tone lends itself to the genre or to the heroines the authors create, but I can imagine that Maggie Hope, Maisie Dobbs, and Bess Crawford would find themselves fast friends and three peas in a pod. Even the chaos of their lives, the world changing events going on all around them, they do their jobs. They go about their business, doing what they can to make things, even in a small way, that much better. Men and women are murdered around them, and they comport themselves with such grace and strength, that I find myself in awe of all of them. They rise to the occasion and get the job done.
As far as Maggie goes, she would be the feistier of the three friends. She knows she has the education and brains to run with the big boys, but had to fight her way into the position to be able to prove it. I can't get into too much of her back story, otherwise I would be giving you a review of the first book as well. I guess that means I can't really say anything about her in this one either. What I can say is that I find her to be a fascinating person, who doesn't always see everything going on around her, but is always willing to move on once the truth comes to the surface. She has a heart and doesn't see everything in black or white, but does have a strong sense of good and evil. She is willing to put herself in danger to save her charge, and is willing to give her life for something she believes in.
I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.
For three decades, the United States and Iran have engaged in a secret war. It is a conflict that has never been acknowledged and a story that has never been told.
This surreptitious war began with the Iranian Revolution and simmers today inside Iraq and in the Persian Gulf. Fights rage in the shadows between the CIA and it's network of spies and Iran's intelligence agency. Battles are fought at sea with Iranians in small speedboats attacking Western oil tankers. This conflict has frustrated five American presidents, divided administrations, and repeatedly threatened to bring the two nations into open warfare. It is a story of shocking miscalculations, bitter debates, hidden casualties, boldness, and betrayal.
I dare anyone to walk into a mall, stop 10 people, and ask them the capital of Iran. You may even ask them to point to Iran on a map. I would be surprised if more than two people were able to do either thing. Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if none of them could. Think it's just a problem with Iran. Do the same thing for Syria, Egypt, or for that matter Germany. You will more than likely get the same results. The idea of most Americans not being able to answer those questions, scares the hell out of me.
I'm not going to sit here and say that the present day is any more dangerous than those that have came before them. I think human civilization has always lived on the brink of self annihilation, but we are living in a world that makes that outcome a lot easier to accomplish, and in less time. I think at a minimum, we should at least know the players in the game and the history behind the present circumstances. Wanting to grow my base of understanding is the whole reason I chose to read/review this book. Our history with Iran is one that I know very little about, and I wanted a resource that could put our relationship into context.
Now I'm not going to say that The Twilight War is for the casual reader, because it's not. At times, I felt as if I was back in school reading a well written text book. It's a dense tome, full of dates, names, and events. Granted, those dates, names, and events are the meat of the book and could not be left out. With them, Crist paints a broad and concise picture of our relationship with Iran since the Carter administration. He chronicles our failures and our successes with a country that most Americans don't understand, but should know more about. It's one of those books that everyone, who is wanting to get a better understanding on the Middle East, should read.
I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review the book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.
It is September 1919: twenty-one-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver a package of letters to the sister of Will Bancroft, the man he fought alongside during the Great War.
But the letters are not the real reason for Tristan's visit. He can no longer keep a secret and has finally found the courage to unburden himself of it. As Tristan recounts the horrific details of what to him became a senseless war, he also speaks of his friendship with Will - from their first meeting on the training grounds at Aldershot to their farewell in the trenches of northern France. The intensity of their bond brought Tristan happiness and self-discovery but also confusion and unbearable pain.
There aren't a lot of books that can break my heart. No matter how much I'm able to connect with the characters or find myself lost in the action, I don't make a habit of emotionally investing myself on such a visceral level. It's not something I make a conscience decision on, I just read so much that if I allowed myself to put my emotions into every book I read, I would be a basket case. But every once in a while, I can't help myself. I allow myself to fully invest in what I'm reading. I get so involved in the character's lives that I'm not able to keep those walls up. The Absolutist, is one of those cases.
I've been trying to figure out what I can say about this book, without giving way too much away, but get everyone who reads this to read the book for themselves. I know one of the central themes of this book is how war can change and solidify personal beliefs and what those beliefs can lead too. This book, in stark terms, examines what can happen when certain beliefs run in the face of what is expected of a soldier in battle. I may not be wording this right, but I think it's a pretty important idea to explore in the face of what's been going on over the last 11 years.
It's the more personal face of the story that moved me the most though. More than anything else, this is a story about Tristan and Will. Granted it's told through the eyes of Tristan, but I think he gives a pretty accurate account of the events that lead up to that unbearable pain mentioned in the synopsis. I don't think he pulls any punches or makes any excuses for his actions, though it may have been nice to have had Will's reasoning for his own behavior towards Tristan and for his final act that sets the course for the rest of the book.
I can pretty much tell you in one word the motivating factor for most of what happens, fear. Fear of the unknown, but more importantly, fear of self. It's the fear of allowing yourself to be who and what you are, that sets everything else into motion. Neither one of these men can fully accept or deal with what they are feeling or what they did as a result. It's the waste of life, both physical and emotional, that moved me in a way few books can manage. It's what happens to both these men as a result of fear that broke my heart and forced me to think of the what might have beens in my own life. It's not a reaction I want to have from every book I read, but when it does happen, I'm grateful for it.
Eventually, the Gestapo hunted down 230 of these women and imprisoned them in a fort outside Paris. Separated from home and loved ones, these disparate individuals turned to one another, their common experience conquering divisions of age, education, profession, and class, as they found solace and strength in their deep affection and camaraderie.
In January 1943, they were sent to their final destination: Auschwitz. Only forty-nine would return to France.
I have been reading a lot of great books, both non fiction and fiction, that deal with WWII. It's not a subject I had sought out on purpose, but for some reason I was presented with books this year that I could not turn down. For the most part, they blew me away with their narrative voices and I walked away feeling as if I had not only learned something, but my emotional thinking was altered as well. So when I agreed to review A Train In Winter, I was betting on the same thing happening. I wish that that bet would have payed off.
It's not that I didn't find the story being told compelling, because I did. I found the women (and men) featured in this book to be both heroic and engaging. What happens to them after they are captured broke my heart and reaffirmed for me the inhumanity that we, as a species, can show to each other. They are true heroes and deserve all the recognition and honor that we can bestow upon them. My issue with the book, and I'm sure it's more of me comparing this book to others that I have read this year, is the tone of the narrative voice.
I don't think cold is the right word for it, but it comes close to the way I reacted to it. In the beginning of the book the author throws a lot of names, dates, and events at the reader, hoping that he/she will be able to follow along and not get bogged down in facts. The author shows her skill as a biographer and historian, but the human side of the story seems to get lost in the shuffle. There are moments where the women shine through the recital, but it's pretty sparse. As the book continues, the narrative changes a bit, especially after the women are captured and put into the camp. But even then, as the women take more shape and the author lets us to get to know them on a more personal level, there still seems to be a level of detachment there that I was just not able to get over.
I'm glad I read the book and even happier to learn even more about a period of history that seems to, the more time passes, get glossed over in our schools. The women whose stories are being told, deserve to be remembered for their courage and strength. I just wish I had been able to connect with the author's style a bit more.
I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the military to ban anyone from certain areas of the country, with primary focus on the West Coast. Eventually the order was used to relocate 120,000 people of Japanese descent to internment camps such as the Rohwer Relocation Center in remote Desha County, Arkansas.
This time of fear and prejudice (the U.S. government formally apologized for the relocations in 1982) and the Arkansas Delta are the setting for Camp Nine. The novel's narrator, Chess Morton, lives in tiny Rook, Arkansas. Her days are quiet and secluded until the appearance of a relocation center built for what was in effect the imprisonment of thousands of Japanese Americans.
Chess's life becomes intertwined with those of two young internees and an American soldier mysteriously connected to her mother's past. As Chess watches the struggles and the triumphs of these strangers and see her mother seek justice for these people who came briefly and involuntarily to call the Arkansas Delta their home, she discovers surprising and disturbing truths about her family's painful past.
For some strange reason, I've been reading a lot of books this year that relates a story during World War II. I've never been a big fan of war history or that particular time period, so I have found it all that more curious that I seem to be reading everything that comes my way that deals with that era of history. They have for the most part been nonfiction and the few fiction books have been mysteries or Gothic that just happens to be set during that period. Up until this point, I hadn't read a fiction books that needs to be set in that period in order for the story to work. Camp Nine is the first one and if they are all like this one, I have a very busy life ahead of me. For me this book wasn't about the history, though it played a huge part, it was more about the story itself.
Now while this book does deal with race, class, and the societal structures of the day, that's not what I focused on as I was reading it. Those elements needed to be there in order for the story to progress, but I couldn't take my mind off the characters long enough to really analyze the rest of it. This experience was all about some of the most wonderful characters I have had the pleasure of discovering in a long time.
The action revolves around Chess and her mother from the beginning and it never leaves them as the other characters are introduced. The way they interact with one particular family in the internment camp, the Matsui family, made me feel hope and relief that there may still be people who are willing to fight for what's right and just, even if it's only in the smallest way. They, despite their faults and blindness to other issues, do what they can to make the lives of those in the camps a little better and develop close friendships with some of them. I can't even start to explain the richness of all the other characters as they bought in their voices and stories to the tale. These will a cast of extraordinary people that I don't think I will forget for a very long time.
But the one character that set this book apart from a lot of others, was the place. The land became the most important character as it dictated so many of the relationships between the human characters. The land controlled the fates of those who owned and those who worked. It gave some riches and caused others to be little more than serfs of those who owned the land. It was the canvas that gave life to all those who lived on it and it wouldn't hesitate to take it all back. It was a living, breathing entity that provided a lush and rich background for the dynamic relationships that I found so much pleasure in.
I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews as they are posted.
For most of the twentieth century, the sword has led before the olive branch in American foreign policy. In eye-opening fashion, State vs. Defense shows how America truly operates as a superpower and explores the constant tension between the diplomats at State and the warriors at Defense.
State vs. Defense characterizes all the great figures who crafted American foreign policy, from George Marshall to Robert McNamara to Henry Kissinger to Don Rumsfeld with this underlying theme: America has become increasingly imperial and militaristic.
Take, for example, the Pentagon, which as of 2010, acknowledged the concentration of 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees inside 909 military facilities in 46 countries and territories. The price of America’s military-base network overseas, along with the expense of its national security state at home, is enormous. The bill comes in at well over $1 trillion. That is equal to nearly 8 percent of GDP and more than 20 percent of the federal budget. (By comparison, China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, the five countries Pentagon planners routinely trot out as conventional threats to the national well-being, have a cumulative security budget of just over $200 billion.) Quietly, gradually—and inevitably, given the weight of its colossal budget and imperial writ—the Pentagon has all but eclipsed the State Department at the center of U.S. foreign policy.
In the tradition of classics such as The Wise Men, The Best and the Brightest, and Legacy of Ashes, State vs. Defense explores how and why American leaders succumbed to the sirens of militarism, how the republic has been lost to an empire, and how “the military-industrial complex” that Eisenhower so famously forewarned has set us on a stark path of financial peril. I don't have the knowledge or the expertise to review this book on the merits or on the facts, so I'm not even going to try. For the most part, due to my world & political views, I tend to agree with every point this author is making about the disparity between the State and Defense Departments. I agree that for too long this country has let it's military define our global footprint and I think it's time for the State Department to start doing it's job again. Despite my inclination to to agree with the state purpose of the book, I'm afraid that I walked away from it with a sour taste in my mouth.
What I did not like was the tone the author chose to take in discussing the subject. I didn't like the obvious contempt the author has for many of the people he talks about in the book, it's contempt that I may share, but I don't think it's necessarily helpful. Anyone who is coming at this book from the opposite point of view is not going to take it seriously. They are, wrongly in my opinion, going to look at this is a work of the "liberal media" and dismiss it. They won't take it seriously, something which I think this subject needs. I think the tone did a disservice to the book, one that was avoidable. I would have much preferred a book that laid out the facts, with no judgements made, in order for the reader to make up their own mind.
I do think this is an important look at the players involved and the decisions that have been made in order for us to get to this point in our history. The State Department has been sidelined too many times for the political or financial gain of those involved in the decision making. I do think it's time that we allow the diplomatic community to take the reigns once again. I just hope that this book, despite it's flaws, gets the idea across to enough people.
When the Dutch Army surrenders to Japan in 1942, nine-year-old Sofia is imprisoned with her mother, younger brother, and two baby sisters in different concentration camps on Sumatra, Indonesia. Her father is sent to work on the Burma-Siam railroad, and the family doesn't know if he is dead of alive. In this memoir, author G. Pauline Kok-Schurgers narrates a story of hate and torture, starvation and disease, and physical and psychological abuse experienced during her interment.
Sofia toils through those years, taking care of her younger siblings and trying to prevent her mother from sinking deeper into depression. Sofia longs for her father's return and her mother's attention and love. The gruesome years in those camps, the loneliness, and the loss of dear friends transform Sofia into a silent, inward person, scarred for the rest of her life.
I dont' even know where to being on this one. I'm not sure if it's even possible to "review" a book like this. There is no way I can critique such a personal, raw story of dehumanization and war. All I can do is state how I reacted to the book and how it made me feel on a visceral level.
I found the narrative choice to be interesting and provocative. Instead of recounting her time in the camps from an adult perspective, the author chose to narrate from the eyes of herself as that little nine year old thrust into a world she can't begin to comprehend. The emotions are that of a child, so hate, jealously, bitterness is all the more palpable for me. The contempt she feels for certain people oozes off the page as does the vast suffering she had to endure. I'm a little torn on how that decision influenced the way I feel about the book. On an emotional level, I was in heartache reading what this child had to go through. On a academic level, I would have liked to see what she thoughts now, as an adult, about what she and her family had to go through. I think both are valid outlooks but I think I would have liked a little of both.
I'm not going to recount everything she and the rest of the prisoners had suffer as it would take too long and would make me wince with every word I typed. I will say that nobody, especially a child, should ever have to endure the humiliation, torture, and neglect that these people had afflicted on them. The fact that any of them survived the camps is a testament to the human spirit and desire to live. I'm not sure I could have survived after four years of what they had done to them.
My only other wish is that the book had not ended when it did. It left me feeling a little disconnected from what happens and how Sofia reacts to her father not recognizing her. If is was her father. I would like to know what happened after she wandered away, how the family reacted and dealt with being reunited once again.
No matter what, Sofia and her story will stay with me for the rest of my life and I would love for more stories to be told. I would like to read other accounts from survivors of the concentration camps, that I think the world and history have forgotten about.
On May 13, 1945, twenty-four officers and enlisted men and women stationed on what was then Dutch New Guinea boarded a transport plane named the Gremlin Special for a sightseeing trip over “Shangri-La.” A beautiful and mysterious valley surrounded by steep, jagged mountain peaks deep within the island’s uncharted jungle, this hidden retreat was named after the fabled paradise in the bestselling novel Lost Horizon. But unlike the peaceful Tibetan monks of James Hilton’s book, this Shangri-La was the home of Stone Age warriors—spear-carrying tribesmen rumored to be headhunters and cannibals.
But the pleasure tour became an unforgettable battle for survival when the plane crashed. Miraculously, three passengerssurvived—WAC Corporal Margaret Hastings, Lieutenant John McCollom, and Sergeant Kenneth Decker. Margaret, barefoot and burned, had no choice but to wear her dead best friend’s shoes. McCollom, grieving the death of his twin brother also aboard the Gremlin Special, masked his grief with stoicism. Decker, too, was severely burned and suffered a bloody, gaping head wound.
Emotionally devastated, badly injured, and vulnerable to disease, parasites, and poisonous snakes in the wet jungle climate, the trio faced certain death unless they left the wreckage. Caught between man-eating headhunters and the enemy Japanese, with nothing to sustain them but a handful of candy and their own fortitude, they endured a harrowing trek down the mountainside—an exhausting journey into the unknown that would lead them straight into a primitive tribe of superstitious natives who had never before seen a white man–or woman.
I left a comment the other day, I forget where though I'm sure I'll remember later, about my discovery of great non fiction books being part of the reason I love book blogging so much. Whether they are books that I have the pleasure of reading or those reviewed by the bloggers I love, I'm finding books about subjects that I either never heard of before or those I'm not all that familiar with. This book, Lost in Shangri-La, recounts a story I never knew about, but I'm damn glad I do now.
This was a fast paced narrative recounting what happened after a C-47 carrying 24 military personal, 9 of them WACS, crashed into the mountains of Dutch New Guinea. For some reason I always think that World War II ended after the Allies defeated Hitler. I almost forget that the military campaign taking place in the Pacific ended later than that. I forget that we still had men, and sometimes women, fighting and dying as they fought the Japanese. I forget that the Atomic bombs we dropped on Japan happened later than the suicide of Hitler. So it's with that forgetfulness of knowledge that I entered into this book.
Those 24 military personnel that crashed landed into a mountain as they were taking a short respite from duty, were brave men and women who were willing to give of themselves to defend this country. They were flying to see, most of them for the first time, a remote mountain valley that had recently been discovered. In that valley, locked away from the rest of the world, lived thousand of native villagers locked in countless wars between villages. They lived with very little clothing, raised their children, grew sweet potatos, raised pigs, and warred on their neighbors for reasons they forgot long ago. They believed in sky spirits that one day would come back and change their world forever. Little did they know that when they encountered the three survivors of that plane crash, that the "sky spirits" were going to be the cause of such monumental change that things would never be the same again.
What I love about this book is how the author recounts not only what happened, but who it happened too. Throughout the book he introduces not only the three survivors but the other 21 people who did not walk away from the crash. It's not just the names that are listed though. Where they are from, who they loved, their goals in life, the details needed to make them real, where what was given. He made me feel as if I was walking along with the 3 of them as they struggled and fought to walk away from the plane and those they knew and loved. He brought to life how they lived amongst the natives as they waited for rescue.
He also helped me to learn about the individual native members of the Dani people as they try to figure out the actions of these "sky spirits" that have been thrust upon them. He was able to recount the way certain natives and the survivors got to know each other and how they often times misunderstood what they other group were doing. Like with the survivors we find out what has happened to them in the years after the rescue and weep at how their valley has "progressed" into the modern world.
This was also the story of the brave men who risked life and limb in order to rescue the three and bring them back to safety. This was no small feat since their was almost no logistical way that didn't have dire consequences if things didn't go right. They had to parachute in then hike to the area the survivors where in. The author brings their personal stories to life in a way that made me want to read more about the Filipino-American soldiers who fought, for whatever reason, against the Japanese.
I loved getting to know all the people involved and I certainly plan on reading/discovering more about them. I really hope that the movie(s) planned shortly after the event happened becomes a real thing someday. Everyone involved deserves the recognition and gratitude that tends to come from a great story being told on the silver screen.
I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book. I would highly encourage everyone to visit the tour page to read more opinions on the book.
In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one volume life of Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America’s first president.
Part of the reason why I wanted to review this book was that despite a decent education, I'm not all that familiar with who George Washington was as a person or a General. I think I was one of many Americans, that according to this book, viewed George Washington as a lifeless waxwork, worthy but dull. Those are the author's words, not mine, but honestly, I would have to agree with him. All I can remember from school is that he was Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, stayed at Valley Forge, crossed the Deleware, and became our first president. Yeah, that's about it. I respected him as one of the founding fathers, but really didn't know who he was as a person. So as you can tell I'm not a scholar of American history so my review may be a little more pedistrain than some others you may read. What I am though is someone who wanted to get to know the man, not the legend.
After reading 815 pages, I can honestly say that not only do I know him better, but I have a lot more respect and admiration for him. The author has done a masterful job of bringing our first president to life in a way I wasn't expecting. Washington is portrayed as an ambitious man who is in a constant state of war with himself. He is a very passionate person but he has such a tight control on his outward manifestations of that passion, that many people never saw that side of him. He was a very guarded person whom inspired respect and admiration but very little affection.
He was a man sensitive to station and rank and never really got over the snubs he suffered during the French and Indian War. Because he was a colonist, he was never granted to the same respect or commission that a British born officer would have. That disparity rankled him and fueled some of his anti British feelings later on in life.
His personality in general was just fascinating to read about. He grew up never receiving a proper education and that bugged him for the rest of his life. The early death of his father and oldest brother stayed with him as did his cool relationship with his mother. Washington was an imposing 6 foot tall and by all accounts a dashing individual. He was a ladies man who loved to flirt but had a deep and meaningful relationship with his wife Martha. Though he was a slave owner he was conflicted on the subject and tried his best to not split families apart, but wouldn't tolerate runaways. This was an attitude he carried into the military as well. The man this book paints for us is intelligent, committed, loyal, but most of all human. He has come down from that marble pedestal and become mortal once again. I think his legacy is served mightily by that.
As you can tell I'm trying to give you a small taste of the man I met within this book but I don't want to go into a lot of it. For one I'm not sure I would ever be able to get across all of it, nor do I think you want to read that long of a post about it. What I do want to do is encourage you to read this book and discover for yourself that George Washington truly does deserve not only our respect and admiration, but our affection as well.
I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to review this book. You can visit the tour page to discover other reviews and to learn more about the author.
