I started posting book reviews to my Goodreads account before I started this blog. I have many reviews on there that aren’t on this blog. I was looking at them and found 10 great books that I’ve reviewed Goodreads that aren’t on this blog … but they should be. Here they are:
Books set during World War II tend to stick with me and this one will. Paris was a city under German control, but Parisians had certain freedoms as long as they didn’t sympathize with the Resistance or hide Jews. Lucien was more than happy to follow these rules until he got an offer he couldn’t refuse.
I saw good reviews of The Paris Architect in the book review magazines and added it to my to-read list. It falls in the same genre for me as The Book Thief and Sarah’s Key – haunting stories set during WWII.
Lucien is an architect and is offered a great sum of money to design a hiding spot in an apartment. At first, he is persuaded by the amount of money, future architectural jobs and the idea of out-smarting the Germans. He tries to keep his distance, but when he is offered to design a second and then a third hiding spot, he starts to see the humanity of the Jewish people around him.
This book is definitely for adults as there are several scenes of Nazi torture and adult interaction. It is enough to remind you of the evilness of the Nazis and how much Lucien is risking to hide Jews in Paris.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes historical fiction and enjoyed Sarah’s Key and The Book Thief.
Life exists on this planet on several levels. We tend to think of life on the surface and in the ocean with larger mammals, but there are small animals and life on a micro level. They say if you were to examine a meter of earth, you would find so many living things underneath a microscope, and, even then, there may be things you still cannot see that are living there.
I have enjoyed every Michael Crichton book I have read, so I was curious to see how Micro would turn out since he was only partially finished with it when he died. Could someone finish it to the same level as Jurassic Park and Next?
Micro explores what could happen if humans could shrink machines and people down to the micro level. What would the world look like if you were 1 inch tall? What new threats to your life would you face? Insects and birds could consider you food. How would your body operate if you were shrunk? Stronger, weaker, faster?
The book is set in Hawaii with eight graduates students visiting a lab where micro technology is being developed. Microbots could help do precision surgery from inside the body, but could they also be used as weapons? The students stumble upon secrets the CEO doesn’t want out and they are shrunk and sent to face the world as tiny people – will they survive? Can they make it back to the lab to return to full size?
This book is fascinating and the topic is very Crichton-worthy. I don’t quite think it would have completely ended up with the storyline it did if Crichton had finished it instead of someone else. There are a few long-winded passages from characters, there is a slight predictability in the deaths of characters and I think he would have gone into some more in-depth descriptions of some of the wildlife and plants the students encounter.
I would still highly recommend this book to any adult who likes Crichton. It would make a good book club book as there are many interesting topics introduced in the book.
A family silk mill near London stays in business during World War II by managing to get a contract to make parachute silk. It’s business to the family, but to the soldiers using the parachutes, the quality of the silk is life and death.
I bought this e-book when it was on sale because the teaser said people who liked The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer would like this book. I have read Shaffer’s book and it is on my top ten list of fiction reads. The Last Telegram was placed in the same setting and told an interesting story focusing on a small section of people surviving during the war.
I enjoyed reading The Last Telegram, but it doesn’t quite compare to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I enjoyed the historical aspects, as I had never thought about the parachute silk production during the war. It also addressed the plight of Jewish children who were refugees in England at the beginning of the conflicts. As the war progressed, though, anyone of German descent was scrutinized.
Lily tells her story to her granddaughter as she looks back on her life after her husband dies, although her memories are mostly triggered by her granddaughter’s decision to skydive.
Lily wants to learn to work in an office, but the war derails her plans and she must start work at the family mill by starting at the bottom rung – weaving. While her beauty and charm help win the family the parachute silk contract, the man soon loses her charm and she falls in love with a German refugee working at the mill. Tragedy visits the family more than once during the war and Lily works hard to keep her family and the mill intact.
The author also has a lesbian character as one of the main mill managers. She creates a dynamic between her and the main character, but there is no romance.
This book could be a good book club book. There are questions at the end of the book for that purpose. It’s a decent and interesting book, but not one of my favorites.
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, nurses joined the military to serve their country and seek adventure. The most adventurous volunteered for overseas tours, including the Philippines. The nurses who ended up on the island were rewarded with light work and a tropical paradise to explore on their time off. They golfed, dined with offices, walked the beaches and enjoyed the local culture.
Then, the Japanese bombed the island and they were on the frontlines of the war.
We Band of Angels caught my eye at a local library book sale. I had never heard of American women being prisoners during World War II and I wanted to know their story.
Without any wartime training, these nurses stepped up and learned how to care for the men wounded by war. They learned to wear gas masks and work through bombings. They set up clinics in the jungle when they were evacuated from their hospitals. They were part of the Americans who “were surrendered” to the Japanese when they ran out of supplies. They were taken as prisoners of war for three years and continued to work as nurses. Food rations dwindled each year, yet they kept running a clinic even when they were as sick as their patients. Their courage and determination kept them alive – all of them – when the Americans came and liberated them. They came home heroes, yet the transition back to civilian life was tough. What was the country supposed to do with women who had been on the frontlines of the war?
I will never forget this story and will recommend it to anyone who has an interest in history and humanity’s story. These women were incredible and, yet, they considered that they were just doing their job. They were Americans. They were nurses. They would not abandon their patients by their own choice. We need to remember their story.
This is a book I will never forget. I am amazed at Louie Zamperini’s life and am grateful he was willing to share his story with us – the good and the bad.
I saw a preview for the movie Unbroken and went to go see if it had been a book first. It was and I added it to my reading list. It wasn’t until the movie was in the theaters that I felt the pressing need to read the book. Maybe it was because I had just finished reading about the Bataan Nurses (We Band of Angels), or that it was a movie I wanted to see and I can’t see a movie until after I’ve read the book, but after I saw how long the waiting list was for it at the library, I decided to buy my own copy. Then, a friend gave it to me for Christmas (thank you!).
As I read the story, I stopped numerous times to share the incredible, almost unbelievable, events with my husband. It often started with, “You won’t believe …”
Louie was a mischievous, adventurous child who finally found his way with running. He trained and competed in the Olympics in Berlin and was on the verge of doing something no man had done before – run a 4-minute mile – when he joined the war effort.
The spoilers are in the details, which I am sure cannot all be included in the movie. The book takes you on a journey through Louie’s childhood, military training, his time in the B-24 as a bombardier, how he survived a plane crash and 47 days adrift at sea, his time as a Japanese POW, how the war affected him when he returned home and his conversion to Christianity after listening to Billy Graham.
The story is one of courage, forgiveness, the will to live and the audacity of the human spirit. After reading this, I wish I could shake Louie’s hand and tell him thank you. I wish I could shake every war veteran’s hand and tell him thank you. They see and suffer through unimaginable things for our freedom and us.
We need books like this to remind us of our history. We need to make sure our children are taught about both fronts of WWII. Hillenbrand has also edited the book down to adaption for young adults, recommended for ages 12 and up.
You will not be disappointed if you take the time to read this book. You will learn more about the human spirit and about history.
I can’t wait to see this movie. I hope they do the book justice because I enjoyed the trip this book took me on. Gone Girl brings you into a relationship that seems to have started wonderfully but is at rock-bottom at their 5-year anniversary.
I saw the preview for the movie and decided to go check out the book. It starts out with the wife going missing on their 5-year anniversary and there appears to be foul play, but no body turns up. The book goes back and forth between Nick’s view of today and Amy’s diary entries from when they met up to the day she goes missing. Nick is honest in that he didn’t like his wife – they had both lost their jobs and had to move from New York City to Missouri. They were going through one of those “rough patches” that most marriages do. However, you don’t know if he killed his wife or not. You love him, you hate him, you trust him, you doubt him – and then there’s a twist.
I won’t give it away, but if you’re looking for a good “can’t-put-it-down” fiction novel, I would recommend this book. I don’t know if you could read it after you’ve seen the movie because you would know what is going to happen and that is part of the draw of the book. It had been a while since I had read a really good mystery novel that kept me guessing, and I’m glad I picked up this book.
Some stories are fascinating. Some stories are hard to read. The Wives of Los Alamos falls into both categories.
I saw a review for this book in a magazine and added it to my to-read list. When I was browsing what e-books I could check out at my library, it was available, so I started reading it.
The book tells the story of the families who moved to Los Alamos with their husbands and couldn’t tell anyone where they were going. They would come to find out their husbands were working on the atomic bomb.
The book is almost entirely written in the third person “we.” If the topic hadn’t been so interesting, I don’t know if I would have been able to finish the book. It would have been much easier to read if the author had told the stories from the perspective of a few of the wives instead of a collective “we.”
These families moved without knowing where they were going or what type of house they would have. They learned to live with a limited water supply, close neighbors with thin walls, and very few grocery choices under rations. They had to have permission to leave the community. Their letters were censored. They weren’t even allowed to have a camera. Above all, they were not told anything about the work their husbands were doing.
I wouldn’t highly recommend this book, but I would highly recommend finding a book on this topic. We visited the Trinity site in New Mexico and I had never thought that the men who did the work on the atomic bomb had brought families out to the desert with them. I would like to read a few biographies of the wives if they are out there.
How would you ensure life would continue to exist on Earth if a worldwide catastrophe were coming? In The City of Ember, the author fleshes out an answer to this question, but for a young audience.
This is another book I read because my daughter was assigned to read it for school in 4th grade reading. I did not know that there were dystopian novels written for such a young age and after reading the synopsis, the book piqued my interest.
Lina lives with her grandmother and younger sister in Ember in the year 249 or so. The city clock has stopped a few times in the years since the city’s creation by The Builders, so no one knows the exact date or time. The Builders created the city to be self-sustaining with stockpiles of food and equipment and power created by a generator run off the river underneath the city. As Lina graduates from school at the age of 14 and is assigned a job as a messenger, the city is running low on supplies and the power frequently goes out – leaving the city in complete darkness, even in the middle of the day.
The Builders foresaw that if the inhabitants of Ember survived, they would eventually need to leave. They left behind a box that would only unlock after a certain amount of time had passed and the city’s mayors were in charge of its safekeeping. The box, however, ends up in a closet and almost goes undiscovered.
I don’t want to say much more otherwise I’ll give away the whole plot. The book was interesting and easy to read. I want to read the rest of the series because I am still left with questions about why the city was created.
This is a profound book. Do not read it unless you want it to influence your thinking about time.
We all keep track of time – the days, the hours, the minutes. Some of us want more time and some of us wish it would go by faster. Are we ever content just being where we are?
The Time Keeper tells the story of three people and one of them is Father Time – the first person to keep track of time in humanity. He wants more time and he is given it by watching as time goes by, but never getting older. Until, on Earth, there are two people he can help put time in perspective – a sick man who wants to live forever and a teenage girl who wants time to go by faster. He is sent down to Earth to understand their lives and intervene at the right time to show them what is truly precious.
Both the man and girl create situations for themselves where they are lonely, even though they are not alone. Not only do they not treasure the time that they have and seek to control time; they do not treasure the people in their lives. The man spends all his time managing his company as his doting wife drifts farther from his heart. The girl seeks the attention of an older boy, forgetting to try and connect with her mother. Without relationships to hold them to this world, they seek to control their own destinies. In the end, Father Time teaches them that time and destinies are not meant to be controlled.
I highly recommend this book to everyone!
My grandmother gave me this book because it was my grandfather’s. He passed away recently and our greatest bond was books. Whenever we would see each other, which wasn’t as often as I would have liked, we talked about books. I grew up as a military brat and then married into the military so I didn’t get “home” very often. Even our letters and postcards to each other contained notes about what we were reading. He was a church librarian for a while and he would put books aside for me to read before they would go on the bookshelves. We both love(d) books.
Way Back in the Hills is a childhood memoir about growing up in the back country of the Ozarks.
James C. Hefley was called James Carl most of his life. He lived in the back hills of the Ozarks – at first in a log cabin out in the country and then behind the general store that his mother ran. His father made money hunting for animal skins. His mother always kept extras on hand that people would come to buy from her since it was closer than the store. That eventually grew to her having a store in town, which was also closer to the school. James Carl was the oldest and the smartest – going to college at the age of 13. In this book he shares stories of his growing up years – fishing with the boys, antics at school, the religion of the people and the role alcohol played in some lives. Each chapter picks a time or theme and reads like a short story.
This book gave a real glimpse into Hefley’s childhood and what a lot of childhoods were probably like in America out in the country in the early 1900s. Children spent time outside and helped their parents with household chores. School was optional, but church often wasn’t. Radio shows were a highlight of the evening if the batteries weren’t dead and the signal came through. People-watching was an art and strangers were welcomed (or interrogated) when they came to small towns.
This book is a good read for any adult who wants to wander back in time. The writing style is easy to read and there are life lessons that are shared.
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Let me know if you’ve enjoyed any of these books or plan to add them to your to-read list! Share in the comments!